Things That Make Me Smile

I will never get tired of seeing this! I was post-call yesterday and Patrick had met Natalie at the bus stop. They were walking up to our house when Natalie saw me standing in the front doorway. She immediately yelled, "Mama!" and ran across the driveway and up the stairs to give me a hug. Even when I'm tired and grouchy, I still love this. Thanks for the warm homecoming, Sweetie!

This is Eric hiding in the locker at the gym yesterday. He has played in the lockers since he discovered that he could fit in one and close the door. This time he stayed inside for a minute or two. I knocked on the door and he opened it with a smile. The next time he wouldn't open the door even when I knocked. I had to remind him that if he wanted to go with Natalie and me to Dollar Scoop Tuesday at Baskin-Robbins, he needed to come out of the locker. That worked, of course. Even though his closing himself up in a locker was inconvenient for me, he was enjoying himself. That always makes me smile!

Lunch At The Lodge

Doesn't this just look yummy? I know I have a long way to go before I'm any good at food photography, but this dessert is so delicious! Patrick and I have gone to a local restaurant (five minutes from our house) called The Lodge for our anniversary dinner in the past and I've described those meals on this blog. For the past three months, once a month, we've gone to The Lodge for lunch. I'm usually post-call and coincidentally it's always been on a Tuesday. We usually order the three course meal with a salad, main course, and we both always order the above dessert.

The dessert is called "Dark Chocolate and Nutella Souffle with Candied Hazelnuts, Salted Caramel, and Peanut Butter Mousse". I usually order the salmon, but this time I ordered the "Grilled Texas Bobwhite Quail with Point Reyes Blue Cheese Farrotto, Butter Baked Apple and Grilled Pear Salsa". I don't have the most adventuresome palate, but this one has an interesting and unique flavor that I love.

Patrick had the "Cast Iron Petit Beef Tenderloin with Brussels Sprout Hash, Pearl Onions and Sweet Black Currant Sauce"--big surprise, I know. I barely even got to see that one. He ate it up so quickly while I was concentrating on trying to cut my quail.

This post is making me SO hungry. We'll have to go back there again soon.

Why Trips To Target Take So Long

I know I've posted about this before, but this was the most interesting thing about my day so I'm posting about it again. Eric and Natalie will almost always go with me when I say I'm going to Target. Eric was still in his jammies when I said I was going and when he thought I left without him he got very upset. Sometimes he'll ride in the cart which keeps him contained. Today he wanted to "help" push the cart which means that he rides on the cart right where I need to stand to push the cart. That slows me down and makes me have to bend my back to reach over him. He got bored with that and started getting underneath the cart. I had to take a picture of course, and I gave my iPhone to Natalie to take a picture too.

Eric decided to ride in the cart after a bit, at least until he saw Natalie laying on this futon bed. He insisted on getting out of the cart so he could lie down on the bed too. I have to say that it was pretty cute, which is the only reason I let them do it. Luckily they both stayed with me during the trip instead of running off to where they want to go. I did have to rein in Natalie and her need to spend her recent windfall of being paid her back allowance. Patrick hadn't paid them their allowance since the beginning of the school year. She mostly spent the money on erasers, more silly bands and gum. It can be a little stressful to corral these two, but I have to admit that I like spending time with them, even if it's a little stressful.

I haven't gotten my photo printer to work again, so I'll post a preview of my first scrapbook page of the year. For the past few years I've made a page on the first or second day of the year where I use a picture of the kids standing in front of the Christmas tree. I get them all to put their handprints on the page and for the post two years I've added their heights and weights. I thought I had posted last year's (2010) page on my blog, but I can't seem to find it so I posted it below. This is the photo I'll be using for this year's page and their vital stats are as follows: Anthony 139.5 lbs/ 5'11", Alex 98.5 lbs/5' 2 3/4", Natalie 55.5 lbs/50", Eric ? lbs/38 in. I don't have an official weight on Eric because when I put him on the scale this morning, it said "Lo" and since it requires a special battery that we don't have around the house, we'll have to replace the battery later. Eric usually weighs himself before baths, so I'm sure he weighs right around 30 lbs. I'm quite a bit later this year with this page since it was SO hectic this past week.

Still The Same

Yes, Eric still lines up his vehicles when he plays with them, although not as many as he used to. I tried to take a picture of this with his face included, but when he saw me, he said, "No pictures!" as he usually does nowadays.

No, this is not our garage. Natalie has been playing with more of the neighborhood girls, but she still plays a lot with the neighborhood boys. She is in the garage of our neighbors across the street and she's wearing a pair of borrowed roller blades. I wondered about this at the time, but I forgot to ask her later--why is she also wearing one of their hockey jerseys?

This is the girl who asked for a bike for Christmas one year and a motorized scooter the next year but she hasn't used either one. Patrick was surprised to hear that she actually skated on the roller blades instead of just wearing them. I really don't understand my daughter sometimes.

This is why it's hard for me to scrapbook my kids. Look at that color combo! Natalie's favorite color right now is red. She also likes turquoise blue, which is the color of her pants (and her shirt which is underneath that red jersey. Of course those roller blades are purple. I don't think I'll be able to find patterned paper to match this color combo.

In other news, our van wouldn't start today when Patrick was going to pick up Anthony from the movie theatre. He had to take it into the dealership on a busy Saturday afternoon. Luckily they found out what was wrong with the van and luckily it seems to be covered under our extended warranty. Unfortunately, they couldn't get it fixed today, so we'll have to take it in on Monday morning. Luckily I'm on call on Monday, so I'll be around, or more importantly, my car will be around just in case. It could get complicated if the car isn't fixed on Monday like they think it will, since Patrick has to get Natalie to piano lessons then try to go to Anthony's JV soccer game then pick up Anthony from school after the game, etc. We're so glad we got that extended warranty.

Go to Bed Please

Natalie and Eric were playing outside when I got home with Anthony. They only came in when we asked them to come in for dinner. Eric was definitely acting tired today, but he was still napless.

After dinner, I saw Natalie and Eric laying on the stairs, so I asked them why they were laying on the stairs. Natalie replied, "We're sleeping on the stairs." I'm not sure if they were playing some sort of game or what, but they certainly were being silly. Natalie kept getting in the most uncomfortable-looking positions. Eric just laid across one step, but she laid over several steps. No, they didn't actually sleep on the stairs.

After I took these pictures, I sent them upstairs to get ready for bed. Natalie has been volunteering to get into bed early this week, but Eric still fights going to bed. He didn't want to go upstairs, but he did only because I said he could watch a little TV after I washed him up for bed. When Natalie went to bed and left him by himself to watch TV, he got upset about being left alone in the room. It's too bad he fought taking a nap today.

Getting Reacquainted

Eric got into trouble at school again today. Apparently he pushed one of his friends. When his teacher was telling me this, I could see his eyes well up a little and he started to wipe his eyes. Usually inconsiderate things like this happen when the little man is tired. He's usually a very sweet boy.

He wasn't acting tired at the gym tonight. This is a picture of him jumping off the benches in the family locker room. He would jump onto the bench and then jump off, then go to the next bench and so on. I went to work out and got called back early because the little man had pooped in his diaper (so I had to change it). I hadn't eaten dinner yet so I went to the gym cafe. Eric had eaten already, so he just shared my water. He asked for a smoothie, which Patrick usually gets him whenever they go to the cafe. I told him "no" because we had already planned on going out for ice cream after the gym. He didn't have a fit because I said "no", which I was a little surprised at. Later, after he spilled some of the water on himself, he asked for a lid ("top") for the water cup. We were already a few minutes late getting Natalie, so I refused. He didn't get upset at all. I totally expected him to get upset.

We missed Dollar Scoop Tuesday at Baskin-Robbins, so we went out for ice cream tonight. Coldstone Creamery is near our gym, so Natalie wanted to go there. As you can see from this picture, Eric savored his Cotton Candy ice cream to the very last drop. Surprisingly, I actually didn't have any ice cream tonight. We go out for ice cream a lot partly because I really enjoy taking the kids out for treats and of course partly because I enjoy the treats myself. I've been overindulging lately so I'm trying to be better.

I took a lot of pictures tonight trying to work on getting well focused pictures, but I only had the chance to take one photo here. We usually brush his teeth and then he wants to "brush" his own teeth. What he does is brush with water and sort of sucks the water out of the toothbrush more than he actually does any teeth cleaning. That means that he has to keep adding water to the toothbrush. Sometimes he'll take a while doing this, but meanwhile there is more and more water on the counter. After he is done, he'll sort of balance himself on the counter on his chest and tummy so he can reach the faucet with his mouth so he can rinse out his mouth. That's what he was doing here.

I've really missed spending time with the kids this week. I almost feel like I was getting reacquainted with Eric tonight. Hopefully we'll have lots of fun this weekend.

No Pictures!

I had to use this "old photo from last Thursday because I haven't taken any photos since January 1st! My mom is kissing on Alex and he is resisting, which is typical for him. I think the kissing can't possibly bother him that much since he is smiling and isn't getting mad. He's gotten mad at me before when I tried to kiss him at church. The other kids let me kiss them whenever, even Anthony. Alex just wants to show that he's different from his siblings.

One reason why I haven't taken any photos is that I haven't been home and I don't usually feel right about taking photos at work. Anthony has had after school soccer practice every day this week so far, and that doesn't end until around 6pm, so I haven't been getting home until around 6:30pm. I'm just brain dead when I get home, so all I do is eat dinner, then sit and play games on my iPhone or interact with Natalie and Eric until it's time to give Eric a bath and put him in bed. After that I sift through my email or play on the computer until it's time for me to get ready for bed. Pretty boring!

I'm actually going to get home earlier tomorrow--yay! Anthony has a JV game at another high school at 4:30pm, so I'm going to go straight home after work. I don't like to drive to new, strange places (that's a trait that I got from my mom *WINK*), so Patrick will go to the game and I will take Natalie to her swim practice at the gym. That means I get to exercise tomorrow--yay! That means I get to spend more than an hour with Natalie and Eric before they go to bed. Hopefully that will be a good thing.

Before I sign off on this very boring post, I'm going to share a couple of stories about Eric from this week:

--On Tuesday, when he was at daycare, he got in trouble with his teacher because he was waving his blanket around and awakened at least one of the other kids. When his teacher told Patrick about this, Eric broke into tears because he knew he was in trouble.

--Earlier this week, Patrick told Eric to go to bed. Eric was upstairs and he called down to Patrick, "Papa, I can't hear you!"

--I was on the phone with the resident that I was going to be working with the following day. I had left Eric in the gameroom as he was trying to button his pajama top. He insists on doing this himself. Well, he came into my bedroom crying his little heart out. I got off the phone quickly to find out what was wrong. When he calmed down just enough to be able to speak, he told me, "I'm missing two buttons." I realized that he meant that he couldn't button the first two buttons because he couldn't find those buttons/buttonholes. Poor baby! I helped him find the buttons/buttonholes and he felt much better and went on his way.

Hopefully I'll have some new pictures tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Warning! Lots of pictures in this post! I wanted to add a few more, but I selected these since they tell a story.

This first one is of Eric with his three new trains--Patchwork Hiro, Old Slow Coach, and Neville. He has so many trains, but he really does love each one. I was discussing with my mom about how Anthony used to love trains and Alex used to love cars. Eric loves them both.

The kids got their Christmas presents from Lolo and Lola on Thursday, and Aunt Melissa yesterday. I was organized this year and brought along thank-you notes for them to fill out. We were able to give out the thank-you notes within an hour of receiving the gifts. Yay me!

One of the reasons why we went to Houston for the New Year is that setting off fireworks isn't illegal where my sister lives, whereas it is where we live. This is one of the first fireworks we set off. It was loud and very cool. It was only 7:30pm, but unfortunately, the loud sounds sent a very tired Eric back inside the house. That's from a boy who usually loves loud noises. He did come back outside for a little bit and watched some of the other fireworks go off, but then he was back in side with Lola.

It was dark and very hard to get good pictures. I'm determined to master this before the next New Year's celebration. Everyone gathered in the street, at first. My brother-in-law lit all of the fireworks so there wasn't much participation, mostly just watching.

The boys stayed in the street for almost the whole time. Patrick bought a dozen of these "tanks" that were supposed to be propelled forward when they were lit. They ended up being mostly noise and smoke. Nick and Alex are holding some of the few sparklers that we had bought.

Anthony and Nick decided to fall down in the street as if the fireworks exploding had shot them. If I had some chalk, I would have tried to draw around them. I'm sure they would have loved that. There were some other fireworks that we didn't end up lighting because the wind had picked up and it wouldn't have been safe for the surrounding houses.

The girls mostly sat on the sidewalk in the chairs that were set up. It was interesting to see the division by sexes.This is where Eric was sitting for a short while. Aunt Melissa loves to cuddle with Eric and she was more than willing to have him on her lap. Mom was outside for even less than Eric. Dad stayed indoors.


Later, after the girls and Eric had their baths, the girls gave us a little concert of Christmas songs. They started upstairs, but that was too hard to photograph, so they moved downstairs in front of the fireplace. We were hoping that Eric would sing too, but that was asking too much from that tired boy. He did seem to enjoy the concert.

He looks pretty relaxed, doesn't he? This is Eric watching the girls sing. He is wearing one of his many new Thomas clothes. He went to bed shortly after the "concert". Mom and Dad went to bed early too. The rest of us stayed up to watch "Despicable Me" and then some of us played Apples to Apples. It was nice to spend a relaxing evening with family.

Today, John took Aly and Natalie to Home Depot to build battery organizers. They have this activity on the first Saturday of each month and Aly is obsessed with this activity and the ones that are at Lowe's every other week. The rest of us just hung out at the house until it was time to go home. As soon as we got home, Alex wanted to go meet his friends at the local ice skating rink. The timing was a little inconvenient, but we're glad that he can be social in person instead of just texting (and playing video games at home). Hopefully tomorrow will be another relaxing day before all of us resume our normal hectic routine of school and work and other activities on Monday.

Happy New Year!

Like Home

Whenever I visit my Mom and Dad, it's like being home again. Mom always has all our favorite dishes cooked and ready. I've been eating constantly since we got here this afternoon--fresh lumpia, barbecue on a stick, Lumpia Shanghai. They have three different flavors of ice cream in the freezer (chocolate, coffee, and peach), as well as popsicles and little Drumsticks for the kids. Natalie and Eric had their favorite--"rice soup". Mom even had some homemade biscotti that my aunt made and sent, and some yummy Ghirardelli chocolates that Anthony couldn't resist. There was fruit salad that took Alex back to his Wiggles days. When he was scooping some up, he sang, "Fruit Salad--yummy, yummy" all while rubbing his tummy. Eric just takes it for granted that he will be fed constantly when Mom is around. Mom even has food ready to bring to my sister's house for the New Year tomorrow, since she and her family will be just returning home after visiting her in-laws. One of these days I hope to be like you, Mom. Love you!

Thank Yous

Today was thank you note writing day. Ever since one of my friends said that she doesn't let her kids play with their new toys until they write thank you notes, Patrick and I have tried to follow that rule, at least for birthdays. It's a little more difficult at Christmas, because well, it's Christmas. I want to enjoy Christmas Day and I want my kids to enjoy Christmas Day. I don't want Christmas to be all about the presents anyway, so I don't want to focus on thank you notes then. We need to be thankful for Christ's birth.

Eric is fascinated with spelling his name and writing his name, so I decided to let him sign the thank you notes while I wrote the rest of it. He was being so silly. He didn't necessarily write the letters all in a row and he mixed upper and lower case letters ("ERiC"). He drew huge dots for the "i" and sometimes put two dots for one "i". A couple of times he even started coloring in the middle of the "R". He often wrote his "c" backwards. One time he even wrote the letters in a clockwise fashion. When the "R" was a little flat, he said that "the R fell down". Another time when he made an extra long tail on the "R", he said that "the R is dancing". I'm thankful that he is such a happy kid that loves writing and the alphabet.


I made simple thank you notes this year. No die-cutting or glitter spray like I did on some of the cards last year. All I did was emboss some colored cardstock. Easy peasy. The kids all wrote their own notes. Natalie was really rocking on her notes. She said that was because she knew that we wouldn't let her play with her friend this afternoon if she didn't get them done. I'm thankful that she did not require much prompting.

It was a dreary, rainy day today, but Anthony still had high school soccer practice this afternoon. When he got back we went out to eat at El Mirasol. Patrick wanted a reward for cooking dinner four times this week. I wanted to go to Dollar Scoop Tuesday as a reward for getting the thank you notes done. I always take pictures at Dollar Scoop Tuesday, but this time it was unusual because Alex actually came with us and he had ice cream but Anthony didn't. Highly unusual. Eric didn't even finish his chocolate ice cream, so Natalie finished it for him. She's thankful that Eric actually let her have his leftovers.

Since Christmas, Eric has been sleeping in Natalie's bed. He has done that before, but right now it's every night. Natalie insists that she doesn't mind--she even volunteered and told him it was okay if he stayed there all night. I warned her that getting him to stop would be difficult if he got used to it. They don't always get along, but I'm thankful when they do. For the past couple of mornings, she also gets him to go to the potty then she puts a new diaper on him. Patrick and I are definitely thankful for that!

Christmas Card Wreath

I wanted to share a picture of the Christmas card wreath that I bought this year from Hallmark. In past years I've put the cards we received in a stack but now I like how I can see all of them hanging up. We get so many that it's hard arrange them so they can all be seen, and it's hard to see the actual wire wreath that's holding all of the cards together, but I love each and every one of them. I've seen some people who hang up all the cards separately on the wall, but we don't have enough wall space for that. The ones with newsletters are tucked in there too. We received a handful more cards just today after I took this picture. It doesn't matter to me that I received the cards after Christmas. What's important to me is that someone took the time to send them. Thanks to everyone that sent us a card!

The Aftermath

I forgot to take a picture of our messy living room until this evening. This is pretty much what it looked like this morning, though. All of the stuff was still in the living room, but the big boys still had their stuff in piles (minus the video games that are already well used) and Natalie's and Eric's stuff was spread out all over the place. Natalie's stuff was the most spread out because she used her stuff in different rooms. She and her friend M played with her Model Magic in the dining room. She put her Play-Doh Mega Factory near where the other Play-Doh is in the kitchen. Eric's stuff is still in the living room. He hung out in the living room all day playing with various toys. We'll have to clean this all up by tomorrow afternoon when our housekeeper comes so she can actually clean the floor without accidentally throwing away small toys.

I was able to drag a busy little boy away form his other toys to take a bath by enticing him with one of his new bath toys. Actually, he had been playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine flashlight inside the pantry with the door closed.

This new toy is a fishing set but here he is using it like his siblings before him. It's easier to manipulate the string directly instead of maneuvering the pole, so he is taking the easy route. His siblings used to do that too. I don't know if it's laziness or intelligence. If it was their Grandma, she would say it was intelligence since all of her grandkids are "Mensa babies". They love you too, Grandma!

You would think that fishing is peaceful and relaxing, but not in my household. You can see the bubbles in the water here from the agitation caused by little hands. The fish are "ninja fish" and they're thrashing around in the water attacking each other. There is splashing and throwing involved as well. There was also some shouting and screaming, which led to Patrick coming in to check on things. When he heard that the noise was mostly due to the "ninja fish", he knew everything was normal. ;)

We mostly stayed at home today, although Natalie and Alex did go to their friends' house. I took Anthony shopping to find some khaki pants that fit. The mall was absolutely packed, which is why I usually try to avoid the mall during the whole month of December. We came home empty-handed, as Anthony is a size 29x32 and all the pants with small waists were too short and all the pants that were long enough would have necessitated too much belt-tightening. We did, however, enjoy some Chinese food for lunch and Haagen-Dazs for dessert. Tomorrow we have to brave the grocery store and I plan to do a little more shopping.

I hope everyone out there is still having a wonderful holiday weekend!

Merry Christmas 2010

All of the kids got up fairly early. Even Anthony was up by 7:30-8AM. They ate their cereal from the small cereal boxes that we've traditionally put in their stockings. We didn't actually open any presents until around 9AM. I used that as a bribery tool to get the kids to pose for a picture in front of the Christmas tree, although the first picture caught Alex texting. Eric refused to wear a Santa hat, which was fine with me. I wish the kids had been wearing red PJs. That would have made a nicer photo.

I try to take before and after photos, but I barely got this one of Eric. He was a perpetual motion machine, probably after he had that sugar-y breakfast cereal. I think he's the one that ended up with the Trix Swirls cereal. I tried to take his "before" photo several times, but he kept heading back towards the piano, crawling around under the piano and bench, etc.--anything but sitting still with his presents.

I plan to do a scrapbook page about what presents they received. The kids are very lucky to have so many aunts, uncles, and grandparents that are generous at Christmas. Natalie also received the sweetest letter from her best friend M. M wrote about how Natalie wasn't just a friend, she was like a sister. How sweet was that?

Both Anthony and Alex enjoyed reading the notes that came with the calendars they received from Grandma and Grandpa almost as much as they enjoyed receiving the calendars themselves. In Anthony's note, it said, "Here is the 2011 edition of the art folio that we think you wanted." In Alex's note it said, "Someone told us that you have become an art aficionado and that you would like something similar to that which Anthony has. They told Grandpa at the bookstore that this may do." I'm not sure why the boys wanted to give each other these looks in this picture, but it still feels weird as a mother to see your baby boys with these "art folios" in their possession.

The boys spent a lot of time playing their new PS3 video games. When Alex wasn't playing video games, he was listening to his new iPod Nano and saying he couldn't hear anything because he was using his new noise-cancelling earphones. Eric and Natalie spent time with pretty much all of their new toys. We spent a lot of time as a family watching our accumulated tapes of "No Ordinary Family" and "Tower Prep". Eric wasn't interested in watching those shows, but he kept himself busy. Patrick walked into the office and saw this sight.

Eric has had this recent fascination with scissors. Since I have so many types within reach at my desk, he has been helping himself to them. Some of the paper items that were on that floor--Mama's voter registration card, a receipt from the Honda dealership for work done, etc., all from Papa's desk. When Patrick saw this, he called for Eric to come to the office. Eric refused to go there, knowing what was there. He usually refused to clean up also, but this time he was on the floor picking up little bits of paper. It's a good thing he's a cute kid!

Speaking of cute, I took a video of Eric singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and posted it on Facebook, if anyone is interested. I would post it here, but that would require some assistance from Patrick and posting on Facebook is so easy.

It's been a very relaxing, although not so productive day, but it was nice to hang out and spend time with the family. Hopefully everyone else out there had a wonderful Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Cleanup Christmas Eve

The day started out sedately enough. I watched Natalie as she spread out her huge stash of Silly Bandz all over her bedroom floor so she could "organize" them. Eric wore a few of them. He was especially fascinated with the van-shaped one (from Scooby Doo). He even made car sounds like he was driving the rubber band around.

The two of them then had breakfast, during which Eric started playing with a balloon Natalie and I had gotten him from the grocery store yesterday. He knocked over his sugary cereal bowl. Luckily I had ignored him when he wanted me to pour milk into the bowl, so it was just sugar that got everywhere, not milk and sugar. I sent him to the bathroom to wash his hands while Natalie and I cleaned up the table. She was such a big help even though I had to give her specific initial instructions on the right way to clean the table. In this picture she is cleaning the place mats for me. They're the type of place mat that don't need to be washed which means that you can't just throw them into the washer.

I had just finished vacuuming the area rug under the table when Eric came up to me and said that water was dripping, as he looked towards the bathroom. Great! He had been playing with the water in the bathroom and spilled water all over the counter. Sigh! In between trips to get more towels to clean up the mess, I saw Eric climbing onto the stool with Natalie and watching her as she cleaned up the place mats. He can be such a sweetie, but so mischievous at the same time!

The rest of the day was filled with cleaning up and Patrick getting the steak ready for our evening meal. Natalie and I did take a quick trip to Michael's and to Coldstone Creamery to use my free birthday ice cream coupon. We also went to the Children's Mass at 4pm and we managed to get seats despite getting there "late"--15 minutes before mass started. We came home for dinner.

Dinner was a nice family time. It started out with Patrick and I trying to get the kids to stop talking with their mouths full and it ended up with a lot of laughing and joking around. This is a picture of Alex talking with a crescent roll in his mouth. He was horrified that I took this picture, but not horrified enough to stop talking with his mouth full. Natalie just giggled constantly and Eric was trying to copy his siblings.

We watched a couple of our taped TV shows together. The kids went to bed later than usual, but it was all good. Patrick and I got everything ready for tomorrow morning, and I took photos of everything just now. I love how the lights reflect off the wood floor in the living room. It looks so peaceful now and so different from what I'm sure it will look like tomorrow. I'll be sure to post some pictures of tomorrow's chaos.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Snapshots About This And That

This is the amazing gingerbread creation I referred to yesterday. It's located in the Dining Facility or DFAC and it's modeled after the hospital itself. Snow is unlikely to accumulate in in San Antonio like this, but the white stuff really makes this gingerbread hospital look even more amazing.

Speaking of amazing, we received a box of chocolates from Grandma and Grandpa today. Look at these four surrounding the box of chocolates. They're trying to figure out which chocolate is which so they can pick out which ones they want to eat. Dear Patrick tried to save the caramel ones for me. It's amazing that there are still chocolates left--at least I think there are still chocolates left.

He still does it. Eric still lines things up, although not as frequently or as grand a scale as he used to. These are his Lightning McQueen slippers, James stuffed toy, and Snoopy stuffed animal. I found them on the floor just inside the door to my bedroom. I had to record this for posterity.

We stayed home for most of the day today. Patrick did run some errands to get propane tanks for the gas grill and to the library to return books. Natalie and I went to Hallmark to use my $10 coupon. I'll have to take a picture of the red and green chunky bracelets that we bought--very Christmas-y. We also went to the grocery store. I've never ever been at the grocery store when it's been that crowded and busy before. Hopefully we'll be well stocked for the rest of the weekend so we won't have to go back there for a while.

This evening, we dropped Alex off at his friend's house. His friend's dad was going to take them to the local ice rink to meet up with a group of friends. We had already made plans to go to "Holiday In The Park" at Fiesta Texas, so we really appreciate his friend's Dad's offer to bring him home. That also meant that Alex didn't go with us.

At Fiesta Texas, Natalie and Eric wanted to see Santa yet again. Patrick and Anthony did not have the patience to wait in the twenty-minute line, so they went off by themselves. Santa's Castle was a bit dark for pictures, but I'm still happy I got this photo. I'm still not the best photographer, but I'm definitely better than I used to be. Eric only said, "Hi" to Santa and even Natalie wasn't all that talkative. She mostly smiled and giggled. I found it interesting that on the way home, Eric made a comment about "two Santas". I'm not sure what he meant by that, but he's pretty observant for a little boy. I hope he hasn't noticed that all of these Santas are different people, although in the past we've used the excuse that the Santas at the mall aren't the "real" Santa since Santa is too busy to be everywhere before Christmas.

We also rode on a couple of rides. This is Anthony being a good big brother by holding Eric so he could see Natalie riding on the small rollercoaster. Eric didn't want to go so she rode by herself. She's much more adventurous than me. I love that Anthony really looks like he's holding Eric tightly to support him. He also played with him while we waited for Natalie. I love that even though they're so different in age and size, they can have fun together. Of course Anthony is so good with kids, especially his siblings.

We spent most of our time at the park getting our new season passes for next year. It's relatively cheap entertainment. It was nice to see all the lights at the park and spend time together. I wish Alex could have been there too, but he had a lot of fun with his friends tonight. We'll have lots of family time in the next couple of days.

Gingerbread Train

One of these days I might want to make a gingerbread house or other structure from scratch. For now, I prefer the easier kit version. Natalie and Eric enjoy it and it's not too much trouble for me. Grandma gave us this Gingerbread Train Kit last year, but since she gave it to us for Christmas, I decided to wait to make it until this year.

Natalie has been begging for a month to put this together. We had time this morning. The pre-made icing seemed a little dry, and I probably should have made a smaller hole in the bag for the icing to come out of. A couple of the gingerbread pieces didn't break apart cleanly either, and the engine is tilted a little to one side, but we made it work. It's nothing fancy but it's done and it's on display in the kitchen.

This little man enjoyed just watching, which is a good thing, because the delicate structure probably would not have been resistant to the clumsy weight of a three-year-old's hands. The slightly more dexterous hands of an eight-year-old were already making the train engine lean to one side as she applied the candy pieces to one of the wheels. The whole thing was built on something called an "EZ-Tray" to supposedly make it easier. It's not a very pretty display area, but the kids don't care, so I don't either.

I'm off to work in a bit. For the second time, the nutrition staff at the hospital has made a gingerbread reproduction of the hospital. It's pretty cool and I hope I can get a few pictures of it tonight and I'll try to share tomorrow.

Big Boy Little Boy

I tried to take a few more pictures today to make up for yesterday. I decided to post only two photos today and then share the rest of them when I share my December Daily album.

Patrick had made Thai Pork for dinner and made banana chocolate chip bread. I took pictures of those things because I was so happy that he was being so domestic. :) When I had gone to pick up Anthony from soccer practice, Eric wanted to have some banana bread, but Patrick wouldn't let him because it was so close to dinner. Eric insisted that banana bread wasn't a "snack" because it was "bread". Of course, how could you get that wrong, Papa?

After dinner and a show (a taped episode of "Tower Prep"), I took Anthony, Eric, and Natalie to Baskin-Robbins for Dollar Scoop Tuesday. Sometimes I still wonder if Alex is mine--he didn't want to go out and get ice cream again. On the way out, Natalie stood up next to the height measurement thingy on the door and said that she wasn't even 4 1/2 feet tall. I told Anthony to go stand next to the door too. He was six feet tall with shoes on! Actually, he was a little over six feet tall with his hair being so puffy!

I took some shots of our outdoor lights tonight. One new addition is this little tree that I bought from the Boy Scouts at our church. Eric was watching me take pictures from just inside the front door, at first, but then he wanted to go outside with me. I know the lighting is pretty bad here, but he looked so cute standing next to that little tree. He is looking up at the sky because there was a contrail in the sky right next to the full moon. He had been pointing to the sky saying that an airplane had been there. I love how he is so fascinated by even the small little things.

I'm on call tomorrow night, which means I get to spend some time with the family in the morning tomorrow and then the next week or so. I'm looking forward to that.

Boys and Girls

I was too tired today to take any pictures, if you can even imagine that happening. After work, I went straight to my dentist appointment. Anthony and Alex were already there for their appointments. Patrick had dropped them off since he and the other two had their appointments last week. After the appointments, we went home, watched an episode of "No Ordinary Family" together as a family. Patrick then left to take Anthony to pick up his friend and take them to see "Tron: The Legacy" movie while the rest of us had dinner.

After dinner, Eric wanted to "share" some of my Haagen-Dazs Bananas Foster ice cream. While we were sharing, we were having a little conversation that went something like this:

Eric: Mama, you're a girl.
Me: Yes, I am.
Eric: I told Papa that. Papa's a boy because you're a girl.
Me: So, Papa is a boy only BECAUSE I'm a girl?
Eric: Natalie is a girl too. Natalie is a girl and you're a girl. Ina boy (I'm a boy).
Me: Yes, you are a boy. How do you know you're a boy?
Eric: Anthony and Alex are boys and Ina boy too.

This also reminds me of the time where he insisted that girls had long hair and boys had short hair. With today's popular long hairstyles, I think this belief would probably confuse him. It's still pretty cute to have these little conversations with him.

One more thing--he can now sing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" all by himself. He even gets all the words right. I'll have to work on trying to record that so I can share.

Sea World With Eric

We planned on going to Sea World today, after church. We expected that the big boys wouldn't be interested in going, but Natalie wanted to stay home too. Eric, though, was very excited about seeing Shamu at Sea World.

Once we were there, he loved looking at all of the Christmas decorations. When he saw this big Christmas tree, he excitedly exclaimed, "Christmas tree!" We mostly walked around, visiting the crocodiles before going to see the "Azul" show with the Beluga whales and dolphins. Eric was watching the show so intently that he reminded us of when Natalie was this age. She loved watching all of the animals, divers, and other stunts too. I hadn't seen this version of the show until today.

Our last stop was going to be this giant new playscape. Eric loves going to playgrounds, especially the slides. He made a beeline for one big enclosed slide. I saw him get on the slide and then I heard a thud sound. I saw him come out of the bottom head first. He always does that, so it didn't seem unusual. At first I thought he was laughing and I took a picture of him. He was actually crying and it took me a couple of minutes to calm him down. He wasn't even calm yet when I saw the huge bluish lump on his forehead that was over an inch around and was swollen at least a half inch.

Of course Patrick was in the restroom at the time, and he walked up just then. He joked with me about not being able to leave Eric alone with me, then we went to a concession stand to get some ice. Needless to say, Eric did not feel like playing after this.

Ice cream always makes things better. The lighting is pretty bad in this picture, but you might be able to make out the faint blue bump on the right side of his forehead. Since we were too full after dinner on Friday to get dessert, we went to Brindles today. I don't think I can use the birthday excuse to get extra desserts any more after today. For the rest of the evening, we watched some our taped shows as a family. It was a nice, relaxing end to my birthday weekend.

I dropped Natalie off to play at a friend's house in our same neighborhood) and we saw this. Apparently this pack of wild turkeys has been roaming around our neighborhood for the past few days. I had to take a picture because I've never even seen live turkeys in person, and here are a group of eight of them. This is not a natural place for turkeys to be and we have no idea where they came from. I wasn't about to get out of the car, so I took this picture through an open window. I had to include this picture here just so other people would see the evidence. Weird!