Sidewalk Chalk

A few days ago, we had 60-degree (15.5C) weather for the first time in a while! Kate was asleep when Carly and I took some mail to the mailbox and discovered the beautiful afternoon. We celebrated appropriately by drawing all over the driveway with sidewalk chalk followed by a little painting outside in the sun. It was great fun and nice to breathe fresh air!

Kate had her 1 year immunizations today. The needles part was not fun, as usual, but she weighs about 19.8 pounds (9kilos) and is 29.75 inches long (75.6cm). That puts her still in the 75% for height but now down to the 25% for weight. But the dr said she is healthy so I'm sure it's just from all of the crawling, climbing, chasing and wrestling that she does around here! Carly and I have a case of conjunctivitis but it's not too bad. The worst part is the eyedrops! Carly locked herself in the bathroom this morning so I wouldn't put them in, but Nana suggested an easier way to put them in so it went a bit better this afternoon (thank goodness).

...And it's Friday- yay! Have a great weekend and enjoy the pictures and video! Mom

All Wrapped Up...

Hello, all! A late Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you! Yes, we are still alive...sorry for the long absence! We have simply been all wrapped up in life! In October we got all ready to move, closed on the house Nov 6 then postponed our move by a week so we could do some work around the new house before we moved in. We moved in, hosted Thanksgiving for Daniel's family a few days later and have been going ever since! Grandpa (my dad) came to visit then it was Christmas and Nana (my mom) was here to visit(and she even painted Carly's room too)!


Carly is now our big girl- 3 years old! We cannot believe she has grown up so much in just a few short years. She continues to learn and grow at an amazing rate. She's always saying things that make us laugh. She is, of course, a normal 3 year old who likes to test the boundaries but she is all-in-all a great kid! Carly is a great big sister. She kind of swaps between being a helpful, loving big sister and the tormenting older sister but normally she is very good with Kate. The other day I was on the phone as the girls were playing in the playroom. I saw that Kate had a runny nose and went into the living room to get a tissue. As I walked back into the playroom I realized that Carly was ahead of the game- she had already gotten a tissue, wiped Kate's nose, gave her a big kiss and a toy! Pretty sweet! She really likes going to Mother's Day Out ("school") on Thursdays. She likes her teachers, gets to play with her friends and learn all sorts of new stuff. We have a little playgroup we meet with once a week and several other friends we get together with during the week as well, which keeps us having fun. She loves to sing and dance and generally be goofy. For those of you 'in the know' about kid's tv, she really likes Super Why and The Fresh Beat Band. She enjoys riding her scooter around the house, drawing, playing games and cooking in her kitchen. She likes asking you what you want to eat and then saying "we don't have any of that, we only have cheeseburgers". A couple of days ago she said "check it out, Mom"! And yesterday a friend at church told us that Carly was telling her a story. She didn't fully understand the story but she got that Carly spilled something on herself and said, "...and I was like, I need to go to Wal Mart!" Ha ha.

About a week ago, our "baby Kate" turned 1!! We just had a birthday party for her with Daniel's family yesterday. Let me just say that Kate is my girl- she tore into that cake like she was an old pro! She has been sort of walking for at least a month now but is starting to venture out on her own a bit more without prompting from us. She is so very proud of herself when she makes it without falling down! She has been gradually adding words to her vocab since late October- mama, dada, baby, hi, hop, ball, up, more, bye bye, bath time (ok, she sort of says that one)...you get the idea. She babbles all the time so I'm sure there are more words I just haven't distinguised yet! She can sign 'more' and 'finished' while eating. She's very cheeky like her sister, likes to tease you then crawl away giggling. Kate's a cuddler, she enjoys all sorts of foods, though she is very into crackers and honeydew at the moment. Like her sister, she's not a huge fan of sleep- she's pretty much just taking one nap during the day and waking several times at night.

At Carly's 3 year dr appointment and Kate's 9 month, both girls were healthy. Carly wasn't a fan of having to get a shot but she's such a trooper, she just gasped then asked for a treat! Carly was in the 90% for height and 75% for weight and Kate was in the 75% for height and 50% for weight. Where did they get their height from?? =)

As for Daniel and I, we are doing well. Daniel is still enjoying his job and the new challenges that brings. He just worked on a big project and got 'Employee of the Week' (he'll be so happy I shared that with you. ha ha.) for doing such a great job. The guys he works with and their spouses just came over to watch the Super Bowl last week so that was a great time together.

I'm enjoying my time with the girls, hanging out with friends and spending time at home. Since it's the middle of winter, it's been pretty cold and the outside has not been so inviting. I'm looking forward to the time when we can just go hang out in the back yard without having to bundle up (and looking forward to the time when I can put Kate outside without having to worry about her eating grass and insects). I have been seeing the chiropractor to see if we can make my headaches any better. So far, it's not making a positive difference but I'll keep trying. Carly and Kate have charmed Ms Shiela and Ms Darcie at the chiropractor's office- they play with the girls while I'm in treatment.

Though I thought I moved to Texas for a mild climate, this winter has been particularly cold, windy and snowy! It has snowed about 4 times- we had a fair amount of snow the day before Christmas. It was accompanied by wind and ice and kept us from driving over to Dallas to celebrate Christmas with Daniel's family- we got together the day after Christmas instead. We just had a doozie of a snow storm (for Texas) when we got 12.5 inches (31.75cm) of snow on Thursday. Carly and Daniel had a great time playing in the snow. Carly just walked around eating handfuls of snow, they made snow angels and a snow lady. I say snow lady 'cause it kind of looked like she was wearing a skirt! Kate even got out in the snow for a couple of minutes. She just wanted to get down and romp around in it but we made her come inside instead (there's a picture to prove how uncool she thought that was).

We are starting to get more involved in our church which is very welcome. We really miss being involved and serving in a church body since we left Alice. We have slowly gotten to know people at our new church and are beginning to serve as we are able and find needs. Carly really has fun at Sunday school and Kate does well in the nursery. We have enjoyed being closer to family and getting to see them more often. We enjoyed Christmas with Daniel's family and my mom, who was down from Kansas City. We hope to make a trip up to KC in the next few months.

Well, I guess this blog is 'all wrapped up' as well. Enjoy the boat load of pics (176 to be exact- from Oct til now)! We love you! Over and out-- Mom

Great family, great friends...

Could it REALLY be October??!! We have been very busy since our last blog but we have had such a great time! The last weekend in August we headed over to Dallas for our niece Whitney's birthday party. We stayed there Friday night and went out to dinner with the family. The next morning we got to join in the surprise for Whitney's new trampoline. Carly was definitely a fan (but it will be a while before we get one) and enjoyed jumping around with Whitney several times that weekend. This year Whitney and her friend Cameron teamed up for a joint country- themed party at Whitney's gymnastics place. The kids jumped on the trampolines, swung on a rope, ran and jumped into a foam pit and even circled around the big round parachute. After that was eating time, which all the kids eagerly joined in for. Carly dug into her cupcake that looked like a horse and didn't stop until the clean up crew was literally waiting to take the tablecloth off the table. We were laughing so hard since all the other kids had gradually left the tables to go play but she was still sitting there 10 minutes later. She has a sweet tooth like me! Daniel went to our friend Matt's bachelor party and the girls and I went to church with Josh and summer that night before heading home Sunday morning.

Labor Day weekend we headed to Kansas City for a visit. Daniel had to head back Monday to get back to work but the girls and I stayed until Friday. We hung out, played with toys, went swimming, went to the park, the children's farmstead and went to a shopping area where we rode a miniature train and played in the fountain while it was raining! The farmstead was a great time- We said hello to the cows, fed the goats and the sheep, watched the hens, played in the Native Indian tepees and finishes up with a popsicle! We saw Grandpa, played in the bead curtain, looked at some of my old toys, talked, took pictures, went out to dinner and topped it off with ice cream too. We spent some time with Grammy and Grandaddy, walked around their place, saw the swans and talked with some friends. And we saw my friend Heidi and with two of her three kids around to play, Carly was a happy camper. It was a busy week but we had a great time.

The next weekend we enjoyed 'baby Jake's' 1st birthday party on Saturday. Sunday our friends Paula and Karina from Alice Springs were stopping through Dallas in transit between Alaska and London, so we got to spend the day with them. They were weary from flying all night but they did well with the chaos of our family, going to church, eating lunch out and heading back to the airport.

Monday morning the girls and I headed off to Austin to see more friends from Alice! Our fab friends June, Craig, Sawyer and Grayson were doing their yearly trip back to the USA (which they say they won't do again with 2 kids...c'mon!) and had some time in Austin. We stayed in the hotel with them from Monday through Thursday and, despite the constant rain, had a great time. Carly was soooooooooooooooo excited to see Sawyer, her best little buddy ever, and it was pretty cute when they saw each other. They just giggled and hugged and kissed and picked back up where they left off. The boys have changed even since we left in May and it was so good to catch up with June and Craig. We hung out at the hotel, with Craig's brother's family and went to the jumping place twice. We enjoyed the Austin Children's Museum- the kids could have played there for a couple more hours but we had to drag them off so we could eat. We went to Chuck E Cheese, the kids had so much fun. And the morning we left, we went and fed the ducks/ tried to avoid having all the turkey- ducks (I know there is probably no such thing but that's what they looked like!) attack us for bread. The girls did very well with the drive but I was very glad to get to our destination both ways. =)

I thought that after returning from Austin, which mostly concluded our crazy month of September, that things would be a bit more cruisy. I should NEVER think that things will slow down, 'cause they never will! On Saturday 26th, we got one of the automated emails from our realtor about a property that fit some of our search criteria. It was in our desired area with our desired features so we took a look on Tuesday then again Thursday and made an offer on Friday! It took until the following Tuesday to hear back for sure but we reached a deal and signed on to buy a house! We had our inspection last Friday and it looks like we are going ahead with buying our first house. We close on November 6th! So full steam ahead...

The girls are doing great, though recovering from colds. Carly started going to Mothers Day Out on Thursdays from 9-2. She just went for the third time and truly loves it. They play, do crafts, have a snack, either play outside or in the gym, learn about letters, etc, eat lunch and have a rest/nap time. She jumps up and down every time we tell her she's going to school and always wants to go NOW. She's cracking us up all the time. The phrases 'say yes' and 'two minutes' are very common around our house. As in 'Mommy, I want ice cream and then a treat, say yes'. There is no pause between the rest of the sentence and 'say yes'. Either that or she asks for something and while I'm thinking she says 'say yes'! Ha ha. And the other is saying she wants to play for 'two minutes' or watch tv 'two minutes' when we're asking her to do something else. She will grow up to be a professional negotiator someday.

Kate is growing like a weed and is just so annoyed that she can't move as fast at Carly. She is 'crusing' along furniture and when you try to hold her up, she wants to walk...when you try to help her walk, she starts pushing your hands away like she can totally do it herself, thank you very much. THAT reminds us of Carly! She has a great appetite and was 18 pounds at last weigh in. Her last two teeth have come in during the last week or so, making her pretty fussy, but I would be too! She started saying 'mama' in September. My mom heard her say it a couple of times when we were in KC the first week of September but she started saying it more regularly just after we came back from there. 'Mama' is usually said while getting fussy or crying! Neither child is particularly great at sleeping at the moment but they have been sick or teething for a few weeks now.

Daniel and I were laughing the other day about 2009, saying 'who's idea was it to have a baby, move overseas, then move again in a 9 month period?' But it will be very nice to finally be settled in our own place. And hopefully Carly can really know that's home, we're not moving again and she can relax a bit!

Thanks again for sticking with the 'book' I have written. I would love to do more frequent, shorter blogs but it never happens that way! Love to you all! Check out our pics!

Milestones

Mom here (I know...ME again?)! What a month it has been! As the title suggests, this has been a month of milestones for us. Although one was not a particularly great milestone...

Milestone: First trip to the emergency department at the hospital. A few weeks ago, Sunday night, Carly was in her usual avoidance measures at bed time. Kate was finally asleep, after hours of crying from a sore tummy that afternoon. Daniel, Carly and I were in our room and I told Carly it was really really (no, really) time for bed. She said no, ran into the living room, we heard a thud and some crying so went out to the living room to see what had happened. Somehow she had ended up over our recliner chair and up against the corner of the wall almost upside down. I picked her up, thinking she just needed a quick cuddle, and quickly realized I had blood all over my hands from the back of her head. We stopped the bleeding but we couldn't see her head very well and didn't know how hard she had hit it so we woke up a very unhappy Kate and headed to the hospital (thanks, Brian, for being on call for the location of the closest hospital). We arrived at about 8.15pm. They did registration, then a while later an inventory of what had happened. After a while Carly perked up and even tried to play a bit with a little boy who was there. At one point I asked her if her head hurt. She said 'yeah....I need ice cream.' I told Daniel she was going to be just fine...the cheeky thing! Sometime after 10pm they got us into a room, then we waited and waited and waited. The doctor finally saw us, said she was ok, was going to do a staple but said we could go without and just check it for infection. We headed home at 1:30am. Kate was awake that whole time too. When we got home, Carly walked in the door, into her room and put herself to sleep. She is fine now. Tough as nails, I tell you.

Milestone: The dummy fairy. 'The Who???', you ask. Australians call pacifiers 'dummies', so that was the term we adopted for Carly's. She has been very attached to this piece of plastic for several years and has clung to it even more in the last 6 months with all the changes in her life. However, now that we are more settled, we felt it was time. A friend here said they did the 'fairy' thing, so we thought we'd give it a go. For a week ahead of time, we hyped the fact that the dummy fairy was coming, that she was going to take Carly's dummies but leave her presents. She was pretty excited about the presents and was usually fine with leaving her dummies, but as the day approached she kind of wanted the presents without leaving the dummies. But by the time the day came around, we left it up to her to put her last dummy on her night stand. Then the dummy fairy quickly swooped in when Dad and Carly went outside to check the mail. A little while later we asked her if the dummy fairy had come and she went to the front door and said 'nope, no dummy fairy'! She walked into her room after we suggested she see if her dummy was still on her night stand...we heard this 'OH WOW, IT'S BIG'! The big purple bag (she requested a purple present from the dummy fairy but the dummy fairy couldn't find a purple present thus the purple bag) contained a microphone, a 4 pack of dress up princess shoes, some fruit snacks and a jump rope. Though she really liked her presents, there were a few times though the next few days that she said she wanted to give her presents back for her dummies. I'm not actually sure she's a fan of 'fairies' any more but she's doing great anyway! This afternoon she said to me 'fairy took my dummies but I don't need them anymore 'cause I am a big girl and I can go to sleep by myself'!

Milestone: Mouth madness. Kate now has her two bottom teeth. They have given her a bit of grief so she has passed on the favor to us, but she has really done pretty well. I think she's actually on her way to getting a third. She also started eating food about a month ago. Her favorites are peas, carrots, pear and, believe it or not, rice cereal. She is definitely not a fan of peaches. Obviously she is well nourished- she just had her 6 month checkup (3 weeks late) and she weighs 16lbs 12oz (7.3kilos). They say she is 27.5in (70cm) but I think they measured a bit wrong and she's probably a slight bit shorter. While we were there, I took Carly's measurements- about 30lbs (13.5kilos) and just over 3ft (91.5cm).

Milestone: Crawling. Kate is well and truly into the crawling phase. She started wriggling a lot more a couple of weeks ago. She looked a bit like a thorny devil trying to walk- for those of you who have not seen a thorny devil walk, it's basically some rocking/wiggling back and forth, eventually followed by forward movement. But now, put her down and she won't be there for long. And I'm not sure why she likes the kitchen so much, with its hard wood floors, but there is just no stopping her from eventually getting in there. I think she's just foraging for food- it would not take her long with Carly's crazy way of eating sometimes! Kate really enjoys her toys now, wrestles with her stuffed dog and chews the heck out of anything she can get her hands onto. Oh, and give her anything that is NOT a toy (her current fav is shoes), and she's a happy camper.

Milestone: House hunting. We must be entering the land of 'grown ups' now since we are officially house hunting. We met with a realtor to look at 3 houses on Tuesday. Neither of the houses is our future home but we have another house to look at in a couple of weeks. After being here for a few months, doing lots of driving and looking online, talking to friends and taking into account the proximity to work and the housing prices, we have a very good feel for where we want to live and it's pretty close to where we are renting now! We have this place until next June, so if nothing looks great and at a great price, we'll stay put until then. We'll keep you posted.

So much has been happening and we're still sort of settling in as well. I will probably feel that way for the next year! Daniel is doing well at work and is learning lots in his truck factoring 101 course. He even got to go to a big trucking show on Thursday! I told him I bet that was something he never thought he would do! The girls and I are enjoying not being entirely surrounded by boxes every day at home! We have finished going through the boxes in the house, now we just need to spend some time out in the garage going through the rest that wouldn't fit in the house. The girls and I meet weekly with 3 ladies and their kiddos who we met at Kindermusik when we first arrived. We have several other people we see occasionally and my new friend Stephanie has three girls, 7, 5 and 2 so that's great.

Another huge thing for us is that we have found 'our church' here in Fort Worth. It's Solid Rock Baptist Church in White Settlement (no, we're really not racist...it's historical). It's a small church which has a country feel about it. The preaching is very Biblical and often very challenging to both Daniel and I, which we find really great! The music is contemporary with acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass and drums currently. The kids ministry is great and Carly is sooooooooo happy there. She jumps up and down and really gets her act together to get out the door when we say we're going to church. The first week, we kept Kate in with us but since then have left her in the nursery. They have done such a good job with her- one week she was happy as a clam, one week a lady rocked her to sleep and last week they came and got me as no one could calm her down (she just wanted to nurse). Having both kids well taken care of also means Daniel and I can concentrate on the teaching and worship time a lot more too! We really look forward to meeting more people and getting more involved in the life of the church there.

We're busy...last weekend we had a wedding shower over in Dallas and a birthday party for our friend Natalie and this weekend is our niece Whitney's birthday party and then our friend Matt's bachelor's day before he gets married next weekend so we are staying the weekend in Dallas for the festivities. The next weekend we head to Kansas City for a visit over Labor Day, the next weekend we have baby Jake's 1st birthday party then later in September our friends the Sosnas come to visit from Australia and Daniel's birthday (33)is upon us! Take a look at our most recent pics (videos are coming, I'm just having problems with my video editing software crashing before I can do anything)!
'Til next time- Mom

Keep on keepin' on...

(This is the second of 2 blogs in 2 days- must be a record, huh? If you haven't seen the one below this, read that first- 'On the road again')

Hello, all! Mom here. Things have certainly been hectic since we arrived here in Fort Worth. After driving around and looking at at least 12 houses, we found the one we're in and snatched it up since it wasn't in the ghetto and didn't cost too incredibly much per month! The day we moved in, the movers brought our air shipment and stuff I had in storage since I moved to Australia, Daniel came home from work and we started unpacking and working out what we were sleeping on, etc. It was a few days later that we discovered a little gift the previous owner had left for us--- fleas. Oh, yes, for those of you who have been unfortunate enough to have had fleas in your house, you know it's not fun. After lots of vacuuming, doing foggers 3 times and a professional pest control flea spray (paid for by the home owner), 2 weeks later we were free of fleas. We had a problem with pet hair in my used car as well, so several people have joked that with the car pet hair issue and fleas, our children are not getting pets for a long time. VERY true. If anyone buys us a pet (other than maybe a fish) for Christmas or a birthday or something, you might just find yourself with a new pet. =)

The house is great for a rental. We live right on a corner which turns out to be a pretty busy street, though you wouldn't know it as it is just a regular street through a neighborhood. Both of the girls' rooms are on that side of the house so I think the cars sometimes wake Carly up at night and she ends up in with us. Thankfully Daniel convinced me that we should get a King size bed! Every time we have had both girls in bed with us I have been very thankful for the extra room. We have a garage but it's currently pretty full of boxes from both shipments/storage. We received our sea shipment a bit earlier than we expected it- about 2 weeks ago now. Yes, we still have a few boxes to go through...things take at least 4 times longer with kids, I tell ya. We are on the West side of Fort Worth so we are a bit over an hour from Daniel's family on the Dallas side. If anyone wants our address, just email us at jenhenderson1@hotmail.com and I will give you all of our new info.

A few days after we moved into our new place, Kate had her 4 month checkup and immunizations (she was about 4.5 months by then). Kate definitely didn't enjoy the shots but I found it even more heart wrenching as in Australia they combine the shots so at Carly's 4 month I think she got 2 and here Kate got 5 separate shots...ouch. They pronounced her to be in good health, she weighed 14 pounds 13 ounces (6.72 kilos) and was 25 inches long (63.5cm). At about the same age, Carly was 16 pounds 3 ounces and 26 inches long but Kate definitely has more hair than Carly did (though she had a fair amount herself). If you want to take a trip down memory lane, take a look at the photo album from when Carly was about 4 months old.

Daniel really likes his job at Apex Capital Corporation. He is doing development with a team of guys he gets along with well. We live about 5 minutes from work so he leaves just a bit before 8am and he is usually home by 5.30. He likes the way the company works, the co-owners, the people he works with and is slowly sorting out all of the different systems he needs to know everything about! They have not expected too much too quickly but are also giving him responsibility so it's a good mixture. He is going through a course they put all employees through- Factoring 101. Apex provides capital to truckers through 'factoring'...I don't fully get it myself and I think most people don't...I guess that's why they have all employees go through Factoring 101! It's several hours 2 days a week for 6 weeks. He should be a walking encyclopedia on factoring by the time he is done. Maybe he can at least explain it to me. =)

We have had a few setbacks along the way...I thought I broke my wrist the other week but found out it was just a Ganglion cyst that had popped out (thank goodness) when I ran into the wall (yes, I am full of grace). It's pretty sore but not a broken bone! Kate has had oral thrush but thankfully we already had a pediatrician from her 4 month checkups so that has been a breeze to get medicine. Kate continues to have many of the colic symptoms that Carly had as a baby. Some days are great while others include lots of crying. I find the juggling act between children is very challenging and patience-trying at times (very normal, I know).

My mom was able to come down for the weekend July 4th. We had originally planned on her driving down and bringing us some furniture we have at her house, but when the truck and moving guys, etc wound up getting too pricey, we just opted for a visit instead. We will all drive up to KC in the next couple of months for a visit and to get our stuff. I think Daniel will drive back the car with trailer attached and the girls and I will fly back after a few days. We have seen Daniel's family multiple times and so far have not made the trip over to Dallas with both girls as they have all come to us in Fort Worth. Thank you! I think we will go over sometime in the next couple of weeks for a couple of days.

Carly and Kate have done SO well through this whole transition. Carly has really gone with the flow. We have seen a few behavioral thing come up (she learned the word 'tantrum' yesterday) but it's only been a few times. And I know that challenging behavior sometimes just comes with being 2 1/2! She makes me laugh on a daily basis and her imagination is amazing. Yesterday she pretended that this little ball on a post of the day bed was a head. He had a headache so she put her necklace around 'him', saying it was a band aid. And she also gave him a lecture about being more careful outside and he wouldn't get any boo boos. I thought it was pretty random, but she IS Daniel's child so that's not a huge surprise. =) Carly pretends she is going shopping with her little cart/trolley, asks me what I want at the store, etc. Sometimes I 'go' with her and she tells me to look both ways for cars. She is obsessed with shorts with pockets in them. She enjoys putting her treasures in there or stealing change from my wallet to save for a rainy day. And she is really into taking pictures with our camera (I have posted several 'Carly pics').

Kate is such a happy baby, as long as she does not have tummy pain. I cannot believe she is almost 6 months old! While it does feel like she has been around for a long time, the time has also flown in many ways. Kate sleeps on her tummy, by herself in her crib most of the time (Carly was in our bed for AGES so this is a novelty). She can make tracks across the room in a very short amount of time, it's just going in the backwards direction! I think she will crawl soon. She likes to 'talk' a lot lately and she likes the little jumper/play center we borrowed from our friends Brian and Natalie (and baby Jake). I'm pretty certain her first tooth will come in sometime in the next week or so. She is such a drooler at the moment and is chewing on everything. We have started to smooth her hair to one side because if it's straight down it's so long it gets in her eyes! She LOVES Carly and enjoys bonding with her by rolling around with her on the floor, pulling her hair, drooling on her, etc.

Carly is usually very kind to Kate. She is excited to see her when she wakes up in the morning or has a nap. She says, 'Hi, hugh dubai' (cutie pie)! And when Kate pulls her hair she just says, 'No, hugh dubai'! When we were driving around looking at houses and cars, etc Kate would often get upset and start crying. Daniel started singing 'Twinkle Twinkle little star...' and Kate would calm down. So now whenever Kate gets upset Carly begins singing Twinkle Twinkle... sometimes at the top of her lungs. Sometimes it actually succeeds in Calming Kate down and sometimes she cries louder. I wonder why. Carly loves to dance around to make Kate laugh and is a good little helper, giving Kate toys and putting her pacifier/dummy back in her mouth if she's upset. Probably the biggest change for Carly is not seeing all the familiar people in her life and playing with her friends every couple of days or even every day. She is such a social kid that I think she has gone through a bit of withdrawl.

I took the girls to a Summer session of Kindermusik, a music and dance class that we did a while ago back in Alice, and Carly loved that. It also gave us an opportunity to meet some other moms and kiddos, who we have since gotten together with about once a week. There are a few other people I have met along the way who are very lovely and welcoming. I have certainly felt the change, not having familiar people we could just go hang out with. It's already August so we only have another month or so for swimming but we will get out there a few times hopefully. We were used to hot days in Alice but here it's hot AND humid, which is a really disgusting combination that is taking some getting used to.

Life has pretty much been at full speed for at least 6 months now with Kate being born, preparation for moving, moving, finding cars, place to live, etc, but we are starting to get a bit more settled. We definitely miss Australia, our friends, our church, our home, etc, but we believe that this is where God has us for now so we know we will adjust and it's very nice to be closer to family. This time I have included some pictures but I have a backlog of videos to cut down/edit and get out there so stay tuned! Enjoy the most recent pics for now!

On The Road Again...

Hello, everyone! Carly here! I thought I would pick up where Mom left off in our big trip.

First of all, this trip went on forever. I mean, I kind of like planes and meeting new people and getting different yummy things to eat but there is really only so much traveling that one can enjoy, right?! Oh well...

After rushing to get on the plane in Sydney, we settled in to our seats for the flight. I thought it was pretty cool that I didn't have to be in a car seat this time! I got my very own seat all to myself! I had a little tv and I watched some cartoons and ate dinner. I slept for a while, ate some breakfast and then we were in LA. I did hear Kate cry a few times but I think we all had a little bit of sleep (that's good, 'cause no sleep makes Mom and Dad grumpy). We got off the plane and saw Brian again, went through customs and then waited for our luggage FOREVER. I was a little bit tired still but I really felt kind of goofy so I ran around like a silly goose (that's what Mom said), made some friends and made Kate laugh. We waited so long for our luggage that Brian missed his flight. There was lots of walking fast and talking with people and more walking fast then we said bye to Brian and he ran off. I guess he had to go somewhere very fast! We got all of our junk through security and hung out for another few hours before our flight to Dallas. Our flight was a bit of a hard and long one and we were all pretty tired but we made it to Dallas...only to get on ANOTHER plane for Georgia.

We finally got to Georgia, rode a bus and got a rental car. I snoozed for a little while on the drive to Great Grandma Moore and Uncle Marty's house but then I felt re-energized! Dad said it was 2am so I should go to sleep but my body didn't feel like it was 2am, it kind of felt like it was about 3.30 in the afternoon and I had just woken up from a nap. I think I went to sleep at about 7am and didn't wake up again until 4pm...that night I went to sleep at about 5.30am and woke at about 3.30pm the next day. The next couple of days were pretty rough but I finally started to sleep when everyone else wanted to sleep so that was good! I think Mom and Dad wanted me to sleep in the porta cot/crib but I had other plans...so I slept on the couch in the spare room (and then on the couch at Nana's and our hotel too). We had a great time visiting Great Grandma Moore and Uncle Marty. We stayed at the house and played games, colored and played on the piano and the keyboard, talked with GG and played with silly Uncle Marty. We went out to eat a few times and we even went to this place called Hollywood Connection, where they have all of these fun things to do. I had a fun time but then it was time to drive some more and get on another 2 planes to go to Kansas City.

We only had a few days in Kansas City but we sure packed a lot in! Dad and I played at the park while Mom had an eye appointment that first morning. We went swimming, played games (my fav is one where Nana and I hide in the closet then I leave and giggle all the way down the hall) and played with toys at Nana's house. We visited Grandpa, had some dinner and played. I particularly liked the bead curtain- it's a great place to hide and pop out of! Boo! We saw Great Grammy and Grandaddy, walked around their place and saw some ducks, met some nice people, ate some yummy crackers Grammy got for me and even played with some toys G&G got for me (the dancing rabbit is my favorite)! Then....you guessed it...it was time to get back on a plane again! But Mom and Dad told me it would be the last plane for a while, because we were going to go to our new home in Fort Worth. I wasn't really sure I wanted a new home...I liked our old one and kept asking Mom and Dad to go back there but they said we would have to take all those planes back!

We got to Dallas, found our bags and Brian and Papa (Dad's Dad) found us! We got in the car and drove to our hotel. There sure is a lot of driving here in the USA...at our old house it was 5 minutes to church and 5 minutes to the grocery store and 5 minutes to Kindergym...5 minutes anywhere! Our hotel was cool, I just didn't know it yet. We went out to dinner with Papa, Brian, Natalie and Baby Jake, went to this HUGE store called Wal-Mart then went to the hotel. The next day Aunt Summer, Uncle Josh and cousin Whitney came over and we played the day away at Whitney's Great Grandma's house nearby while Mom, Dad and Kate looked for a new house and some cars. The next few days Whitney, Summer and I went to the Zoo and a fun place with blow up things we could jump in. After that, Mom, Dad, Kate and I did LOTS of driving. Dad started his job and really liked it and then we moved out of the hotel and into our new place. I was not very happy to leave the hotel! They had yummy breakfast with cinnamon rolls, an elevator with buttons I could push, a pool and my couch too. But the new house has room to run around in so I figured it was ok.

Mom says we're just borrowing our new house for a while but two cars are ours to keep. I can't keep it all straight- adults are confusing sometimes! And people here say things weird, like 'playdate', and 'diaper' instead of 'nappy', and 'raisin' instead of 'sultana' but I'm getting used to it. I have made a few new friends but I really miss my old ones too. But I'm getting on with the business of being two and that keeps me pretty busy so it's ok. Well, I'm off to play now! Take a look at all of the pics! Big kisses to you all!

Oh The Places You'll Go...

Hey, it's Mom here! Well, on a friend's blog it says '2 months' since our last blog update. Could it really be THAT long? I mean, we have only packed up, traveled around the world, visited friends, found a rental house and 2 cars, Daniel started his new job....we really have been slacking, haven't we? I invite you to grab a coffee/water/Coke/your beverage of choice and maybe a snack too, sit back and walk through the last couple of months with me...this is going to be a long one!

After the last blog everything really started getting into motion! We had our combined lawn sale with some friends at our house. We got rid of the majority of our things and generally had a good time since 4 of our friends came to sell their stuff too! Carly's friends Nate and Laney were there for a little while at different times so she was thoroughly entertained, even though she was not quite sure why about 50 people descended on our driveway in about a 30 minute period of time! This was our second lawn sale in Alice Springs and they are something of a legend. They start sometime around 7 or 8am and only go for a few hours or until you feel like shutting up shop. We 'started' at 8am but people were arriving at 6.30 and almost everyone was gone by 8. We could have said 'no sales before 8am' but then we might not have sold our stuff, so we just had to suck it up!

That next week (6 weeks before leaving), I got in a fender bender backing out of my friends' (June, Craig, Sawyer, Grayson) driveway. We just didn't have enough going on at the time so I thought I would spice things up. I was backing out, looked both ways and continued backing out when I realized there was some pretty loud crunching of metal and my car had slowed significantly! The only thing I can figure is that he was in my blind spot at the precise moment I looked. We were all fine though a bit shaken. The other guy's car was totally fine but my poor car had not fared so well. One side of the back bumper was dragging on the ground, the trunk was all dented in and would not close and instead of a 'protege' it was now just a 'rotege' 'cause the 'p' had been a casualty of the accident. June and Craig came outside and took the girls in while I talked with the guy I hit (he was totally not worried about his car). Sawyer and Carly were happy to have more time to play and June made sure I was all ok while Craig taped up the 'blue car'. It looked pretty ghetto by the time he was done with duck tape...I think he secretly enjoyed decorating the car! We filed a claim with insurance and got a couple of quotes to get it fixed. The main quote came back at $7,500 to fix the car, but the car was only worth about that much. It took the whole rest of the time we were there (up until the day we left) for everything to come through. They wound up writing off the car and writing us a check, which was the best outcome considering the circumstances.

The prep for moving was pretty monumental, as it always is. Several of our beautiful friends looked after Carly a few times so we could get stuff done around the house in preparation for moving and after that for cleaning. Thankfully, Raytheon paid for our stuff to be packed or it would have been total insanity. The movers came bright and early Tuesday morning, worked the whole day, came back Wednesday morning and finally left at about 5.30pm that day. The house was pretty full of boxes and then very empty feeling! A few times when the guys were packing, Carly exclaimed 'that's my toy!' or something similar but she listened and at least tried to understand when we told her they were just putting it away for us for a while and we would get it back. We walked into the house after being gone for half of the day and Carly just looked around and exlaimed 'whoa! lots of boxes!' Kate did well with the whole thing, of course. She was still very transportable and slept a fair amount of the time which made it not too bad. Certainly, packing up and moving overseas is not something I would recommend to someone else with a 2 1/2 year old and a 3 month old!

The next day we went to our friend Rachel's 1st birthday party at the Telegraph Station and then we started cleaning for our final inspection of the house. We cleaned and cleaned and cleaned then worked for hours out in the yard to pull weeds, mow, weed eat, trim bushes, etc. On Sunday (the inspection was Monday) we realized we were going to need help and got a couple of the young men from church around to help us (thanks Josiah and Jono)! The yard probably looked better than it ever had before and the house was pretty spotless. Of course, Monday morning we were taking one last look and realized Carly had colored on the wall with pen in a few places. Why did she have to pick the morning of our inspection to color on the wall for the first time!? We got the pen off with time to spare and passed the inspection with no problems at all. We breathed a huge sigh of relief after that was done, 'cause even though we were still living in the house for 2 weeks, we didn't have to clean again or mow or anything. Yay!

We slowly met with friends to say farewell and had friends come 'shop at the Hendersons' to get rid of food from our pantry, toiletries and cleaning supplies that could not be packed. We took our other car in for service before selling it to our friend Cliff. We celebrated with our friends Beth and Hermes on their engagement. Our friend Brian Carlgren arrived from the USA on May 15th. Qantas had some tickets that were much cheaper than normal so he booked a ticket to come over while we were still there and to help us travel back with all of our junk in tow. Brian saw some old friends, hung out and rested a little, helped us sort out our stuff, run around doing errands and then became our pack mule during the trip back.

Our official church farewell from Alice Springs Baptist Church was on May 17th. This was a highly anticipated event, at least for me. Initially when we were in Alice, it was only for 2 years with maybe another 2 after that. Then we extended for another 2 and a very surprising 2 more after that. Every time someone would be farewelled (a lot 'cause it's a transient town), I would think 'that's going to be us one day'. Because we loved living there, loved the church, were so involved and enjoyed friends and the lifestyle, I knew this would be very hard. Daniel and I prepared something to say ahead of time...well, something for HIM to read since I was pretty sure I would lose it completely if I tried to do it. He did very well, said what we wanted to say and kept his composure, all while holding Kate and his piece of paper at the front of the church! I was pretty impressed that I didn't tear up until the end, when people gathered around to pray for us. It helped that Carly was walking circles around me and talking while Daniel was talking...she was pretty occupying, bless her!

We had a farewell with Janelle, Kim and June and their kids from Mums' Group, complete with yuuuuuuummy food, presents and a car cake. Carly had a great time with all of her friends, eating lots of food and playing. Sawyer gave her a little stuffed rabbit which has now joined the ranks with her bear, so she cuddles both at night. We had our last kindergym then our last Mums' Group, which we held at our house for more 'shopping at the Hendersons'. Kate turned over for the first time right in front of our friend June. I didn't see her do it but I saw that one second she was on her back and the next she was on her tummy. Now she is a total pro at flopping back and forth, rolling all over the place, scooting herself and everything!

Daniel finished up everything at work. Before Brian came, Daniel realized he had a few days of extra vacation up his sleeve. It worked out very well so he was able to take off some time that last week to hang with Brian and help with all the last minute preparation. He had a 'shout' at the bar at work, a combined farwell with another guy who was leaving. I know he enjoyed working at Raytheon in Alice, was challenged by it in his different positions there and learned a lot. But he was also looking forward to the new challenge of working for Apex Capital Corporation and the relative freedom of working outside the classified world (i.e. you can carry a cell phone all the time).

That night (the Friday before we left), Daniel had a guys night at the Indoor Sand Volleyball place and I had a girls night at my house with some people from church. I know the guys had pizza and chips but the girls were very serious about chocolate, with only 1 item out of about 10 being non-chocolate. We all had a great time, at far too much and stayed up too late. Saturday was our big farewell at the Telegraph Station. Our friends the Grells and Moyles organized it, provided food and drink and even a lovely book for our friends to write messages to us. We had a really great time and still feel so blessed to have friends who love us! Thank you!

We were there just long enough to see our church 'official opening' and ordination service for our friend/the pastor Sam Swadling. In the time we were there, the church embarked on a building program for a bigger facility, went through a time without a youth pastor, moved buildings, went through a time without a senior pastor, had changes to staff and services, etc. Though we have been in that building for some time and Sam has been our pastor for some time, it was really good to see the culmination of all of the work and change in the past few years. Monday our friends Sam, Bethany and Carolyn came to help us get to the airport since we didn't have our cars anymore, we all piled in and waved a farewell to our house, got to the airport late, dragged all our stuff in to check in, hung out with friends who had come to the airport and finally said a tearful goodbye.

The flight from Alice to Sydney was pretty trying with Carly testing the boundaries and throwing semi temper tantrums(she was REALLY tired) and Kate crying with tummy pain a majority of the flight. This was not an encouraging way to start the trip but thankfully this was the worst flight of the whole trip. We got into Sydney, found a taxi van big enough (JUST) for us and our stuff and went to the hotel for the night. Both girls were asleep after the trip and we unloaded all of our stuff and unhooked their car seats with them still inside them and got it all into the hotel room without either of them waking up! The guys went to get food, the girls both woke, we ate and stayed up late re-packing so that Brian could take yet another suitcase for us. Originally we had 5 suitcases but asked Brian to take one with him since he was just going back to Dallas...after just the trip to Sydney we decided we could do without more stuff and gave him another one so we only had 3 for our travels within the USA. We woke up the next morning, took a walk down the street to eat breakfast and have a brief walk on the beach and in the grass with the birds before heading to the airport for the long trek. Picture this...3 adults, 2 kids, 2 car seats, 2 portable cribs, 6 suitcases, a double stroller, 3 backpacks and a portable dvd player. Pure pandemonium. After about 45 minutes at the counter we all got checked in and even avoided charges for the extra bag of ours that Brian was taking back in his name. Went through customs with a very challenging Carly only to be told Kate couldn't currently leave the country because of some visa problem. We waited for about 10 minutes and a customs man came out and told us it was ok. We hadn't eaten lunch but our plane was almost finished boarding so we hurriedly got on and ate some crackers. Hey, at least we didn't have to leave Kate in Australia, right?!

Well, breathe a sigh of relief...this ends installment #1 of 'the trek'. I thought about naming this blog so many different things but 'the blog to end all blogs' did come to mind! Check back soon for the next installment...love from all of us!
Check out the pics (we do have some video, just have to get the time to edit it first)!