Happy Mother's Day 2012

Wow, I haven't gone this long without a blog post since I started this blog! Today is a good day to write a new entry. Today, of course, is Mother's Day. I worked last Saturday (May 5th), so I got this Friday (May 11th) off for a long weekend. I'll post about the other days another time.

We left the house about 8:30am so we could go to Magnolia Pancake Haus, a local breakfast/lunch place. Yes, the big boys actually consented to getting up early today. Magnolia Pancake Haus is always super crowded and they don't take reservations. We got there before 9am and had to get in line just to put our name on the list. The wait was quoted at 90-105 minutes. Luckily, we are able to leave our phone number so they can text us when our table is ready. That meant we could leave the premises and come back close to the quoted time. We went home.

I decided that this would be a good time to take a picture with my beautiful children. This photo is one of my two favorites. I wasn't as happy with the pictures as I was last year, but maybe that's because we were wearing more colorful clothing last year. I'm carrying Eric because I wanted to be able to crop in closer. The big boys are almost the same size now, but Natalie is getting taller too. I'm amazed at how she seems to be getting longer legs, like Anthony.

Natalie gave me my present on Friday. I didn't take a picture of it yet, but she wrote down some things and gave me a framed picture of herself. Anthony presented me with my present this morning. He had designed this website as part of a class assignment. I was so touched! I took screenshots of all of the different pages, but this one is on the home page. Hopefully, if you click on the picture, you'll be able to see a bigger picture and be able to read the sweet poem that Anthony wrote. He was the last child I saw this morning but the first one to greet me with a "Happy Mother's Day!" He is truly a blessing.

After the pictures, Anthony practiced driving with Patrick for about 30 minutes. When they got back, we left for Magnolia Pancake Haus and got there by about the 90 minute mark. They texted us at about the 100 minute mark.

Brunch was wonderful and filling. We all ate too much, although Alex complained that they didn't have fruit crepes, his favorite breakfast food. He had a bacon and cheddar omelet, just like his big brother and father, except he got chocolate chip pancakes as a side item with it. Anthony got bacon pancakes as a side item. Patrick and Natalie both got chocolate chip pancakes. Patrick's was also a side item. Natalie's was the "full" short stack and she could barely eat one half of one pancake. The regular pancakes are huge! I got the spinach and mushroom omelet with a side of blueberry pancakes, which Eric had requested. We have lots of leftovers we can eat for breakfast this week.

After brunch, we dropped off Patrick and Eric at home and the rest of us went to a 12:30pm showing of the movie The Avengers in 3D. We actually made it to the theatre by noon, but the boys wanted to be able to sit through all the previews. That also meant that we had lots of time for more pictures. I looked around for an Avengers poster and found this big stand-up ad. Today was the day they allowed me to take lots of pictures and I was happy that they obliged with this one.

After the movie we went to Brindles for ice cream. This has become a weekly trip for us lately. My excuse is that I want to keep them in business. We go there enough that one of the frequent employees there knew that Alex was going to ask for a Dreamsicle shake. Alex loves his routine--always has. I splurged on a chocolate cone for Natalie to have with her Red Velvet ice cream. Anthony also had Red Velvet and I had Creme Brulee, even though I shared a Creme Brulee with Eric when we were there on Friday. Yes, I definitely try to do my best to keep them in business.

I would have wanted all my children with me, but Eric showed that he was clearly too tired to be able to sit still through a 2 1/2 hour movie. Patrick volunteered to stay with him. They ended up going to the pool and Eric got lots of exercise swimming back and forth the width of the pool at least five times. He was so tuckered out that he fell asleep later during church. He didn't even want to meet us at Brindles for ice cream.

After church we picked up P.F.Chang's for dinner. I was happy eating at home with the family while watching a taped episode of The Finder. We're sad that this series has reportedly not been renewed for next season. We've actually been watching a lot of shows together as a family and it's tough to find the time to do that together sometimes, but I love it when we can do it.

I wanted to close with a bad iPhone photo of Natalie in the 3D glasses at the movie theatre. The glasses were obviously too big for her. She decided to wear them even after the movie and she was laughing because they had fallen while she was washing her hands in the bathroom. This is exactly what I look for on Mother's Day, spending time laughing and having fun with my children. I couldn't ask for any better Mother's Day present.

Blue Whale Project

Natalie has a big project due this Friday. Since I knew I would be helping her with it and that she has swimming every weeknight, we had to finish it by this past weekend. She had to make a diorama of her chosen animal--the blue whale. For those of you who know how much she loves sharks--yes, she did ask if she could do a shark but that was not one of the choices.

First she did some research on the computer. Alex was actually the one who helped her with that. He can be sweet to her sometimes. I tried to take a picture of the two of them huddled in front of the computer, but he saw me and started hiding. One of these days I'm going to catch them.

I wanted her to find pictures of the blue whale and other sea life so we could use those in the diorama. It was her idea to use the blue tissue paper. It's a good thing I keep all the tissue paper we receive with gifts! I think that part turned out pretty well. She cut out some of the sea life including the blue whale, but I ended up cutting out the rest. She said she needed "help" cutting out the small fish. Boy, that was tedious. I think she just didn't want to do it. She did the background gluing of the tissue paper to the shoe box and I glued the sea life onto the tissue paper.

I like to think that she really appreciated all the help she got and that she knows how lucky she is. With each project she learns a little more about how to do research on the computer and hopefully one of these days, we won't have to help her. I dislike doing school projects because I'm done with school and project make me feel like I'm in school again! I also motivated her a bit by saying that if she finished her project early, she could read the new Kane Chronicles book, The Serpent's Shadow, that just came out yesterday and arrived in the mail today. I always want to encourage early completion of school assignments. She was very happy when she got to read that book today and I was very happy I didn't have to add to our busy weekday schedule this week.

A Night at the Museum

Guest Blogger time. Taking over for a short post about the visit Natalie and I made to the Witte Museum last week. The GT (Gifted-Talented) program at Natalie's elementary school makes an overnight visit to the Witte Museum during the 4th grade year. The GT program is small enough that this year 3rd and 5th graders were invited too. This is a great, fun, educational program that involves walking through whichever special traveling exhibit the museum has going as well as other special group experiences. (Un)Fortunately, we couldn't stay overnight due to some early morning soccer games. Natalie would have loved the overnight stay, but the other group there was a group of cub scouts that was rather wild and unruly. I am certain not much sleeping would have happened. According to the schedule, we stayed for all of the major parts of the visit. I forgot the good camera so I had to settle for cell phone pictures.

We were split into two groups, the school children in one group and the cub scouts in the other and then began our journey. Our first stop was to the special exhibit, right now that exhibit is "Darwin: How One Man's Theory Turned the World on its Head" This is a fantastic exhibit that describes much of Darwin's journey, making it clear how much work and thought went into his research. It was interesting to see how the children could all find different parts of the exhibit that they were generally excited about and interested in. All of the children enjoyed the short video on natural selection, mostly due to the discussion of special poisonous salamanders and snakes resistant to the poison that like to eat them. Yes, they are children, poisonous salamanders are apparently very "cool." Natalie enjoyed most of the exhibit, even stopping to read or interact with different parts of it.

The next stop for our group was something that Alex did for his Witte Museum visit too, Tom, one of the museum staff that has been there for a long time, discussed natural selection with the children and showed them various animals. He talked about habitats, and how different animals fit into their habitat, and then, in a high point for the children, he brought out several animals for the children to touch. The animals included several snakes, a tortoise, a few rats, and a madagascar hissing cockroach. My lovely little girl was happy to touch or pet ALL of them. Including the rats and cockroach that sent several parents running. It is probably a good thing Melanie wasn't there, possibly even a good thing I only have these poor quality cell phone photos.
Natalie told me a story about a parent we know and how this parent scared a teacher at her school with a hissing cockroach during a science class a few weeks before. Clearly, all of the children thought the story was hilarious. I think the teacher in question might not be so impressed. It was wonderful to see how curious and involved Natalie can be, and how she hasn't developed the fear of snakes, rats, and creepy-crawlies that most people have by the time they are adults.

The final part of our visit was a larger group exercise to teach about habitats and animals and how they are involved. Both groups were mixed up and then the staff member picked various children to be deer, water, food, and trees (environment). The deer then had to tag one each of the water, food, and trees to "survive." Water and food could only be tagged once, then they had to sit down. If the deer couldn't tag food and water in the right amount of time they would "starve." It was a very nice, fun exercise that made it very clear to the children that there has to be a balance between food, water, and the population of the animals in the area. It also had the kids running around a bit before it was time to settle down for movies and bedtime. It was also impossible to get pictures due the room being a bit dark and the children running all over the place. Natalie and I left before the movies (it was already 10:30PM) and headed home to get ready for a weekend of soccer games.

Baseball Farewell

We had a work-related function tonight. Several people are leaving work in the next couple of months and we bought group tickets to the local minor league baseball game. There was also a "picnic" included with hotdogs and hamburgers, sodas and ice cream, etc. I say "picnic" because it was held in a covered area to one side of the field inside the stadium. There were picnic tables and a concession stand where they served the drinks.

Just to show what an airhead I can be, I gave the organizer my check on Tuesday. This morning Patrick asked me where the tickets were, and I said, "What tickets?" So I called the organizer and he said that he had all of the tickets (except for the people who had already picked theirs up), so we met him before the game at the first base gate. We got there super early to meet him (about 5:30) and they wouldn't let us in the gate until 6pm. In the meantime we sat in the shade. Eric decided to lie down on Patrick's lap. I had also given him his sunglasses to keep the sun out of his eyes. He also thinks it looks cool. :)

Alex really didn't want to go, but we wanted the whole family to go. He seems to prefer being at home or doing anything else besides hanging out with his family. He could have really put his foot down like he has done at other times, but I was glad he didn't this time. I like to think he had a good time in the end. He enjoyed having unlimited refills on the orange soda during the picnic. During the game he got to have nachos (one of his favorites and mine too). As we were leaving the game (after the fourth inning), he got to have a churro. Yes, I bribed him with food, just like I've always done since I had to keep him occupied during swim meets when he was two years old.

I took this picture during the game. Natalie was actually paying attention and trying to learn some of the rules. She played some T-ball a few years ago, but obviously she never paid attention to the rules. I look at this picture and I'm reminded that her face is changing, as is the rest of her body. I told her not to grow up too fast. She says she doesn't want to.

We had some good conversations during the game, not about baseball, of course. The kids were laughing at some of the players' first names. One of them was named "Jedd" with an unusual last name. They couldn't understand why his parents would have named him an unusual first name when he already had an unusual last name. I think they thought that was a mean thing to do.

Another was named "Jaff". I said, "Maybe Jaff is a nickname." Anthony responded, "Short for what? Jaffigan?" Later he said, "Hey, maybe it's short for 'Jaffar'!" We had a few laughs. It was nice weather. It was nice company. We had a nice time. I thanked Alex for going with us even though he didn't want to. He seemed to understand how important this was to me. At least he still cares about how I feel. What a sweet boy.

Fiesta Parade

Just a quick post tonight. This is a picture of Eric at his Fiesta Parade at school this morning. Fiesta is a two-week party here in town. We don't usually participate because Patrick hates crowds and we're usually pretty overbooked in activities as it is. The young kids almost always make shoebox floats in school and have a parade around this time, though. They love that stuff.

Right now Natalie and Patrick are at the Witte Museum here in town for some nighttime activities with Natalie's GT class (Gifted and Talented). They had the option of staying overnight, but with two soccer games tomorrow and a nighttime activity planned tomorrow night, Natalie needs her sleep. I'll hopefully get a few pictures from Patrick and post a little about it tomorrow.

They had to be there by 7:30pm and Anthony had an after school bible study group at school until 5:30, so I picked him up and we met the rest of the family at the local Olive Garden. I wanted to at least have a family dinner before we went our separate ways. What's interesting about going to the Olive Garden is that I've ordered takeout at this particular location for the last ten years (since it's close to work) but I've never actually eaten there until tonight. I haven't even eaten at any other Olive Gardens in that time either. We'll have to change that in the future.

Tight Scheduling

This is a picture of Natalie swimming at Lifetime Fitness where she is on the swim team. Notice my shoes in the photo, which I included on purpose. I'm able to relax for a few minutes after my workout and before we go home and I've been enjoying that since the weather has been nice lately. This month she started swimming there four nights a week, Mondays through Thursdays. We're okay usually okay on Wednesdays, because we don't have anything else scheduled, but our scheduling is a little tight on the other three days. On Mondays Patrick has pick her up at school (3pm-ish) to take her to her piano lesson (3:30 to 4:15), then he comes straight home so she can quickly change and eat dinner. I usually get home with Anthony at about 4:30 and hurriedly eat and get dressed so I can leave at 5pm to take her to swim practice (5:30-6:30).

On Tuesdays and Thursday, we do everything above except for the piano lessons, but Patrick usually has to head out around 4pm to pick up Alex for the carpool. Natalie usually stays home so she can do homework, practice piano, and eat dinner. After swim practice, she takes a "quick rinse off shower". I put that in quotes because she is not quick. She can take 10 minutes or more to "rinse off" if I don't get after her to hurry up. Once when I was working late, Patrick and Eric were both able to finish their showers and get dressed before she finished.

We have to rush home after that so we can get home by 7 to 7:15 so that someone will be home to watch Eric because Patrick has to bring Alex to soccer practice and then pick up Anthony from soccer practice. He leaves the house around 5:30, goes back and forth to the two soccer fields, and doesn't get home until around 9:15. Alex doesn't go to bed on Tuesdays and Thursdays until 10pm. He doesn't take quick showers either. Sometimes Natalie and Alex are more alike than they will admit.

It's felt busier this week. I had to work late on Wednesday plus Anthony stayed after school a couple of days to work on a project. I feel like I haven't seen this little guy very much. We have this new "game" this week. Eric puffs out his cheeks, then I flatten his cheeks with either my finger on one or both sides or the palm of my hands. He lets out the air and starts joyfully giggling. I love making him laugh. I probably shouldn't have done this right before bedtime, but he was so playful that I couldn't resist.

The van reached 100,000 miles this week after less than 5 years. We bought the van right after Eric was born. Patrick has done a lot of driving and shuttling kids around in that van. He is currently teaching Anthony how to drive in that van. I hope it holds up a little longer. We don't have time to get another one.

Life Is Good...For Natalie

I still have some Easter photos to share, but I'll hold off posting those for the moment so I can post these. I told Natalie several times today about how I was spoiling her and how life is good for her today, so I want to describe here what I mean.

I didn't take a picture of the first two things. First of all, she put some books on hold at the local public library. She's been fascinated with the "Warriors" series by Erin Hunter recently and she's on the last group of books named "Omen of the Stars". She borrowed the first book already and finished it, but then she got a notice that the next four books were waiting for her at the library. Of course she begged and begged for me to take her to the library. She had to wait.

I was post-call today, so I napped this morning after making pound cake waffles for breakfast, then I went to Alex's soccer game. Alex scored his team's only goal to tie 1-1, despite injuring the other side of his back. He's been suffering from some sort of muscle pull for the last few weeks. Today he said it wasn't hurting, but he did feel stiff. His coach decided that leaving him in the game was the best thing for his back to get even stiffer, and his team was rewarded by his goal. Go Alex! Sorry for getting off topic!

After we got back, I decided to go ahead and take Natalie to the library. Eric wanted to tag along too. That was the quickest library trip ever. Natalie returned some books for herself and for Patrick then checked out the books on hold for her. Eric and I grabbed the first three children's books with "dinosaur" in the title that we could find. That was it. Natalie was happy about getting four more books to read.

When we got home, she changed into a dress and we headed off to her Achievement Auditions. We left Eric at home watching "Dinosaur Train" on the iPad and Alex playing on the PS3--what a surprise. Before we went the UTSA for the Achievement Auditions, however, I stopped by Starbucks to get her a snack. She wanted a strawberry smoothie and an old-fashioned donut--her usual order there. Let me add that yesterday I took her to the doctor for a follow-up visit (dermatologist) and I got her a strawberry smoothie on the way back to school. I didn't get her the donut then because she was going to be in recess and then lunch soon after her return. Today I totally spoiled her by getting her both and she knew it. That girl is almost as addicted to Starbuck as I am!

When we got to UTSA, we registered then quickly found her room. Her teacher happened to be helping out in the room she would be playing in, so it was nice that she got to see him and get some words of encouragement beforehand. She also had a chance to "warm up" first. She wisely only played her two pieces one time each because she didn't want to get too nervous. I was just outside the door and I winced when I heard her miss a couple of notes that she never misses in practice along with a phrase at the end of one piece that she has always had trouble in (but that she's worked on quite a bit). She was definitely nervous but she handles her nervousness with smiles. She came out of the room smiling, admitting to making a couple of mistakes but she was upbeat and not upset. This picture is when she received her judge's comments. She got a Superior Plus and I can't remember right now what the highest category is. There may be one or two other higher categories, but she definitely did well. I'll type out the comments below as is directly from the paper (note that I erased her full name from the paper):

Cossack Ride--great energy with dynamics, accents, and tempo. The contrasting quite section could be even softer. Very strong performance overall.

Star Wars--Don't start till you're ready! God job counting, and good handling of the LH chords. excellent dynamic and rhythmic energy.

Gymboree has a new boys' line that is called "Shark Alert", which peaked my shark-crazy girl's interest, so we headed there next so I could use my Gymbucks. She liked three of the shirts the best, the orange one in this picture as well as the "Shark Zone" and "Beast of the Deep" one. We bought the other two for Eric who I think likes sharks because his sister likes sharks. We didn't try to make them match this time. I also convinced her to get some denim shorts (so I could use both of my Gymbucks) even though it had a girly braided belt that she didn't want to wear. I cut off the belt as soon as we got home. She had wanted a pieced boys' short with sharks on it, but that's where I drew the line. I refuse to buy her boys' shorts. I'm fine with the shark shirts but I still want her to look somewhat like a girl. She was happy enough to get these shirts.

So life is good for Natalie today. She agreed with me and thanked me. I'm going to milk this gratitude as much as I can. :)

Cascarones 2012

We've had a tradition the last few years of using cascarones to have a little fun on Easter. Cascarones are confetti-filled eggs that we have fun breaking over each others' heads. I usually try to stay out of the fray with my camera, but inevitably, one of the kids (this time it was my brother-in-law John) breaks one over my head anyway.

This is the pre-event photo. Despite the mixed lighting, I love it because of all of the different facial expressions. They were all raring to go.

This photo was probably the best one for capturing the chaos when they first started running around. They were so excited that they may have used a little too much force in breaking those eggs over their loved ones' heads. Aly was almost in tears when Nick broke one over her head. He said he didn't hit her that hard, and I'm sure he didn't think he did. Maybe the excitement got the best of him or maybe she was a little tired and couldn't tolerate it.

Natalie and Anthony almost got into their own little fight. Here you can see Anthony trying to take Natalie's cascarone. She ended up hitting him for that, and he didn't even actually take it. He just pretended to. Recently, for an assignment at school, Natalie wrote about how Anthony was her favorite person--not me or her Papa, but Anthony. We thought that maybe she was too tired from her sleepover and overreacted, hitting her favorite person. We'll have to see if we keep doing this year after year. After all, the kids are only going to keep getting bigger and stronger.

There was also something about fathers hitting their sons. Here Patrick got Anthony. Anthony got him back, of course. I remember one year when Anthony got Patrick and then took off running at top speed. Patrick took off after him but Anthony's long legs and speed were no match. This time also, the yard was too small to allow for any sprinting.

John and Nick were at each other too. There's this picture and then I have some other ones showing John chasing down Nick and grabbing him by the shirt to slow him down and then to take him down so he could break the cascarone over his head.


Here is Anthony being the good big brother that he is and allowing Eric the opportunity to crack the cascarone over someone's head. Poor Eric. One of these days he'll be tall enough to reach without having to have the other person bend over so much. He was being a neat little boy, though. He helped Uncle John clean up some of the biggest egg shells from the yard.

Notice that Alex isn't in any of these pictures. He didn't even come outside to watch. I tried to talk to him and even John tried to talk to him to convince him to at least come downstairs. He stayed upstairs to play on his iPod Touch. He's changing so much. Maybe I shouldn't worry, but I do.

Egg Hunt

I still haven't shared photos from our Easter Weekend in Houston. I had Good Friday off, so we left after lunch. We went directly to Lolo and Lola's house and my sisters met us there. Patrick and I were starving since we had fasted for Good Friday. My mom had three kinds of fish, Mac and cheese, a shrimp and noodles dish, Hot and Sour soup, and mangoes for all. That's not counting the treats she had for dessert. Love you, Mom!

This blurry photo is an iPhone photo (thanks Cynthia!) of our girls watching TV and Eric taking advantage of the attention from the girls. That evening, the boys went home with Cynthia. The girls went home with Melissa. We let Eric decide where he wanted to stay and he chose to stay with the girls.

On Saturday, we all met at Cynthia's house. When Melissa got there, we started stuffing eggs with candy and money until we ran out of candy. We actually had more bags that we didn't open, but after 119 eggs, 17 per child, we decided that was enough. The girls hid the eggs for the boys first. It didn't take the boys long to find all of them, although I think we were missing one (that they found later). Eric needed a little help from the girls to find his allotment of 17 eggs. As soon as he was done finding his eggs, Eric sat down to investigate their contents. At first he wasn't interested in the money, in fact he expressed an interest in trading for candy. The other kids were disappointed later when he changed his mind.

Next, the boys hid eggs for the girls. They decided to each concentrate in one spot to frustrate the girls who would be looking all over the yard. My sisters and I just wanted all of the eggs to be found quickly so that the candy would not melt.

Cynthia caught this picture of Anthony hiding 16 of 17 eggs all in plain sight. He said he purposely only put 16 there to frustrate the girls, who would each be looking for 17 eggs. Alex also hid a couple in plain sight in a different area of the yard.

The girls were looking for the hidden eggs, not the obvious ones. They also didn't look up--the obvious eggs were higher than their eye level. Then, Emily was the first one to see Anthony's eggs from across the yard. We just heard someone running quickly by us (the photographers--two video cameras and one regular one). As soon as the other two girls saw Emily run in that direction, they started running too. I love this photos because you can sort of see the big smile on Aly's face as the three of them compete for those 16 eggs. Anthony is so sneaky, isn't he? Emily was also the one who found Alex's two eggs that he had "hidden" on the fence in another part of the yard.

Tomorrow I'll try to post about the kids' Easter baskets and our cascarones battle.

Happy 5th Birthday, Eric!

My baby is five years old today! All I have right now are these iPhone photos, but I know they'll tell a good story. Patrick brought cupcakes to Eric's school today, and the kids had them with lunch. That's what Eric wanted, and that's what he got. Here he is saying, "My mouth is blue!" Some of the kids had the cupcakes with yellow icing and asked their teacher if their mouths were yellow. The effect wasn't quite the same. Surprisingly, Eric asked to go home and play after lunch instead of staying at school, so Patrick brought him home. He asked Eric if he wanted to go to the park or anywhere else, but all he wanted to do was play at home with cars and dinosaurs.

Eric got to watch his current favorite show, Dinosaur Train on Patrick's phone while he was at Natalie's piano lesson with Patrick and Natalie. That part is fairly routine.

After everyone got home, we decided to go ahead and open presents before going to dinner (from Grandma and Grandpa and from us), then we went to Chili's, Eric's choice for his birthday dinner. We had also invited Anthony's friend Alejandro, affectionately called "Eric's other brother". The wait staff sang "Happy Birthday" to Eric and presented him with a warm brownie and vanilla ice cream. He really seemed to enjoy the attention. Can you see that little smile on his face that he seems to be trying to hide? He refused to eat the brownie, however, which was fine. He did manage to get a little of the ice cream before his brothers (all three of them) finished it.

Eric's choice for dessert was Brindles, of course. He had his favorite, mango ice cream. This isn't the greatest picture, but here he is sitting in between Alejandro and Anthony. He usually sits at one of the tables and they really had to convince him to sit in between them. Eric kept saying that there wasn't much room and that he didn't want to be "squished". Alejandro pushed Anthony over some more and finally, with Alex's help in moving, Eric sat on the sofa.

What a lucky boy! When we were in Houston for this past weekend, we also celebrated his birthday there with my family. I'll have to share some more pictures later this week.

iPad Extreme

I've shared pictures of Eric playing on the iPad since he was two, which is when we first got it. He's always been a bit iPad crazy, but it's been almost an obsession lately. The biggest reason is that he has started watching a show called Dinosaur Train, which is on both Hulu Plus and Netflix, two online streaming services we currently subscribe to. He wants to watch that show ALL THE TIME. Usually we find him underneath the train table in the game room. In this picture he is actually laying on the living room sofa. His body position is the same, however.

Yesterday he took this obsession to the extreme. Patrick left Eric home with Alex so he could take Anthony to club soccer practice. I had already left to take Natalie to her swim team practice. Eric was watching Dinosaur Train on the iPad, of course. Alex, such an attentive baby-sitter, fell asleep. Apparently, Eric was so busy watching that he didn't want to stop to go to the bathroom. Yes, that's right. He peed in his pants. Sigh.

Of course when Patrick came home, he found this mess, cleaned it, and gave Eric a bath. That must have been a lot of fun. So, this means that Eric is not allowed on the iPad for a while. We'll see how it goes. It'll be difficult to keep him off the iPad on the car trip to Houston.

April Fool's

I know it's already the fourth of April but I'm now just posting about April 1st. I'm a little tired from a sleepless night on call last night, so cut me some slack, okay? :)

It was very late on Saturday night (March 31st). Patrick and I were about to go to bed. Anthony had just turned his lights out. I asked Patrick if he had any thoughts of something to do for April Fool's Day. He mentioned plastic wrap and how Alex once had tried putting plastic wrap on Anthony's door to greet him when he awakened the next morning. That prank didn't work completely because Anthony was able to see the shine of the plastic wrap when he opened his door, so he didn't run into the plastic wrap as Alex had intended. I went downstairs and asked Anthony (while looking into his darkened room) if he wanted to do that to Alex. Without hesitation, he said, "Yes."

We grabbed the plastic wrap and went upstairs. Patrick and Anthony spread out the plastic wrap. We needed something with which to stick the plastic wrap onto the doorframe. Unfortunately, Patrick killed Anthony's idea of using duct tape because he didn't want to have to clean up the adhesive residue. Patrick instead approved the use of painter's tape instead. It seemed like it would work well enough.

The next morning Patrick got up first to get the traditional Sunday morning donuts. He found the clumped up plastic wrap with the painter's tape still stuck to it on the floor in front of Anthony's bedroom door. There was a post-it note on it written in all caps, "NICE TRY. NEXT TIME USE BETTER TAPE." He showed it to me and we both thought it was hilarious. So did Anthony when he got up (we left it on the floor where we had found it).

Later, when Alex got up, I asked him about the note. He said that he had gotten up, opened the door, and saw the tape flapping around with the plastic wrap probably because of the air conditioner blowing. He didn't know it was tape at the time, just something long and dark that seemed out of place.

So, the prank didn't work perfectly, but it was still a fun little thing to do. :)

North Austin Swim Meet

The swim meet that was supposed to be held a month an a half ago was finally rescheduled to this past Saturday. I got to go only because Alex's game was rescheduled to another weekend. The boys stayed home while Patrick, Natalie and I drove to North Austin. It took us almost two hours to get there.

Originally the kids were supposed to be in no more than three events each. Natalie was supposed to be in the 100m Freestyle Relay, 50m Freestyle, and 25m Breaststroke. Her coach (Kris) asked for a volunteer to be in the 100m Medley Relay, so she got to swim butterfly in that one. She also practically begged to do the 100m Individual Medley, so she got to swim in that one too. I still get such a kick out of seeing her swim. She enjoys it so much that we signed her up for swimming four days a week starting this month!

In the Freestyle Relay race, Kris had grouped them according to age, mixing girls and boys. Apparently "they" wanted her to have teams that were only girls or only boys. That meant that Natalie's team was visibly and considerably older than the other two girls' teams, so they won pretty handily with a time of 1:23.02 (the times are for my reference).

The 100m Medley Relay was really close. Natalie's team started out pretty slowly, but Natalie made up a lot of time with her butterfly. The girl that swam the last leg, freestyle, really busted her butt catching up to the girl on the other team and basically touched just ahead of her with a total time of 1:44.44. Two first places for Natalie!

Natalie's times for the other three races were as follows: 50m Freestyle--42.452 sec, 25m Breaststroke--30.8 sec, and 100m IM--1:52.835. I'll have to look up how those compare with last year's times. She was the most proud of her ribbon in the IM race. There weren't any other girls ages 8-9 who were swimming the 100m IM, so she swam with two boys the same age and won handily. When the girls 10-12 swam the 100m IM after her, she said that they were "so big" and that she was glad she didn't have to swim against them. I told her to hang out by the finish line and to ask what the winning time was, because I thought she swam faster than they were swimming. She did and she was very excited to report that the winning time of the older girls was 7 seconds slower than her time. She would have beaten them! This is a picture of her rushing up to me after finishing the IM. She's been a bit obsessed with swimming the IM since last summer, I think because she wasn't able to do it before. We'll see how she competes against the older girls, because she'll be swimming against some of them this summer in the neighborhood team.

After the meet, we let her choose where she wanted to eat--Wendy's of course, and then we made the long trek back home.

Yellow Card

I'm a bit behind with my posts, so I'll try to catch up in the next few days.

I took this photo last Saturday morning. The fog was so thick that we could barely see the other side of the field. Both teams were fairly evenly matched, although there was on obnoxious parent on the other team that kept accusing our boys of being rough. The way I saw it, both teams were equally rough and aggressive, except that the refs only seemed to be calling fouls on our boys. The refs even called back one of our goals. Alex's coach was on an adjacent field with his other team and he saw the aforementioned goal. He thought it was clearly a goal and he didn't understand why the refs didn't count it.

In the second half, we were tied 2-2. Anthony ran into another boy when both were trying to get the ball. Anthony was given a yellow card. We couldn't believe it. Yes, the other boy got hurt, but they were equally trying to get the ball. One of Anthony's teammates made a verbal comment that maybe he shouldn't have. The ref gave him a red card. What happened next was confusing at the time, but we saw Anthony's coach back away from the field until he was all the way on the sidewalk. Suddenly, the ref abruptly ended the game right then and there. We later got an email from Anthony's coach that said the following (copied and pasted directly from the email):

Just wanted to let you know what happened at the game.

The ref came over to explain the red card and didnt agree so I let him know what I thought of the decision.
The assistant the proceeded to get in my face and tell me I was a nobody. I also let him know what i thought of that comment.
The ref then asked me to leave the field which I did but he never made it clear where I had to go. He then decided to call off the game as I wouldnt leave.
I did not want to leave the boys by themselves and I asked the referee to allow the game to continue as it was not about me or him but he did not agree.

If you have any questions please let me know

Sorry

Tom

I'm still a bit shocked and upset about what happened, but Patrick tells me that the referees have the final say, no matter what. Luckily, the rest of our Saturday went well. I'll be back tomorrow with a post about Natalie's swim meet results.

The Things You Do For Your Kids

I picked Anthony up from school a few minutes after the end of school. He talked with the track coach after school about joining track now that soccer season is over. He'll practice after school on Mondays and during first period every day (his scheduled soccer class). This is also when he broke the news to me that he wanted to videotape Patrick and me. What?!!

You see, I can't act. I have a hard time lying or even pretending to be something I'm not. I've tried to do skits when I was at school, and I failed miserably. Then there's the whole performance anxiety thing. Well, apparently Anthony had to put together a PSA or Public Service Announcement and his chosen topic is Suicide Prevention. As an aside, he has become very aware of some of the most talked about public issues and he doesn't shy away from them. Apparently also, he wrote a "script" of sorts describing parents sobbing in front of their house with an ambulance rolling by and a funeral scene. He didn't realize he had to also film this "script" until last Friday.

Of course our first question was "Do we have to be in it?" Anthony insisted that he needed adults in his video. There were none available at school so he had to wait until he got home so he could make Patrick and me play the part of the parents. Our next question was "Why didn't you do this on the weekend, when you had time to play hours of PS3?"

So, after lots of laughter from Patrick and me, we went outside on our front steps and he filmed us consoling each other. He purposely left the front door slightly ajar. Unfortunately, we needed several takes because either Patrick and I couldn't stop laughing, or one of the kids would run around inside the house so they could be seen through the open door (like Alex with a blanket over his shoulders), or Eric would peek out of the open door and let out a scary growl, etc. I got several bug bites in the meantime. I was thrilled. He also had to film us with Patrick's face more toward the camera so my face could be hidden because I could not keep a straight face. At least some of the shaking from laughter could be interpreted as sobbing.

For the funeral scene, he asked us to dress in black. In the meantime, he put up a sheet in the front hallway that he planned to later digitally erase and put in a different scene as a background. Natalie was eager to help. Did I mention that this is for his Mixed Media class? Anyway, we were supposed to cry and look upset. I had to blow my nose anyway after having been outside, so I used a tissue as a prop. I removed my contact lenses ahead of time so I could rub my eyes convincingly. Anthony reassured us he was only going to shoot us from the waist up. I wore a black dress, so it didn't matter. Patrick wore his shirt, tie, and dark coat with his shorts underneath.

Patrick and I are used to carting around the kids to various activities, helping with projects and homework, and that sort of stuff. This acting stuff is really above and beyond. Anthony appreciated our efforts. He definitely owes us.

A Two Game Day

Today was our first two soccer game day since the fall season (last year). Anthony's game was at 9am and it was drizzly and a little chilly as a result. He played very well but his team, not so well. They lost 0-5 in what will be Anthony's final high school soccer game of the season. Instead of staying for the second JV game and then going back to the school with his team, he came home with us. He took a shower at home and I took him back to school to volunteer for the Model U.N. activities that were being held at his school. After that, he went with a friend to his friend's house where he was having a pool party. Patrick just now picked him up at about 9pm, so he was gone all day.

Meanwhile, Patrick took Alex to his first club soccer game of the season. I came with the little ones after dropping off Anthony. I took this picture because we had a really long way to walk to the field where Alex was playing. Halfway there, Eric started holding his arms out like he was flying. He really knows how to entertain himself and the people around him sometimes. Natalie is clutching a bag of popcorn to her chest, afraid of spilling any. they were selling popcorn near the entrance and she begged to have some, of course.

I have another interesting story related to when we arrived at this soccer field(the S.T.A.R. Complex). The parking lot was full. I exited the lot to try to park in a different lot where I would have had to walk in the main road with the kids. I decided to give the first, closer parking lot another try. As soon as I entered, I told the kids to hope that we get lucky enough to find a parking spot. I then remembered that Eric often brings me luck. I told Natalie to rub Eric's head. I had just finished saying it when we came upon someone about to pull out of their spot. Lucky! Unfortunately, it didn't work when Patrick rubbed Eric's head later to bring Alex's team good luck. They lost 0-3.

At the start of the game, the temperature was warming up but it was still very tolerable, despite the still slightly wet weather. It warmed up quite a bit during the 12:30pm game and the sun came out. The boys did okay during the game despite having no subs. Near the end, Eric and Natalie started whining about how hot they were. I bought them snow cones at halftime and an Icee at the corner gas station on the way home. Good bye, cool weather.

After the game, we went home. Alex got to play Call of Duty: Black Ops on the PS3. Patrick took Natalie to the library to check out some books in the Warrior Cat series that she has been obsessed with lately. I took a nap. When they got home, we headed to La Cantera Mall. This is just a photo I took after dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. I love taking photos like this from behind. No goofy faces and smiles and no shouts of "No Pictures!" I just get to see my family interact naturally. Eric insisted on carrying one of our bags of leftovers, so that bag is banging against his body. We always have lots of leftovers when we go to the Cheesecake Factory. He is wearing a shirt from his Uncle Geoff and it's huge (size 6). Soon after this, he let me carry the bag he was carrying so he could run and catch up with his sister.

I have one more interesting story about The Cheesecake Factory. When our waitress came to our table to introduce herself, she looked really familiar to me. As it turned out, she was our server the last time we were there, which was way back in December when we were there for my birthday. What was really cool was that she remembered us. She even asked if I had cut my hair (yes) and if there were some family members missing (yes--the boys). She must serve a ton of people every day. How cool that we were memorable--hopefully in a good way. :)

Tomorrow, Alex has another soccer game. I hope it's not too hot!

Stepping It Up

The last few months have felt like a vacation. Sure, Patrick and I still have to take children to different locations at the same time, but we really haven't had to do too many multiple trips in one night. Yesterday, I came home and spoke to Patrick for a few minutes, then I left with Eric to pick up Alex and the other carpool kids. I left Natalie at home because we wouldn't all fit in the car together plus she could finish her homework.

After getting Alex home, we were home for about half an hour before we left to get Chipotle for dinner. I gave Alex a choice of me making pasta at home or going to Chipotle. He was fine with pasta until I mentioned the latter. Alex has recently had almost an obsession with Chipotle's steak burritos.

After eating we came home to drop Alex off then I took Natalie and Eric to the Kinder Round Up. We finally got home at around 7:30pm. By then, Patrick had come home with Anthony after Anthony's high school soccer game. He only played a few minutes because some of the Varsity players who didn't play in the Varsity game for whatever reason, played at the JV game.

Our schedule is about to step up some more. Anthony will start participating in Track along with Club Soccer. Alex will hopefully not have so much homework so he can actually go to club soccer practice. In April, Natalie is going to start swimming four nights a week. We actually have to pay for five nights a week to do this, but she doesn't want to swim on Fridays because she sees that as her day to play with her friends.

This is an iPhone photo of her swimming tonight in her own lane. The other seven kids at swim team practice shared two lanes and she got her own lane. Her coach says that swimming on Mondays and Wednesdays will give Natalie an opportunity to swim with other kids that might give her more competition. If they don't then the coach said that she would get in the pool herself and swim with Natalie. I thought that was nice of her.

The neighborhood swim team registration was tonight. Practices start May 1st, but right now we're planning on Natalie practicing her swimming at Lifetime Fitness where she's swimming now. She'll get a lot more practice and attention there than at the neighborhood practices.

Besides everything above, the big boys will start having club soccer games on the weekends--at least two to three per weekend. Yup, our schedule is definitely going to be stepping up in the coming weeks.

Kinder Round Up

Tonight, at our local elementary school, they had a "Kinder Round Up". Basically, incoming kindergarten students could come in and see the school including the four kindergarten classrooms, and their parents could be oriented to some of the policies of the school and what their children would be taught in kindergarten. Eric was so excited to see the "big kid school"!

After I parked the car, he was basically running toward the school, with me in tow. He got a little wild while we were waiting for the introduction, but not too bad. He certainly wouldn't sit still enough for me to take a picture. This is one I managed to get in focus as he was goofing around and lunging toward the camera.

We visited four classrooms. In the first one, he sat very still on the big carpet in the middle of the room, criss-cross applesauce. In the second classroom he started goofing off with a girl that he knew. I had to threaten him that we would leave--he very much wanted to stay and visit all the classrooms!

In the third room he started to lie down and he was wiggly. By the last room (see picture) he was just lying down. Overall, I have to say that he was fairly well behaved, especially in comparison to the other kids in our group. Natalie came with us and she even listened to everything that was said, even though I offered to let her play quietly on the iPad.

Natalie also came because I had promised her that in order to "celebrate" Eric's tour of the school, I would take both of them to Orange Leaf, a local frozen yogurt place. She's been begging me to go there. Because it was getting so late after visiting all of those classrooms, Eric luckily didn't mind missing the last part where the kids could get on a real school bus and see what it was like to sit in it.

Eric got the mango-flavored yogurt with strawberries, although he decided that he didn't want the strawberries after he ate one with the yogurt. Natalie had the chocolate and vanilla swirl. I had the strawberry flavor with strawberries. Eric also loves the funky shaped orange spoons there and he asked if we could take our spoons home. This time I refused.

We received instructions on how to register Eric for kindergarten tonight. A couple of the ladies from the PTA came up to us and said, "Oh that's right. He's the last one." Sniff, sniff. I was okay tonight, but I'm not quite sure how I'll handle the first day of school in August.

Trip Photo Favorites

We got back safe and sound this afternoon, despite a little air turbulence. I didn't take too many photos on this trip, at least compared to other trips, but I wanted to share some of my favorites.

This first one was taken on our first full day in Colorado. The kids went outside to play in the snow as soon as they were able to assemble their snow gear from Grandma and Grandpa's stash. Patrick had to actually take Eric to Wal-Mart to get him some snow boots, since we didn't already have anything suitable in his size. Natalie used an old pair of Grandma's snow boots. The same pair as last year.

The kids made a snowman, of course. I asked Eric if I could take a picture of him with the snowman, and he said, "Yes." I expected him to merely sit or stand next to the snowman. Instead, true to his lovable nature, he gave the snowman a hug. What a sweetie!

As you can see, there was more grass than snow in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard. By the time we left, there was only the patch of snow where the kids had built what they called snow "forts" but what were really only snow "walls". Because there wasn't much snow, there wasn't much use for a shovel, but the one they had broke. Actually, Grandma said that the shovel was already broken, so thankfully the kids weren't the reason. The handle had come off, so Eric decided to pretend to be a "bulldozer". That shovel was still bigger than he was so he had to use his whole body to push the "bulldozer".

On our last day there, yesterday, Alex didn't want to play in the snow, but the other three did. The snow wasn't very good for having a snowball fight at all, so they ended up just goofing off in the snow and tearing down their snow "walls". They only get to play in the snow once a year, so I'm glad they at least had some snow play time. Grandma bought another shovel by our last day and just in case, we forbade the kids to use it.

I wasn't able to use my big camera to take photos on the ski hill, so Patrick took photos for me instead. He took this photo of his parents when they were skiing together while the rest of us were taking ski lessons. He did a great job, didn't he? This photo is completely unedited. I love his mom's smile--so genuine and loving. His dad was ignoring the camera as usual, but it's still a great photo of the two of them.

Patrick took this photo also. I love that he was able to capture Eric while he was skiing. He looks like he's really concentrating on what he was doing. He was apparently smiling for most of his lesson. I love his cute little skis. I love that the goggles cover most of his face. Oh, and they had the kids wear those orange jackets. The orange color identified them as ski school kids, but the best part was the handle in the back. Yes, there was a handle on the back part so that if the kids fell, all the instructor had to do was lift them up like a shopping bag. So cute! When I saw Eric on our last day of skiing, he was waiting his turn and I tried to take a picture of him. He acted goofy and didn't want his picture taken, so he ended up laying down in the snow. His instructor came up and said, "Are you being a snow angel?" She promptly turned him over and pulled him up by his "handle".

I still have to sift through the rest of the photos and I'll try to share a few more later, but I had to get these up as soon as possible.

Ski Day #2

We got up early to go skiing again today. Patrick said that he is tired of waking people up and being greeted with groans and general unhappiness. The kids and I all had lessons again today. Alex missed so much yesterday, but he felt a lot better today. He and Anthony even went up the mountain again after our lesson was over. Natalie and I went to watch Eric at his lesson.

For today's lesson, we went up to the top of the mountain a couple of times. That gave us more time to practice what David our instructor was telling us since we didn't have to keep getting on the ski lift. It was also sunnier up there and therefore warmer, which was nice. David also thought the snow was a bit better up there. There were some icy parts further down.

Anthony took this photo in the morning before skiing. Eric was so happy to be skiing again. His instructor told me after his lesson that he was such a joy to have in her class. She said that he was always smiling and that he was doing so well.

When I watched him ski down the hill, he was mostly with another instructor who was always holding his hands. They were doing that for the other three kids in his class too. On the final run, they let go and just let him ski. He started waving his arms around like he was out of control, and then he just sat down. I guess he didn't know how to stop on his own. He really wanted to ski again tomorrow. As he put it, he wanted to go to the "next flag". We're going to take it easy tomorrow, though. The other kids are tired and they want to play with the snow forts they made in the backyard. I'm sure I'll have pictures to share tomorrow.

One more thing, I mentioned to the kids the possibility of going to lunch at Wendy's after skiing. Anthony said at that point that because I mentioned it, we had to go there. It was funny how excited they all got about going there. Anthony ordered the Double Baconator, of course, and the other three got the Spicy Chicken Nuggets. They all ate 10 pieces each. That's how hungry Eric was. All four of them got Frosties too--Alex and Eric with vanilla and Natalie and Anthony with chocolate. For them that was the perfect end to our second and final day of skiing.

First Ski Day

Today was our first day of skiing. I had a private group lesson with the oldest three kids at Arapahoe Basin. We found out a year or so ago that it was cheaper to do a group lesson with the kiddos than giving them regular half day lessons, since the three of them are all at about the same level. I'm at about the same level as they are, so I decided to tag along this year since it's the same price up to four people.

We had an instructor named David that we liked. Unfortunately, Alex wasn't feeling well from the congestion and from the altitude, so he went to the lodge to rest after about an hour and a half (out of a three hour lesson). The rest of us kept skiing and then went up to the Black Mountain Lodge for lunch. Patrick stayed at the base of the mountain with Eric. Alex ended up going home with Grandma and Grandpa.

Natalie did everything David said to do as far as technique, but she really has to control her speed a lot more. She's definitely more comfortable on the slopes than the rest of us, though. She also chatted with David a lot more than the rest of us. Poor guy.

After a nice lunch of salmon for Anthony, chicken tenders for Natalie, and chili for me, we had a little scare. Anthony couldn't find his skis. We thought that someone had taken them. That meant that he wouldn't have a way to get down the mountain. We talked with one of the managers and she could only tell us that this happens all the time. She suggested that we stay on the lookout for whoever took the skis to return them. Luckily, when Anthony looked again more closely, he found his skis.

Eric also had his very first day ever of skiing. Patrick mostly took video so he really only got a couple of photos. He may not look happy in this photo but every time the other kids and I saw him in the ski lesson area, he had a big smile on his face. Patrick said his instructor told him that Eric had the best smile. He enjoyed himself so much. When he talked about his day, he talked about how the skis moved by themselves. He did fall a few times, but he always got right back up, with a smile on his face, and went about what he was supposed to do. He didn't go up any hills, and we don't expect him to even tomorrow. What's important is that he is enjoying himself immensely.

Tomorrow Eric said he was going to go to the red flag instead of the orange flag. In other words, he will be in the next class. We signed him up for another lesson tomorrow. The other kids and I signed up for another group private lesson with the same instructor we had today. We're pretty exhausted after today, but tomorrow should be another fun day.

Good Travel

This is just a quick update. Our plane didn't leave until 6:05pm yesterday, so we had plenty of time to do last minute things and pack. The boys even got to play on the PS3. We had a late lunch from Chipotle before heading to the airport early. The local news said to allow for a good two hours prior to departure. As it turned out, we didn't need anywhere near that, so we waited for a long time.

This is a picture of us on the plane. Eric was in a good mood. He played in the iPad for most of the time. Natalie was reading The Hunger Games. The big boys listened to music and played on their iDevices. The trip was mostly turbulence-free, which I loved, of course.

The trip to the rental car place was the only low point. The bus driver usually helps with the luggage and/or at least helps Eric up and down the stairs since the rest of us have our hands full with luggage. This one just watched. Patrick also went through two vans before getting one that was acceptable. At least the trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house went well. Eric even slept in the car and he was in a good mood for his grandparents. Grandma fed us pizza then everyone got ready for bed. The little ones didn't get in bed until 11pm.

Today is about getting ready for skiing, trying to find stuff that fits. I'll try to update tonight or tomorrow.