Two Children

We spent yesterday afternoon and this morning with only two children. These two didn't argue with each other. It was a welcome relief after spending the previous two days with Natalie and Eric bickering. In fact, when I got up this morning, I found Alex and Eric in their room, building. Eric was putting train tracks together for his trains. Alex was building a parking garage for Eric's cars. Alex bought a set of these toy vehicles from the movie Cars for Eric last week, just because--no special occasion.

I tried to convince Eric to change into his "day" clothes and he refused. I tried to convince him by telling him that I might go to Target and if he wanted to come with me, he had to change clothes. Alex tried to help me by saying that he would buy him something at Target. Eric decided that Alex would buy him a Thomas train. I tried to warn Alex that he shouldn't promise something as expensive as a Thomas train because Eric would hold him to it, but it was too late. After all, when Alex was a toddler, Patrick used to buy him Matchbox cars at Walmart with almost every visit, but those were less than a dollar each.

At Target, Alex managed to convince Eric to get yet another Nerf gun instead. As Alex put it, "We can never have too many Nerf guns." Also, since they are boys after all, bigger is better. Eric picked this long gun that he could barely carry. Alex said that Eric picked it partly because there was a picture of a small boy on the box, as opposed to the pictures of "big boys" on the other boxes. In the picture above, he allowed me to take a picture so I could show Papa (so I could text him the picture). He said as he lifted the big gun above his head, "I can barely hold dis!" Sometimes he is just too adorable for words!

Unfortunately, it wasn't an entirely good trip. On our way home from lunch at Chipotle, we were involved in a minor car accident. We were unhurt, but my car has some more dents on the side. Bummer! :( Patrick was waiting for us at home after picking up the other two from their respective sleepovers. They were both very tired, especially Natalie who isn't used to staying up late at all (1 AM). I was pretty upset by the accident, but at least I had all my babies safe and sound at home.

Trip Recap

This is just a goofy picture of Natalie and Eric--further proof we need to look into gymnastics classes for the little man. I'm not sure how this started, but sometimes Natalie will lift Eric up under his arms and he will hold up his legs. It cracks me up every time they do this "routine".

I've seen a lot of their antics in the last couple of days. Since I worked last Saturday, I got yesterday (Friday) off. The big boys participated in a soccer clinic this morning (Saturday) and Anthony still had summer P.E. camp on Friday, so I went to Houston with just the little ones. I left on Thursday afternoon and came back this morning. Patrick stayed with the boys. I told Patrick today that I needed a break from these two. They are cute but they argue a lot, which is unpleasant when I'm trying to drive the car.

For whatever reason, Natalie started rubbing John's head. He liked it so much that he told her to keep doing it. At first he was bending over at the kitchen counter so she could reach his head, but then I suggested that he sit down and relax, so he did. She does silly little things like that. Aly said that it was like petting a dog. :)

We stayed at Cynthia and John's house. Mom and Dad came to visit on Friday, as did Melissa. Emily and Aly had Harry Potter camp from 9-2 on Friday. We had lunch with them and then the girls all got to play together after the camp. We celebrated Mom's birthday early and informally by ordering Chinese food take-out for dinner. It may not be what other people do, but that's what we do.

Food tastes better when Lola is feeding it to you. Here she is feeding Eric with some "rice soup" or "arroz caldo". He loves that stuff! Mom prefers takeout to going to a restaurant because then she can play with the kids more. It was nice to spend some time with my family, even if it was just a short time. Dad is having more and more trouble with travel, so instead of waiting for them to come to visit us, we went to visit them.

Cow Hat

Patrick and the younger kids went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch this week and they received these hats in honor of "Cow Appreciation Day" this coming Friday. Anthony has a silly side to him and he put on one of the hats, which happened to be Eric's hat. Eric insisted that he didn't want Anthony to wear his hat, for some reason. Natalie volunteered hers and even adjusted it to fit Anthony's head. The first picture I took was with Anthony texting while wearing the cow hat. Here he is trying to look as mean as possible.

For Cow Appreciation Day, if you dress up as a cow, you can get a free meal at Chick-Fil-A, you can get a free meal. If you dress up only partially, then you can still get a free entree. Anthony said that he wouldn't mind dressing up as a cow, except that his family would take pictures. Then he said, "Oh wait, my friends would take pictures too." Yes, most definitely. I guess that's why he lets me take all the pictures I want of him.

Coming Home

This is the sight that has greeted me on my arrival from work for a couple of days in the last week or so. Eric is eating a popsicle. This usually means that he has successfully pooped in the potty. There was a time not too long ago when this seemed like such an unreachable goal. Patrick would offer Eric a popsicle if he would poop in the potty. Even though Eric wanted a popsicle, he would still poop in his pants. Now, even though he will still poop in his pants sometimes, he more consistently poops in the potty. He also wakes up with a dry diaper on many mornings. We're getting closer...

Today I was home only briefly before I had to go back out and take Anthony to his dentist appointment (just a checkup). Eric hasn't been greeting me at the garage door like he used to. He's usually preoccupied with some toys. When I came into the house, he called from the staircase, "Hi Mama! Do you want to see my lovely puzzle? I did it all by myself!" He cracked me up with his use of the word "lovely". Interestingly, there was another piece next to the completed puzzle. Eric told me it was an extra piece. Sure enough, there was a duplicate of one of the puzzle pieces, so this 48 piece puzzle had 49 pieces. I hope that doesn't mean that someone else was shorted a puzzle piece.

Eric has also had this recent obsession with building "skyscrapers". I think he loves just saying the word "skyscrapers". In any case, he wanted me to see the skyscraper that he built. The first one he showed me was shorter than him, but that one toppled when he tried to make it bigger. This is the revised version. He was so proud of his creation that he asked me to take a picture of it, along with him showing his muscles. Too cute!

Notice the messy game room in the background. Patrick and Alex have done a lot of cleaning and reorganizing in there, but the task is still so formidable that I don't want to do it, and Patrick is a bit burned out and hasn't done too much in the last week or so.

As long as he was in the picture-taking mood, I kept snapping away when he started doing this. I've talked with Patrick about trying to get Eric in some gymnastics classes. Patrick likes to point out that gymnastics classes will only encourage him to climb more things. Look at him though, he is a natural. Besides, who could resist that cheesy smile?

Natalie was the social butterfly today. She played at her friend M.E.'s house for a couple of hours this morning. M.E.'s family is going out of town on vacation early tomorrow and she won't be able to play with her for a week. In the afternoon, Natalie's friend L.L.'s mom invited Natalie to see the new Cars 2 movie with them and then she stayed over at his house for several hours to play. I didn't even see her until almost 7pm when we called her to come eat dinner so we could all go to Dollar Scoop Tuesday at Baskin-Robbins.

I wonder what sights and sounds will greet me when I get home from work tomorrow?

Happy Fourth!

It's been a few days since I've posted. I was on call for 24 hours on Saturday, July 2nd, so Sunday was a day of rest for me. I picked up donuts for the family on the way home from work and we went to the 6pm mass. Those were the only two times I left the house that day. I didn't even take a nap.

Anthony had a couple of female friends over to have lunch and then to watch a couple of movies. Patrick joked with him about how he was having a wonderful time sitting on the sofa in between the two girls watching movies. I really wanted to get a picture of them on the sofa with Eric sitting on his lap, but I refrained because I didn't want to embarrass him.

Today the two little ones, Patrick and I went to the neighborhood Fourth of July parade. It's an informal annual affair consisting of people decorating their bikes, wagons, and pets and walking down one of the streets in the middle of the subdivision. This year, the swim team coach told the kids that she thought it would be a good idea for them to wear their medals from the Championship Meet during the parade and to carry the banners they won in the parade.

We walked to the parade start site with Natalie's medals making clanking sounds the whole way. We both laughed at the noise they were making. When we got there, one of the women organizing the event let Natalie borrow the headband she was wearing. It actually belonged to her daughter who was on one of Natalie's relay teams, she didn't attend because she was away visiting family.

We received several banners for the girls on our swim team winning in their age group. Natalie volunteered to carry the banner for the Girls Ages 7-8 group. The boy scout son of one of the ladies organizing the parade led the parade with a flag, and everyone else followed. There was supposed to be a fire truck leading the parade, but they must have been busy with a call, because they didn't get there until late. They ended up bringing up the rear instead.

After the parade, they served sugar cookies, popsicles, and water while everyone socialized. Eric chose the blue popsicles and Natalie of course chose the red ones. Eric also got to sit inside the fire truck and look at some of their equipment. He didn't seem very interested in the equipment, but he was definitely checking out the fire truck itself.

We walked home to meet up with the big boys then we went to our Lifetime Fitness gym to go to the pool. Natalie got to bring her friend M.E. again. Those two get along so well and M.E. ended up staying with us the rest of the day until after dinner. Anthony exercised first before joining the rest of us at the pool.

Eric must have been exhausted from all the walking in the parade, because after only an hour at the pool and doing his constant somersaults, he said that he didn't want to swim anymore. Instead he sat in the shade covered with a towel.

We took our showers there then went to Brindles for ice cream then we went home. Patrick grilled steaks for us and for two of Natalie's friends that were over to play. We watched more movies tonight. We watched lots of movies this weekend. It's been a fun family weekend. Tomorrow it's back to the normal summer routine.

Training Holiday

Today is what is called a "training holiday" at the military facility where I work. For me that means that I don't have to work since I'm not on call. That means that I get to do fun things with my family if I want to. Of course I want to!

Since I wasn't working today, I took the opportunity to let Natalie invite her good friend, M.E. for a sleepover last night so that she could spend the day with us today instead of her usual summer camp. The day started with banana chocolate chip pancakes and turkey bacon. I haven't made that for breakfast for weeks! The kids loaded up on the turkey bacon, so we have a lot of pancakes left over.

The girls played for a bit after breakfast, and then we headed to our local Lifetime Fitness pool. The girls and Eric would have fun at the neighborhood pool, but this way made it a little more "special". I spoiled them there with lunch at poolside and strawberry banana "icee" drinks. They played for a good couple of hours.

The girls went on the water slide and raced each other. Most of the time it seemed like they were just talking and swimming around. Eric was laughing and smiling almost the whole time. He was continuously doing somersaults underwater. I would have taken a few pictures with our new underwater camera, but the lifeguard informed us that photos were not allowed. I think the girls managed to take a few underwater videos, but we have yet to download the stuff off that camera. We even saw some neighborhood friends there. That was nice for me because I had a couple of adults to talk to while watching Eric do continuous somersaults.

We took our showers in the family locker room and then headed to Coldstone Creamery for ice cream. The kids must have been tired, but they have way more energy than I do. I napped when we got home but they didn't.

We had leftovers for dinner and watched Wipeout with the family. Anthony was off watching the new Transformers movie and then going to Laser Quest with friends. I'm glad I was able to spend time with the kiddos today since I'm on call tomorrow. It will undoubtedly be a busy holiday weekend call. Wish me luck!

Zoo Trip

Patrick took the little ones to the zoo this morning after dropping Alex off at soccer camp. I wish I could have been there instead of work, but I should be thankful that I didn't have to be outside. I got to hear all about it when I got home from work. Eric seemed most excited about seeing the fish, especially the ones that looked like Nemo from Disney's Finding Nemo animated movie.

Patrick took some pictures for me today so I could share in a little of their zoo experience. I loved this picture of Natalie and Eric holding hands. When they were in a wooded area at the zoo, Natalie held Eric's hand and guided him along the paths. They can be so sweet to each other sometimes. It's nice to see that once in a while.

There is an area called Lory Landing where you can feed the lories. Patrick had to hold Eric's hand that he was using to feed the lory or Eric wouldn't feed it. Natalie seemed to enjoy feeding them, but Eric was much more hesitant for some reason.

Here Eric is looking at a turtle shell. The zoo staff person was telling them about how they weren't allowed to touch the turtle she was showing them. Eric still enjoyed looking at the turtle and then the turtle shell. Patrick thought he might be fascinated because his sister was fascinated. He certainly enjoys the zoo and he looks forward to going there every time.

I'm not getting any more details from Patrick right now. He's fallen asleep while I'm writing this blog post! Natalie friend M.E. is sleeping over again tonight. They put themselves to bed again by around 9pm. Tomorrow we plan on going to our gym pool and other hopefully fun activities.

Life After Swim Team

No pictures today since I worked late and didn't get home until after 7pm. No more swimming for us, at least for a month or two. The last swim meet was yesterday, so no daily swim practices to go to and no more weekend swim meets. Patrick had a busy day today, even minus the two daily swim practices that Natalie used to go to. Anthony had to be at PE Camp at 7am, then Alex had to be at the Trinity Soccer Camp at 9am. He had to take everyone inside the building for the first day to turn in paperwork. Next, they went home, picked up Natalie's friend A.R., went to the post office, the library, and the bank, then back home. Lots of driving around!

They picked up Alex at noon, then went to lunch at Sonic. Apparently they stopped making popcorn chicken at Sonic, which Eric found very disappointing. That boy is such a creature of habit. At 3pm, Patrick left Alex and Natalie at home and picked up Anthony with Eric in tow. Despite being tired, Eric did not nap during the trip. In fact, he apparently was very energetic all day, especially bouncing around during the post office trip.

For most of the day, Natalie wore her five medals and her Championship Meet shirt (as seen in the blog post yesterday). She was clanking around so much that Patrick started calling her "Mrs. Jingle", a nickname which she seemed to enjoy because it only called more attention to her and her medals. The only place she didn't wear her medals was at the library, because Patrick made her take them off so as to not disturb that other library patrons. She was still wearing them when I got home. I just love her enthusiasm.

We spoke to her about competitive swimming year-round to gauge her interest. We'll be looking at our options and then making a group decision. Maybe we'll have more medals for her to wear in the future.

Five Medals

We left the house before 6am this morning so Natalie could make it to 6:30am warmups at the Josh Davis Natatorium. This is a picture of Natalie with two girls who were on both of her relay teams, R.O. and M.E. Don't they look happy?

This pool is 25 YARDS instead of METERS like their previous races, so it's hard to directly compare the times without doing some math, which I don't want to do here. For Natalie's first race, the Freestyle relay, they came in second place. Natalie just edged out the third place team (CSSF) by four hundredths of a second! Their time was 1:25.50 and the other team's time was 1:25.54. The winning team (KCST) won with a time of 1:22.85.

In the Freestyle individual race, a KCST girl won by a touch (19.01) over Natalie (18.88). What was amazing was the KCST team won the next six places after Natalie. That's why they easily won the Freestyle relay race--very talented team.

Eric did fairly well at the meet, and we didn't even have to feed him constantly. He did have one meltdown after we told him he had to wait before he started drinking the Gatorade. He refused the juice that we offered him instead. Patrick put him in time-out and he yelled and yelled, but no one heard it because it was so loud inside the Natatorium. I didn't even hear it. He seemed happy and playful after that.

Natalie came in second place again in Backstroke after the same girl that beat her in the two-team meet a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't as close this time, with Natalie's time at 21.64 sec and the other girl (who is only 7 years old) with a time of 20.24 sec.

The race that really gripped my heart while she was racing was the Butterfly. She started slowly as per her usual, but as she was catching up, her goggles fell off her face. She held it together and kept swimming, but her timing was a little off. She came in third place at 24.64 sec. First place was 23.90 sec and second was 24.19 sec.

After the race she looked "concerned". I didn't know if she was upset about losing or if it was something else. One of the other moms gave us her volunteer badge so we could go down there to check on her (only volunteers could go be with the kids during this meet). She was concerned about whether or not she had been disqualified. She didn't! Patrick told her how proud he was that even though she was thrown off by the goggle incident, she maintained her composure and finished the race. He said that at eight years old, so many other kids would have DQ'd but she didn't. You can even see on the video how she pulls them down completely off her face (because they had been flapping around and obstructing her vision) while doing a butterfly stroke--completely legal. That's my girl!

Of course, it was only after the race she told us that her goggles often fell off her face. *SIGH* Patrick had bought another pair a while back to keep for when she needed new goggles. We could have easily given them to her earlier. Oh well!

The Medley relay was pretty exciting. They were in third place or so during the Backstroke, then the next three girls kept making up time until they got the lead. We were so excited to see them win!

The nice thing about the Championship Meet is that they give out medals for the first three places and ribbons for the rest of the places up to sixteenth place. That meant that Natalie got five medals! She got 50 individual points for her team. One of the age 9-10 group boys on her team got 57 points, but no one else got more individual points for her team. Go Natalie!

So, some of the kids got medals with some ribbons also. She came up to me afterward (because she had been sitting closer to where they were presenting the medals) and said, matter-of-factly, "Mama, I only got medals." One of the moms sitting near us laughed and said, "That's a good thing!"

Take A Picture

Eric will let me take photos of him when he's doing something that he wants me to take a photo of. Here he and Alex are "jamming" to prerecorded music on our piano. He wanted me to take a picture of his feet, which were swinging back and forth to the music. The only problem was that his feet were under the piano and there was no way I could get a picture of them, at least not from this angle. It was still a great brothers together moment and a great Eric personality photo.

Patrick and I went out for a "real" anniversary dinner tonight. We went the The Lodge again, the third time in a row, and again had their eight-course meal. This time I actually asked for a to-go box for the seventh course, steak, because I wanted some room for dessert and I didn't want to feel overstuffed. The dessert, of course, was the Dark Chocolate Nutella Souffle and Peanut Butter Mousse that Patrick and I just LOVE. For once we actually spent three hours at dinner and tried to slow down our eating by talking a lot. I only took a couple of photos this time instead of taking a picture of every course like I did last year. We had a great time and we're thankful that we could spend it together.

Nerf Gun Forts

Yesterday Alex used some of his birthday gift cards/money to buy another Nerf Gun. I don't know who was more excited, Alex or Eric. They shopped together at Target while Natalie and I stayed together. Next thing I knew, I saw Alex with a huge blue Nerf gun and Eric was carrying the package of bullets. Alex told me that Eric was the one who picked out the gun and telling Alex, "We could share it." Too cute.

So today, I came home from picking up Anthony from PE Camp and a bunch of stuff that used to be in the game room was now in the upstairs hallway in little "forts". Natalie and Eric were apparently on one team. They got to use four Nerf guns of varying sizes. They had hoped that Anthony would play with them too, but he declined.

This is Eric "hiding" behind the wall. The fort made up of the sideways sofa (you can see the white underside of it) and the fort made out of stuffed animals (used with Eric's approval, apparently) were Natalie's and Eric's forts. Eric was peeking out from behind that wall and asking Alex, "Alex, is this where I'm supposed to hide?" Again, too cute.

This is Alex hiding in the doorway of Natalie's room. He has a fort made out of a fabric drawer (from our room divider), a plastic lid placed vertically, and some wood/cardboard blocks) and another fort made out of a plastic container turned over with cardboard blocks on top. He purposely arranged the cardboard blocks so there would be that "hole" that he could shoot bullets through.

I missed the actual "gunfire". I sat safely in my bedroom instead. It would have been difficult to capture the action anyway and I might have gotten in their line of fire. This was just another summer afternoon in our household.

Swimming Party

Tonight was the swim team group picture and pizza party. They have an official team photographer that takes candid photos of everyone during all the swim meets. He puts those all together in a slide show at the end of the season and provides copies for everyone. Pretty generous guy considering he doesn't get paid!

The most amazing thing is that he gets in the middle of the pool to get a good picture of the whole team. Someone blows up an inner tube and then puts the platform on top of that. He carefully gets on the platform and one or more people help stabilize him while he's in the water. The guy with the gray hair in front of him is Patrick. The guy with the gray hair in back of him is someone else's dad.

I've been holding off on my usual documentation (and bragging) of Natalie's swimming accomplishments last Saturday, our last two-team swim meet of the season. She got first place in all five events again, except that in her last event, the Medley Relay, her team was disqualified because her teammate who swam the backstroke stopped, touched her foot down at the bottom of the pool (it was the shallow end) and turned over too early. It was disappointing because their team won with a pretty significant lead. Oh well.

Freestyle Relay 1:37.78 (Four seconds faster than the second place team.)
Freestyle 20.31 sec (See below.)
Backstroke 23.91 sec (I think this is Natalie's personal best. The #2 swimmer was 3.5 seconds behind her.)
Butterfly 25.41 sec (That was over 2 seconds faster than #2.)

I have two interesting notes. Natalie's good friend M.E. got second behind her in the freestyle with a time of 22.85 sec. She's really improved these last two months. When they used to race at our pool on their own, Natalie would give M.E. a head start by counting to five before starting. She can't do that anymore. ;-) Also, Anthony walked up to our neighborhood pool to volunteer just as Natalie was swimming the freestyle race. He said that he wondered who that swimmer was "that was beating the pants off" the other swimmers. Then he realized, "Oh, that's Natalie." :)

I had to resort early to using the iPad this last meet. In this picture it's very bright outside so he was trying to see the picture on the screen. Since Patrick, Anthony, and I were all volunteering during the meet, we had to bring Eric along with us. The meet hadn't started yet and Eric was already asking to go home. A few people came up to comment about him using the iPad and how great the iPad is. I definitely agreed.

The Championship Meet is this coming Sunday. That's one big swim meet against all the teams we've gone up against this season. Only one relay gets to go and only the top 8 freestyle and top 6 backstroke swimmers in each category get to go. Natalie has been chosen to do the same five races that she has raced in all season. At tonight's team party, they just now gave me Natalie's two fifth place ribbons from last year's Championship Meet. One was in the Freestyle Relay with a time of 2:06.48. The other was from the Backstroke with a time of 28.14 sec. She has improved an incredible amount over the last year. I'm hoping that she'll show us how much she has improved at the meet on Sunday.

19 years

Nineteen years ago I married the most wonderful man I've ever known. We've gone through so much since then--residency, grad school, the birth of four beautiful children, three miscarriages, a couple of cross-country moves, starting and ending businesses, and health problems. We've laughed and cried together. We've watched our children grow and flourish. I feel blessed every day to have been lucky enough to find this amazing partner. I love you!

We decided to do something casual tonight since I still have to go to work tomorrow. We went to La Madeleine for dinner and then Brindles for ice cream. We tend to eat quickly from years of quick meals and fussy children, so we were gone for only a couple of hours. That's with stopping by Bed Bath and Beyond to buy a digital frame!

Before we left the house, we made the kids all gather around Patrick for a belated Father's Day photo. As you can see from this photo, Eric was not in the mood for pictures. This photo is still a slice of our life, though. Everything isn't perfect but we are happy as long as we're together!

Father's Day 2011

I totally failed to get a picture of Patrick with the kids today. I'll have to try again tomorrow. We did have a pretty relaxing day, although the kids might have preferred to go out and do something.

The morning started with a trip to Shipley's donuts. Patrick usually buys donuts on Sunday morning for the family, but since it was Father's Day, I went out instead. Patrick usually goes to HEB for donuts, and Shipley's only on special occasions. Natalie and Eric wanted to go with me, and when we got there, they wanted to eat there (just like they did when we went to Krispy Kreme), but we went straight home instead. Our standard order is eight chocolate iced and four chocolate filled donuts.

We mostly stayed at home, except for Natalie who was invited to play at her friend LL's house. Eric got to play outside with his moon sand for a while and the big boys were out very briefly on the premise that they were supposed to play with their soccer balls, but they ended up playing on their iPhone/iPod touch. Patrick's big plans included watching the Gold Cup soccer game this afternoon and going to El Mirasol for dinner. We entertained the idea of going to a movie briefly but in the end we didn't go. We didn't even go out to the neighborhood pool. Natalie didn't want to go, which was surprising. Patrick wanted to try out the waterproof iPod system that we got him so he could play tunes while he swims for exercise. We also called our respective fathers to wish them a "Happy Father's Day".

The little ones are now in bed and Patrick is playing the Risk GodStorm game that Alex got for his birthday from his godfather. Patrick got the day he wanted--relaxed family time with the kids. Love you, Hon!

Happy Birthday, Alex!

No pictures of Alex today. It was the least I could do for my newly 12-year-old boy. We let him do what he wanted today, which meant that he sat on the sofa and played PS3 all day. He got up shortly before we left for Natalie's swim meet (before 7am) because of his little brother. He slept in his day clothes last night so he wouldn't have to change this morning!

He had planned it all out and let us know earlier this week. He was going to play video games all day. He was going to have HEB-brand Extra Thin Crust Pepperoni Pizza for lunch. He wanted us to get P.F. Chang's takeout for dinner so he could get back to playing PS3 again. He did make a couple of additions. He decided that he wanted to go to church this afternoon so he wouldn't have to get up early tomorrow (we let him decide). After dinner, he requested that I take him to Baskin-Robbins to get a shake and he wanted to leave right away so we could get home. That meant that we didn't take his little brother (or anyone else with us) because Eric usually takes a LONG time to finish his ice cream. I didn't even get myself ice cream there.

I let him choose what size shake. That meant that he wanted the large Mint Chocolate Chip shake that cost over $7 with tax. He was even surprised at how big it was (32 oz. maybe?) and he was still sipping on it an hour or so later--while playing video games, of course.

Our present to him was simple. We got him a Playstation Network gift card. That allowed him to download a couple of add-ons for his PS3 games. We originally might have just allowed him to charge those purchases on our credit card, but we had some credit card fraud back in April after charging something on the Playstation Network. He got a "Risk GodStorm" game and assorted gift cards and checks from family.

This evening when I was putting Eric to bed, Eric asked me why Alex didn't have a cake and lots of presents for his birthday. I told him that Alex didn't want a cake. He asked why Alex didn't want a cake. I answered that Alex prefers ice cream, which he got. Eric still looked confused (probably also because he was tired) and asked why Alex didn't get lots of big presents. I told him that Alex got a bunch of little presents that he could buy big presents with. I think he got too tired to think of more followup questions or he would have asked them.

I didn't want to post about anyone else today just because it's Alex's birthday and I don't get to talk about him much. I'll post about Natalie's swim meet in a future post. Happy Birthday, Alex! I love you!

Alex's Clean Bedroom

I never thought I'd say it, but Alex's room is clean! This picture shows the bunk beds. Eric sleeps in the top bunk now, where Anthony used to sleep until we let him move into the downstairs bedroom. Eric is such a climber that we didn't think he would have any trouble in the top bunk. Notice the Lightning McQueen bedsheets. I'll be sad when he outgrows themed items.

This picture shows the newly blue wall. The blue is a brighter, lighter blue than what was in there before. It looks almost like Alex's club soccer colors. Notice that in the middle of the wall right above the desk is Alex's "art folio" that he received from Grandpa at Christmas, at least that's what Grandpa called it.

Anthony wants a drum set, which Patrick and I nixed because we don't have anywhere to put it. Alex just told me that if they moved this furniture around a bit, there might be room for one. Hmmm, I think the brothers are in cahoots...

This is the most amazing sight--Alex's closet is not only clean, but he actually has clothes in there that are hanging! Gasp! I used to get so mad every time I looked inside this closet. There were clothes and toys crammed into the shelves. There were clothes on the floor. Any clothes that were hung were usually clothes that were too small. Now there might actually be room for Eric's clothes in there and we can get rid of the extra dresser in the game room.

This is what the game room currently looks like. This has been the storage area for Alex's stuff while Patrick was painting and while Alex was purging and organizing his room after the painting. The kids' sofa that is on top of the regular sofa used to be in Alex's room too. The big bookcase looking thing in the middle of the room is a room divider/organizer that will eventually go over under the windows. We had gotten one for the living room and the rest of them disappeared from Costco so quickly that he was quick to snap up two of them when he was at Costco today. I'm sure I'll be taking and posting pictures of the game room once we finish in there.

Lemonade Stand

Natalie went over to her friend's house today after I got home from work. She's been going to Vacation Bible School (VBS) with A.R. all week and today they decided to make lemonade to sell. A.R.'s mom told them that they should make fresh-squeezed lemonade because it would taste better. They also had the bright idea to sell the lemonade up at the swimming pool, because they were having swim team practice there--lots of thirsty people.

Unfortunately, most people that go to the people don't bring money.  Even Patrick and I had to borrow money from one of the other swim team moms! It was only $2 for four cups of lemonade. I'm not sure what the total take was, but at least they were having fun.

Natalie told me later that they had talked about giving money to charities at VBS. Their intention was to give the money that they earned to a charity. Natalie also asked me if it was okay if she gave some of her own money to charity. I asked her how much and she said $2. Two dollars isn't much, but it's a good start. I know several people that make their kids give some of their allowance to the church or other charities. We haven't done that yet. I'm proud that Natalie made the decision to give on her own.

The lemonade was very good. I didn't know ahead of time that they were making fresh-squeezed lemonade, but I could certainly tell when I tasted it. They also brought extra sugar in case someone wanted their lemonade to be sweeter. Mine was a little on the tart side, but I didn't mind at all. Eric didn't care for the tartness, but he still drank some of it.

In other news, Eric started sleeping in Alex's room last night. According to Alex, he slipped a little when he was climbing down in the morning, but overall did well. Tonight Eric walked into Natalie's room when it was time to go to bed. He was not happy about being sent to bed but clearly he was tired.

Anthony also "made" brownies, or at least he started to. One of his friend's has a birthday tomorrow and he wanted to make brownies. Patrick and I easily guessed who she was. I was upstairs giving Eric a bath at the time, but apparently Anthony didn't seem to know his own strength when it came to cracking the eggs. Patrick cleaned up quite a bit of egg from the counter. Anthony also added the brownie mix very slowly, so Patrick ended up finishing it up to get it done. I'm sure it'll turn out fine.

First Dental Visit

Eric had his first official visit to the dentist today. We tried to do this in December but he refused to sit in the dentist chair.

Patrick and Alex were there with him. Patrick was off in another room getting his teeth cleaned. The dental hygienist took Eric into the room that Alex was in and showed him all the tools that they were going to use in his mouth. She put the tools up against his hand to show him that they didn't hurt. She spent a lot of time talking to him and explaining things. Eventually he felt comfortable enough to lay in the dentist chair by himself with his hands on top of the yellow bib. He looks pretty cute, doesn't he?

Of course when I got home I asked Eric how he liked his visit to the dentist. He told me that he watched Elmo while she cleaned his teeth. He proceeded to tell me about what Elmo was doing, so I suspect that he eventually got distracted by the TV and he no longer noticed that they were cleaning his teeth!

Eric is supposed to go back in August because of some discoloration between his top two front teeth, just in case it turns out to be a cavity. I hope not, but apparently cavities progress quickly at this age, so the dentist just wants to keep tabs on it.

This second picture is a picture of Eric with our dentist. He used to be one of our neighbors until he moved away a few years ago. He and his office did a fantastic job with Eric today!

Alex's Room

Patrick has been painting Alex's room. His room was the same dark blue color it was when we first moved in, nine years ago. Alex still wanted his room to be blue, but we convinced him to keep it to one wall and make the other walls lighter, to make the room seem bigger and not smaller. The light was kind of funky in there today, so I'll try to take a picture of the blue wall later, when all the furniture is moved back in.

Right now, Alex is still in the process of purging and reorganizing his stuff. Patrick had lamented about how much stuff Alex had stashed everywhere when he had to move it all out before he started painting. We're also trying to figure out where to put Eric's stuff. We still have a dresser of Eric's clothes in the game room. It would be really nice to move that out of the game room, and maybe even find some room in Alex's existing drawer or closet for Eric's clothes. His clothes don't take up much room anyway. We'll move Eric into Alex's room some time after the furniture is moved back in the room. Lots of changes--we'll see how it goes.

Krispy Kreme

I took the little ones to Krispy Kreme for donuts this morning. I knew they would be fascinated looking at the donut making machines. We were watching through the window and one of the employees motioned from behind the glass to come around to the counter. He was holding warm, fresh, glazed donuts in his hands and he gave one to each of us.

Natalie looked at the donut he was handing her and asked, "Is it free?" I had to laugh at her hesitance combined with her excitement. Of course, after she ate hers, she asked if we could get more free glazed donuts. Silly girl! As you can see from this sugary, satisfied smile, they both enjoyed the treats.

They both wanted the chocolate glazed donuts, so I bought them one each to give them two total. Patrick started the tradition of getting two donuts each Sunday morning for everyone, so I went ahead and followed with that. Eric must have been mostly satisfied with the regular glazed donut, because he only ate a few bites of the chocolate glazed before saying that he was done. I got one of the custard-filled chocolate glazed donuts and after the two donuts I ate, I felt like I had enough sugar to last the whole day if not the whole week.

Natalie excitedly came up to me with two of these Krispy Kreme hats and said, "Look what I found!" Eric surprisingly was not interested in wearing the hat, so we only got one. They spent some time looking at the donut making machine again before we headed home. We hadn't bothered to awaken Anthony before we left (around 9am), so we brought home two more chocolate glazed donuts for him.

Around 11:30am, I awakened Anthony so I could leave Natalie and her friend LL at home while I picked up some Popeye's with Eric. Patrick and Alex came home shortly after I got home. Since it was already lunchtime, Anthony only managed to eat one of the donuts for an afternoon snack. I might have to take the other one to work with me, to eat for breakfast. :)

When Patrick and Alex got home, Patrick informed me that Alex wanted HEB brand pepperoni pizza for dinner because he hadn't eaten any pizza while at my sister's house all week. That's almost torture for that pizza-crazed boy. Anyway, it's good to have him home again. Patrick has been painting his room this week. I'll post some pictures in the next week or so.

Canyon Springs Meet

I hope I'm not getting too repetitious when it comes to detailing Natalie's swim meet stats, but I do want to remember these details for myself and for Natalie later on. Today, only Patrick, Natalie and I went to her swim meet against Canyon Springs. We saw the heat sheets last night with the seed times, and this looked like a very large and very fast team. We warned Natalie that she would have to try her hardest if she wanted to win.

The first race, the 100m Freestyle Relay was a heartbreaker. The team got switched around a bit. Two different girls were substituted into Natalie's team because they had the fastest times for the individual freestyle. One of the girls got confused, perhaps by someone who was yelling for someone else with the same name, and started swimming before the the previous girl finished her leg. She stopped at first, knowing that she was in error, but then she had no choice but to continue. Their team "won" handily, but unfortunately, the whole team was disqualified. Patrick was a stroke judge/official and I went towards him not knowing exactly what happened. I heard him report the disqualification and I was disappointed. What a waste! Natalie and her teammates were disappointed too, because they all saw what happened. One of our other relay teams was also disqualified, leaving only one of our teams to place third overall. It was a bad start for the team.

Natalie won her second race, the 25m Freestyle. She slowed down a little, with a time of 20.44 (vs. her best of 20.21), but her coach came and gave her a high five. With so many other kids to worry about, her coach doesn't usually seek out individual members, so I was pleased that she gave Natalie this special moment. Natalie still has an eye toward the goal of breaking the 20 second mark this year, and Patrick is confident that she can do it. I have to say that I love the interaction between them, knowing how pleased as punch he is whenever Natalie swims in a race--whatever her time happens to be.

We were still proud of Natalie even when she placed second in the 25m Backstroke. A talented 7-year-old on the other team beat her by half a second (24.25s vs. 24.72s), so close that at first Natalie thought they had tied. Natalie had about the same time as her best (24.68s), and afterwards, both her coach and Patrick told her that in order to improve, she needed to lay her head back more, instead of keeping it up. Patrick had been standing next to the other girl's mom during the race, and she said that her daughter was keeping an eye on Natalie during the entire race and trying to beat her, because Natalie had beaten her in the freestyle. That little girl will be in the lower age group (7-8 year olds) from Natalie next year, with a whole year to improve.

On a side note, Natalie's friend M.E. has been swimming in the swim team this year, and one of her events is the 25m Breaststroke. She got third in that race today with a time that was a five and a half seconds faster than her previous best. Go girl!

Natalie won the 25m Butterfly with a personal best of 25.26 seconds (previously 25.53s). That 7-year-old on the other team was two seconds behind her. Patrick was done with his official duties, so he was able to man the video camera while I took pictures. I love this photo of Natalie coming out of the water to breathe with both arms outstretched! She looks so good--if I may say so myself. :)

We came home. Patrick took Anthony to the doctor (more on this below), then he took a shower and then a nap. He left for Houston to bring Alex back home. When he got there, we had some "Face Time" on our iPhones. Eric and Natalie got such a kick out of talking to their papa while looking at him. Eric did get a bit confused and asked Anthony if he wanted to talk to Papa while holding the phone to Anthony's ear. Of course Patrick only saw Anthony's ear. Eric also tried to get a closer look at Patrick on the phone screen, but of course that meant that Patrick saw Eric up very close on his phone. Alex didn't even want to say "hi" to me. I'll see him soon enough tomorrow.

So, in other news, Patrick and I went to a graduation banquet last night, celebrating the graduating residents. One of them came up to me and said the sweetest things about how much he appreciated me and my teaching style. I know I should try a little harder sometimes, but it was nice to get that feedback.

On our way home, Anthony texted me that he couldn't hear out of his right ear. Sounds were muffled in that ear. I suspected that it was somehow related to their going to the waterpark yesterday or allergies. This morning his ear was ringing, so Patrick took him to a doctor. I guess we ended up paying $45 for the visit just to find out that Anthony needed to clean his ears! Apparently he had quite the waxy buildup and when he was at the waterpark, some water got in and trapped behind it, causing his symptoms. We were relieved that the cure was so simple and so was the doctor! After the doctor cleaned his ears, he was as good as new.

Sharks

Natalie loves sharks. Last year I bought her a shark shirt from the boys' section at Gymboree. Her reasoning was sound--they don't make shark shirts for girls. Recently, Gymboree had a couple of shark/fish themed pajamas and shirts. Eric has really been into "fish" lately too. Two of his favorite stuffed toys are Flounder from The Little Mermaid and Shamu from Sea World. Because of this, I went ahead and bought them two pairs of matching pajamas and one matching shirt (with sharks on it). Don't they look adorable?

Our neighborhood swim team name is the "Tiger Sharks". Natalie loves swimming already. The name just makes her love swimming even more. The team T-shirt has a shark on it. I just bought one just like hers. I guess I'll have to take a picture of the two of us in our matching shirts too.

I wasn't able to be at Natalie's swim meet this past Tuesday because I was on call. I was so disappointed! She's been so super excited about swimming this past year and especially this summer that Patrick and I can't help but feel excited too. I've never been the athletic type, and I was never in any sports growing up, so seeing my kids in sports has always brought me a lot of pride. To see one of my children really excel at a sport just amazes me.

I just finished watching the videos of Natalie's races again. All I can say is "WOW!" She looks so much smoother and natural in the water than a lot of other kids her age. Patrick wasn't there for the first swim meet like I was (because of Anthony's soccer tournament), so he hadn't experienced before Tuesday so many parents coming up to him and telling him what a wonderful swimmer Natalie is and how graceful she looks in the water. As a former swimmer, Patrick is just over the moon.

For her first race, the 100m Freestyle Relay, she was the anchor leg. The other team had very fast swimmers, so they won pretty handily, but Natalie's relay team shaved three whole seconds from their time from the previous swim meet. Last meet their time was 1:48.12. Their time this meet was 1:44.96.

Natalie's next race was the 25m Freestyle. She won by only half a second but she swam faster than the last meet (20.35s). The other team had a lot of fast swimmers again, and after Natalie won with a time of 20.21, the other team came in second through fifth place. She can really turn "on" for these competitions!

She actually had a slower time in the 25m Backstroke (24.93 sec vs. 24.68 sec last time), but she won by over one and a half seconds. Her butterfly is the most amazing. On all her races, she tends to have a relatively slow start but then she just gains on everyone else, which makes the finish even more exciting. Her time in the 25m Butterfly this time was 25.53 sec (last time was 28.03 sec). She also won by almost four seconds!

During the 100m Medley Relay, her team was in second place when it was her turn. She again swam the third leg, which was the butterfly. Patrick said that he heard someone near him say, "Wow, she's catching up." She was able to get the lead for her team only to fall back down to second place in the last leg, the freestyle. Still, her Medley Relay team shaved an amazing fourteen seconds off their previous time (2:06.05 vs. 2:20.73 in the previous meet).

This just makes me more excited about the next meet this coming Saturday!

Thirty Guests

There were 30 people invited to Dad's birthday party (including Dad and Mom) and 30 people attended the party. No one wanted to miss Dad's big day. Our immediate family comprised almost half of that (14 people). We had the party at Fung's Restaurant in Houston. It happened to be a Dim Sum day so there were lots of other people there eating. The girls stood guard at the door to greet the guests. They didn't even know most of the guests. Interestingly, every time I tried to take a picture, the three of them would leave their post to hide.

The non-family guests were mostly neighbors that Mom and Dad have known since we moved to Houston, so they mostly knew each other too. One couple is almost family. They are related to Mom's sister-in-law and they were the only people that Mom and Dad knew when we moved there in 1976. She used to take us out once a week or so in the summers so we didn't have to stay cooped up in the house by ourselves. One man is Dad's widower friend who he sometimes "hangs out" with. One woman is Mom's friend who also caters. Mom doesn't have to cook some of the more complicated dishes anymore, if she doesn't want to, because she can just get it from her friend. All are good friends.

My Uncle Nany flew in just for the party. He had planned a trip to Russia a year or so ago and he only got back on Saturday. Early on Sunday he got on another plane so he could make it to the party at noon. He flew out early on Monday morning. That was such a short trip, but his presence meant a lot to Dad. Dad's other brother couldn't make it because he is in poor health and he still lives in a Philippines.

Dad was certainly the center of attention. At the end of the party, all of his grandchildren gathered around him to give him a big hug. If you look closely, you can see Eric's little head below everyone else's in the middle of that group hug. We love you Dad!

I can't seem to think of anything else to say. Tomorrow I'll post about the swim meet from last night that I missed. Patrick videotaped all of Natalie's races so I was able to see her races. I'm so proud of her!