Long time no post..

Man... our stinkin camera won't upload photos right now, so I have been putting posting off for awhile... but our camera still isn't working. I guess you'll just have to imagine my kids being adorable! Not too hard to do..right?

For thanksgiving Ben's parents came into town, and we had so much fun. We started their trip off with a trip down to Galveston, which is still pretty much destroyed from the hurricane. But it is right on the coast, boasting a wonderful beach. Don't think white sand beach, think rocky awesome beach covered and I mean covered with glorious shells. We have never seen anything like it! Bonnie and Bob were amazed with it.. and we all couldn't stop collecting awesome shells. After that we spent some time at the Houston Space Center.. which was very cool, but not so fun with kids. We spent the rest of the week just hanging out. Bob and Ben got their man duty on and fixed a whole bunch of stuff, including rebuilding our backyard fence. It's beautiful. They also reorganized our garage, which doesn't look like the hurricane that anymore. Nice work Men! It was so incredible to have family stay in our first home.. it helps make it feel more like home when you are with family.

We planned on surprising Bonnie and Bob with the pregnancy news, but me barfing on the way home in some random neighbors yard.. kind of made it seem like something was up. I usually try not to barf at all normally..but from some reason pregnancy does that to me! So while they were eating yummy chick-fil-a, Ben gave Bonnie the picture of our little nugget and told them that's why I am not partaking of the yummy food. They were both very happy and still somewhat surprised!

For Christmas we made last minute plans to go to San Fransisco, where my sister lives. My Mom and Dad will be there too... Ben and I can't hardly wait to get out and maybe have a date or two! Nothing like instant babysitters!! My sister lives a few blocks from the beach, so that's where we'll be for the Christmas week! Not too bad.

My pregnancy is going really well. I mostly get sick at night, so I really can't complain.My due date is June 29th! For the most part the nausea is going away, and I am feeling pretty good. (knock on wood)

We really wanted to get out Christmas cards, but yeah right...

We are all wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
(This is where a cute family photo will hopefully go sometime soon)

Party Of Five

Yep... We've got another one of these cookin'!!

I am 9 weeks along and I have my good days and bad with preggo sickness.

We are all so excited... Abby thinks she pregnant with five babies, so she totally gets it!

National Toy Hall of Fame

So here's one for you, and I thought it was worth taking 15 minutes out of my morning to post this...

I was listening to the Rula and Ryan show on the radio on my way in to work this morning, and they were talking about the National Toy Hall of Fame. On November 6th, they announced three more toys had been inducted because they have "engaged and delighted multiple generations, inspiring them to learn, create, and discover through play." The criteria for induction includes: Icon Status, Longevity, and Innovation. To date, there are 41 toys that have been inducted, including the Yo-Yo, Frisbee, G.I. Joe, Legos, Play-Doh, Slinky, Roller Skates, Silly Putty, and the Easy Bake Oven.

So, what were this years' inductees? There were three altogether:

The Skateboard

-Tony Hawk, you're just playing with toys.

The Baby Doll

This is fine as long as it doesn't pee, poop, burp, or cry at/on me.

And finally, Drum roll please:

The Stick

So let's hear it for the stick! If you think about it, it totally makes sense. Great food, like Corn Dogs and Kabobs come on sticks, you can bond with man's best friend by playing "fetch" with a stick. You can use a stick to go fishing with, or to support you while hiking. Truly, the stick is totally amazing. Do you have any great memories of playing with sticks when you were younger (sling shots, hot dog roasts, sword fights, gun battles, etc.)? Or do you have any ideas of toys that should be nominated for the Toy Hall of Fame?

If I may boast....

Yep.. that's right my chili won best overall at my ward trunk or treat party. I was shocked!! There really is no rhyme or reason to my "recipe"... I just dumped a whole bunch of stuff in and hoped it would taste good!! Oh man it felt good to win... especially being the new girl in town : )

Fall Festivities

Here are just a few pictures from our fun fall activities. Abby loved making the caramel apples, and she really loved cutting into a pumpkin. Mac and Ben dressed up as lumberjacks for our ward trunk or treat even though it was 80 degrees! Abby of course was spiderman.

Calling her out

Today while eating lunch at the ever delicious Chick-fil-a ( if you haven't ever eaten there... do!) celebrating Abby's first day of preschool... we encountered a bully!!! After we ate our lunch we all went into the little play area. Abby loves it here.. so she is in heaven, but I was a little bit perturbed with the other moms in the restaurant because they just dump their kids in the play area and then go sit and chat it up with other moms. I am kinda anti dumping off the kids.. simply because I want to know what's going on. So we are just playing around having a good time.. and then enters the bully. Of course her mother just dumped her off... and she was instantly devilish! She was even pushing over little babies.. that's too much! After a little while of the taunting, hitting, and yelling by the little girl, I was getting a little upset. So I probably shouldn't have but I kept watching the little girl and telling her not to hit anymore and to apologize to the children she has hurt/yelled at. She gets all rude and I am thinking to myself... where is your mother?? Why isn't she watching you? Why are you such a little brat?? Pretty soon she gets out of control and I decide to go rat her out!! I know I know I'm such a tattle.. but it was too much. So I walk out and find her mom and totally call the little girl out. It actually felt really good. I tried to be as nice as possible to the woman.. but I still really wanted to emphasize that her daughter was a little fart! But now I feel kinda bad and mean... So now I am wondering if I did the right thing? Am I horrible?? Would you as parents have done the same thing??

Worthless Baracade

This is my useless attempt to keep Mac from climbing up the stairs. I am not prepared for him as well as I thought... is it just him or do all little boys learn how to climb weeks after learning how to walk???

Abby totally eggs it on though.....

Learning Young

There are no words for McConnell's cuteness...

R.I.P Oak Tree

Here are little more details about the happenings of Hurricane Ike. Like I said it was quite scary for me. I think the worst part was that it hit at night... nothing is really fun in the dark... well you know what I mean! The noise was unreal... at any point it sounded like all of the windows in the house would break open and the furious winds would be in the house with us. I stayed up all night listening to the radio, just hoping for the best. I prayed all night. I take it back the worst part wasn't that it hit at night, the worst part was worrying about my sweet little innocent children. I could just envision all the horrible things that this storm would bring, and I couldn't bear the thought of them getting hurt... yes that was the hardest part. I am still pretty sad about my gorgeous oak tree blown over... it was the only shade we had in our HUGE backyard, but oh well we'll just plant a new one and wait another 15 years for it to grow as big as ours once was. Eghh... what's 15 years?? We are still waiting for our insurance adjuster to come and access the damage. Hopefully we don't have to pay too much out of pocket. On a crazy note.. the farmers almanac predicted Ike, and it also is predicting another one to hit Houston on October 10th. Oh man... are you kidding me?? This wasn't the best year to move to Houston apparently!

On a good note the weather here is fantabulous! (that's a word) The nights are especially gorgeous. We are still LOVING our new home, I acutally just redecorated our master bedroom, and we love it! Abby and Mac are wonderful. Abby has a lot of new adorable friends, and she can't wait to start preschool in two weeks! McConnell has been sick, but still just as cute. He gives me good little kisses...and if I can say this without being self-absorbed..I think he really loves me. Here's a cute Abby moment :

Abby wanted to put something into the microwave, so she pulled over a chair and tried to open the microwave.....here's her convo with the microwave. *she didn't know that I was watching her from the stairs*

"open saysme" (like sesame)

"open saysme"

"open saysme"

(The microwave magically opens!!)*I have no idea how this happened!!!*

" Hey it worked!!!!"

Oh she's too fun and cute for words. The pure joy on her face when it opened was too much! I love her!

We survived IKE

We safely survived Ike with just a few damages to the home. Currently we have no power, but our good neighbors brought over their generator for us to use and a small a/c unit. Our big georgous oak tree blew over and knocked down our other pine tree next to it taking the side fence out with it. We think we might have a crack in our foundation because water has been seeping up from the ground soaking/ruining our beautiful carpet in the formal dining room and living room so we just pull up 20 feet of the damaged carpet and padding. We lost some shingles on the roof but nothing major. As far as riding out the hurricane it was a horrible experience for Allison, she stayed up all night while Ben, Abby and Mac slept soundly. It sounded like a train was going to rip through our house at any mintue, but all and all we are safe, healthy, and just a little unconfortable due to Texas heat. We are thankful for wonderderful neighbors and friends.

Hunckerin' Down for Ike!

As most of you know Houston is preparing for Hurricane Ike. This is quite the deal! Being so new to all of this, I think that we are doing pretty well for ourselves. Right now we are just preparing the house as much as we can and I can safely say that we are prepared to our best abilities. Thank goodness I have my wonderful husband... he's so cool, calm, and collected about this whole thing, that it really helps out with my nerves. We also are blessed with good neighbors, friends, and wonderful ward members that are prepared to help us out. We are just hoping and praying that the windows don't bust out and that we aren't out of power for too long. But if we are out of power for a few weeks... I would happily eat a PB&J for every meal...and be perfectly content! Are diet still in effect when you don't have power? Oh yeah and if we ended up needing a new roof.. that would actually be really nice.

So if you wouldn't mind praying for us this night, we would really love that. The worst part of the hurricane will hit in the early morning... about 2am. We could always use prayers : ) We'll be fine... I have faith.

Happy 1st Birthday McConnell!

I can't believe you're one already.. I know everyone always says that.. but it's so true. This last year has really flown by. You are just the sweetest little boy. Some of our favorite things about you include:

-Your never ending smile
-Your silly little laugh (he laughs whenever he hears someone else laughs)
-The way you walk and talk
-How you worship your lovey
-How much you love to play by yourself
-How you love to throw yourself on top of pillows and blankets laying on the ground
-How you throw your balls all around the house
-How much you sleep at night!

His birthday celebration wasn't much. Actually it was pretty sad not having a party for him..but oh well it's not like he'll remember it! He loves to watch us vacuum, so we thought his own vacuum would be the perfect gift, and he thought the same. Ben made the gusty move to try to make his cake, and it didn't turn out so well. Ben was using Fondant (homemade) for the first time...and it turned out good at first, but then after sitting for a few hours the cake literally fell apart. Ben was clearly disappointed with himself, but he was clever enough to make Mac an extra cake just in case the cake was horrible. Thank goodness for that! All and all it was a fun birthday, Mac really enjoyed the rainbow chip frosting...Yep he's definitely my son!

Small but simple things....

can make a world full of difference.

My heart aches for this family. I recently fell upon this family's story while doing some blogging of my own, and now I'm hooked. Their story is one of tragedy and full of hope. Husband and Wife Christian and Stephanie Nielson and their flight instructor were in an airplane accident, and they are both badly burned and are currently in the hospital in critical care. Their flight instructor passed away shortly after in the hospital. Stephanie has burns over 80% of her body and her husband has burns over 30% of his body. Christain actually just started talking today..which is amazing. I am not doing their story justice so look it up and see for yourself.(look on my sidebar-Nie Recovery) They have four adorable children... too adorable for words. I don't know Stephanie, but through her blog.. I have come to love her. She is just the best person.. so fun and loving. I can't stop asking myself all throughout the day... "How can I help her family? Can I make a small difference..can I raise money for them somehow? What can I do?" I can't stop thinking about them, I need to help them.

So this is my call out to all of you amazing readers of the Wischmeier Words. Read their story and help make a difference. I am thinking about starting up my own Esty store and selling baby blankets and other crafts and donating all my profits to her family... that's my idea for now... We'll see if I can sell anything!!

I hope and pray that they can recover quickly so they can get back with their children and their beaufitul lives can continue on together. God Bless and keep them.

Mac's first hair cut

The before:


The During:




The After:


Seriously, what a cute kid. He was so good the whole five minutes, of course the toothbrush helped out a lot. And he is currently training for the 2012 Olympic swimming team.... we're hopeful.

"HAVE MERCY!!"...and some home improvements!

I'm thinking "Have Mercy" is the quote of the day in the Wischmeier household! (Isn't that what Jessie used to say on Full House?) This morning started off a little bit crazy because three handymen were in our house doing some work for us, and that's always a little bit awkward for me. I guess I just don't feel 100% comfortable with complete strangers in my master bedroom, but I got over it. I have been trying to look busy, but it wasn't working.So I needed to go to the hardware store and pickup some things, I get the kids all ready in their seats, and the battery is dead! ARGG!! So the nice men help me out and jump my car, but apparently we have a funky battery so it took quite some time to figure out how to jump the thing, and then after it was running, we couldn't figure out how to get the hood to shut properly!! And 30 minutes later we were on the road. Mean while Little Mac is not feeling so hot, and he's super grumpy, so that's fun. We get home and things are going fine until I start the washing machine and it starts leaking all over the place... even into the kitchen... Oh man I don't want to deal with this!! Mac is super clingy and Abby is yelling at me to get her something... mean while I am on my hands and knees trying to keep the water in control. I shouldn't be complaining, I know that 100 other things could have gone wrong today, but the days not over, so we'll see.

On a good note, we have been doing some fun home improvements. We hired those handymen to come and install our pretty french doors, making a previous random open space into a fifth bedroom/guestroom. We love the final result, but we still have to paint them. We also have painted our laundry room. We painted it Hot Orange...and I LOVE it! It was quite the task to paint with the kids, but we got it done. Life is good in Houston, lately it's been pretty raining and not nearly as hot...thank the good man above!

Hurricane Schmericane

Hurricane Edouard was headed our way, but really the only thing that happened was lots and lots of rain. Pheww.. I am thankful nothing else happened. We were prepared though (at least for the most part)

So Abby and I decided to go play in the rain puddles and it was actually pretty fun.

Abby's Funny

Abby: Mom come here I have something to show you!!
Mom: Oh my goodness.... (laughing hysterically)

Costumes

There was a pretty good sale at a children's consignment store near by and we scored some sweet costumes for the kids. Their Aunt Jessica also brought the kids some costumes too... so I can safely say we are ready for Halloween!

Twlight Series

One word sums up the last week of my life: OBSESSED!!!

I started reading the first book (then the second, then the third) in the series and I was instantly hooked! I have never read a book this fast... Ben is seriously worried that I am going to run off in desperate search of a vampire named Edward. Don't worry Ben, this is just a phase in my life... I promise I'll stop talking about Bella and Edwards relationship soon.... that is until I get the fourth book!! If you haven't read these books, it's a must! Just a warning though, you'll get hooked and you won't be able to read the books fast enough!

Got my hair did!

I did it... I finally built up the courage to go for it..and I love it!

Summer Fun

We have really been enjoying our community pool!

We also really love the after affect of the pool on the kids! She's Pooped!!

Stella the Dog

I have realized that I haven't posted pictures of our adorable little puppy. She's a Soft Wheaton Terrier, and she's about 3 months old. She adores the kids and loves to run around in the backyard. She especially enjoys running through the sprinklers! I don't have the best picture of her yet, but here's one where Mac is taunting her from inside the laundry room and the first one is when Abby and Mom and Dad were playing outside and Mac and Stella felt lonely!