Big Changes!

Man, what a busy few months we've had! Mike, Paisley and I are now living with Ree Ree and Papa for a few weeks due to the events that have occured recently. Today, we will say our last goodbyes to our first house. We were so thrilled to sell the house after it had been on the market for about 3 weeks, YAY!

Our Old House

So, Mike worked his tail off this past week to get everything packed up & moved out before school started today. Two PODS, 8 million trips back and forth to mom & dad's and lots of cleaning later, the house is finally empty. I must say, I had a very sad feeling being in the house without "us" in it... And with all of the memories of our first 5 years of marriage & first baby there, it is hard to leave.


However, in 2 weeks, we will gear up to move all of our stuff once again into a new house. The new house is less than 10 minutes away, but is closer to Ree Ree & Papa's house and still about the same distance away from the Grandmas' house. We are SO excited to make new memories in this house & make it our own.

Our New House

Paisley isn't really sure what in the world is going on. She's been with us at the old house with it empty & has said "bye bye" to her room. When you ask her about the new house, she says "moving in a few weeks"... :) and the last few days in the old house, as everything was slowly being packed up, she would go into her room and say "what happened to room??"


She's growing like a weed, and her vocabulary never ceases to amaze us. Mike told her it was time to get out of the bathtub the other night and she said, "no, I'm still playing". She's becoming quite the night owl lately too. When she goes down for the night around 8:30, sometimes she'll play and fidget in her crib until 9:30 or 10 at night before falling asleep. She must get that from Mike.



Other than moving, which can totally wreck all sense of 'normalcy', Paisley will start school on Sept. 11 at First Baptist Lewisville. She's excited & talks about school quite a bit. Mike's classes started today - he's taking 5 classes & is down to what will probably be his last year of classes before student teaching begins. It's Awesome.

First Movie

We took Paisley for her first movie theater experience today & chose the movie Up, since it was really the only one we thought she'd be somewhat interested in. Not knowing what to expect, we just decided to test it out and see how things would go.

To our surprise, we made it through the entire movie! She didn't say much at all, just sat in her seat between Mike and I and watched the big screen. What we learned today is she's not a big fan of popcorn, but does enjoy a good slurpee/icee and reese's pieces.

We had a good time & it was a really great low key family morning...

"I'm 2!!"

Paisley is very proud that she is 2, and if you ask, you'll know very quickly how old she is! So I can remember in a few years what you were up to at 2 years old Paisley, here's what life is like these days:

1. You know how to sing through your ABC's, with just a few improvisations during the "hard" parts like L M N O P.
2. You know your full name, although when you say it, you leave out a few syllables here and there and it usually comes out as "Pai Ree Gibswing". I think we'll call ourselves the "Gibswings" for a while b/c it's cute.
3. When you do throw a little fit when life doesn't go your way, you don't stay frustrated for long, and when you realize your behavior is not OK, you immediately say 'Sorry momma' or 'Sorry daddy'.
4. Like any 2 year old, you like to say no. But, you always say "no, okay", "no, okay"... I am not sure where this comes from.
5. You still sleep in your crib and love it. No attempts at climbing out yet. You're still not a deep sleeper.
6. You love to take showers. We could leave you in our shower for a LONG time and you'd be happy playing with your toys, just filling up legos with water and pouring it out... We do, of course, supervise.
7. You like to eat "snacks". You'll get up from the table after dinner and say to mommy "time snack?". We've got to work on this one - you know, eating your meals so you aren't hungry right after dinner.
8. You've got a sweet tooth - especially for ice cream. When you see a picture of ice cream on a puzzle or coloring book or something, you say in a really loud voice, "mmmmmm, ICE CREAM".
9. You LOVE your Grandmas and your Ree Ree. Since you spend one day a week with each of them right now, you pretty much know the way to their houses by heart, know exactly where we are when we pull up, and you probably know exactly what you can get away with at each of their homes. Your Papas (Mike and Doug) are pretty special too.
10. You REALLY dislike getting your teeth brushed right now. You want to brush your teeth all the time, but only if YOU are doing it... :) It is a big struggle, but hopefully we'll get through this soon.
11. Life is immeasurably better with Paisley in our family. These 2 years have been so incredible, I can't wait to see what God has in store for this year of your life sweet girl!

Can you believe how tall she is? I did one of those silly height predictors & it said she was going to be 5'7'' based on her height and weight now - who knows. I have a feeling she's going to surpass me for sure.
Paisley loves all things Dora and Diego right now, so we decided to do a Dora birthday party for her. A local bakery in Plano did this cake for her - it turned out so cute! She loved it. We also had a bounce house courtesy of one of our family friends, but it ended up being just too hot for any of the kids to play on it.

Mike is wrapping up his summer school classes right now & will have a short break before getting back into it for the fall semester. He's taking 5 classes, 2 of which have labs, so he'll be in Denton on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 10-12 hours. So proud of him!!

Paisley is going to be starting school as well at First Baptist Lewisville after Labor Day. She'll go 2 days a week from 9:30 to 2:30. Mike and I are really excited for her. She seems to be the type that will excel in school, so it will be good for her to have this extra exposure to other kids & lots of learning.

Other than that, with a house on the market, much of our time is spent keeping the house clean, rearranging our schedule for the occasional showings, and praying for a buyer - if the time is really right for us to make a move. If we do end up selling the house, we won't be moving far. When we bought this house, we intended to be here for about 5 years, and we want Paisley to be in a different set of schools when she gets to that age.

Praising God for such a healthy, happy 2 year old & looking forward to all of the ways Paisley will continue to enrich our lives.

Love you all!!

Happy 2nd Birthday & all the other stuff we've been doing in the last 2 months!

We've been totally lax in updating the Paisley blog... total bummer, or in the words of Paisley, "BUNNER DUDE"... Funny :). Here's what we've been up to:
...Returned home from vacation at the end of May...
...Mike started summer school with several classes- a very heavy load considering it's the summer session...
...Bumped along in June with few pictures to document what we were up to... I am not sure I remember...
...Decided to put our house on the market & in the process (and with the help of lots of family) put down about 800 square feet of new flooring...
...Celebrated Paisley's 2nd birthday! (the most important part of the whole span of time)...
So here are a few photos of our time this summer... (in the opposite order in which they actually occurred since Blogger is irritating like that...)

The weekend before Paisley's birthday we took her to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe and then to the DORA Live!! show at Nokia Theater. That was part of her birthday present from mom & dad. She LOVED the Rainforest Cafe, and here she and I are playing with the cool butterfly balloon creature someone made her.

During the fourth of July weekend, we put down new flooring in almost the entire downstairs area of the house to prepare to get it on the market. Fun times. My mom and dad, Mike's dad and both of my brothers (and sister too) helped us out more than we could have imagined. It was a huge job, but it got done, looks great, and we are oh so glad we are now finished with it. Here's a picture of the new floor going down.

And here's a quick look at what we were ripping up.

Paisley decided she wanted to wear ALL her bows. She's not a huge fan of bows & it's a real battle for me to get her to keep a bow in for any extended period of time. She says a lot in the mornings when we are getting ready, "wear a bow today?", but she's just kidding... she doesn't REALLY want to wear that perfectly cute bow I would have picked out just for the outfit she was wearing that day...

Here's Pais with her Uncle Devon. She adores her Uncle Devon, as you can see here. She loves that he is so tall and throws her up in the air and tickles her and gives her big bear hugs and kisses. She loves her Uncle Ian this much as well, just don't have any picture proof. I think they might like her a little bit too... This is one of my favorite things about my siblings as a mom - it is just amazing how much they love her & care for her. It's awesome.

Birthday pictures to come... :)

Vacation, Last Day!

Our last day was spent at the beach & pool. It was a great end to our trip. Nothing exciting to report, lots of lazy time spent reading, sand-castle making, cheeto eating, etc. getting ready to come on home.

Paisley had several large strawberries at lunch, and her face and bathing suit got their fair share of juice. 

We went out to the beach that night to see what we could catch with the net. Paisley caught lots of shells and Mike caught a crab. 


It turned out to be a great week after once crazy start. Back to work tomorrow for Mom, and back to the normal routine for Mike and Pais until class starts next week. Bye for now! 
 

Vacation, Day 5

We took a break from the water on Monday morning and visited a local zoo. Paisley had a good time, enjoyed getting to feed some of the animals and listening to what had to have been the loudest donkey ever. She's admiring the ducks here
Once the sun was headed down, we got our suits on and headed down for some more fun in the water. 


Paisley and Mike got in the pool Monday night as well - the water had been a little too cold, but it was warming up as we wrapped up our trip. This particular pool had a zero entry, so Pais could play by herself in more than half of it. 
She thoroughly enjoyed the fountains

Day 4, Video