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!

This Week in Ormsonville

We've had an exciting week here in Houston. Okay, I guess that's not exactly true, but we had a lot of fun at least!

Even though Teik is the baby brother, his bully side came out this week as he wrestled Sevy down. He felt bad after awhile and tried to console her tears.
Sevy thought it would be fun to have a slumber party with Teik and was a good mommy by covering him with her blanket and then trying to snuggle with him. He didn't know what was going on and just stared at us for help!

While we were getting ready to head out on Saturday, I stuck him in the highchair and he was loving that. He cracks me up by randomly laughing at his own secret inside joke. He was officially 3 months old so maybe that's what he was so excited about.
Never will a 2 year old seem so big until you stick them side by side with a 3 month old. Teik is a big kid, and looks like a little mini-me next to Sevy. She just LOVES him though!

Candice-these are for you. Apparently to Jon, I've started looking like Nanny McPhee. I didn't know if I should take that as a compliment . . . It's probably a good thing Jon's going to be a dentist!

And now poor Teik's teeth are coming in a little Matorish-like. He even is getting the "shifty" eyes. I don't know if this should concern me or not . . .

We found free tickets to the Children's Museum of Houston for Saturday. Sevy and I were going to make it a girl's day out since Jon had to get his car looked at, but the Midas people were going to take longer than expected, so it turned to a family outing! We were thankful to have Teik's carrier in the car (one of these days we'll get a decent one), and monkey backpack, because we had no strollers with us. It turned out way fun for free. Sevy loved climbing in all the cars they had. It really wasn't too little kid friendly, but we lasted just over an hour and were out of their anyway. We take advantage of the free days at the museums around town because the temperment of a 2 year old is iffy! The zoo is definetely worth the membership, and with free parking, I don't feel bad about taking the kids their for only an hour before it gets too hot, and I get too cranky! It's fun being here with so many opportunities to check out with the kids.

And We're Back!

We thought we'd just update on our life. As everyone knows, Ike hit and we were in Dallas (thankfully!). We came back to Houston last Monday and as luck would have it, our car decided that this would be the day to give up the ghost (battery). So, we bought a new battery and jumper cables while everyone else was buying water and gas. We made it home and had no power, but we did have water, so life really could have been worse! Our house survived with barely a scratch! We were lucky to have friends that offered their apartment to us while they bailed town, and we thankfully accepted! Power came back Wednesday night sometime, so Thursday we moved back home. As luck would have it, we weren't even home an hour when Sevy decided to stick a metal baby spoon in a socket and blew the fuse. Of course it was the fuse to our refrigerator, because what else could go wrong! She was lucky that the spoon had a plastic end, because that would have given her quite a shock! We still didn't have internet until today, so this is why I'm so behind! We really are lucky though because there are still a lot of people without power or with major damage done to their homes.

This is one of the main reasons we bailed town. This is Sevy sweating at like 9am. My kiddos sweat something fierce and we knew we would lose power and I feared both my kids would melt if we stayed.

This is the neighborhood across the street from us. Check out the waving fences.

This house is just a few houses down from ours. Their back fence did not make it at all.

This house is across the street from us. Most the trees in Houston and Pearland look like this. The most common downed trees are huge, which is probably why so many people are still without power. Trees probably did the most damage to power lines. The other freaky thing was billboards. Huge metal ones were twisted and on buildings and apartments. I wish I got a picture of that.

This is Sevy's BFF. The Polls joined us at the Martin's house because they too did not have power and she is due like any day. We ended up with 8 people in a fairly small 2 bedroom apartment, but we had power and A/C so no complaints!

Sevy played herself ragged at Aunt Judy's house in Dallas. She and Taylor (they are 2nd cousins) played non-stop for like 3 days straight! Thanks to Taylor, Sevy has some sweet toys!

Here is the spoon, outlet, and nightlight Sevy decided to destroy. She did a good job at it. We haven't tried using that outlet again--is it safe to with char marks on it like that, or should we just avoid it from here on out?

This is Sevy being a great big sister to Teikerton. It's a rare moment to get the two of them sitting together and happy. These next three pictures are mainly for my mom. Teik is smiling more and more and giggles now too! It's so funny and he just brightens my day with one of his big toothless dimply grins!

Update

Post Ike, I'm happy to say our house made it in flying colors. I'll post pictures one day of what happened to our neighborhood and the neighborhood across the way, and it was like our house was not touched!  We have running water, which is more than most, but we do not have power, and according to the power company's website, we probably won't get power until after next Monday.  Rock on.  Jon's school was canceled for a week, so we are staying at his classmate's house who went to DC for the week.  We are "housesitting" their apartment for them, which is our way of saying that we are staying at their place because they have power!  We are so thankful for them!  We finally found internet (another lost luxury) at Schlotzky's, so we may try to visit here maybe more often until we get something.  Anyhoo-we are good and thank everyone for their prayers in our behalf! Now if everyone could pray that we might get power soon, we'll be in business!

Our Hurricane Highlight

We sat and watched the weather channel all night to find out what was happening in Houston. The highlight of the whole event,

when during the Beaumont update, a streaker made his television debut! I don't know how to put video on my blog from youtube

(yeah, I'm technologically challenged) but here is the link. It was even better watching it live!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPCetg-uNHk

Our friends that stayed told us that they lost power last night at like 6pm and that as of this morning, their fence was down, and

some water got in their house, but no flooding. This is making us hopeful. I'm hoping we can get down there soon to find out

how our house made out. We'll keep ya posted on when we can head back and when we get the power back to actually update.

Hurricane Ike

Just so everyone knows, we have evacuated Houston to hopefully avoid much of Ike.  We are staying at Jon's Aunt Judy's house and are so thankful to have her willing to take our family in!  Please keep us and our friends and our home in your prayers because frankly--Texas weather sucks!  I hate worrying about all of this.  We weren't in a mandatory evacuation, but we didn't want to wait until the last minute if they did evacuate us, or deal with power loss with the Houston humidity and two overly sweaty kids.  We'll keep ya posted!

BFF's

For those of you who don't know, when we got here to Houston, we learned that we did not belong to any ward. Oh no! We belonged to the teeny tiny Sunnyside Branch. This branch has about 30-34 people each Sunday, and yes, my little family counts as 4 of those numbers. Well, young families are slim pickings (meaning there are like 3 of us) but miraculously, there are the Polls who have a daughter McKenzie who is like a week younger than Sevy. This would just be a nice coincidence if the kids were just okay with each other, but this turned out to be perfect because these girlies turned into best friends the first time they met. They can play for hours and the only time tears errupt is when it's time to go home. They balance each other out and are just hilarious to watch. Our branch's boundries are huge and yet miraculously again, the Polls live in the neighborhood across from ours. Those girls play so quietly together, except at church where they like to laugh really loud or randomly break out in song! We are very happy to have such a great little friend for Sevy, but of course they are moving next year back to Utah. Of all the luck.

Hurricane Gustav

We finally managed to escape Tornado Alley just to land ourselves in hurricane country. Go figure. This weekend we had the excitement of waiting to learn if Gustav was heading in our direction. We waited for the word of evacuation and kept a steady eye on the weather channel. I was freaking out, but I really do think it was for the best. The church has been telling us forever about food storage and 72 hour kits. Jon and I always talked about putting at least a kit together, but never did it until this weekend! Packing a kit that is kid friendly is interesting. I think 3 days would be our limit! We hit up Sam's and grabbed granola bars, Slimfast, fruit snacks, jerkey, water, gatorade, and other random snacks that if we had to hit the road with the other 3 million people we share this town with, we could keep Sevy content! I had a bag packed, a box of diapers ready, and the best first aid kit you have ever seen! We were overly thankful that in the end, we were going to be fine! In fact, when I woke up this morning, I was expecting at least a horrible wind and rain storm, only to find blue skies! It's been breezy and beautiful! At least we are now prepared for the rest of hurricane season!

A day late . . .

I'm a day late on this, but, Happy Anniversary to us! It's been four long/quick years and it's crazy how much we've grown, shrunk, smartened (is that even a word?) up, dumbied down, changed our hair, changed our location, gotten a game plan on life, and had two amazingly adorable children! We claimed the Dave Matthews tickets were are anniversary gift to each other, and then went out to eat last night in celebration--of course with both kiddos in tow! The day we celebrate our anniversary with just the two of us with be a great day indeed! We make fun of our newlywed friends for being overly lovey-dovey, but to be honest, I'm pretty sure I'm more in love now than I was 4 years ago! It's just too hard to be all over each other in public when you have a destructo two year old and a screaming newborn! Love you Jon Jon!

Keep in your prayers . . .

While blog hopping through my family's blogs, I found this story. A week or so ago my cousin's friends were in a plane crash. They are both badly burned and in critical condition. Their four kids were thankfully not with them. If anyone could just keep this family in your prayers, that would be great. From personal experience, nothing is worse than seeing your parent badly burned or hurt from a plane (or any, I guess) wreck. This link has more details about it.

Some Major Events

This past weekend Jon's folks and Kris came down to hang with us and to attend Jon's White Coat ceremony. Well, we decided to start of the weekend with a bang by letting Nancy and Kerry watch the kids as Jon, Kris and I went to The Dave Matthews Band concert in the Woodlands! As always, the concert was amazing and I'm not even a true DMB fan! Jon and I post concert--they would not allow us to bring in camera's, and we were good and obeyed.

The three of us at the concert. I know it's blurry, but I thought it was the best one of the three of us. Yeah-Kris is shirtless. It was really hot even though it was outdoors and over at 11pm and rained like mad all day. Houson has fascinating weather.

For those that do not know, Teik's first name is Kristian, named after his uncle Kris. They even share the same initials KTO. The ironic thing is, he looks less like Kris than any of the other nieces and nephews have. Go figure.
So here are the boys. I just want you to take a close look at Teik. Um . . . he looks possessed. I was going to fix the red eyes, but it cracked me up that he looked like Jack Jack on the Incredibles.

Imagine this Jack Jack being angry--right before explosive firey Jack Jack.

Saturday they had a White Coat ceremony where they don the incoming dental class with their white coats. The speeches were fairly boring, but the history of the dental school and the medical area in Houston was really rad. You should google it. I thought Jon was HOT in his white coat! The cool thing was his fellow students who had family members that were dentists got to get their coats put on by them. One guys wife got to do the honors. The cutest in my opinion was a girl whose grandpa and sister did the honors. Very cool.
And here is Jon on the morning of his first day of dental school! He has to leave at like 7am, but luckily he just wears scrubs everyday, so it's not like he has to pick out an outfit. This picture also records the first day of my 4 year widowdom. I'm fortunate that he chose dental school and not medical school because 4 years is a lot better than 8!