August 2010
August 30, 2010 2:29 pmAugust was a month of high-highs and low-lows. An insane amount of progress was made on the house.
The kids have been adjusting well to life at the duplex. They seem to understand that this is temporary and that we will be living at the land soon. Lyla at 18 months is able to communicate 80% of the time using words to tell us what she wants. I think having a big brother around to teach her and mimic is helping. She is also already potty training. I’m not pushing it too much but if she wants to use the big potty, I’ll let her.
Miles is such a big kid now. I really enjoy getting to play with him and especially love that he can communicate! We’ve made a lot of new friends in the Bastrop area and don’t go into Austin nearly as much as I thought we would. I do miss a few things about Austin (good restaurants, Costco, and Target) but other than that I absolutely LOVE Bastrop and I think the kids do as well.
Sadly on August 15th my wonderful grandmother lost her battle with lung cancer.
She was able to live independently until the last 4 weeks of her life which was such a blessing. I’m so glad that I was able to be with her when she passed. While it was an experience I’d rather not have to relive I’m so proud of what an amazing family I have. Most of us were able to be with her when she passed which was something that was very important to her. I love you and miss you every day, Mema.
July 2010
2:19 pmI think we crammed as much into July as humanly possible. The most exciting part of the month was we finally were able to pour our foundation!
Eric and the kids had a blast watching. Miles got a little dirty playing in the mud…as you can tell. It went off without a hitch and onto framing they went just days later. The kids are having a blast playing out at the house site. Miles is always willing to hold Lyla’s hand and help her around.
Lyla enjoyed using the strings for leveling the foundation as a necklace. Yes, I know, choking hazard, but I was watching her.
Then my grandparents came to visit to celebrate my grandmother’s and Ray’s belated birthdays.
As usual the kids stole the show.
Pool fun, Big Boy Bed & Dallas Trip
June 27, 2010 3:55 pmWe celebrated father’s day with my dad and headed out to Dripping Springs for a fun day at their neighborhood pool.
Miles learned a valuable lesson that day: It’s a good idea to listen to your mommy when she says not to jump off the edge of the pool without someone standing there to catch him. Luckily my dad made it over to him within a few seconds. Needless to say, he listened to me when I told him to wait for me to jump after that little episode.
After about 30 minutes in the pool, Lyla decided she LOVED it and was kicking and squealing the entire time. I’m looking forward to getting them in swimming lessons when they are a little older.
Nothing helps make a small duplex more bearable than getting out of it and going to visit family! My cousin, Cameron, (aka Aunt Camei) was kind enough to let me and the kids descend on her house in Dallas for a week. We visited both sets of grandparents. It was a lot of fun watching Miles play with my grandmother.
Sometimes he was a little too rough with her and tried to rough-house with her just like he does with me. We also visited Mema and went swimming at the pool at her condo. Uncle Marc and Camei had a blast playing with the kids.
Miles had no fear when it came to jumping off the edge of the pool into Camei or Marc’s arms. My grandmother, Mema, wasn’t feeling too well that day but by the end of our visit she was feeling much better.
A few days before our Dallas trip Eric converted Miles’ bed into a full-size bed.
Sadly the footboard is in the very back of our storeroom so eric had to rig the footboard with a few 2×4′s. It always helps to have a handy husband 
Not much to report on the house. Just more dirt work. Hopefully by the end of next week we’ll have a date for the foundation pouring!
Duplex
June 15, 2010 4:03 pmIt’s been a little over a week and we are finally adjusting to life in our very small duplex.
While it’s not ideal, it’s definitely better than the alternative - a 2 bedroom apartment. Moving was fairly painless thanks to the help of my brother and his girlfriend, Kristina. We couldn’t have gotten settled without them. We scratched and dented up enough furniture to realize that hiring a movers really is the way to go for the big stuff. Besides if I ask Michael and Kristina to help us move again, I think I will be disowned.
Eric and I were thrilled that the new owners of our Auckland house loved the trees as much as we did. It made it a lot easier to move on knowing it was in good hands. The new owners are a cute, young couple from Russia who are pregnant with their first baby.
The kids have adjusted well to the move. Miles seems to understand that this is temporary. He keeps wanting to play legos and “build a house at the land”. Too bad he keeps getting his legos taken away for not picking them up Lyla has made it her mission in life to get up the stairs. Thank God for gates!
Travis had the hardest time adjusting. He just now stopped standing at the front door asking to ride in the car.
Things are moving slowly on the house. Rain and decisions have slowed our progress but we will hopefully be pouring the slab in the next 2 weeks.
In the meantime, I’ve been staying busy meeting moms who live in our area, visiting friends in austin, trying to clean our duplex and hanging out at the land. Eric is spending his free time finishing up burying our electrical line and taking down a few trees.
I’ll update again when we have some progress on the house! Here are a few pics of the house site and driveway.
Only a few weeks to go…
May 16, 2010 8:41 pmThe last few weeks have been insane. Between selling our house, finding a new place to live, and getting things lined out to start construction on our new home, we haven’t had much free time to do much of anything other than eat and sleep. I’ve managed to take a few shots of the kids. Miles has developed a love of dressing up.
I definitely have some good blackmail shots for when he is older 
Lyla started walking about 4 weeks ago. She’s already close to running. She says a new word almost every day. Lately some new ones are “peas” (please), Thank you, ball, puppy, and strawberry. Her favorite is still “no”. She loves to say “no” to every question even when it’s obvious she means “YES!!!”.
My Aunt and Uncle brought my grandmother to Austin for mother’s day. It was wonderful getting to spend time with her.
Considering she was given 3-6 months to live over 7 months ago she is doing remarkably well. She never ceases to amaze me.
Right now we are playing the waiting game. Hopefully we will close on our construction loan next week and can get started building our new house! I promise to post pictures.
