Alyssa's Ballet Recital

On November 10th, Alyssa danced in her first ballet recital. She was so cute! Her class danced at a festival at a nursing home in Winter Garden. We didn't know if she would dance or not because it was on an outdoor stage with a lot of people watching. So we told her she was dancing for the old people that were sick and that it would make them smile if she danced for them. She danced her heart out. Afterwards, we went out for ice cream to celebrate!

We are alive!

I didn't realize I had such a following in the blog world! I am so excited! So for all of you who do follow the Traugott family here is a family update!!!

Well, since my last post a lot of things have been going on in our family. Well, first there was Thanksgiving, then a big birthday party for the newest 1 year olds (Brooklyn and McKenzie), then I got a year old as well, spent the day at the spa and dinner with friends and family, a few christmas parties, David and I went away for 2 nights and while away realized our family starts our Christmas celebrations this Sunday. Oh my!!!! We have 2 more christmas parties, all of our presents to wrap and 2 more gifts to purchase.

So there isn't much of an update, except we are super busy! I'm sure just like all of you are as well.

We had some pictures taken in Novemeber of our family, so I'll post those for your viewing pleasure. After christmas, I'll post pictures of the holidays, and birthday parties.

Alyssa - 4 1/2

Meredith - 3
Brooklyn - 1!!!!

The Traugott girls!!!

(I'll post more photos of our session at a later time)

Playground Friends

Girls will be girls, right?

We got a playground when we moved into this house, but the girls won't play on it much. They used to do just fine until we had some friends over. Our friends little boy caught a lizard and made it bite his finger - you know he did what boys do. Well, i can not convince my girls that the lizards are not going to bite them. They are terrified. I thought you might like to meet the scary lizards that call our playground home.

Oh and in case you are wondering, the slide is not connected because David is working on treating the wood so he had to disconnect it.

Maybe if I named the lizards they would think they were their friends?

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Here is a long update on our family and some of the fun things we've gotten to do recently.

First off - a month or so ago we took the girls bowling for the first time. We went with some friends from church - it was so cute. The girls each picked out their own bowling ball! We got a ramp and the bummer sides to help out. They had a blast. They have kept asking when we can go bowling again. The night we went, they had Cosmic Bowling. Thats where they turn out the lights and turn on black lights so that everything glows in the dark. I thought the girls may be scared, but when they noticed the carpet glowing and their socks and the stripes on their shirts they loved it. Even Brooklyn had a great time watching. We have a video of her dancing to the really loud music. It was a lot of fun!

The next fun thing that we did was a family movie day. One Sunday afternoon David and I were really tired. So we created Family Movie Day. We blew up the air mattress, borrowed a ton of movies from a friend of our and I think we watched 6 hours of movies. Now they were mostly kid movies, but the girls loved it. We ordered pizza and ate while we watched a movie. David took a break to wrestle with the girls which helped get out some energy before the last movie of the night. It was a memorable day!

Yesterday afternoon during our outside time I decided to see what Brooklyn would do if I put her down in the grass. I figured she's almost 1, she needs a new experience right? So I put her down and she crawled around on the porch for a few minutes not going near the grass. So I had to coax her didn't I. Being the nice mommy that I am, I threw a toy just beyond her reach to see if she would crawl out in the grass. She was so cute! I love this age when everything they do is a new experience.

Our last update was the fun we had last night! We allowed the girls to dress up and went to a local church that was hosting a fall festival. They had free food, bounce houses, a hay ride, fun games. A lot of our friends went with us too. My camera battery died, so my pictures of Meredith are on a friends camera. I'll upate the slideshow once I get those.

Videos of the girls...

New Family Addition

Some of you may not of heard but...

Did you panic for me? No I am not pregnant and no we didn't get a dog. But next April or May our family will have a new addition to our family.

We found out about 2 weeks ago that Crystal and Aaron, (David's sister) were having a baby. They have one little boy, Joshua who just turned 1. They told us they were pregnant at his one year birthday party.

We just got a call this morning that during their ultrasound they saw 2 heartbeats!!!!! TWINS are the newest upcoming family additions.

Pray for Crystal if you think about her, she has not been feeling well. And pray that she will not worry about what things may be like once they arrive.

A little Invitation

My dear friend Jennifer is whining for not being invited to my new house. Now i think good friends don't have to be invited, but to make her feel extra special....

Jennifer,

You are invited to my new house.

How about this weekend? You can come for dinner if you want!

Please RSVP to my blog!!!

I love you Jennifer, and can't wait for you to come over!

To all my other friends, you are all invited too - just call me for directions when you are on your way!

Our Chicken Coop

We know a family who has a plaque in their home that in Italian or something like that says "Chicken Coop". They used it to remind themselves that altought we might have a nice home now it is just a chicken coop compared to what we will recieve in our eternal home.

Without further delay...here are pictures of our chicken coop!

This is our Dining Room, right as you walk in from the front door.

Next comes the Kitchen with a walk-in pantry!

Our eat in kitchen

Master Bedroom

(and all my furniture fits nicely)

Master Bath -

has double vanity, soaking tub, nice big shower,

seperate toilet room and walk in closet (are not pictured)

I couldn't take pictures of the girls rooms or the front of the house because the girls are in bed and its dark outside. You'll just have to come visit some time to see the rest of the tour.

No Excuse...

I think I forgot I have a blog.

I realized I still haven't uploaded pictures of my new house or mentioned any of the activities that we've been doing lately.

So sorry! I'll try to be more diligent for all of you faithful blog readers.

Stuff, stuff and more stuff...

I never realized how much stuff I had. I think it may be a little out of hand. Anyway, we are in the house, our garage is still packed with boxes and other stuff that was already marked for a garage sale which is scheduled for two weekends from now.

Obviously, our list of projects grows by the moment. Tomorrows project is painting the entertainment center. This project is one we have wanted to do since the entertainment center was given to us 2 years ago, but we never did it because then we would have had to take out all the entertainment equipment (we have a lot of that too). So David is going early in the morning to get the paint so that we can paint it and it will dry and hopefully get all set up by tomorrow night.

We are loving this house, the girls are so excited too. Alyssa and Meredith are sharing a room, Brooklyn has her own room and we have a guest bedroom/office too.

I'll post pictures later this week! Thanks for all your prayers.

Moving Fun

TODAY IS MOVING DAY!!!!!

We're having our closing at 10am and then the fun begins!! We get the moving truck around 3 and the guys that are helping will all meet at our Clermont house at 5pm. So if you think about us, please pray for us! We are tired and everyone but me is still sick and there is a lot to do ahead of us this weekend.

We are so grateful to the Lord for blessing us with another home! We can't wait for you all to come and visit us!

Love,
Kelly

Our new address is...

727 Shadowmoss Drive
Winter Garden, FL 34787

Phone numbers will all stay the same, but here they are again just in case...

H - 407.378.4081
D cell - 352.223.3621
K cell - 352.989.2722

Packing and Sickness

Well, the Traugott household is never boring! Saturday Brooklyn got sick, so the girls and I stayed home from church on Sunday. I ended up taking her to a walk in clinic and she has an upper respiratory infection. Also on Saturday, Meredith started this weird drainage from her eyes. Of course I thought, oh no - pink eye. So i've been watching her very closely. Then this morning, Alyssa and Meredith both woke up with coughs and congestion. So I called the doctor right away. So Alyssa is at the beginning stages of an ear infection in both ears and tonsilitis (sp). I am so glad I decided to take them this morning. And Meredith doesn't have pink eye, just congestion coming out of her eyes, i've never heard of that before. But the doctor gave me some drops and said to give her benadryl! So I'm secretly hoping that the benadryl will make them really tired, so that i can get some more packing done. But of course, I know the packing will get done and I am praying that the girls will get better very quickly as a result of their medicine. Please pray with us!

Oh, todays countdown...3 days!

Countdowns

Does everyone else use countdowns? I find I do it for all shorts of things. Like how many days to your due date, to your wedding, to a vacation. Normally its is something you are excited for and have lots of things to do until the 'day'.

With so much to do and only a certain number of days to get it all completed, it sure is helpful to reminder ourselves that only God gets everything done. I certainly have had to push tasks to the next day that I've not been able to complete.

We are just so excited to be moving! God has certainly blessed us! We have renters for our house in Clermont already and we close on our new house in Winter Garden on Friday morning! This week we are down to packing all the last minute things like the kitchen, the entertainment center, our clothes (later in the week of course), and all the electronic equipment that we just can't live without for a few days.

It is all coming together well! I am already ready to be settled, since the house has been in disorder since we started packing 2 weeks ago.

So today's countdown...5 days!!!!

Meredith turned 3!

On Monday, Meredith turned 3! We had a wonderful day together. We woke up and went out for donuts, then the girls played outside in the sand and water (from where our above ground pool used to be), then a short nap time for the girls and David took Meredith and Alyssa to My Kids Gym (which is a warehouse full of bounce houses). I met them there about an hour later where we played some more and then went to Chick-fil-a for dinner and then Twistee Treat for ice cream! What a fun yet busy day!

When we were putting Meredith to sleep we took time to thank God for her life and for putting her in our family! We are so grateful for her and are looking forward to seeing how she grows to be a godly woman.