busy busy Hemperlys!

Ryleigh's first pinata at the Rowell's Fiesta! We had so much fun! Dancing poolside with Brenna "straw bu buh buh buh berry shortcake"!
she was freaking out about her bathing suit dripping! lol!

March of Dimes!

us and the Townsends!

So Finals are OVER!!! woohooo! Now it's all about prepping for the move! I am going crazy sorting and purging! I figure now is a great time to get rid of all the junk we don't need - why bother moving it?! lol! So I am now a Craigslist pro, I LOVE it, soooo much easier than a garage sale! We are also making sure to spend lots of time having fun with all the friends and family that we are going to miss SO MUCH when we move! The March for Babies last weekend was awesome, we had a great time with the Townsends and together we raised $575 for March of Dimes! Thank you sooooo much to our awesome sponsors! It was a great reminder of how thankful we are to have a happy healthy little girl! I always want to do as much as I can to help parents that are not so lucky. My two fave causes are March of Dimes and St. Jude! If anyone is looking for a worthy cause - donate to them :)

We are heading to Corpus Christi this weekend and can't wait to spend time with Bette & Bob and go to the beach! Woohoooo! You better believe I'll have more pics soon!

In other news, Ryleigh is being her usual sparky self lately! The other day we were at Lauren's house and Roo kept climbing up on her couch. After telling her several times to get down and being ignored, I finally put on my mean face and sternly told her to GET DOWN. She spun around and shrieked at me - "YOU have a HAPPY HEART, mommy!". Nice when they use your own words back against you! lol! And her other phrase is "never never". I blame this one on an episode of Sesame Street! Can't remember the context they use it in, but Ryleigh's favorite is to tell me she will "never never nap"! HA!

update! our crazy schedule!!!

So as of today we are officially in escrow!!! woohooooo!!!! The inspection is tmrw at noon, and we should get the results report by Friday! Then we just have to wait for the VA appraiser to check out the house (can take up to two weeks)! We will be in our new home "on or before June 22"!!

I have all my Finals tmrw morning (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to GrMa Joanne who is taking Roo overnight and all day tmrw!) so pray for me! Saturday is the March of Dimes walk which we are so excited about! Y'all have been so generous in your donations, and we are very grateful! Next week I will be getting the house in order - aka cleaning out junk we don't need to move with and posting it on Craigslist! Then we are going down to Corpus Christi for memorial day weekend! When we get back it's Ryan's last week of work and pinning on ceremony on Friday - yay he'll be Captain Hemperly now! Then that Saturday is our big Casino Night party to celebrate with all our family and friends! The very next day is my cousin Karis's graduation party, then her actual graduation is on the 4th! After that it's one more weekend here in SA and the movers come on June 8th!!! We'll be in AZ at my folk's house until our new place is ready, so we look forward to some down time out by the pool and hanging out with friends!

WHEW!!!! Lots and lots of excitement coming up! Just typing it all out makes me want to take a nap! lol!

OUR NEW HOUSE!!!!

We spent the first week of May out in Henderson house-hunting. It was quite an unexpected ordeal! Considering that this is the highest concentration of foreclosures in the country, we thought the hard part would be picking a house that we liked out of a million choices. Turns out that once we narrowed the list down to decent parts of town and good school districts there were only about 50 or so houses. We found that MANY of them are soooo dissgusting and trashed out that while they were in our price range, we would have neither the time nor the cash to make them livable by July! So the list got shorter. Once we finally found several houses we loved, we called to check on their status... almost all of them had contingent offers already! So we cut them from the list and made our offers on all the houses we could actually see ourselves living in... every day we got more bad news that our top choices were being snapped up! Turns out investors are keen on the area, and we just can't beat a cash offer! Ugh! So our list was dwindling.. and dwindling! These houses are going for upwards of $20,000 over their asking prices! Foreclosed properties!! It just blew our minds! So long story short(er) - we thank God that we got the VERY LAST house we had put an offer on! Seriously, all the rest had been taken off the market and we figured we didn't have a great chance at this one either. We thought it was back to the drawing board, and were so stressed out! On Thursday our agent called to tell us that the bank had accpeted our offer! woohooo!!! We put a shitload (pardon my French) of money down as earnest money - b/c the bank says jump and we say how high. The house is now officially listed as a "contingent offer" - US! So as long as the VA appraisal and inspection go well, it is OURS by mid -June! Whew! It is in a fabulous area of Henderson called Anthem Highlands, a really nice master plan community with lots of young families, great schools, dog parks, kid water parks, walking trails, etc! And luckily we have a Lowe's right down the road b/c we are soooo excited to get going on projects! We can't wait to get out there and start this new adventure in our lives!!

BIG BIG THANK YOU to Leah and Tyler for letting us stay with them during our trip! If would have been a stressful and miserable week if it weren't for the fun times we had with them! And I know we're gonna have sooo many great times with Auntie Lele and Uncle Tyler in the future!! I can't believe I actually will get to live in the same neighborhood as my Lele again! To think that in elementary school we were walking to each other's houses... and now we will be again!!

Lakehouse vacation pictures

We spent a week on vacation at the end of April at a lakehouse on Lake LBJ! It was soooo much fun! We got to spend time with GrPa Bob & GrMa Pat, Aunt Dana, and Grammy & Grampy! And I got some time to rest up and relax before our house-hunting trip and Finals! woohooo! Here are a ton of pics from the week...

Ryleigh pointing out "no hair" on her chin!

This place totally reminded me of Dawson's Creek! lol!

My crazy Dad drug the hose out there just for this oh so mature photo opp! lol!

The only way Roo would kayak - on dry land!

These were some brazen ducks! We wouldn't let them in the back door so they came around to the front! lol! I felt like I was in a horror movie!!

Grampy mocking Roo's temper tantrum!

Grampy on the water trampoline!

Playing peek-a-boo with Grampy

Grammy making a water fountain for Roo's pool!

baby booty!

the closest I've ever been to a duck in my life! pretty brave for me!!!

"night night Grampy" she had him all tucked in!

making her feet fit into the flip flops sewn onto the towel!

eating a biscuit on the porch

trying to pet a duck! lol!

they caught some moss!!!

with Grammy and Grampy!

Aw! they're so romanticle!

SO GORGEOUS!!!!!

talking Physics and contemplating Life with GrPa Bob!

seriously, there was a "Howdy-Roo" chili cookoff in town!!!!!!

Thank you soooooo much to Grandpa Bob and GrMa Pat for inviting us to join in the lakehouse vacation! We had sooooooooo much fun!! Love y'all!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Ryan and Ryleigh woke me up with lots of snuggles this morning, some funny cards, and four special charms for my new James Avery bracelet...

I LOVE them!!!! I am so blessed to be Ryleigh's Mommy and to be married to the most wonderful husband and watch him be such a great Daddy!!

As a special treat for MY mommy and Grandma who have been begging for new pictures, I will post a bunch today!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies out there!

catching up on pictures...

Darn it, I got all the pics on here finally, but just now realized they are completely backwards!! Do me a favor and start at the bottom and work your way up, ok?! lol! They are from her @ year old portraits, bluebonnet field by our house, squadron easter party, and then Easter Sunday! k, gotta get back to working on my paper! ttyl!

The Easter Bunny brought Roo all kinds of good stuff!

Roo and the cupcake at the Squadron Easter Party...

I was desperate to get some pics of Roo in the Texas bluebonnets, but as usual, she did not feel like cooperating! These are the best shots I could get...

Two Year Old portraits from Penney's. wasn't too impressed with the photographer, ya have to move fast to catch Roo on film and this chick just kept telling Roo to hold still!! lol!