The Toy

For the past several months Kaylee has been waking up off and on crying and scared. When you go into her room, you see her with her butt up in the air holding her legs up because "the toy" is under her covers.

Let me give you a little background. She had not seen any Toy Story until yesterday. The only two movies that she had watched are Monsters Inc. and Tangled, neither one of which have a scary "toy".

Night after night we would tell her that there was nothing to be afraid of and tuck her back in.

Two nights ago "the toy" was found.

We were all downstairs. Adam and the girls were in the main room and I was emptying the dryer. The conversation went like this:

Kaylee: MOM!!!!!
Me: Yes Kaylee.
Kaylee: MOM!!!! WHERE ARE YOU????
Me: I am in the laundry room, Kaylee. What do you need?
Kaylee: MOM!!! (she appears in the laundry room) I SEE THE TOY!!!!
Me: What? (reality of what she said sets in) OH!!! Well, let's go see it!
Kaylee: OK! (turns around and leads me to the toy bucket) RIGHT THERE! (pointing wildly)

I pulled out "the toy" and asked her if she wanted me to show her how it worked and was frantically advised that she did not want to see it work. Adam suggested throwing it away and Kaylee was all about that! She walked with me to the trash and we threw it away.

What is "the toy"?



Here is a video of Kaylee and her friend playing with "the toy" around her 1st birthday.

I guess I can see why she would be afraid.

Hopefully, the toy's death by trash can will be the end of the nightmares. 

Jesus

Jesus- 

Came to earth as a baby. With nothing. To die for us. To save us. So we could live. In spite of who we are.


Isn't that the most beautiful gift anyone could ever receive?


Today I praise my Lord for coming to Earth in spite of who I am and who I have been, to live and die for me. 


Happy Birthday Jesus!

Cookie Confession

So, a while back I made the "best ever chocolate chip cookies" and labeled them okay but not fabulous.

Now I must confess. When I made the cookies I did not have unsalted butter. And before you consider me a failure, I googled what I could do without having to go to the store and everything I read said that I could use my salted butter and just eliminate the salt.

I did not feel like it was that big of a deal.

I was wrong, reader. It was a big deal.

One night I wanted some cookies and had some unsalted butter and decided to give the recipe another chance since I LOVED working with the actual dough.

The cookies were really good. While the cookies are still not fabulous, the recipe is now my go-to recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

They are super easy to make, the dough is amazing to work with, and the cookies taste good.

Win. Win. Win.

Kaylee's Kidbits

Where to start? Kaylee is the life of our house right now. She has so much energy and is excited about everything!

In the last 9 months her vocabulary has jumped leaps and bounds. Thinking back to when Ella was born and Kaylee came to the hospital to meet her, she could barely put a sentence together. Now she is having full conversations about super important things like the trash man driving down the road or how she needs her phone because her "Mamaw is calling".

She jumps everywhere. I never thought she could love something more than dancing. I was wrong. She LOVES to jump!

Singing is also something she loves to do. Her favorite song to sing is skinnamarinkydinkydink. It is the cutest thing ever. If you don't believe me, see for yourself.

She still loves to dance around the room. She always wants to listen to "Move" by MercyMe. Here is the live version if you want to hear it. (The radio version in my opinion is better on itunes, but this was the best one I could find for you to see.)

Potty training is going well. The only time she wears diapers is at bedtime and at naps. I know one of these days I need to just make the jump on this, but I am not quite ready to commit to cleaning up bed messes. She occasionally has accidents, but it is generally when a lot is going on or we have people over and she does not want to stop whatever she is doing. She has really done great overall!

She has been learning to share as Ella is getting more into playing. Sometimes this is difficult for her, but she is really doing much better than she used to. (There are times when she shares things with Ella that she shouldn't.)

Titus is still her favorite "toy" in the house. He loves her as well. After our excursion around the states, she held him from morning until night. Poor cat loved every minute. She would put him down and he would rub right up against her, purring, as if he was saying, "Kaylee, pick me up again." They play chase sometimes now. Kaylee will run after him and he will hide behind the couch and then she will run back down the hall and he will jump out and run after her. They do this off and on all day. (Sometimes it startles me because Titus is pretty stinking spazzy when he is running back and forth.)

She counts to 5 now and can sing most of the alphabet. She is such a big girl.

Kaylee brings me joy and I look forward to seeing the new developments that she will make over the next several months.

Ella's Endeavors

Ella is growing like a weed. She has grown up a TON in the last few weeks. There was one week in particular that she learned how to sit by herself, clap her hands, dance, and hold her bottle.

She is super adorable when she dances. She really gets into it. Check out these videos and see for yourself.

Anyways, she is not crawling yet, but she is everywhere!  She just scoots around on her bottom until she gets where she wants to be.  If she topples over, she just rolls to her belly and scoots backwards around the room to what she wants.  At this point I wonder if she will ever crawl since she already knows how to get to things without crawling. We will see I suppose.

She likes to make this terrible noise. It's like a growl mixed with a grunt. (You can sort of get the idea of what it sounds like if you watch the first dancing video above.)  It was cute the first time she did it. Now she will start doing it and Kaylee joins in. They do it back and forth for what feels like all day long. It is not so cute anymore.

We are dog-sitting Indy for my friend Angel while she and her husband are picking up their beautiful little girl Maddie from China. Ella LOVES Indy. He likes to lay on her blanket where she plays when we are out in the living room (we have hard wood floors) and she gets sooo excited and starts squealing at him. He is such a trooper because he will just lay there while she slobbers all over him. He must not mind though because when Kaylee does things he does not like he will come over to me and pout. He has not done this with Ella.

She still does not have any teeth. It is crazy to me becuase by this point Kaylee almost had all of her teeth. Ella is definitely teething. She drools and drools and drools. (which is nasty when you mix it with spit-up and the current snot she has) She is just a cute little bundle of grossness right now.

After her last appointment at 6 months, we put her on solids and weaned her off of her reflux medication to see how she did without it.  I am happy to say that she is no longer on the medication and seems to be doing fine.  She still spits-up a LOT as I mentioned above, but it has gotten a little better now that she is on solids.  I am just glad she is feeling better.

She and Kaylee play so great together! Kaylee will jump to entertain herself and Ella will just bust out laughing which of course encourages Kaylee to jump more. It is super cute!

You would think that since I already have Kaylee that Ella's accomplishments and growth would not surprise me, but I just cannot get over how quickly they grow up. I know that they are both still very young and I have lots of time with them left, but they make huge educational leaps those first few years that the time just flies!

Elanor is such a good baby and I look forward to the growing she is going to do in the next few months especially.

Motivational Dress

So a few days before our busyness began, I realized that my current sewing project was not going to be completed when I wanted it to be. I had recently been given a bag of clothing from a friend and after going through the bag I found several things that I wanted to "up-cycle". Before Pinterest I would have never known what that word meant so if you are not familiar with the term it means that you are using old clothing (or other older used items) to make something new. In this bag I found a shirt and skirt that I thought I could use for something. I forgot to take pictures of them separate, but remembered after I pinned them together before I cut and sewed.

I decided to cut off the skirt and re-hem it and sew it to the top and add a belt. I am going to add some belt loops as soon as I remember where I placed the leftover fabric, but for now here is the finished project.

I can't wait to wear it! Motivation to lose the "baby weight".

The Last 4 Weeks

It has been a fabulous 4 weeks.  Today has been hard because not only is life back to normal, but I woke up with a terrible head cold. My main reason for writing today though is to catch you up on what has been going on here.

About 6 weeks ago Adam found out that he was heading to St Louis for work the week before Thanksgiving so we headed there with him to see my parents before they jump into bell ringing season.

It was such a great visit. My Dad has mono and while I feel bad for him, I was glad to get some extra time with him since usually he stays super busy during our visits. The girls loved seeing their Papa and Nana. Kaylee helped Nana decorate the Christmas tree.

We had Christmas together while we were there and Mom and Dad got Kaylee Rapunzel from her favorite "Princess Movie". It also came with a matching dress. She loves that doll!

After our wonderful visit with my parents, we went home to do laundry and re-pack to head to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. First stop was Adam's Aunt and Uncle's house. We had a great visit with them and then headed further north to visit our best friends Meggan and Trevor. Kaylee and Addison were fast friends.

We did a lot of relaxing and playing and dancing and laughing! The boys gave us some time off and we did the same for them. We had such a great visit and it made me wonder why we live so far away from one another.

After our few days with the Schwirtz's we started making our journey home by spending a night with our great friends Casey and Daniel. We spent the evening eating this amazing soup that Casey made and playing some Tichu. Adam and I won and I am pretty certain this is the first time we have ever won as a team.

We got home at about 8 pm from our trip and so I unpacked, cleaned, and got the girls into bed while Adam took his Grandma home. (She had ridden with us to Minnesota to spend Thanksgiving with Adam's Aunt and Uncle. - She is brave for traveling with us.) The very next morning I ran to get groceries because our awesome friends Kim and Chris were coming to visit for a night. 

Ella had a ton of fun with Brayden. She really wanted to keep up with him as he was crawling everywhere leaving her in the dust.

We played lots of games in their one night stay. I was so glad they came to visit!

The morning the Hoch's left was a pretty somber event for me because I knew life was going to slow down and get back to normal. I decided to take a 3 hour nap to delay the inevitable. Good thing I did! That evening my brother Michael and his wife Rachel showed up for a week long stay. 

We went shopping, took pictures, played games, ate great food, and sang lots! I was extremely grateful that they flew out to visit! We recorded two songs while we were together. You can find them here and here.

These last four weeks have been such a huge blessing and makes me ever so grateful as we go into this Christmas season. Thanks to all of you for allowing us to be a part of your lives! We love you and miss you already!

A Good Kick in the Pants

Yesterday I went to church by myself with the girls since Adam was hunting. At the end of the service we sang the song I Surrender All. I will be honest here and say that seeing the beautiful words on the screen convicted me of voicing them out loud. Let me share these words with you.

I Surrender All

1. 
   
2. All to Jesus I surrender;
   All to Him I freely give;
   I will ever love and trust Him,
   In His presence daily live.
   • Refrain:
     I surrender all,
     I surrender all;
     All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
     I surrender all.
3. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Humbly at His feet I bow,
   Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
   Take me, Jesus, take me now.
4. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
   Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
   Truly know that Thou art mine.
5. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Lord, I give myself to Thee;
   Fill me with Thy love and power;
   Let Thy blessing fall on me.
6. All to Jesus I surrender;
   Now I feel the sacred flame.
   Oh, the joy of full salvation!
   Glory, glory, to His Name!

Mr and Mrs

I would consider myself to be a "crafty" person in that I enjoy a good do it yourself project more than most people.

That is the problem with pinterest.

There are about 50 projects I want to do on there right now, but I am currently working on an intense sewing project so I don't have time for most of them.

However, here is one that I did do.

I know mine is not as pretty as the one that I found on pinterest, but I was too excited to start my little notebook that I did not care about the way it looked on the outside. I was lucky enough to find a plain colored notebook that I did not need to cover any of it.

I also went off the idea and made a notebook for Adam and me. When we have a lot going on, we don't get as much time to talk about things going on in our life and so I thought this would be a great way to catch up on the busy days. Besides most of the time we leave little notes for each other and they end up getting left all over the place and eventually get thrown away since we have no place to keep them. Now we have the paper and a place to keep them.

Can't wait to make one for Ella when she is a little older.

Cookie Verdict

I know all of you are ever so anxious to know how the cookies were.

Drum roll please......

They were good! They were not the best I have ever tasted, but they were good.

It was a fabulous recipe though in that it was by far the BEST dough I have ever worked with. It was easy to scoop and did not stick to my fingers. The cookies were chewy and not hard. It made fluffy cookies and I really didn't try to make them that way. I usually use the recipe on the back of the chocolate chips bag and my cookies usually end up flat. These were beautiful.

I will use this recipe again, but I am going to adjust it in hopes to make it exactly what the recipe says it is.

The BEST-EVER Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Me Want Cookies

Tomorrow we are going to my brother-in-law's house and I was asked to bring something sweet so today I am trying out a cookie recipe from pinterest.com. Hopefully, the recipe will be worth the hours of naptimes that I have been wasting looking at recipes and do it yourself projects.

 Here is the website, but I helped you skip a click by providing the recipe below.

Best-Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

barely adapted from Anna Olson, Food Network Canada

Ingredients: 

3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened 

3/4 c. brown sugar 

1/4 c. granulated sugar 

1 egg 

2 tsp. vanilla extract 

2 c. all purpose flour 

2 tsp. cornstarch 

1 tsp. baking soda 

1/2 tsp. salt 

1 c. bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy and light in color. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.

3.  Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chunks.

4.  Using a standard-sized cookie scoop or tablespoon, drop dough onto a prepared baking sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges.  (The tops will not brown, but do NOT cook longer than ten minutes.)

5.  Let cool, on the sheet, on a wire rack for five minutes.  Remove from baking sheet and let cool completely.  Try not to eat them all.

Cookies will be done in 3 minutes. I will post later with pictures and tell how the taste test went. :)

My Love Language

I read the 5 Love Languages book by Gary Chapman several years ago. After reading it, I immediately thought my love language was quality time. Recently, I stumbled up a quiz on-line that you can take to find out your language and while quality time is pretty high, it is not my primary language. It is words of affirmation. I'll be honest I was surprised.

Love Language Scores: 10 Words of Affirmation 7 Quality Time 5 Receiving Gifts 3 Acts of Service 5 Physical Touch Interpreting and Using Your Profile Score: The highest score indicates your primary love language (the highest score is 12). It's not uncommon to have two high scores, although one language does have a slight edge for most people. That just means two languages are important to you. The lower scores indicate those languages you seldom use to communicate love and which probably don't affect you very much on an emotional level.

Words of Affirmation Actions don't always speak louder than words. If this is your love language, unsolicited compliments mean the world to you. Hearing the words, "I love you," are important--hearing the reasons behind that love sends your spirits skyward. Insults can leave you shattered and are not easily forgotten.

Interesting. It makes sense now that I think about it, but I would have never guessed that that was my language.

Take the quiz. Tell me what your love language is. Do you think it fits you?

My One and Only

My favorite movie of all time has been on my brain this evening. One scene in particular. The movie is "Ever After". If you haven't seen it, it is a Cinderella story, but by far the best one that has been made.  In the movie the prince is having a conversation with Leonardo Da Vinci about finding his "one and only". If you have never seen the movie, here is the conversation that I am talking about.

I fall into the thinking that there is that one person out there for you. Especially since I see how my life has been so uniquely orchestrated by God and how He led me specifically to the place where I would meet Adam.

Adam was very social. In fact, he introduced himself to me and my family the first day we arrived at Vennard. All of the girls raved about how handsome and awesome he was. I agreed that he was pretty hot, but did not see the appeal as I thought he was rude and inconsiderate. This came from being in several classes with him where he would write notes with me during class, but blow me off afterwards. I actually remember a specific time that he did this to me and I recall how much I despised the way he reacted to my talking to him. I left that conversation thinking, "what in the world does everyone see in him?"

He was a great athlete! He and his best friend Trevor were what I consider to be the stars of our school's basketball team. I had never been into sports, but I have to admit that watching them play together gave me a love for basketball. My head would hurt after games from cheering for them. I really enjoyed watching him play and went to every game.

All of the girls had a game where we would give each other money to go get the phone number from random guys when we were in public. Yes, it was pretty "freshmen" of us, but hey it was an easy way to get some quick cash and possibly talk to a cute guy in the process. One of the times that we decided to play this game was at a softball game between some of our guys from school and some guys from the store that Adam worked at at the time. Adam was playing for the team that he worked with. My friend was going to pay me $2.50 for each guy that I got numbers from. As I prepared my story, one of the guys from the other team came over and told me that Adam figured out what were up to and told all of the team to not give me their numbers. I was ticked. I went up to Adam and let him know it, too. He proceeded to tell me that it was a stupid game and I proceeded to tell him that he owed me some money.  He offered to buy me some ice cream instead and I took him up on it.

A month went by and he had not taken me so I assumed that he had forgotten, but one day he came up and asked me when he could take me.

He ended up taking me to a neighboring town that had a coffee shop that had great desserts. Since he had never shown any interest in even talking to me, I was surprised at how long we stayed there and even more surprised when he suggested that we go to a nearby lake to sit on the beach and talk a little more.

After that evening, we started talking off and on after classes, but nothing to write home about. (Although, I was starting to see that he had a nice side.) We also started talking after watching Smallville since we both enjoyed the show.

Two weeks before school let out, he asked me to take a walk with him. We walked about 2 miles. We did this several other days before school let out for the summer.

We talked off and on over the summer. (Still continuing our Smallville talks.) Adam invited a bunch of students to come to his house for the 4th of July and 3 of us still at school packed up to head out there. The trip out there was when I realized that I liked him. I have never felt that nervous or sick to my stomach. My uncle lived/lives near Adam's family so Adam came to pick us up from there. When I saw Adam walk up to the door looking all good with his summer tan from working for his dad, the thought that I was going to marry him someday popped into my head which made me laugh out loud since I had only realized that I seriously liked him several hours before. Over the weekend, Adam sat down with me privately and asked me to pray with him about dating. I told him that I would and I was impressed that he was not asking me for a relationship then and there. It showed his respect for me since I had decided to take the summer and not date anyone and it also showed me how deep His relationship was with God.

Several months later and several conversations later Adam gave me a necklace that he had made out of hemp and asked me to wear it when I was ready. I had some trust issues and he made it clear that if we did this with Christ at the center, we could have a good relationship that could work and last.

I finally wore the necklace about a month later.

A year of dating and 9 months of an engagement later I found myself happily married to my one and only.

Peanut Butter Pie

Kaylee and I decided to make a pie.

It was fabulously delicious and I could tell Kaylee enjoyed helping me.

Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory

This morning was one of the scariest moments I have experienced since we have had our girls.

Ella had woke up crying around 5:15 and after putting her paci in several times over the next hour I decided to just go rock her for a little while to get her back to sleep. By this time it is about 6:40. Adam had just left for work.

I went into her room and immediately smelt something burning. (I had not smelled this the other times I had gone in there.)

Being deathly afraid of fire, I of course do the wise motherly thing and start spazzing.

I start crying out to God, praying fervently.

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
Psalm 56:2-4

I flip on Ella's light and shut off her fan. Pick her up and try not to panic. Her room has a haze, but it is not thick like smoke. I take her to the living room and place her in the pack-n-play.

Kaylee is awake from Ella crying anyway, so I run into her room and flip the light on. Her room is worse and smells terrible. I quickly unplug her fan thinking it may be that since it sort of smells like burnt rubber. Then I tell her to go to the couch and lay down while I run downstairs and look around.

I see nothing. Smell nothing. More prayers.

It is somewhere in the girls' rooms. I run back up and look around some more.

After looking around for about 10 minutes, Ella still screaming, I decided that Kaylee's old box fan had malfunctioned and was what was burning. After calling Adam and checking everything, I calmed down and started praising God for His provision in having Ella cry more than she usually does.

Now that it is several hours since this crazy frightening event, I am almost certain it was indeed Kaylee's fan. (I don't think it was running when I went to unplug it earlier, but in my panic I did not notice.)

Again, praise God for protecting my little girls!!!

I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
Deuteronomy 32:2-4


The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior!
Psalm 18:45-47


You are my strength, I sing praise to you; you, God, are my fortress, my God on whom I can rely.
Psalm 59:16-17

Pinterest

So a friend of mine told me about Pinterest.com. After hearing her rave about it, I was slightly disappointed when I actually went there to check it out.  I was busy with the girls at the time so I decided I would give it another chance later.

Wow! So glad that I did.

I now have WAY too many projects in my "Do It Yourself" folder.

Here are a few.

This one is for a sort of cloth book shelf.
http://pennycarnival.typepad.com/penny_carnival/2009/02/tutorial-hanging-book-display.html

This one is for a necklace holder.
http://pinterest.com/pin/310442367/

This one is for a Christmas wreath. (As if I need another one of those.)
http://craftysisters-nc.blogspot.com/2009/12/for-youdear-sister.html

This is something I will do with the girls sometime.
http://ecemadeeasy.com/posts/painting-with-condensed-milk/

This one is something I could do for Ella.
http://www.asortafairytaleblog.com/2010/12/diy-babys-1st-christmas-ornament.html

Anyways, thank you Kayley for introducing me to Pinterest. I now how TONS of projects that I want to work on! :) 

Ta-Ta Tents and Sewing Spree

I have been on a crazy sewing spree the last few weeks. I have made two Ta-Ta Tents, (Yep, that is what I decided to name them. It was the best name anyone came up with.) re-did a part to make my friend's Ta-Ta Tent updated and work more efficiently, and worked on a secret project.

Sadly, my projects have all come to completion.

It is a great feeling to be done, but I am not sure what I am going to work on next.

Any ideas?

Nap Time

Naptime is a Mother's sunshine on a cloudy day.

At least it is in my life.

Ella and Kaylee go down for a nap every day at the same time and while Kaylee usually wakes up first, it is at least 2 hours of quiet for me!

That is not the only reason I enjoy nap time. I LOVE the routine of nap time.

Kaylee comes with me into Ella's room and waits while I change Ella's diaper and get her into her wearable blanket for bed. Then, Kaylee and I stand next to Ella's crib. I sway side to side, as does Kaylee, while I hold Ella. Kaylee picks a song and we sing it to Ella. Next, we pray for Ella and I put her down in her crib. After that, we tell her goodnight and shut the door. All this time, Kaylee is saying things like, "Night, night Ella Grace. Love you. Shut the door by myself." It is a very special moment for me to watch the love that my little girls have for one another.

Once Ella is in bed, it is Kaylee's turn. She goes potty and then goes and gets into her bed. Depending on the time, we may read a book. Then, she picks 3 or so songs that we sing together while snuggling. Next, we pray. I remind her to stay in bed and keep her clothes on and tuck her in. I rub her back for a few seconds and kiss her goodnight.

Yes, these routines can be time consuming at times. Especially after a long day of constant disobedience. However, these are the moments that they will remember. The every day routine things that I do with them. These moments mean a lot to me and hopefully one day will mean a lot to them.

Elanor's Endeavors

Ella is growing up too fast. I cannot believe she is already 6 months old. Where has the time gone?

She is trying really hard to sit up by herself. It is cute how serious she gets when she is practicing.

She truly has found her voice. She tries to outdo us when we are having conversations.

She sleeps through the night now. She finally gained enough weight so I could drop her late night feeding.

She is very observant. She notices EVERYTHING!

She loves playing with her feet. The first thing she does when she wakes up is smile and grab her them.

She hates oatmeal and applesauce, at least her first tastes of them.

She is definitely teething, but no teeth yet. Just lots of drooling and chewing on everything.

Ella is such a great baby! Overall, very happy and all smiles! 

Pack Up the Kids! We Got a Van!

Having two kids in our small Chevy Cavalier was just not happening. After packing up to go to my parent's house a couple of times, we realized we have no room. We need a bigger car.

I know some people are opposed to getting that "soccer mom" van, but I really wanted one. I wanted the space for groceries and my large Sam's orders. And for luggage. I wanted more room so that others could actually ride with me if a situation came about and that would be needed. No SUV would cut it. I needed a van.

I wanted lots of space in the trunk area and I really wanted 8 seats. I thought the 8 seats thing was probably more on the not going to happen side of things, but I was hopeful. I also wanted the doors that open by themselves. 

After looking at tons, I MEAN TONS, of vans I finally found THE ONE. Now, some of you may say that there is not just one van for you, but seriously this van had everything I was looking for in my realistic mind. (I knew how much we were going to be able to spend and I knew what I was going to be able to get for that price.)

We settled on an '01 Pontiac Montana with 80,000 miles on it. It only had 1 owner prior to us and she took great care of it. It has the latch system which is a huge plus and front wheel drive. It has the 8 seats (YES!) and the back seats roll forward to produce more space in the back for hauling stuff. It has one automatic door and lots of compartments for all the things that I want to store. 

I want to publicly thank my hubby for driving an hour and a half away to go with me to get it and for my lovely mother-in-law for watching our girls so that we did not have to take them with us!

Welcome to the family, Monty!