Random Things

I haven't feeling like pulling out the big camera lately. I use my iPhone to take photos almost exclusively. It's probably because it's always with me and the things I'm taking photos of aren't super important--mostly slice of life type photos that I'll want to remember later. They're perfect for my Project Life album but not worthy of a whole scrapbook page.

This photo is one such photo. I heard Patrick asking Eric if he had dressed himself this morning. Eric came into our bedroom and I saw that he was wearing this outfit. Patrick had been saying that it didn't exactly match. I thought it had the same colors and match well enough. I asked Eric if I could take a picture of him since he had dressed himself and he agreed. The only problem was that nowadays, when he allows me to take pictures of him, he gets really goofy. He kept moving towards me while making funny faces. Movement is not something that is captured well with a camera phone. Finally, he sat down on the floor and let himself fall back so he was laying down. I was finally able to get a picture.

We've had the same old routine lately and that doesn't inspire me to write blog posts. Still, I want to document a few random things that happened today.

I was off today, so I was able to take Natalie to her piano lesson. No matter whether it's Patrick or me that is picking her up, we have the same routine of bringing her (and Eric who we pick up first) a snack and a juice box. Today she requested that I bring some of the chocolate cake that my mom made for her while she was here. I put the cake in a plastic container and included enough for both of them. Then she tells me that Eric had been refusing to eat that cake, and that she didn't know how he could possibly refuse the cake since it was so good. I told Eric that he didn't have to eat it and he replied, "I think I will try some of the cake." He ate up almost all of it.

After piano lessons, they requested to eat at Wendy's. While we were there, a song came on the sound system. She asked me if I knew what the song was. I didn't know what it was but she came up with the song name and who sang it on her own ("Monster" by Paramour). I hadn't heard of that song before but I felt like I needed to write this down. She's never really paid attention to music and who sings the songs until just recently. Apparently this is one that she hears Alex listening to. They have more in common than either one will admit.


We brought home some Spicy Chicken Nuggets from Wendy's for Alex. I got the mail and found Alex's SAT results from when he took the test on January 28th. He took the SAT as part of some Duke University program for seventh graders. He got a 470 in Reading (39th percentile nationally), a 570 in Math (67th percentile nationally), and a 370 in Writing (13th percentile nationally). What's amazing about his scores are that those percentages are of college-bound seniors. He did better than 67% of college-boung seniors on the Math portion of the SAT! I thought that was huge! He likes to deny that he is special in any way, but Patrick and I still had to tell him how amazing he did. The best part is that he'll have some idea of what to expect when he takes it "for real".

One more story--Patrick and I were discussing yesterday about how Eric is more into music than his siblings were at this age, especially music he hears on the radio and most especially dance music. For example, one of his current favorites is "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO. Still, I was a bit surprised when we were watching one of my DVR tapes of The Voice. One of the contestants was singing "Someone Like You" by Adele. Eric asked me, "Isn't that song by Adele?" Amazing!

Change of Routine

We got out of our usual routine today. When I get home, I usually go through this routine with Eric:

Me: Eric, how was your day at school?
Eric: Good.
Me: Did you learn anything at school?
Eric: Yes.
Me: What did you learn?
Eric: I don't know.

In an effort to get him to actually tell me about what he learned, I started asking him specifics, like, "Did you learn about a new letter or a new number?" He usually still says "I don't know" or "I don't remember." Today he said, "We learned about big Q's and little q's." We tried looking for his worksheet, but Patrick had left his backpack at school. We'll have to look for it tomorrow.

On the way home from work, I also usually pick up Alex at the local middle school where his school bus drops him off. Today I got out of work right on time, which meant that I would have had to wait at least a half hour at the school before he got there, so instead I came straight home. That way also, I could spend a little time with my parents and the little ones before taking Natalie to swimming. Well, after she ate dinner, she said that her tummy hurt. I've been feeling a little tired lately probably due to allergies, so I was not disappointed at all. Here she is finishing up her homework that is due on Fridays. This way she also had time to finish that.

Patrick picked up Alex instead of me. When Alex got home, he had lots of homework so he wasn't sure he would be able to finish in time for soccer. He also complained of his back hurting earlier in the week. Again, Patrick and I were not disappointed about this. Sometimes it's nice to take a break from the hustle and bustle of our weeknight routine.

Speaking of routine, I usually don't post photos of Anthony playing soccer because it's so hard to get good pictures. I don't love this photo but I do like how you can see these three running at top speed to get to the ball. This was yesterday's game when Anthony's school played the team from the school he would have gone to if he hadn't chosen a magnet school. The other team won pretty handily. Anthony was pretty disappointed in the loss. They've lost all of their district games so far. :(

Patrick picked him up after soccer practice today too. That is the usual routine because I'm usually gone with Natalie by that time. They stopped by Schlotzky's on the way home-again, another routine. Natalie and I watched our DVR tapes of American Idol--more routine. One thing that is becoming more routine is Eric playing Mario Kart Wii with different siblings. Tonight it was just Natalie and in the last 20 or so minutes before bedtime. He's getting much better. He can sometimes stay on the race track now! Sometimes it's good to break the routine!

Our Project

Alex's school sent out an email last Friday to let the parents know that there was a big project due this coming Thursday. With this past weekend being a three-day holiday for the kids, they wanted to make sure the project didn't get forgotten. That was a good thing for us, because Alex really needs plenty of time to work on this type of assignment. He was supposed to show a model of a "coniferous forest" to include the plants and wildlife.

On Sunday, Patrick went out with him and bought the little plastic animals and trees you can see in this picture. We figured that it would be less time-consuming to do this than to have Alex look through all of our plastic figures in the house. He's very distractible and just this task could have taken him a week. It was also less time-consuming than making those things by hand. While Alex was doing research on the computer, he sent Natalie upstairs to look for a rock with moss on it that he thought was in the Playmobil box. After a few trips up and down the stairs, she came back with the large rock formation that you can see in the back left hand corner. It's a little off scale from the trees and animals but again, it was a lot easier to use than finding or making something else.

While Alex was still sleeping on Monday morning, I wrapped the shoebox up with some Kraft wrapping paper. Later when he was doing research on the computer again, I used the reverse side of some wrapping paper to line the bottom of the model. He chose white because that was supposed to represent snow. He then decided where everything was going to go. He even had a raccoon standing over a rabbit that was laying on its side like the raccoon was about to eat the rabbit. He tried to cut out a river but was unhappy with it so I did that for him (the river is at the very front and looks like a shadow with the bad lighting in the study). He positioned some animals to look like they were in the river catching fish for food. When he was "taking a break" I glued everything down. He finished up by labeling everything with number stickers (hooray for my stash of scrapbooking supplies!) to correspond with the numbers on the index cards.

It was late by the time he finished the project completely, but there was enough time to play Mario Kart Wii with his three other siblings. We let the littlest ones stay up past their 8pm bedtime just because Patrick and I enjoyed hearing to their chatter in the game room while they all played together. I only had one more request for Alex--that he put his project in a safe place so his little brother doesn't decide to decorate it himself with markers. Eric does like to color, after all. Oh, and I almost forgot--Alex's reward (or bribe, depending on how you look at it) for finishing his project this weekend was a large Dreamsicle ice cream shake at Brindle's which we went out and got right after he finished.

I felt like I didn't get anything done that was on my "to-do" list, but completing this project will make OUR lives easier this week.

Daddy-Daughter Dance and a Holiday

Patrick and Natalie arrived home with plenty of time to get ready for the Daddy-Daughter Dance at our local Lifetime Fitness gym. That was a good thing because Patrick needed to rest after driving for a total of around 5 hours--lots of traffic in and around Austin. Natalie had plenty of time to play Mario Kart for Wii, which seems to be a new obsession for all the kiddos--more on that later. She also needed plenty of time to find something to wear. She wore the same red dress to the last few dress-up occasions, a hand-me-down from her cousing Emily, so she wanted to wear something different. She settled on this dress (that can also be worn as a skirt) but the strap that was supposed to go around her neck did not seem secure and she was uncomfortable with that. I had to help her find a shirt that matched and then I had to find a big safety pin to hold it up securely. She looks pretty good in it, I think, but it's definitely not a winter-type outfit. Thankfully, it wasn't too cold outside.

I didn't hear too many details from the two of them, but Patrick said that the dance seemed more scaled down from last year. Last year they had lots of food and especially dessert, which included a chocolate fountain. No chocolate fountain this year. Natalie told me that she had some pasta with alfredo sauce. She did one craft activity, but she couldn't even remember what it was. There were only four activities total, according to Patrick. Natalie was only interested in watching the movie Tangled that they were playing after dinner. The only other comment Patrick made was that there were a lot more small children there rather than some older girls that they had last year.

Sunday was a bit of a blur. Anthony had his friend Alejandro over to spend Saturday night. That meant lots of PS3 games for the both of them. Natalie and Eric played more Mario Kart Wii. Alex also played but he also worked on his project for school due on Thursday. I'll post some more info on that tomorrow. Alex and Eric also built a fort in the game room again. We went to church at 5pm again and then out to dinner at Chili's. We all agreed that the kitchen at Chili's must have been having an off night. Everything tasted a bit blander than it has before and took a lot longer. Ice cream at Brindle's finished out our evening.

The big news for Sunday was that my cousin Rachael had her baby! I remember her when she was a baby so this made me feel a little old. I'm really happy and excited for her. Such a blessing! Her brother Chris' birthday was also on Sunday, so I joked with him about his birthday being forgotten with the arrival of his niece. He was pretty happy about his "birthday present".

This morning I came downstairs and Natalie and Eric were both already eating breakfast. She was eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch and he was eating Special K bars. I said, "You're already eating?" Natalie replied, "I thought maybe that you would make something but then I got hungry." I had already thought about treating the two to breakfast at Starbucks since it was a holiday today, so I asked them if they wanted to go there. They both raised their hands as if I was asking who wanted to go to Starbucks.

The big boys were still asleep, but the rest of us had a nice breakfast there. Natalie and Eric played lots of Mario Kart Wii today. Natalie got to go to her friend Maya's house and to her piano lesson. Alex finished his project with a little help from me. Anthony played lots of PS3 and also got to practice driving with Patrick. Tonight we let the little ones go to bed late because all four of the kiddos were playing Mario Kart Wii together. Patrick and I were listening to them all interacting--not always getting along but still playing together. It was a nice way to finish out the holiday weekend.

Lots of Time Doing Nothing

We had a lot planned for today. Anthony had a JV game scheduled for noon today. He had me drop him off at Benny's Tacos at 8am so he could have breakfast with his buddies, including one kid who is now on the Varsity team. It's been raining here quite a bit since yesterday, with intermittent thunder and lightning as well. At about 9am, he called me. I was already relaxing at home getting ready to eat my breakfast taco. The JV game had been cancelled so I needed to go pick him back up and take him home. He was most bummed by the fact that the Varsity game had NOT been cancelled. He had hoped that they would go ahead and take him, but alas, that was not the case.

On a funnier note, I've been buying Eric the bacon and egg taco (the same kind Anthony likes). He'll eat maybe a third of it and then he'll say that he wants to save the rest--but that Anthony can eat the rest if he wants to, which Anthony usually does when he gets home from soccer. This time he got home earlier since his game was cancelled and he did, in fact, eat the rest of that taco.

After we got home, I let Anthony play on the PS3 to let him relax a bit after the disappointing morning. Eric was looking at a Birthday Express catalog and he pointed out a Mario Kart T-shirt and said that he wanted that. He's never really played on the Wii before, so I asked him if he wanted to play the Mario Kart game on the Wii. He seemed reluctant at first, but Alex was very persuasive and so the both of them started playing. Eric had a hard time keeping his cart on the race course. I tried to help him but of course I'm not very good at steering either so I enlisted Anthony's help. That enabled me to take a picture of my boys all playing on the Wii. I love the expressions of deep concentration on their faces. Aren't they cute? ;)

Patrick and Natalie had left around 10:30am so they would be able to get to Natalie's swim meet in the north part of Austin by the 12:30pm warmup time. They got there a little after noon and soon after that, Patrick texted me that the meet had been cancelled around 8 or 9am this morning. We were upset that we weren't contacted especially when it was apparent that most of the families had been contacted. They at least were going to give Natalie and another girl a workout since they had made the wasted trip there. They're on their way back home now. Tonight they have a Daddy-Daughter Dance to go to. Patrick's going to be exhausted from all of that driving.

For the rest of the afternoon, the boys and I were playing various games on our devices. Eric and Alex built another fort in the game room. Alex is going to a birthday party in about an hour. That party is the reason why I didn't go with Patrick and Natalie to Austin. I was sad that I was going to miss the meet, but I guess it was a good thing since the meet was cancelled anyway.

I have one more piece of exciting news from this past week. We got Anthony's SAT scores back from when he took it on January 28th: Critical Reading 680, Math 720, Writing 780. The total is 2180 out of a possible 2400. That's excellent! They only had the reading and math when Patrick and I took it way back when. One of his good friends told him that he should take it again, though, because apparently when his friend took it again he scored 150 points higher. If Anthony decides to do that, he needs to actually study or it won't be worth it. We're still very proud of him!

Alex also took the SAT as part of a Duke University program, but since they set that up, we can't access his scores online. We'll have to wait for the paper copy in the mail.

Our Day With Eric

This is a photo of the game room on Monday night. Eric had built a super structure for his cars using some cardboard bricks. We were amazed at the size of it. I'm presently trying to get him to clean it up so that the maid will be able to clean the game room when she comes tomorrow. He's singing right now so chances are that he is only adding to this.

I went to work around 2pm yesterday so that left Patrick to go to the Valentine's Day parties for Eric and Natalie. Eric's was supposed to be after nap time, which is about 2pm. Natalie's was supposed to be from 2:30-2:45pm. Patrick went to Eric's school first, but it turned out that they weren't going to have the party until closer to 3pm. By the time Patrick got to Natalie's classroom, around 2:45, they were done with the party and watching a movie. Natalie wanted to take the bus home, so he left without going to the party and without Natalie. When he got to Eric's, they were going to have the party until around 3:30pm and Eric wanted to stay for it, so Patrick left there empty-handed as well. He couldn't stay because he had to meet Natalie's bus at home around 3:15pm. By the time he got back to Eric's school, they were done with their party as well. Apparently the party went pretty quickly. The preschoolers ate quickly and were done. Poor Patrick! All of that driving back and forth and he didn't even get to attend either party. He didn't get to take any pictures either, as a result.

This morning, I met Patrick and Eric at the Starbucks near Anthony's school. Eric was supposed to have a field trip at school, but since he has swim lessons on Wednesdays, we decided to just keep him the whole day. Eric was so cuddly this morning. He kept hugging me like he actually missed me. What a sweetie!

After Starbucks, Eric went with me to Target so I could buy some of the Valentine's candy that is now on sale. We also found this red heart-shaped pillow. I got one for Natalie and I didn't get one for Eric because he has so many stuffed animals already. He told me, "But Mama, this isn't a stuffed animal" and he kept hugging on it, talking about how soft it was. I almost broke down and got him one too, but I decided that he would not care as much when we got home.

The weather was nice today, partly sunny in the mid 70s, so Patrick and I took advantage of it. After swim lessons, he and Eric played in a pool for a bit while I exercised. We went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Eric played in the play area for a bit after lunch. We then went to the River Walk just so Patrick and I could get some Haagen-Dazs ice cream at the shop near the Alamo. On the way there, Eric complained that his feet hurt and that "someone should carry me." He complained so much that we didn't walk around for long. Still, it was nice to soak up a little sun before it starts raining again. Eric was very active today. He should sleep well tonight!

Tonight we're planning on pasta for dinner and then chocolate fondue for dessert. It's sort of a delayed special dinner for Valentine's Day for the family.

Classroom Valentines

I like to be crafty occasionally, but I don't have a lot of time. I spent about an hour to an hour and a half making these valentines for Natalie tonight. She didn't like any of the store-bought designs, of course, because there were no shark valentines. *Insert eye roll here.* I found this simple template on the internet tonight. She approved of the design. We went outside to take some pictures of her holding her hand out. We went back inside so I could combine the photos in Photoshop Elements. I printed them out and made the cuts in the photos to insert the pencils. Viola! Simple but cute valentines. I could have taken a little bit more time with the photo, but as Natalie put it, "It doesn't have to be perfect, Mama." I figured that if she liked them the way they were, then they were good enough.

Her school doesn't want the parents to bring any candy for valentines, and although many parents break that rule, Patrick doesn't want me to be a rule breaker. For the past couple of years we give out pencils and little trinkets like that. This year we're giving out pencils, little pads of paper, and heart-shaped erasers.

Eric's school doesn't have the rule about not giving out candy. In fact, we were told to bring a sweet treat. Eric's choice is usually Starburst or Skittles, so I bought that at Target on the way home from work today. I had bought these Cars valentines a while back at Target. I don't like to wait until the sales come because I'm afraid of not getting my first choice. When I went by Target today, everything was pretty picked over so I was happy that I had already gotten these. This package had Cars valentines AND Cars tattoos, something this little boy gets very excited about.

Tonight, Patrick had him write his name on the valentines and tomorrow they'll give out the valentines with the candy then they'll send the kids that are all "sugared up" home to their parents. Thankfully, I'll miss out on that because I'm working tomorrow night. Poor Patrick!

Cold Weekend Recap

We had a pretty uneventful week and thus the lack of blog posts. Yesterday morning, Anthony had a JV game. Eric decided that he wanted to come along. We warned him that it was cold and that he could stay home with Alex and Natalie, but he insisted on going. The game had barely started when he started asking when we were going home. He was huddled under a blanket with his hood over his head and his head buried in either Patrick's or my lap for most of the first half. At halftime we moved to a sunny area to one side of the bleachers. It was a little bit more shielded from the wind, which made it feel like it was in the low 30s. When I posted that fact on Facebook, my brother-in-law, who lives in Alaska, of course posted that wasn't cold at all. Eric must have felt warm enough to get his hands out to play on the iPad. At least that kept him from thinking about the weather. He was happy for the second half. Unfortunately, Anthony's team lost, 0-1.

We spent the rest of yesterday hanging out at home and then we went out for dinner at El Mirasol. Natalie had her friend Maya over at our house and we took her along for dinner. We decided a little last minute to have her stay with us overnight for a sleepover. Natalie was so excited! Interestingly, when Natalie has Maya over, they don't stay up late. They put themselves to bed last night by 9:30pm. In the morning, they played quietly in Natalie's room. At one point, they sat in the living room to play on the iPad, at first with just Eric, then they included Anthony. They were playing a puzzle game where they had to figure out how to clear the board in one move. Natalie gave it to Anthony to figure out; he figured it out and he went on to figure it out (at different levels) a few more times. I took this picture just because it wasn't the usual sight to see them gathered around Anthony playing on the iPad.

I had to include one more photo to show how silly Eric can be. He had been playing in the gameroom; he was singing while rocking on the rocking horse. He was so cute that I wanted to take a picture. Of course he did his usual thing and said he didn't want any pictures. He started trying to hide behind the entertainment center to keep me from taking any pictures of him. That was only a couple of minutes before I took this picture. When I moved on to taking pictures of Natalie and Maya, he came over and started saying "Squeaky Squeaky" over and over again while getting into different contortions. Yes, he is flexible.

We took a short trip to the mall in the afternoon. The kids all wanted to go to the Godiva store, which was pretty packed. Eric had a Strawberry Truffle, Patrick had the Cappucino Truffle, and Anthony had a Raspberry Dark Chocolate Truffle. Natalie wanted to buy a large milk chocolate candy bar, but we held her to the small one. Alex stayed home as usual. The only time he ventured out was when we all went to the 5pm Sunday mass. Afterwards we picked up Pei Wei for dinner before heading home. When Patrick was in Pei Wei waiting for the food, he heard others talking about how they didn't want to go out to eat because it was cold, so they were picking up food too. It's supposed to warm up this week, which is great news because we have a lot of activities planned for next weekend.

Teacher Conference

Natalie's teacher conference was this afternoon, and I happened to be off so both Patrick and I went. The way they do these nowadays is that the student herself presents the information while the teacher walks around and supervises about three of these conferences. This first picture is of Natalie looking embarrassed to be talking to us when she talks to us all the time--frequently. She read from a script that covered all of her subject areas to include what she is studying in those areas now and what her goals are. She also handed us packets of her how she did on her "benchmarks".

Benchmarks are tests the kids all took on certain days (not all on the same day) to measure how well they are doing in the different subject areas. Apparently those tests are harder this year to prepare them for the "STAAR" exam that is the new standardized test that replaces the old "TAKS" test. The schools all seem to be worried about this exam because this is the first year that they are administering this new and more difficult test. Natalie's benchmark scores seemed low to me (she made an "82" on one of them. Her teacher approached us, though, and said that Natalie is doing very well, especially in Math, and that she is very bright.

Patrick and I told Natalie that she needs to take her time and not rush through the reading and the questions. There were some answers she could easily have gotten right if she had taken a little more time. We're still very proud of her, of course.

This is one of the pieces of paper that Natalie had to fill out an that she read to us during the conference. There was also another piece of paper where she had to write "Who challenges you and encourages you?" She had written "my family", but when she was reading to us she also added "especially Alex". Patrick and I were a little surprised by that answer since she and Alex are always butting heads. We also realized how much she looks up to Alex despite the abuse she gets from him.

There was another sheet of paper where she wrote down what inspired her. Her answers included, "my family, my friends, swimming, and reading." She also added that she had also wanted to write down "sharks and red" but she didn't. Yes, that is my little girl.

Mud Game

This morning Anthony and I left the house at 6:30am so he could meet his friends at Benny's Tacos for breakfast before their JV game. By the time Patrick and I left the house at 8:30am, the temperatures had dropped and the rain had begun. The first half was wet and windy, with temps probably in the 40s with the wind chill. The boys were covered in mud, as you can see in this picture. Patrick and I remarked on how clean Anthony looked, actually, compared to his friend who had mud all over his legs. Most of the boys fell in the slippery mud at least once or twice, but Anthony stayed on his feet. I didn't realize it until I had uploaded this picture into the computer that Anthony did have mud spatter on his legs. Believe me, he still looked "clean" compared to most of the other boys. By the end of the game, the sun had come out and the wind had died down a little. Unfortunately, they lost 0-2.

The rest of the day was a quiet one. Natalie spent most of the afternoon at a friend's house (AR) and the evening at an ice skating birthday party for another neighbor (LL). Patrick picked up our tired little girl at 10:15pm. She usually puts herself to bed by 7:30pm, so that's pretty late for her.

I wanted to throw in this picture I took with my phone yesterday. I've been buying Eric different cars from the movie Cars and giving them to him when he's been a good boy. Rewarding him is just an excuse to give him presents even when it isn't Christmas or his birthday. He gets so excited when I give him a car that even I get excited every time I give him a car. Even Alex has bought Eric some Cars cars with his own money because he loves giving Eric presents. Buying $3-$6 cars gets a little expensive, however, plus he's got most of the Cars cars available already. He does play with them every single day, so they get a lot of use.

I saw these Cars tattoos at Michael's craft store last weekend. Eric got very excited when I showed them to him and told him he could have one on Friday if he was a good boy the rest of the week. Earlier in the week he apparently wasn't listening well at school, which is different for him. I used the tattoo as a reward for him listening to his teacher at school. As you can see, the tattoo was a hit and I found a much less expensive way to reward him.

I'm on call on Super Bowl Sunday (tomorrow) so I hope everyone out there behaves themselves!

TV Ad

I haven't been blogging very often in the last couple of months ago. I feel like I get a bit repetitious with talking about our schedules and such. Eric still does cute things, but I don't often get a good picture to go with the story. Today I captured this fun photo. He really enjoys the JCPenney ad where women get upset when they miss a sale. At the end one women screams, "Arrrr!" as she puts her hands up in front of her and shakes them. The ad had just come on the TV and Eric kept imitating the woman and yelling "Arrrr!" The other kids enjoy him doing this and do their best to encourage him to do it, although it does get annoying after he does it over and over again.

This afternoon, Anthony had a JV game at 4:30pm. I went there from work and Patrick met me there after picking up Alex and the carpool and taking them home. The other three stayed home and Alex fed them frozen pizza. Our children would starve if we didn't have our freezer constantly stocked with frozen pizza. It's not that we don't cook for them. They often choose HEB Extra Thin Crust Pepperoni Pizza to anything else we offer, which of course makes it hard to make anything else. Anyway, Anthony's team won 7-0.

I'll try to post another update by the weekend.