It's Grandma time!

It was time for James to go back home so Becky came to share his last week here.

We celebrated Ivy's birthday a few days early so that they would not miss it.

Ivy was of course happy as can be!

And poor Jed was sleepy as can be. We finally covered him in Ivy's presents.

Astrid having her hair fixed by someone who has skills far beyond my own.

I think Becky had fun doing the girls hair.

What do you think about the red eye fix in this picture?

I don't know but i think it makes her look slightly...scary?

She was sucking in all the attention like a rainwater in the desert sand. You would think no one ever noticed her or something.

Most of our bicycle helmets were dead so ivy got a fancy Dora one. Even came with knee pads!

Time for thank you hugs!

Ivy gleefully opening her presents.

Look at all the water bottles in the background.

Our water here in Pflugerville has lime and calcium in it and actually leaves a white coating on stuff.

When the twins were small and we had to boil their bottles every time we wanted to use them, we had a pot on the stove constantly. When we cleaned a bottle we just put it in the pot and when it got a few in it we would boil it. Since all we put in it was water and clean bottles we did not bother to was the pot. After a few days the layer of residue from the water that stuck to the sides every time we boiled the water was building up enough that you could scrape a bunch of and it looked like toothpaste. So we do not drink the water here. We used to filter our own water but the filters only lasted about a third of the time they were supposed to and it just got really expensive. So now we buy the water and as long as the bottles are good we take them to the store and refill them with the culligan water filtration system there. It costs about 27 cents a gallon. I've gotten used to the oddness of getting your drinking water from the store. Every now and then I still marvel at the fact that we actually go through all this trouble to get water from the store when we have it running right out of the tab.

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug.

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug.

Getting presents make people hug a lot!

Everyone wins!