What a Weekend!

Sorry-We are going to start with a last weekend flashback of what we passed on our way to stake conference in a city far far away from where we live. Okay, like 30 minutes, but it took us an hour to get there. It's pretty, yet random to go over a bridge like this. Alright, and now for our random weekend. We invaded Silverlake's Ward trunk-or-treat Friday night and for the record, this is what my kids were supposed to wear:

Teik as the ever lovable purple dragon.

Sevy as the ever beautiful butterfly.
Well, plans don't work when a two-year old strikes. So instead of two costumes on two kids, we got two costumes on one angry kiddo. (This is Sevy's bff Makenzi as the perfect Ariel. Too cute!) The funny thing about our happy dragon, is that we've seen it on Sevy before. Two years ago to be exact . . .
It's fascinating that it still fits. Maybe next year Teik can wear it . . .
After the trunk-or-treating--where like every holiday, Sevy freaked out--we went over to our friends' the Polls so Teik and bff Jaxson could hang out! It's amazing the difference 3 months is as a baby! This is Teik in his costume . . . oh wait . . . that's right . . . Sevy was wearing it.

Saturday we decided to take the kids to Zoo Boo because it was suppose to be super cool. I attacked Sevy to get her into her leotard and to get her hair fixed and packed up the rest of her costume and a pair of pants and we were off. We got to the zoo and it is packed and crazy and I don't deal well with crowds, so we gave up on that one. We then decided to make the most of the day and visit north Houston where all the hockey shops seem to be located. Well, Houston is like it's own weird world. We get off the freeway to find a gas station--usually located at any exit--when we have to drive for like five miles to find anywhere that might have a phonebook. We get ready to pull into a pawn shop where right before we turn we notice police tape, a medical examiner's van, and a detective. Great. So we drive a little farther and see a gas station. When we go to turn in we discover this:
Wow, thank you Ike. (If you notice, part of Food Town's roof is missing also). So Jon goes into an Autozone next door where the only phonebook they have is all in spanish. Then back to this hazard gas station to find the addresses to a few hockey stores. We stick in the addresses into our GPS where it takes us on another exciting adventure past industrial areas and this:
non-climbable water tower right next to a bunch of major power lines. And then all of the sudden we are like in any normal city area with a mall and various shopping centers and restaraunts. While driving on a road passing the mall we see this guy:
Seriously? A horse policeman in Houston? Okay. Whatever. And then we pass this interesting bike:

It is longer than the car pulling it. We really thought we'd seen everything possible this day! The trip ended up being pretty much a bust, minus the random site-seeing! We got home in time for me to go to a girl's night out and Jon kept Sevy with him where she quickly knocked out!
But only after she put back on her dragon costume! Yeah, for the record, we were out in public with a child in plaid pants, a pink leotard stained with ketchup and crazy hair, because she cannot keep anything I do to it for more than 10 minutes! I will never judge a parent ever again! Houston has definitely proved to be quite the adventure for us!

Our Disney Mission

Hey! After years of purchasing Disney movies, we have decided we are going to start collecting the Disney Rewards points and try to get something cool. We've thrown away sooo many reward cards and are basically starting at ground zero. Here is where we are hoping others can help. If you have Disney movies and no intentions of using the Reward codes, can you please send them our way?! Being poor eternal college kids, we would love to eventually earn enough points to take the kids to Disneyland! We realize this may take years regardless, but what a fun thing to look forward to! The codes are on there own page on the inside of any Disney DVD case. We always tossed them (we even just bought Sleeping Beauty and threw that one away), and now realize this is yet another point earning potential that we love. Please email codes to:

ormsonfamily@gmail.com

We will keep everyone posted on our valiant efforts!

Current Points: 700

Points Needed: 22000

P.S. Check out any old cases for codes and think of us during Christmas!

Why I Love Being a Mom

This morning has been fun just hanging out with the kids and doing some crafts. We decided Sevy needed her toes repainted and she picked out her favorite florescent pink polish for her toes and a soft pink for her fingers. Then being the independent two year old that she is, she decided she needed to paint my toes a lovely purple sparkly. For a girl who can't color in the lines, she's not too bad at painting toes! (Sidenote: I picked the blurry picture because frankly, after two foot surgeries and countless scars and ant bites, my feet aren't the cutest things to see clearly.)

Favorite Sevy conversation this week:

Me: "Sevy, what to pig's say?"
Sevy: "I don't want to die!"

This also lead to walking around Hobby Lobby where they had pig decorations and Sevy declaring: "Mommy! Pig don't wanna die!"

Yeah, so the old school Charlotte's Web is one of her favorite movies. Great. The plus side is whenever she sees a spider she starts singing, "Chin Up, Chin Up!"

The End of an Era

So after 3 years in Utah and over 3 years in Texas, I have finally done the unthinkable, and gave up my Idaho license all because Houston is psycho about address changes. Jon got a ticket the day we evacuated for the hurricane and they busted him for not changing his address! What the?! Apparently, it's okay everywhere in the US to have a permanent address on your license as a student, but in Houston, no matter if you move every month, you have to keep your current address at all times on the sucker. Go figure. To get it changed is no picnic either. I'm used to going in and walking out with new card in hand in 10 minutes. In Houston, I stood in line for 2 hours until I finally got to talk to someone, spent 10 minutes filling out paperwork and getting my picture taken, and then waited another 1-2 weeks for my new license to be mailed to me. Holy cow. Now I know why I loved small town living so much!

What we love about the zoo!

Alright, this first picture is just of Teik, Sev and Cow. Teik got a Bumbo and he loves it and it makes Sevy jealous, so she thought that Cow should sit on the toilet while she sits in the middle. Anyhoo, I don't get it, but that's the innerworkings of a two year old for ya!

Now for the zoo. We decided to become members of the zoo when we moved here and it is so worth it! I go with the kids quite often, and Sevy loves it and Teik seems to like it also. The best part of going now, is the animals are more active now that it's cooled down to 85-90*. Yeah, not really a cooldown, but we sure see a lot more animals!

Sevy rides in the stroller while I have Teik in a carrier. She's actually really good about it (we only last an hour or two at the zoo, hence her being good about it). I think she likes it so much because I don't mind her messing with everything attached to the stroller. And, she usually gets snacks if she sits and behaves.

We always have to stop and see the giraffes and the elephants. They are Sevy's favorites and I like them too! This last week, the elephants were so cute and there were two groups of babies with their mommies. It was fun watching the baby, or "Teik" elephants (as Sevy likes to call them) pester their mom's and spin circles. It's funny to me how Sevy knows which elephants are the babies, when the babies are HUGE like their mom's. Just not as huge.

Sevy also has a new fascination of giraffes. I don't know when exactly this happened, but she loves them now. They are the first animals we go see every time and she could sit and watch them forever. I always forget just how tall giraffes are. We grew up watching "The God's Must be Crazy" and I remember the main dude running underneath the giraffe and it never really clicked how tall that made these animals. The zoo has a window to their house and you can see maybe up to their backs when they are close to the window. It's insane. Okay, enough about giraffes.

This last time we actually went to see the birds and we stopped to look at the flamingos. Wow, their's nothing cooler to a girl than PINK birds. Sevy was a fan and tried to mimic those, and actually all the birds we checked out! She's such a monkey!

For Halloween they have Zoo Boo and we are super excited to check that out! This is why we just love the zoo!