Happy 12th Birthday, Aly!

Natalie always complains that she never gets to go to her cousin Aly's birthday parties. Aly's birthday is at the end of March, and invariably we are returning from Spring Break or something like that, so never have that weekend free. This year it worked out that I wasn't working. Since Natalie still isn't swimming right now, she didn't have a swim meet. Eric still had a soccer game on Saturday, and church school and a friend's birthday party on Sunday, so Patrick stayed home with him. Alex, of course, had sleepover plans as he does every weekend.

I was very happy that the girls allowed me to take this photo of the three of them. They are growing so fast and I want to remember when all three of them are together. I'm the oldest child in my family, followed by Melissa and then Cynthia. From left to right, Emily is on the far left--Melissa's daughter and the oldest of the three, having turned 12 last October. Aly is in the middle, and she is Cynthia's daughter and the birthday girl. Natalie is of course on the far right and my daughter, and she won't be turning 12 until August. Emily is the tallest, followed by Aly then Natalie. Emily and Natalie are sitting up on barstools here and Aly is standing a little behind them, so she only looks shorter. They are being "fierce". I rather liked the "attitude" in this pose.

This is a group photo of the girls at the party minus one that had to leave early. Some of them are also being "fierce", with my daughter of course front and center. I was really happy that Aly allowed all of these photos, because she shies away from the camera like Natalie does. Cynthia did a lot of planning for this party, looking for games to play, getting prizes, etc. We were happy to see Aly looking at these and other pictures after the party with a smile on her face. I was happy for the pictures and Cynthia was happy that Aly enjoyed her party after all the work she put into it.

The games were all so much fun, both from the participants' point of view and from my point of view. One of the games was "Foil Fashion" where three teams each got a roll of aluminum foil and they had to create some sort of fashion on a designated model. Melissa and I got to be the judges. Aly's team lost only because their creation fell apart. They had held it together with staples that didn't hold. By the time I took this picture, only the hat was left. The other teams held theirs together with tape. We were going to choose the middle creation in this picture, at first, because the dress they made was so cute. They used a jump rope as a belt and the outfit came complete with earrings and an unusual mouth accessory through which their model stuck out her tongue. We ended up declaring the outfit on the right as the winner because their creation was more creative because of the asymmetric one-shoulder design and the tapered train in the back.

My sister and her husband John just had a pool put into their backyard. It's been a drawn out process, but one that they feel was well worth it. Some of the games were inside and quite a few plus the eating was outside. It was such a beautiful day--perfect for a party.

This is a picture of Aly before she blew out her candles, looking embarrassed but still clearly enjoying herself. Some of the other games involved humming certain songs (that Cynthia had written on a card) that their teammates had to identify. One game involved using a straw to transport M & M's from one location to another, with the winner being the team with the most M & M's at the end. This was definitely a good one to have outdoors since there were M & M's all over the ground. Poor Aly was the only one who was not able to transport a single M & M. We even gave her another straw in case the one she had was defective. Another game involved the girls looking at a tray of items then trying to write down as many as possible with the winner being the one who remembered the most items.

After most of the games, the girls all changed into swimsuits and got into the pool. They were mostly in the hot tub because the pool was still a bit cool, although one girl went directly into the pool and stayed there because the hot tub was so full. They also toasted marshmallows and made S'Mores. John had an incident where the outdoor fire pit got too hot and wouldn't cool down. The guy that built it is a neighbor and when John called him, he came right over and used a temporary fix.

Natalie had a lot of fun and made friends with Aly's friends. I tend to be shy around big groups and I love that my daughter is not. I'm also happy that we were able to celebrate with Aly this time.

I Love My Mommy

I told Natalie that I wanted to take a picture of her with my parents. For once, she willingly complied. I also took a picture of both of my parents with Natalie, but Dad was so drowsy that he could barely keep his eyes open. Mom had to basically pull him to a standing position, and after I took the picture, she helped him sit back down on the sofa so he could rest.

We had a lot of traffic leaving San Antonio yesterday, but we made up some time on the way. When we arrived at my parents' house, my mom grilled some salmon in the oven for us to eat for dinner. I love salmon and so does Natalie. Mom had already made some fresh lumpia and hot and sour soup (one of my favorite soups). Even though I have my own family now, whenever I'm with my mom and she makes my favorite foods, it's like I'm a kid again. I feel so loved. I know Natalie does too. I love my Mommy!

Leaving for the Weekend

This past Monday, the 24th, Patrick took Natalie to her swim practice so she could see her swim friends. She really missed them and she knows exactly how long it's been since she's been at swim practice--apparently it's been one month and three weeks. Because they were going there, Patrick had not planned anything for dinner, so Alex and I decided we wanted to go to Panera Bread.

The last time I took him there, he was "proud" of the fact that he had "three dinners". This time he had "two dinners", although he had three separate items for dinner. At the top of this picture is their Pesto Sachettini (pasta). He had a "Pick 2" meal with that and broccoli cheddar soup, with an apple for the side. He also had the Chicken Chipotle Panini for dinner with a baguette on the side. Of course, he had to have dessert also, and he chose an Orange Scone for dessert. On the very righthand side is part of a cookie decorated like an Easter Egg that was Eric's choice for dessert. Alex took a bite out of that cookie as well.

Speaking of food, my Mom had a nice dinner ready for Natalie and me when we arrived in Houston this evening. She grilled some salmon and made one of my favorite soups plus some fresh lumpia. Yum! I love my Mommy!

It's just Natalie and me visiting for the weekend. We're leaving the boys behind at home. I happened to have a weekend where I didn't have to go to work, and it's been almost three months since I've visited/seen my parents. My Dad really can't travel anymore, so we have to be the ones to visit them. My niece Aly also has a birthday party tomorrow, so Natalie gets to have some girl cousin time. I get to have some sister time. Patrick gets to bond with the boys and four of Alex's friends (who are spending the night at our house tonight). Tonight I had a nice long chat with my Mom. I miss my Mommy!

First Baseball Practice

I realized that I didn't post these photos here on the blog yet. Eric had his first baseball practice ever a couple of weekends ago. Patrick took these photos with his phone. We've been trying to expose Eric to different sports, just as we did with his older siblings. We hope that he enjoys at least one enough to play it all the time.

We missed baseball sign-ups last year, and with our lives being hectic at this time last year with Anthony about to graduate and Natalie in her first year of competitive swimming, we had to let something go. We had already signed Eric up for spring soccer this year because he wanted to do that, so now he is doing two sports at the same time.

On the plus side, he is getting plenty of exercise. On the down side, his week is pretty busy:

--MONDAY 6-7pm: Baseball practice
--TUESDAY 5-6pm: Soccer practice
--WEDNESDAY 6-7 pm: Baseball practice
--THURSDAY 6:30-7pm: Piano lesson
--SATURDAY around 8 or 9am: Soccer game

Last week he was tired enough by Wednesday that when Patrick asked him on Wednesday if he wanted to go to baseball practice, Eric replied, "Do I have to?" Patrick decided at that point to not force him to go. We honestly haven't had more than one baseball practice a week because of skipping last Wednesday, and not being able to go this past Monday because of heavy rains all day. The baseball games aren't scheduled yet, so we don't even know when those are and how we are going to be able to fit it all in.

Swim team practice starts in May, but soccer and baseball should be done by then. In the meantime, I guess we should be glad that we don't have to drive Natalie to swim practice every day. It's just Eric's activities that we can focus on.

Another Weekend Soccer Game

I found out this weekend that the daughter of one of the OR nurses from work is on the team of girls that beat Eric's team quite badly in the last game. At first I was worried, because Eric's team, the Galaxy, had only four players show up for this past weekend's game. The other team only had five players, so they didn't get to substitute very much either, and their players were noticeably smaller than ours, even Eric.

Two of the players on Eric's team were bigger than everyone else and noticeably more coordinated. The tallest boy in this photo was one of those boys, and he scored a couple of the goals for their team. The boy in the very back in the first photo above was the one who scored most of the goals. Apparently, Eric's team won 10-0. I honestly stopped counting after the first three or four.

Most of the time Eric was content to hang out in the back of the pack. The kids still run in a line after the ball at this age. No passing, although the coach did try to get them to pass a little when they were leading by so much. Eric said he had fun, and he got to exercise, and that's all that counts.

This weekend and last weekend, Alex has been kicking the soccer ball around with Eric in the backyard. Alex said that he tried to teach Eric how to kick harder, but Eric just wasn't coordinated enough. Eric loves the bonding time with his older brother, at least. In addition to the backyard time, Eric also played on the PS3 with Alex on Saturday afternoon. He was having so much fun that he didn't want to go to California Pizza Kitchen with Patrick and me. Interestingly, none of the kids wanted to go out to eat with us.

As for Alex, he had his last high school soccer game for this season on Saturday. He hasn't been happy with the coaching, but he started most of the games, so the coach must be at least somewhat happy with him. We'll see what happens in the future.

Blast From the Past

I should have posted these on Flashback Friday, but I couldn't get organized soon enough. Natalie and I found this notebook when we were cleaning the office last weekend. This was Anthony's notebook when he was at The Atonement Academy. When Anthony saw this first one he laughed and said that he remembered it as being a group drawing. They passed around the notebook and each person in the class drew something else. It's not the best drawing, but I like the story behind it. He obviously had some good memories attached to it, since he laughed when he saw it.

These drawings are all Anthony's. After seventh grade, he left The Atonement Academy for public school. Alex was in Third grade and Natalie was in Kindergarten. Anthony wanted more choices for class electives and he was obviously bored. Alex was also bored. It's too bad. It was a great school for them at the time, and we made great friends there, but sometimes you just know that it's time to move on.

The kids have all done well in public school, but now Natalie wants to move on also. We registered her for this BASIS Charter School that is opening up this Fall. It'll be a new adventure for her and for us.

Speaking of Natalie, she went to the Sports Medicine Specialist earlier this week. He gave her some exercises to strengthen her back and core. She's supposed to start with heat on her back then we give her a short massage, then she exercises, then she puts ice on her back. He told her a minimum of two weeks before she can resume swimming. She started tearing up at that point, but honestly, we're glad that at least she can actively do something, instead of being a couch potato. Please wish her luck and say a little prayer.

March Art a la Carte

This past Wednesday was Eric's monthly art class, called Art a la Carte. I was post-call that day, so I had not seen him since Tuesday morning. I got him his "usual" Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets and vanilla Frosty and came for lunch. While at lunch, he noticed that a couple of the other parents that were having lunch with the kids had bought lunch from the school cafeteria. I'm not interested in eating school cafeteria food. I'm not even interested in eating Wendy's. Patrick and I had gone to Magnolia Pancake Haus for breakfast and I was still quite full.

I didn't take a picture of the whole First Grade billboard in the art room this time. Since today's project was a dimensional piece, the art teacher didn't put the example piece up on the board, but held it up during class instead. I should have taken a picture of it, but I thought I would take a picture of the words describing the lesson for that day instead. The tub shown has a bunch of clay balls stored inside sandwich bags. There was a bag like these at each child's place when they came into the room. Most of them wanted to touch it right away, so she warned them right away to listen to her first.

Ms. R told the kids all about making the use of texture in art, from two-dimensional paintings to three-dimensional sculptures. She told them step by step how to prepare their clay so there wouldn't be any pockets of air inside that might burst during the drying process. The kids basically had to throw their clay down on the tables. Some of the girls apparently had trouble with not wanting to touch the soft, wet clay. I had the same problem myself.

Eventually, the clay flattened out, then the kids used rulers to cut the clay into a rectangular piece. They then used various materials such as beads, pieces of spirals from spiral notebooks, and woven pieces to make impressions in the clay to create different textures. She had instructed the kids to make four rectangles like in Eric's piece, or make four or so longer rectangles arranged horizontally in a "stripe" pattern. Some kids chose several more "stripes". One kids not only made four rectangles, he also made lines in a cross-wise fashion, for many little shapes with different textures. I always love seeing how creative the kids get in this class.

The pieces now have to dry and Ms. R will paint them all white and put a ribbon through the holes we made at the top. I'll have to take a picture of the finished piece to share in a future blog post.

Snow Play

Today I'm sharing some last photos from our trip. Grandma and Grandpa have been getting lots of snow this year. The kids went outside to the backyard pretty much every day to play in the snow and they had plenty of it to play with. I didn't try to get a lot of photos, but Patrick went out there with them on our last day, and he got some photos for me. Unfortunately, I didn't set the camera on "Auto" for him, and the settings were still left over from earlier and all of the photos were overexposed.

You can't tell it from this first photo, but Anthony, Eric, and Natalie are standing next to the snowman that they made. Eric is ready to throw snow at someone, and Anthony has a large chunk of snow in his hands as well. Grandma was lamenting that she didn't have anything to give them to decorate the snowman, not even a carrot for his nose.

Notice that Anthony isn't wearing a jacket. It did get warm when the sun was out, and he and Alex tend to be less sensitive to the cold. Usually Eric isn't either, but we can still made him wear a jacket--sometimes.

Because the other photos were overexposed, I sent Alex out on Thursday evening after dinner to get a photo of the snowman. He added the extra facial features at that time. The snowman was taller than Eric but shorter than Natalie.

Besides the snowman, they also threw snowballs at each other, of course, since that is their favorite thing to do when playing in the snow. The first day they went out there, Natalie took her hat off after a while. Alex warned her that she should put the hat back on to protect herself since he planned on throwing a snowball at her head later. The snow was so deep that a couple of times the kids said that their feet got stuck in the snow. Eric asked for help at one point because his boot got stuck in the snow and he was only able to pull his foot out but not the boot.

When I sent Alex out to take a picture of the snowman, he also took a picture of his creation. The first day, he did a lot of digging with the snow shovel. He dug a hole in the shape of a dinosaur foot and he called it a "dinosaur footprint". He can be so creative and Eric of course loved the idea of a dinosaur footprint in the snow.

So, we said goodbye to the snow and it was in the 60s when we got home yesterday, at about noon. We had to leave Grandma and Grandpa's house yesterday morning at about 4am. They live a couple of hours away from the airport plus we had to allow the two hours to get through security and such. Our plane was supposed to leave at about 8am but ended up being over 20 minutes late. At least the plane trip was smooth and uneventful.

Anthony is leaving tomorrow and the kids all start school again on Monday. It's only two months until Anthony comes home again and I will definitely be counting the days.

Second Ski Day

We're home safe and sound--more details on that tomorrow. Today I wanted to share some pictures and stories from yesterday. I took this first photo at the top of the mountain. From left to right is Anthony, Patrick's Dad Ernie, Patrick, and Alex.

We went to Copper Mountain yesterday. Patrick's parents have been skiing at Copper this season because they have season passes there. The prices have gone up in recent years, and Copper gives them a better deal. That meant that we got a better deal also, since they were able to get us a good discount on ski lift tickets.

We got to ski with Patrick's Dad for an hour or so before he wanted to sit down, so we went down to the bottom and called Patrick's Mom to come pick him up. She brought Natalie and Eric and we had lunch together. The prices were astronomical, even higher that what we usually pay. Patrick had a grilled cheese sandwich with fries, Anthony had an Awesome Burger with fries (apparently that's what it was called), Alex had a slice of pepperoni pizza, a fruit cup, and a Powerade, and Natalie shared three chicken strips with Eric. We paid over $64 for that! I decided to wait until I got home to eat, but I did have some of Alex's fruit cup with some water. Patrick's Dad also had some lemonade.

After lunch, Patrick and I got to ski some more with the big boys. Patrick took this photo of me with my big boys when we got back up to the top of the mountain. We're all pretty bundled up, so after Patrick took the picture, I joked to Alex, "Did you smile?" The temperature was probably in the upper teens to low 20s and windy, but I was bundled up enough that I was fine, except for when we were up on the chair lift--then I got cold. I actually got hot when we were waiting in the chair lift lines.

I was done first, and Patrick dropped me off at the bottom of the mountain and went back up to meet the boys. He skis a lot faster than the rest of us and easily caught up with the boys. I don't like to ski too fast or I feel out of control. My knees start to burn from all the effort I put into turning, slowing down, etc., so I stop for a bit every so often to rest my knees. When that resting got too often, I was done. Patrick was done before the boys. Alex kept telling me how much he loved to ski.

We didn't leave Copper Mountain until 4pm. In the past we would be done by lunch, so we had quite a full last day of skiing.

First Ski Day

We only get to ski two days this trip. The boys wanted time to spend with their friends at home, and I tried to get the cheaper plane tickets. We didn't have the energy to ski our first day, so we saved the skiing for our second full day.

Eric needed lessons since he could barely stop on skis when we were here two years ago. Interestingly, when we were renting his gear at Arapahoe Basin (or A-Basin), he recognized the guy helping us as someone he saw there last time. Since he was four years old the last time we came, that's a pretty good memory for a four year old.

We chose A-Basin because they had half-day lessons available there. A whole day would have been too much for him. We've also had good luck with lessons there, for all of us. We had to get there early, before 9am in order to get his gear and then have him ready for lessons at 10am.

I thought he was pretty cute standing there with one ski boot on. He didn't understand why that was, at first. Patrick told him that was because they needed to fit the ski boots to the skis, and they only needed one. Of course, the one he was wearing had the tag for them to scan, so when they asked for that, Patrick picked him up and turned him upside down so that the guy could scan the boot Eric was wearing. It was too quick to take a picture, but it was pretty hilarious.

After Eric got all his gear, Anthony wanted to take a picture of his skis next to Eric's skis. We turned that into a photo op where I took a picture of all four of them. Eric has his eyes closed because of the bright sun.

Alex and Anthony got the same size ski boots, and Patrick and Anthony have the same size skis. Alex could have gotten the same size skis, but he felt like he was more of a beginner and therefore he was more comfortable with slightly shorter skis.

I wanted to take a picture of Patrick with the boys at the top of the mountain. They ended up on the less majestic side, so the background is just a big snow bank. I love this picture, though, because Alex decided to pose for me. Of course, I ended up putting my finger over part of the picture, so it's not as good as it could have been, but I really love Alex giving me "attitude" this time.

On our next trip up, I got this photo. It was a beautiful, clear day. I might try to do a little Photoshop magic when I get home to erase the people in the background, but the view is just incredible. I also love that we were able to ski with the boys. They have quite a bit more energy than I do, but they stopped and waited for me and I loved and appreciated that.

After Eric finished with his lesson at 1230, we had some lunch. Eric said he enjoyed skiing, but he didn't want to have another ski lesson. Patrick went out to the small hill to see how he was doing. He wanted to see if there was any way Eric would be able to ski with us on the mountain. Unfortunately, he found out that Eric really needed at least one more lesson before he could go up on the mountain with us, and we didn't want to force him if he wasn't interested. So today, Eric got to stay home with Natalie and Grandma. I'll try to post about that tomorrow.

Ice Castles

I'm not sure how many of my photos will make into this blog post. The internet is especially slow today. I posted a couple of photos on Facebook already. We went to a place called Ice Castles yesterday afternoon. I saw some YouTube music videos lately that were filmed at one of the Ice Castles locations in the country. Since Natalie isn't able to swim with her back still healing, we thought this might be a fun thing for her to do so that she doesn't feel like she's missing out. The description on their website is as follows:

"Visitors often ask how we create the ice formations that we call ice castles. We start by “growing” more than 5,000 icicles each day that we harvest and sculpt together. Newly placed icicles are then drenched in freezing water. The blend of icicle placement, changing temperatures, water volume, and wind result in an astonishing variety of ice formations. And so all of the beauty you see at the ice castle is a unique blend of an artistic eye and mother nature’s work.

We repeat this process once or twice a day, depending on temperatures. and after about a few weeks of growth we can create very large towers, tunnels, archways, caves, caverns, and safe pathways for pedestrian exploration. Continued development of the structures throughout the winter results in an evolving ice masterpiece. Odds are, that if you come to visit one of our ice castles more than once you’ll have two very different experiences."

As you can see from all the pictures, it was snowing a lot that day--so much so that Patrick's sister Linda postponed her trip home. She drove in from Albuquerque, NM, just to see us. The weather did end up clearing up today, so she got to go home as planned. We saw a lot of trucks stopped on the side of the road awaiting better driving conditions, though.

I took the first picture above right when we got into the Ice Castle, to make sure we got everyone in at least one picture. The second picture is my favorite, just because it really shows a lot of the icicle formation as well the cool archways. Eric is always my very willing photography subject.

The third picture has an interesting story behind it. I saw the archway and wanted a photo. I decided that I needed at least one photo with my college son in it, and Natalie was the perfect companion for him. Patrick was taking video behind them and I told him to move. Instead of moving out of the archway completely, he decided to crouch down low. Thanks, honey--I can still see you.

This fourth picture definitely has a great story. Eric saw this ice formation and decided to lean behind it. Patrick decided it would be cool to extend Eric out and pretend to be pulling him out of the ice. It does make a funny picture. After we took this photo, Eric decided to hold himself horizontally, even without Patrick there.

Grandma had already escaped to the car because she was cold. The snow seemed to be coming down even more and it was getting windier. I saw this little area where there was only room for one person to walk through one at a time. I realized that I didn't have a picture of just the boys, so I told them all to stand in that little space. Alex hit his head as soon as he got in there. In fact, he said he must have hit his head twenty times. There was another area where you had to crawl on your hands and knees through to a cave area where you could actually stand. Anthony went in there with him and the cave was tall enough that he could stand in there too. Alex refused because he said that he had already been in there and hit his head.

Of all the times we've visited Grandma and Grandpa in Colorado, I've never been to this place, so it was nice to do something different. Apparently it's also very pretty when it's lit up at night, but it was getting colder, and we weren't too keen in being outside too much longer.

Today we went skiing. I hope to be able to get another blog entry up tomorrow.

We're here!

For those of you not on Facebook, I took this picture of the boys yesterday when we were waiting for Patrick to park the car so we could go through security. There were circular sofas in the airport terminal, and Eric decided to get in the middle. Anthony was probably playing Pokemon and not paying attention to the rest of us. Alex decided to make a funny face for me--I don't mind as long as he lets me get a picture. Natalie was grouchy and I wasn't even going to ask her to be in the picture. Eric has a sweet smile as usual. He was pretty excited to be going on the plane to see Grandma and Grandpa.

It took us forever to get through security between the six of us getting our stuff on the conveyor belt to be checked, and some of us having to remove our shoes, to having my bag checked individually, etc. We had a pretty uneventful flight otherwise, and we even landed a half hour ahead of schedule.

There was some traffic initially, but most of the trip to Grandma and Grandpa's place was also uneventful. Eric was tuckered out and took a nap during the car trip. The mountains are especially beautiful right now because of all of the snow they've been getting.

Grandma had some beef stew in the crock pot awaiting our arrival. Patrick's sister Linda is here visiting just so she could see us. We're here only a short period of time, long enough to get a little skiing done, but short enough that the boys get to be at home to see their friends during their Spring Break. Natalie gets to see her godmother, in fact, she's staying in the same bedroom with her for now, talking her ear off, I'm sure.

I hope everyone has a great week! Grandma's internet is a little slower than I'm used to, and it took me a couple of tries to post the photos, but I'll try to post more photos as the week goes on.

He's Home!!!

Anthony had an uneventful flight home today. His plane even got in early. Natalie and Patrick picked him up from the airport. Eric wanted to hug him as soon as he got home, but he had to wait until Anthony came in from the garage. Anthony bent down to hug him and picked him up off the floor in doing so.

Now that I'm looking at this picture, I've realized that the picture looks a little awkward. You can barely see Eric's feet since his pants are a little long and his feet are mostly covered by his pants. Anthony is bent over while also holding his winter coat, that of course he doesn't have to wear here. Eric gives great hugs like this to me all the time.

Anthony wasted no time in making himself at home. He set up his laptop and sat in his favorite La-Z-Boy chair in our living room and he stayed there for a good part of the afternoon. He did play chess with Alex. Alex won the first game in about six moves. He said that Anthony was a little rusty at chess. They were in the middle of another game when we went to church then out to eat at one of Anthony's favorite restaurants, El Mirasol. Now, Anthony is out with his best friend Alejandro. We're sure he'll get in some time after we go to bed.

The kids have all been super excited to see Anthony. They were even up to their old antics. Even at church they would poke each other and then point to someone else as being the culprit. At dinner they rekindled their little joke where they tried to switch the "g" and "j" sounds of words. That one is very much an inside joke, but the point is that they were having fun with each other. Patrick and I didn't want to stop them, except for when they were getting loud and distracting at church.

Speaking of fun, this is a quick photo of Eric and Natalie at Baskin-Robbins tonight. We haven't been there in forever, but we wanted ice cream for dessert tonight and we wanted something closer to home. Since we had to head back home first to drop off Anthony and Patrick because Anthony was going to be going out again to meet Alejandro, we decided to go to Baskin-Robbins instead of Brindles.

Natalie and Eric both had the Rainbow Sherbet. Alex had a shake, this time it was with the Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream. For the first time I didn't get the Jamoca ice cream. I actually got their Flavor of the Month, Bananas Foster ice cream. The description says that it is "Bananas Foster flavored ice cream complete with a brown sugar rum flavored ribbon and praline pecans". I don't normally like nuts in my ice cream, but these were crunchy and sort of had the texture of toffee bits. Yum!

Bored

It's so good to see Natalie smiling! She had just taken a shower and she came down to the kitchen to have some of the Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread that I had just taken out of the oven. A week or two ago I had made "regular" Banana Bread with chocolate chips--a recipe that I had gotten from my mom. Alex loved it, as he loves anything with banana and chocolate. Natalie merely said that she "liked Aunt Cynthia's better" and also added that Aunt Cynthia's recipe is "more chocolatey". Natalie is all about chocolate. So, I got the recipe from my sister, and I made it today.

Natalie has been so sad lately. She really wants to swim again. She hasn't been able to see her friends either. To top it off, we are going skiing and if her back isn't better, she can't ski.

She's at least had one little distraction this week. Her friend Margot is very interested in a local BASIS Charter School. They are supposed to have more challenging classes and apparently a large amount of homework goes with that. The brother of one of Alex's old soccer teammates goes there, and Patrick called his mom to find out about the school. Natalie came home very excited on Tuesday and she said that she "really wanted to go" to this new school.

Patrick took her to the info session on Wednesday. We're a little afraid that she would be taking on too much along with swimming two hours every night, but she's bored in school now. Every time I ask her if she likes school she says, "It's boring." When Alex chose a tougher school for middle school, he was very excited about it and really wanted to go. We want Natalie to be excited about school too. We'll put her on the list for now, and then we'll see if we'll actually go.

Natalie's Quilt Project

Natalie was working on a project for school this weekend. She had to fill out a packet of questions which included where her relatives were born and when. That part was due last Friday. She worked on the creative/presentation part of the project this past weekend. She printed out flags from some of the countries where her ancestors came from. As you can see from this first page, with Patrick and I as her parents, she had quite a few countries to choose from.

I let her do these pages all by herself. She helped herself to my card stock and she admitted trying to use as many different types of washi tape as possible to attach the pictures. I guess I didn't mind because I personally would have found it hard to choose.

The project instructions said that printing the pictures on plain paper was fine, so I didn't try to print them on photo paper. The quality would have been better, but that would have required more time to upload these and then pick them up.

This second page contains photos of a couple of vacations with the family (to Colorado and last year when we were on a cruise). I've posted one of the pictures before, of Natalie with her cousins trying to read each others' minds using aluminum foil hats they fashioned themselves. She also needed a picture of Filipino food, and I actually haven't taken a lot of photos, so I used a photo that I took at my Dad's 80th birthday party a couple of years ago.

Natalie used pictures of two of my scrapbook pages to show a family tradition. I get handprints of the kids every year and I write how tall they are and how much they weigh, along with a picture of the four of them.

I also usually try to take a picture of the kids with Santa hats in front of the Christmas tree, so she used the last picture as another example of a family tradition. The other picture is of the last Easter when the kids were breaking brightly colored confetti-filled eggs (called cascarones) over each others' heads.

Finally, I took a picture of two recipes that my mom gave me. I really didn't have anything else that qualifies as a family recipe. I usually get recipes from cookbooks and from the internet rather than get them from my mom. That makes visiting my mom and eating those dishes even more special since I don't get them anywhere else.

Natalie didn't ask me for any help in creating these pages, except for choosing and printing the pictures and using my supplies. I have a little scrapbooking experience that I might have used to help her design the pages to be more "visually appealing" and easier to follow. Still, I especially love that she did these herself.

She did her presentation in front of the whole class this week. She hasn't received the teacher's comments back yet, but I hope she does well. She did a great job.

As for a back injury update, she said last Sunday that her back felt much better. We thought that after seeing the doctor, she could possibly go back to swimming and PE this week. Unfortunately, she hurt her back again at school on Monday when she bent down to pick something up. When I got home that day, we had a talk about how to lift things while using your legs and not your back, but it was too late. Right now she doesn't get to ski next week. I really hope her back gets better soon.

Spring Soccer for Eric

Eric wanted to play soccer again, and since we were happy with the experience during the fall season, we went ahead and signed him up with the SA United club again. Anthony was with the same club when he was playing club soccer. We don't expect that Eric will automatically play soccer like his big brothers, but for now he enjoys it.

As you can see from the background, it was really foggy yesterday (Saturday) morning. Alex's high school soccer games overlapped with Eric's game, so Patrick was watching Alex's game and I was with Eric for his game. If Natalie had not injured her back, she would have had a swim meet also, so the injured back has been a mixed blessing. Patrick and I can still go to two different events at the same time, but we still have not managed to figure out how to go to more than two events at the same time. Natalie stayed home by herself to get some extra rest and to work on her school project due on Monday.

Eric was in a contrary mood. He has a gold SA United shirt that he wears for practice. This was the first game, so he didn't have his team shirt until we showed up at the field and got it. He is on the white team, named "Galaxy". All the teams have the same names as the MLS teams. He didn't want to take off his gold shirt, however. He wanted to put on the white shirt on top of the gold one. He also didn't want to remove his jacket, at first, at least until he was on the opposite side of the field and I couldn't hold the jacket for him. He also had a bad problem at first with a runny nose, so he needed tissues constantly. He got upset with me when I tried to help him. He said that I was holding the tissue too tightly to his nose (so I could catch the boogers) and that he couldn't blow out. Oh my. What a grump.

Luckily, he usually behaves for his teachers and coaches. There were eight boys on his team, so they all got to play half the time. They should have mixed them up a little, because obviously there were differences in playing ability, but oh well, they all got to play.

The other team was all girls. The girls all seemed way more coordinated and better at bringing the ball down the field, especially for one or two of them. I took this picture to show that Eric did participate, instead of just hanging back at the end of the long string of players running after the ball in almost single file. They still do that at this age. He did that too, but at least in this picture he tried to block a player from the other team from getting to the ball. He even scored a goal--for the other team. He did not realize that the teams had switched goals when he wasn't on the field playing.

This is the girl that scored almost all the goals for the other team. I am just tickled when I see this picture and the one above, when there is a very obvious size difference between Eric and the girls on the other team. Both teams are supposed to be made out of six and seven year olds. Girls just get bigger at an earlier age. Eric is actually trying to stop this girl from getting the ball. Go Eric!

I stopped counting score after this girl scored four goals. Their coach was even trying to get them to practice passing instead of one player just taking the ball the whole way down the field by herself. I heard one of the boys saying that they lost 2-13. I'm not sure it was quite that bad, but it was probably pretty bad. At least they all had fun. Eric loves playing soccer. Who knows, maybe he will decide to keep playing soccer like his big brothers. We're signing him up for baseball next.