Lazy Sunday?

We haven't been too busy on weekends since Natalie stopped swimming, but we don't usually end up just hanging out at home either. With Patrick's and my exercise kick since last year, one or both of us usually ends up at the gym. I went there at about 8am this morning. He didn't go because he left some time after 9am to drive to Austin. His high school friend Jim Z. was there for a convention, so he took the opportunity to go have lunch with him. Yes, it took over an hour's drive to go have lunch with him, but they haven't seen each other in a few years, and it was good to catch up. Patrick "forgot" to take a picture of the two of them together. Haven't I taught him anything?!

Meanwhile, I got home from the gym at around 10am. I took Natalie to her friend's house at noon. She has been trying to be more social, and we try to encourage that. This friend is going to be going to the same high school as Natalie next year, which is important since many of her other friends are going to the other high school that her middle school feeds into.

I offered to take the boys somewhere for lunch, and Alex suggested McAllister's Deli. There is a new one that opened recently down the street. He has been wanting to go there with Patrick since Patrick is more of the sandwich lover, but they haven't gone yet. Alex wanted to drive there. I had a brief second of panic, since Patrick has been the one that has driven with Alex. I have not been in the car with Alex driving--ever. Alex reassured me, so I agreed to let him drive. Of course, I couldn't resist taking a picture of him driving. He took his eyes off the road to look at me just as I was taking the picture. He didn't say anything and just continued driving.

We survived the experience, of course. Alex did pretty well. He says he still has trouble parking, so we made sure to park away from any other cars. He was very careful and still obviously inexperienced, but I am willing to let him drive with me in the car again. ;)

Eric was in a goofy mood this morning. I recently got him some T-shirts and pajamas from the Disney store, plus he received a couple of T-shirts as gifts from his party yesterday, so he cut the tags off them and put them away. He decided to stick the stickers that were on the clothes all over his face. I heard him mumbling since he had covered his mouth with a sticker, and I heard Natalie let out an exclamation of surprise when he showed her. When he came back downstairs again, he took the sticker off his mouth briefly just to ask me to take a picture so that I could text it to Anthony. I laughed when I took this picture because I asked him to smile for the picture, knowing that his mouth was covered up with the sticker, but he smiled anyway.

Besides putting away his new clothes, he also wrote thank you notes. It might have helped that I told him that he couldn't play with his new toys unless he wrote thank you notes first. He finished all eleven of them basically by himself. All I did was show him the list of toys that he had received, and made a couple of suggestions, and he wrote everything. He wrote sentences like, "Thank you for the money, I will use it wisely." He also wrote on another card, 'I love Legos and Star Wars Lego. Star Wars is awesome!" Alex's favorite card was thanking his friend for a Jango Fett toy--"I'll build it right away today! Hey, that rhymes!" I was gone taking Natalie to her friend's house when he wrote most of these notes, and I was glad he was able to do this by himself. Now he just has to write the thank you notes to family.

Patrick stopped by his parents' house to visit on the way home from Austin. He got home before 4pm. I picked up Natalie around then and the kids all watched Iron Man (the first movie) this evening. I made some Banana Cream Cheese bread and finally wrote a blog post. Yay! It's back to work and school tomorrow. Next weekend we'll be busy getting ready for our trip to Disney World.