Update

So, the last few weeks have been pretty crazy around here. We spent a couple weeks working really hard to get into our new place and of course, just after we get in, Hurricane Gustav comes barrelling right at us! Having never been in a hurricane before, I was pretty nervous. But in the end, we didn't get hit as hard as we were afraid. We got a lot of rain and wind and lost power for a little while, but that was it! Now, just two weeks later, Ike has passed us and hopefully things will get back to normal.

Last night when I got home from work, Travis suggested that we go down to the pond by our house and go fishing. Just after we got down there, it started pouring! We were all soaked by the time we were finished. But, we did come home with 4 catfish!! Kaity even caught one and hers would have been the biggest if I hadn't caught mine just before leaving. We all had such a good time that we will probably be going fishing a few times a week from now on.

The girls are doing great! Kaitlyn is growing as fast as the weeds in my flower garden and so is her personality. She is very clear on the things she likes and dislikes. She is frequently caught singing; the alphabet, I'm a little tea pot, ring around the rosies, and the newest addition ~ A dream is a wish your heart makes (from Cinderella). She's working very hard on articulating and becoming better at telling us what's on her mind.

Abigail is my little cuddle bug. She is always wanting to sit on my lap or have me hold her or lay down on the couch with me. Lately, she won't go to bed without a book. Not just having us read one to her. She actually wants to HUG a book while she's going to sleep! I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound (or look) very comfortable to me! But that's what she's wanting, and when we let her have her book, she goes right to sleep. lol Right now, her favorite things are "noke" (that's how she says milk) and The Little Mermaid. I can't believe she will actually be 2 in just a few weeks!

Light bulb!!

So, yesterday morning, I was getting ready for work and I noticed Kaity staring at me. So we start talking and she says, "Mommy, you have brown eyes!" Then, "Daddy has green eyes! Abby has brown eyes!" And I stepped in and said, "No, Abby has green eyes." K-"Oh! They are pretty!" So I ask her what color her eyes are and she tells me they are brown. Instantly, I see the light bulb turn on! With the biggest eyes I've ever seeen on this girl, she says, "Mommy! You have brown eyes, and I have brown eyes! Daddy has green eyes, and Abby has green eyes!" I was so tickled that she had made that connection!

Change, change, change....

So, life has been pretty hectic lately. I started a new job about two-and-a-half weeks ago. I'm a teller at a bank. I've really enjoyed it! We are leaving the girls with a girl in the ward. She has a little girl that will be turning 1 next week. The girls really love going over there and are always talking about "Miss Shelly" and "Baby Lilli". I am so glad we have found someone we can trust and that the girls actually look forward to seeing!

We are in the process of moving into our new rental. We've decided not to buy just yet. Travis is hoping to get some certifications done quickly so that we can move closer to our goal of making it back to Oklahoma. We definitely don't want to go through the stress of paying rent and a mortgage again, or two mortgages, so we're waiting to decide how long we'll be here before we make any permanent plans. So, the house we are moving into is quite a bit bigger than the apartment we are in and has a nice sized yard for the girls to play in. It's also out in the country a bit, so we don't have as many neighbors. I'll take some pictures as soon as I can get the flower beds cleaned up some.

HOMELESS!!!!

Today, I would like to post a tribute to our old house. That's right ladies and gentlemen....OLD house. We have finally closed on our house in South Carolina and are now the proud non-owners of the house located on Legend Oaks Drive. We have many good memories from our time there (Abby was born October '06, my sister and her family visited Thanksgiving '06, all of my family came out for Christmas '06, Robyn came for Kaity's second birthday July '07, Abby turned 1 October '07, Travis' dad came out Christmas '07, etc...), and a few not-so-good memories (Travis worked MANY hours of overtime and wasn't home much, Kaity fell off of a chair while making cookies and split her lip on the kitchen counter requiring stitches). All in all, we loved this house, but are so excited to be moving on and are most excited to say that, while we do have food to eat and a roof over our heads, we are finally HOMELESS!!!! Front of house (in winter, which is why the grass is brown)
Master Bathroom
Kitchen/Dining Room
Kitchen/Dining Room
Kitchen

While I have taken many, many pictures over the year and a half that we lived in the house, here are some of my most favorite.

Summer Sunset in the Sandhills

Daddy and Abby (our little cuddler)

Daddy and his girls

Abby's first birthday

Sharing the pony!

Playing in the front yard (yes, Abby is only wearing a diaper, but I promise I only did this a couple of times!!)

Learning sign language
Kaity's secong birthday, Abby in the Johnny Jumper

Abby in her walker.

(The girls have been hugging a lot lately)

I know it has been a long time since I have written. (Boy does that take me back to the days when I 'tried' to keep a journal!) We have been pretty busy. My older sister, Angie, and her family came to visit. We mostly spent time just visiting, but we were able to go to the park one day and take the kids to "Catfish Cove", a big pond on Fort Polk where only kids can fish. We actually caught a few fish, but we put them all back.

(They are in a really good mood when Daddy comes home from work)

A couple days after they left, we headed up to Ponca City for the 4th of July. We really had a good time despite the fact that we stretched ourselves every thin trying to find the balance between spending time with my family, Travis' family, and our friends. I love the 4th. I always have, but I think my love for it grew even more when I married Travis. Being married to someone in the military truly makes one realise how blessed we are for our freedoms.

(Kaity is always asking if she can do "Cheerleaders" so her Aunt Stacy & Uncle Clay got her some pom-poms for her birthday)

While we were in PC, we were able to squeeze in a birthday party for Kaitlyn. She just turned 3 and has never had a birthday party with more than Travis, Robyn (my little sister), Abby, and myself there. We felt like it was about time. So, we went to Sun N Fun, the waterpark in Ponca City, and invited our families and a few friends. Robyn made Kaity's birthday cake and my mom ordered pizza. All of the kids had a great time and we will definitely be making a tradition out of going to a waterpark every summer!

(Bubbles.....what more can I say?)

After we had been home for almost a week, Robyn came down here for a visit. Even though I had just spent almost a week with her, it was great to be able to spend time with her one-on-one. Robyn and I didn't get along very well growing up, but she has become one of my best friends.

(Kaity spraying Abby in their new pool)

And last but not least, we are moving again! Not so far this time. We have found a house out in the country with about 5 acres that we will be renting. There is a lot more space than we have in our apartment, so it will be nice to feel like we can breathe again! The closing on our house in South Carolina keeps getting pushed back, but we are trying to be patient. We are currently scheduled to close Tuesday, but I'll keep you posted on what actually happens!

Memory Game

One of my friends had this on her blog and thought it sounded like a lot of fun.

The instructions are as follows:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Spring...to Fall!

Last night, we went out to get a movie for Travis and I to watch after the girls were in bed. When we got home, I got out of the car and saw this poor little baby bird sitting under Travis' car. We just happened to have a bunch of worms from a recent fishing trip so Travis said we sould bring him inside so he wouldn't die. We got him to eat two worms and drink some water. After that, he kept running under the "bedding" we had set up for him in a box and trying to hide..... or go to sleep, we weren't really sure. Well, we ended up putting him back outside under a bush so that it was less likely he'd get run over by a car, or a mower! I looked out there this morning and he was nowhere to be found, so I hope he's okay. I don't think there's much more we could have done for him. There are three or four bird's nests in our carport, so we didn't know which one the baby belonged to. It could have been bad if we put him in the wrong one, just to get pushed back out by the wrong momma bird. So I hope we did the right thing!

I don't know how many of you know, but Abby is the clumsiest child I know! She is always falling down. I truly believe she trips over air when it's sticky and humid out. Well, it's hard to see in this picture, but she has fallen, yet again! This time, she hit her face on the metal frame of the futon. Smacked it just above the eye! There's a little cut where it was bleeding and it was purple for about an hour. I was afraid her eye was gonna be swollen shut. It turned out to not be as bad as I was afraid. She loves to run and play and tries very hard to keep up with her sister. Now, if we could just figure out a way to get her to stop falling!

Quick Update

So, really quickly. There are three things I'd like to report on.

1. Kaitlyn is loving puzzles. Not just the ones with the piece of wood that is shaped like a horse that goes into the horse-shaped hole. But the real ones! She was given a book with interlocking puzzle pieces for her birthday (in July) and I've kept it from her for almost a year now. But the other day, she found the book and decided to play with it. I helped her for the first couple of times, but now she's a pro! Each page is only 12 pieces, but I was pretty impressed! I can give her those puzzles and she will sit there and do them over and over for more than an hour. I can't remember the last time she stayed so focused!

2. Abby has been working on her counting skills. A month ago, she could only count to 2. Now, her counting sequence goes more like this 1,2,3,5,6,8,9! I don't know if she's afraid to try and say 4 and 7, but she sits there and waits for me to say them before moving on to the next number. Totally adorable!

3. We have accepted an offer on our house!!!!! It's not quite what we were hoping for, but it will do! We are so happy to finally be able to move on with our lives and not have to worry about that house anymore. We loved living there, but when you keep paying for a place you're not living in anymore, you get to where you almost hate it. We are scheduled to close on the house on the 27th of June, so it should be out of our hands by the end of the month (knock on wood!).

Reasons to Smile

Okay, so I said I wouldn't be very good at this, so you can't get mad at me for not writing more often. My little girls know how to make me smile without even trying. Last night, we put the kids in bed and left them alone until we were ready to go to bed. That's not an unusual thing to do, right? Well, when Travis and I went in to check on them, we found Abby curled up in Kaity's bed with her body stuffed under the pillow for a blanket, and Kaity was fast asleep as if if didn't bother her. I couldn't believe it! Kaity usually hates it when Abby tries to sleep in her bed. The best part.... we picked up the pillow to move Abby over to her own bed, and there was a bare bottom peeking back up at us! She wants to be so much like her sister that she thinks she doesn't need to have a diaper anymore either. When we left the room, Travis and I just busted up laughing. At least we were lucky enough that she didn't wet Kaity's bed!

Kaity loves to pretend like she's scared and I was lucky enough to get a picture of her doing it!

And, of course, Abby HAD to get her picture taken, since I had taken one of Kaity!

Travis' sister, Stacy, came to visit us last weekend along with her husband, Clay, and their four month old daughter Evie. We had a great time with them! We went out to a pond on base and rented some paddle boats. We were kind of bored with it at first.....then we had our water fight!! We were all totally soaked by the time we got out. Abby was the worst. But that's only because my poor little clumsy child leaned too far over the edge and went head first into the water! Luckily, we were all in life jackets, and Travis caught her pretty quickly, so she didn't go all the way in! She wasn't very happy about her little splash and stayed in her seat for most of the rest of the time we were out.

Recently, we visited our local zoo. As you can tell by the picture, it wasn't exactly the most exciting zoo we've ever been to. The girls were super tired and it was the hottest, stickiest day we've had. The thing that was exciting was that Kaity didn't have a single accident the entire time we were there. We made it to the potty in time every time. Unfortunately, the drive home was more than an hour, so we didn't make it all the way home in dry pants, but we sure were proud of her progress!

Potty Training

So, we have been working on the potty training thing with Kaitlyn for a while and she's finally doing really well. Well, now, everytime she sits on the toilet to make "hot water", as she calls it, Abby comes in to watch. She Kaity finishes, Abby starts to clap. =) Then, of course, she wants to have her turn to sit on the potty. So far, we haven't had any accidental successes with that yet, but maybe she will be easier to train than Kaity has been.

Our house in South Carolina has been on the market now for 7 months. We've received a few offers, but nothing has worked out. Either they have been too low for what we owe, or the bidders haven't been able to work out financing. I just wish we could get rid of that thing

One of Travis' friends was over this weekend and made the mistake of saying "crap" in front of Kaitlyn. She sat there for about five minutes just saying "Oh! Crap!" over and over again. We got her distracted for just a few minutes, but appearantly, it was long enough to make her forget the right way of saying the word. After that, it was "Oh! Crash!" I went along with it, so she never remembered that it was the wrong word. Sometimes their short attention spans are a blessing. lol

For Starters

I am terrible at this sort of thing. I have never been good at writing a journal or papers for school or anything else of this nature. So, this will either remind me of how bad I am at this.....or I could get lucky and this will help me get better. So, what's new in the Boxley's life? One of Travis' friends from when he was in the Marines has been offered a job here at Fort Polk, so he is visiting for the weekend while he gets his paperwork and drug testing done. It's been really great to have him here. It's really neat how we are all able to pick things right up where we left off with no "weirdness" even though we haven't seen each other in three years. It will be a lot of fun to have so many of our old friends living in the same area and working in the same place. I can't wait till he and his wife actually move here!