Home Sweet Home away from home!

We have now been living at the Staybridge Suites for a little more than 2 months. While living in a 2 bedroom suite with 2 adults, 3 kids (3 and under), 2 cats and 2 fish has lots of challenges, we have enjoyed the Staybridge Suites for lots of reasons!! They definitely treat us like family!

 

 

Perks of being kicked out of our house (due to flooding):

Friendly staff, who really aims to please!

Hot breakfast everyday! (If you get up in time:)

Dinner 3 nights a week (This is what I will miss most)

Maid-service once a week and trash removal DAILY!!

TV and cable (we don't have a TV at home)

The fun of riding an elevator everyday (for the kids)

A ride to and from the airport (we both travel a lot for work)

Location to church and work is closer

 

 

I will not list all the challenges, but I'll hit the highlights:

All the kids sleeping in the same room (which now works out great most of the time)

Trying to get 3 kids out the door, down the hall, in the elevator, out the door and in the car without loosing someone or getting hit by a car.

Not have an oven (or much kitchen space)

Having people above us and trying to make the kids understand we have someone below us!

 

 

ALL that to say the Staybridge Suites-Chantilly is an awesome place to stay (or live)!! We will definitely miss them when we go home! THANKS FOR HAVING US!!!

Been up to lately...

This is a little scattered, but I thought I'd try to catch up since our last post.


We have been so busy this Summer already! We finished off the Spring with a visit to the National Zoo with our friends, the Gates and Youngs. This has now become an annual event which is SO fun! Not to mention that still today (almost 3 months later) if you ask Lars what he did today he says, "Monkey, Elephant, Tiger". I think he likes the Zoo a little:) We have been to 2 other zoos since then, the Dallas Zoo and this week the Reston Zoo. Both of which we had a great time at too! If you live near Dallas you should go to the new exhibit there it's awesome! You can actually feed giraffes! Thanks Wallings for coming out in the heat with your new baby, Ace!


We kicked off the Summer, Memorial Day weekend with my sister Jenni's wedding to the wonderful Mr. Todd Singletary! We are very excited to have him in our family! (All the pics after this are from Jenni's wedding).

Who does Stina look like?

My uncles will say Stina doesn't have to look like anybody! We know, she is special and unique and her own person, but we can't figure out who she favors!

Who do you think Stina looks like? The black and white baby pictures are Karl and the color ones are me, Jessi.

Life with 2 kids!

Sorry I haven't updated in a while! Having two kids keeps me quite busy! I'm not sure how people with more kids keep up on their blogs.

Stina continues to be a great baby. She's a great sleeper!! She has already had 2 nights that she slept 7 hours straight!!! She's a little colicky in the evenings, but James Taylor and a box fan are helping take care of that:)

Lars is doing great with her. He is definitely a little more jealous, but I don't mind having them both in my lap so it usually works out.

I'm sure it will be a while before I'm back to regular updating.

Here's a couple pictures to hold you over for a while!

Aug 1st, Stina Smiled!

Aug 14th, Lars climbed all the way down the stairs by himself, VERY carefully!!!

Happy Father's Day!!

Father's Day 2008
I just wanted to take this opportunity to say what a wonderful Daddy and husband Karl truely is!!! I can't believe he is on Father's Day #2 next thing you know it will be 20! Time has gone by way too fast since Lars' birth! Sometimes I wish life would slow down a little bit!
Karl is not only my best friend, but he is a wonderful husband! He works very hard to provide for his family. Then somehow in his free time manages to paint, build and entertain!! :) Every once in a while we let him have some time off to ride his motorcycle or go to the gun range, but he always manages to be home in time to grill dinner for us!
Karl also spends time playing with Lars, which is one of the greatest joys of my life. I love to see Lars' face light up when Karl comes in the room! They spend lots of time playing ball, drumming (make noise:), building things and splashing in the bath or pool.
THANK YOU KARL FOR BEING SUCH A GREAT DAD!!

Karl is 30!!

This week has been filled with milestones. First Lars turned 1, then Karl turned 30!! We had a suprise birthday party for Karl on Sunday, he really was surprised! Thanks to everyone, who celebrated birthdays with us ALL weekend!!

Karl would love to have a new Dodge Challenger, so I got him one! Not exactly the size he wanted, but it will have to do for now:)!

Christmas in Longview

We had a great time up in Longview with my family for Christmas! If you can't tell Lars enjoyed himself:) We did miss Kim and her fam!!! We really wish they could have come too! We had lots of fun hanging out with Grammee, Papa, and Aunt Jenni. Not to mention the great company of Jenni's friend Todd and, of course, Jordan and Ava (our furry family)! We filled up on Dudley's (our fav Cajun resturant) and lots of Mexican:):)
One of Lars' favorite gifts is his cowboy hat (pictured on Papa:). He wears it without even trying to take off!

Christmas in Houston

Lars is really enjoying all the presents! He got the hang of ripping the paper off really quickly (if he didn't get distracted by the ribbons first:). We all made out big time! We got lots of great gifts and some parenting books which will come in handy (hopefully later rather than sooner). Lars continues to be a great kid! He has been a trooper with all his missed naps and new people to meet!
We hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Halloween!!

Kids in costumes!! Can they get any cuter? The pictures above are from Trick or Treating last night. We had lots of fun passing out candy. Our neighborhood has lots of kids, so we got to see everything from Minnie Mouse to Yoda! Don't Karl and Brent look cute with the cutest kids in the neighborhood, Lars, Avery, and Reagan?!

We had a Halloween Luncheon at our house earlier in the day. It was totally mass chaos, but it was worth it! We had 11 moms and 15 kids running around all dressed up. Thank you to all the moms who brought food and helped with food once you got here! I couldn't have done it with out you!!
All of Lars' little friends (above on the couch) are boys, but you can see in the pictures below he is quite the Ladies Man!! He doesn't care if they are older, he just flirts with all the girls:)!

Glad Karl's home!!

We are so happy to have Karl home!!! Can you see the HUGE smile behind Lars' bling? He has been gone for almost a month (home for just 7 days in the middle)! Which is way too long!!
Lars' response to hearing Karl is coming home:) Yeah!!!

Angel, Bailey and J were here this weekend too to welcome Karl home! J ran in the Marine Corp Marathon Sunday. I'm not sure he is able to walk yet:).
The last picture is one of my favorites cause Lars' is wearing his John Deere boots his Aunt Kim sent him! He is so proud to be a Texan!!

LeTourneau Family

We recently got to have dinner with Dr. Gonzalez (engineering prof at LETU) and Josh Johnston here in D.C. It is always nice to get to see people from LeTU!!

Haskell Weekend