Scholastic Book Fair

Life is still a little hectic sometimes. Even though Eric does not currently have any soccer practices or other sports practices, Patrick and I are still pulled different ways sometimes. For example, on Monday I went directly from work to pick up Alex from school before going home. When we got home, the other three were already eating dinner. Patrick and Natalie left to go to swim practice. After I ate, I waited for Eric to finish eating (he still eats slower than the rest of the family) then we headed to his school Scholastic Book Fair where they were having Family Night. This was the only night when they would be open after school. Natalie would have wanted to go, but she had to so swimming. On the other days she would not be getting home on the bus before the book fair closed. Luckily, they had an online ordering option.

We could have given Eric money to buy books during school, but Patrick didn't want him buying books basically unsupervised by one of us. As it turned out, we might have saved money that way, because he would probably have received a $20 bill tops. I have a hard time saying no to books, especially when it involves a fundraiser for the school. Eric was so excited about each purchase that I ended up getting him the four books he requested. In fact, we picked out three books, and then when we were in line to buy those three, we heard the school librarian mention another book about the Despicable Me Minions. Eric's ears perked up at the mention of "minions". He still sleeps with his Minion stuffed toy, after all. These are the four books we bought for a grand total of over $28.

Star Wars Jedi Academy by Jeffrey Brown
This seemed a little above his level, but he is very interested in Star Wars.


Angry Birds Star Wars Lard Vader's Villains by Ruth Amos
Of course Eric first "heard of " Star Wars through the Angry Birds Star Wars app on the iPad. Of course he really wanted this book.

Lego Legends of Chima Lions and Eagles Activity Book complete with a mini-figure
I had no idea he was interested in Lego Legends of Chima, and this book comes with a mini-figure that he was especially interested in.

Despicable Me 2 The Offical Minion Manual by Howie Dewin
This has been his favorite book of the bunch. He giggles constantly when he reads it and he likes to share with me what he's reading, so I get bits and pieces of it.

As we were checking out, the school librarian was there. I mentioned the buying online option and she reminded me that if I bought online, the books would be delivered to the school for free and she would just put kit in Eric's backpack. She recognized Eric and she still remembered Natalie. I love teachers that remember their previous students like that.

Eric has been reading more than usual since he got these books. That makes the $28 totally worth it.

25th Rice University Reunion

Patrick and I haven't gone to a college reunion in about 10 years. The last time we went, Natalie was still a toddler and Anthony was really into Harry Potter. They had a Harry Potter themed breakfast at Baker College that year and the kids had such a blast. This time was a bit different. Of course Anthony is away at school and isn't with us. Alex wasn't interested in visiting the campus at all. Eric had more fun hanging out with his grandparents and getting spoiled with his Lego gifts and food.

We left Natalie with her friend Margot and Margot's parents so she could compete in her first UIL competition. She wasn't too specific, but she won third place in Spelling (Margot won first place) and she got in the top 15 in all of the subject areas she entered. That sounded pretty good to us.

This is a quick photo that I snapped on the way to the Alumni Brunch on Saturday morning. I love the bright graphics they used for the tickets and all of the reunion tags and signs. I thought about asking them if I could keep a ticket for my scrapbook but decided that a picture would take up less space.

The Rice University campus has expanded quite a bit in the 25 years since we went to school there. There were eight residential colleges at that time with two of them being single-sex dorms, now there are eleven and all are coed. There were around 500-600 per undergraduate class then. This fall they had about 950 in their freshman class. There are many more buildings than when we went there, which posed a slight problem for us. We were supposed to go to "Baker Hall" for the Alumni Brunch from 10am-1pm on Saturday, but we didn't realize that until we were almost to "Baker College", which of course was in a completely different part of the campus. Luckily, the campus is still small enough that we could walk everywhere, although we did take one of the shuttle buses (that they didn't used to have) to Baker Hall once we figured out our mistake.

At the brunch, they showed a documentary called "180: The Spin on Willy's Statue", about a significant event that happened during our senior year. The statue that is shown in this picture behind me is of William Marsh Rice, the founder and namesake of the university. Some students turned that statue around as a prank. I wish I could have a copy of that documentary so I could show it to my boys. It was informative and well done and taught me some things I didn't know about at the time.

The other alumni event we went to was the barbecue at 3pm-5:30pm before the Homecoming game versus Lousiana Tech catered by the local Good Company Barbecue. We got to see a few people that we probably should have remembered, like a guy I was in the MOB (Marching Owl Band) with and another guy that went to my same medical school. I also saw another guy that practices up in Illinois where we used to live before we came back to San Antonio. We didn't see anyone that we used to hang out with. They may have been there at the dinner and dance on Friday night. We couldn't make that because we were still driving into town. We didn't feel right pulling the kids out of school for this.

We didn't go to the game which we actually won 52-14. Interestingly we lost most of our football games when we went to school there, but then we had the big powerhouse teams like University of Texas and Texas A&M University in our division. We went home and spent a little time with my parents. It was a good trip and we plan on trying to go to Homecoming again next year.

Another Short Visit

My mom made a monthly trip to our house when Eric was born, but now with Dad not being able to travel very easily, she can't really visit at all, so we're going to try to visit regularly. This weekend was also Patrick's and my 25th college reunion. We haven't been able to go to the reunion in about 10 years because of the kids' activities. As it was, we drove in late on Friday night since we had to get home from work and school first. We left Natalie with her friend Margot and Margot's parents so she could go to a school academic competition. Eric missed his last soccer game of the season.

We didn't get to spend too much time with my parents. I'll detail our college reunion details in a later blog post. Patrick and I spent Saturday doing reunion stuff and Eric spent the day with his grandparents. He was spoiled, of course.

My Mom gave him a Star Wars Lego toy which consisted of a Republic Assault Ship and the planet Coruscant. He was in heaven, of course. In this picture, we are about to head home and Mom gave him his own bag of snacks to share. In the plastic bag he has two bags of Doritos, two bags of Cheetos, a partial loaf of sweet bread, and a bowl of mango complete with a fork. He carried that bag around the house as we were getting stuff ready to go and as Patrick was packing the van.

Alex was reluctant to go on this trip because he wanted to spend time with his friends, which is what he tries to do on every free weekend. We don't know his friends' parents as well as we know Margot's parents, so we didn't feel right making anyone else responsible for him and then leaving town.

To make him feel better about coming with us, I enticed him with a trip to the outlet mall with my sister Melissa. He actually seemed excited when I introduced this idea to him. He loves to shop as much (or more) than Melissa does. He bought two more pairs of shoes and many more pairs of socks. This boy has more shoes than I do.

I haven't gotten a picture of my parents in a while. I tried to get one with my Dad in it also, but he was busy and didn't come out until we were headed out of the door. Eric is so good about pictures and when Patrick took some pictures of Mom and me, he wanted to get in the picture too. I hope we have many more opportunities to take pictures in the future. In fact, we'll be back for our Thanksgiving visit in a little more than a week.

C Meet #3

Natalie has some really good friends at her swim club and especially on her swim team. Ally is a friend that moved over from a different swim club about a year or so ago and is now on the same team as Natalie. Ally just turned 11 last week, so she is younger than Natalie but she is already 5' 5". Her mom says that she is tall because of her dad, and it's often hard to remember that she is so young because of her size.

Because she just turned 11, Ally has to meet the time standards for 11-12 year old girls now, just like Natalie. Natalie needed faster times in the 50 and 100 yard breaststroke events in order to make the "B" standard, so she was swimming in another "C" meet last Sunday. In contrast, Ally's two slowest events are her 50 and 100 butterfly. The two of them joked that they should pretend to be the other because Natalie hates to swim breaststroke and Ally hates to swim butterfly.

This was a long day and the two of them had to stay for the whole meet since they were both also swimming the 200 yard IM, the last event of the meet. The 200 yard IM was an "open" event so anyone could enter that event even if they had already achieved a "B" standard. The meet was going very slowly and they didn't get to swim that last race until after 1pm. This is a picture of Natalie resting on Ally's lap. She said that Ally made a good pillow and Ally didn't seem to mind. In fact, Ally also rested her head on Natalie.

This is another picture that I took later of the two of them. Natalie actually fell asleep and Ally had to remove herself so she could swim one of her events. Even then Natalie still slept a little longer, but she got up in plenty of time for her race.

Natalie got a 1:37.72 on her 100 yard breaststroke (seed was 1:40.49), which was almost three seconds faster but still slower than a B time (1:35.79). She got a 44.31 on her 50 yard breaststroke (seed was 45.69), which was almost a second faster but also was still slower than a B time (43.69). This means that she will have to swim in the next "C" Meet in December to try to meet that "B" standard. Ally swam fast enough in her events to get the "B" standard time in the 50 and 100 yard butterfly, so she won't have to swim in any more "C" Meets.

They both swam in the 200 yard IM. They both already had a "B" standard time in that one, but their coach entered them in that event just because she could. Unfortunately, Natalie was disqualified on her 200 yard IM for being underwater when she touched the wall after her backstroke leg. She didn't know that she was disqualified until she got out of the pool at the end of her race and the official stopped her to talk to her. She was very upset, of course. Ally was right there with her and was really good about comforting her. Ally said that she herself had DQ'd on the 200 IM five times before, the last time being fairly recently.

Natalie did a great job overall, decreasing her times in the breaststroke significantly, but unfortunately not significantly enough. We're still super proud of her and we're happy that her good friend was around to support her during this last meet.

New Breakfast Table

After we had all of that work done in the kitchen, we needed to get some chairs to place at the new expanded kitchen island. We had a breakfast table that we bought when we were still living in Illinois, but the screws on that started loosening, so we kept the chairs and put that table in the garage. The old table that we started using instead is one that Patrick bought unfinished and finished himself when we were first married (or maybe even before?), so that table is super old but it is super sturdy. I was postcall and off last Friday, so Patrick and I went shopping for a new table and chairs. We found one we liked and bought it with extra chairs for the kitchen island. They were able to schedule delivery the same day.

This is Eric relaxing on the area rug we have in the breakfast area. We had moved the old table and chairs out of the way in preparation for the delivery of the new furniture. I thought it was hilarious that Eric felt like plopping himself down and pretending to sleep. When I took the picture, Eric of course wanted me to text the picture to his big brother, which I did.

Eric has this habit of laying down on the chair at the table. He takes so long to eat anyway and I found myself continually reminding him to sit up while he was at the table just the day before. So, when Patrick and I bought a counter-height table and chairs that were higher, we joked that Eric would be falling off the chairs regularly. In this picture, the delivery guy had brought all the chairs in before getting the table. Eric started checking out the chairs. I talked to him about how he likes to lay down on the chairs and reminded him to be more careful since these chairs were higher. He of course had to lay down on the chairs to check it out further.

When they brought the entire set in, put the table together, and then left, I took this picture. Eric found the shelves underneath the table and had already made that a "hiding place" so I decided to take a picture of him on the shelf. We've had the set for almost a whole week now and he is still laying down on the chairs. Luckily, so far he hasn't fallen off.

We really liked this set because the chairs are padded and the table area is bigger. It's actually more square with the extra table leaf in place, which is good since we tend to put extra stuff on the table, like the kids' schoolwork, the newspaper, etc. The shelves will be nice to put stuff on to get them out of the way--when they don't have a child laying on them, that is.

Remodel Results

I realized that I haven't posted the pictures of the finished kitchen remodeling on the blog yet. This is an overview shot of the whole kitchen plus a glimpse of the bathroom. All the appliances are new, the refrigerator, the double oven/microwave (new in June), the stovetop/hood, and the dishwasher. Our other dishwasher was actually less than a year old, but with all of the money we spent on this remodel, it wasn't that much more to get a new dishwasher to match the other new stainless steel appliances. A friend's dishwasher was on its last legs and we gave her our "old" one plus the new one is even quieter than that one, so we gained a lot with that decision too.

This is a detail shot of the new sink and new tile backsplash. We didn't have a backsplash at all before, just the plain wall, which didn't hold up well near the sink area and all of that excess wetness. I love the new backsplash, especially the more decorative part on the bottom. The sink is bigger on the left than on the right, so it more easily fits some of the pans. The bottle-looking thing you see on the left is the soap dispenser that matches the faucet. At the time I took this picture, they had not yet drilled a hole in the granite to put that in. The faucet is way cool--it turns on and off when you touch it. There is no need to mess with the handle except to control the flow. The end of it is a sprayer, which is cool too, since our old one gave out years ago.

This is the other side of the kitchen that wasn't shown in the overview shot. It looks so big and empty here but it's definitely full of stuff not.

Notice the magnet on the dishwasher. That's how we discovered that maybe this is a stainless steel-looking dishwasher rather than an actual stainless steel one, since the magnet sticks to the front. I had to have some way to indicate clean vs. dirty dishes and I was happy that we could still use our magnet on the dishwasher for that purpose.

This is the new kitchen island. I wanted drawers instead of cabinets, so this was their solution. I wasn't happy with how plain they look, so we got some drawer handles that they will install later when they fix/clean up some things. So far I love these drawers. It's so much easier to be able to open a drawer to get out a pot or pan instead of having to dig it out under a bunch of other stuff. I also love that the drawers are so big. I can put all my kitchen utensils in one drawer now instead of two.

This is a closer look at the bathroom. We had a bathtub in there before and now there is only a shower. The main tile on the shower wall is the same as the tile on the floor. There are two lines of gray tile like the gray tile you see on that half wall on the outside plus the floor is covered with the same small gray tile. They also put a seat/shelf on the corner and a recessed area for shampoo/conditioner/soap on the inside of that half wall. I love the way this shower looks with the black on the glass door.

It's been so nice to get a bathroom back on the first floor where we can wash our hands and go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, the shower curtain rod in the kids' bathroom has been acting up and keeps falling down, so it's nice to have a second shower for the kids to use.

This is a detail shot of the sink area in the bathroom. I love the color of the faucet. It matches the color of the shower head and the towel racks and such. It looks so elegant. The mirror is the same one we've had and it fits in well with the new dark granite. They also added a tile backsplash in here.

In a future blog post, I'll have to detail what we didn't like. That is a long blog post by itself. In summary though, we don't like how they didn't clean up very well at the end of the job. We've spent the whole last week (mostly Patrick) doing a lot of cleaning before we could move stuff back into place. Like I said already, that is a long blog post by itself.

November Art a la Carte

I arranged to have a day off today. Eric's art class was scheduled on a Monday for this month because they have parent-teacher conferences on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with early dismissals on those days. He of course wanted me to bring him some lunch--Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets and and a vanilla frosty.

I took a "selfie" of the two of us after he finished eating. He used to want me to put pictures of him on Facebook, but now whenever Patrick or I take a picture of him with our phones, he wants us to send them to Anthony. At first he was waving, with his hand moving, so his hand came out blurry in the picture. I convinced him to just hold his hand still and this is the result. My smile is way too big and I'm showing way too many teeth, but I couldn't keep myself from smiling so much because Eric was too cute. :)

Today's art project was modeled after Andy Warhol's style of making prints. I'm learning a little each month along with Eric. The teacher had styrofoam rectangles out on the tables for each child. They chose a holiday symbol (tree, ornament, Star of David, etc.) and "drew" them on the styrofoam rectangle. That resulted in an impression in the styrofoam that they then covered in paint. When they turned that rectangle over onto another piece of paper, their drawing became a "negative space" area that was white and the rest of the image was the color of the paint they used. Pretty cool.

In case you can't tell in the picture, Eric drew an ornament with a zigzag on one side and surrounded on the other sides by smaller circles. (The ornaments are sideways on the final paper.) Once again, it turned out better than I originally thought it would, when I saw him gouging his pencil into the styrofoam. I was worried that he would make a hole in the styrofoam.

After school, I met Eric at the bus stop. Per our routine, he was the first child off the bus, and as soon as he got off the bus, he ran to give me a hug. I told him that I was able to see him a lot today. He said that he had seen my "four times" today. I thought about it and sure enough, it had been four times. The first time was in the morning when I took him to the bus stop. The second time was when I brought him lunch. The third time was when I helped out in his Art a la Carte class. The fourth time was of course when I picked him up from the bus stop.

I had made some brownies, but they were not done yet, so I told him that maybe we could visit Starbucks to get him an afternoon snack and that maybe he could have the brownies for dessert. He loved that idea, of course. Usually I'm reluctant to take him to Starbucks for an afternoon snack, because he never just wants a drink. He always wants a blueberry scone also. That's a big snack. It was okay this time because he was going to share his scone with me and we still had to go pick up Alex from school and dinner would be later.

This is Eric at Starbucks, lounging on one of their chairs. He didn't want to sit at a table. He wanted to sit in one of the big leather chairs. I don't like how my iPhone brightened up his face so much here, but I didn't have another camera with me. He has a sweet smile on his face, as if he was really enjoying this position.

Unfortunately, they had run out of blueberry scones. Patrick and I often get their "Bacon and Gouda Artisan Sandwich", and recently, Eric has been asking for "bites" of our sandwich when he's with us. Interestingly, instead of a sweet snack/treat, he chose that sandwich. I hesitated at first, because the sandwich would be really filling and he wouldn't be able to eat dinner. Then I realized that didn't matter. It was better that he didn't have a snack with empty calories, and so basically, he ate dinner before 4pm.

I took this picture because he wanted to balance the plate on his lap instead of using a table. He was very neat about eating, though, so how could I complain?

We picked up Alex, came home, and the rest of us had dinner. Eric finished up his Vanilla Bean Frappucino with Caramel Drizzle, and he was good for the night. True to my word, I did give him a brownie for dessert.

We finished off the night with a makeup piano lesson since Halloween was on his piano lesson night last Thursday. Eric and I spent lots of time together today and I loved it. I think he loved it too. :)

Oh, and he wanted me to send that lounging photo to Anthony. I've been emailing my blog posts to Anthony so he can see what his siblings are up to. This blog post is probably way more information than he wanted. :)

Austin Visit

I'm definitely a homebody and shy, but I've been trying to make more of an effort to see friends lately. Yesterday I drove out north to go to one friend's house in the morning for her party, and then I drove out west to visit another friend at her going away party. I have to make an effort to be social, but I never regret it.

One thing that comes more easily for me is hanging out with family. My cousin Rachael and her husband Jason arrived in Austin yesterday. Jason is there on business, so Rachael is leaving tomorrow and he is staying until Thursday. I drove up there with Natalie this morning to spend a little time with them. Eric had a full schedule this weekend, with a soccer game, two birthday parties, and church school. Patrick of course had to stay to drive him around. Alex spent the night at a friend's house on Saturday and I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon. Natalie actually had a clear schedule for once.

There were a lot of cars out on the road today, but it was an easy drive. We picked them up at their hotel and went to lunch. We didn't anticipate such a tough time finding a place to eat. We went to a few places and the wait was well over an hour for each of them. Luckily there were a lot of restaurants within walking distance of each other. We finally found one without a wait.

Interestingly, Natalie didn't say anything to me in the car on the way up there or on the way back. Boy, did she make up for it during lunch. She was talking non-stop. I interrupted her a few times just so I could talk to Rachael and Jason and catch up a little. I haven't seen them since they got married three years ago. I lived with Rachael's family for a year during my first year in med school oh so many years ago, before they moved away. Now they were talking about moving next year and that Austin was on their list of possible places to move to. That would be so cool!

Natalie took this picture of us in front of the Austin City Hall. We look especially amused because she took a picture and then didn't say anything. We were left wondering when she was going to take a picture. That's when she took this one. Silly girl.

It was such a short visit, but we had a great time. They probably found out more about Natalie than they wanted to. She's definitely a talker like her father. :) We missed seeing their adorable daughter Charlotte, but maybe if we get lucky, they'll move close by and we'll be able to see her all the time. (Crossing my fingers.)

Halloween 2013

We've had a block party on Halloween every year since we moved here eleven years ago. In the past it has been more elaborate, with a couple of active neighbors organizing it and really making it special. Since they moved away, it hasn't been the same, but a couple of neighbors have stepped up to at least make sure we still have a block party.

This is a picture of Natalie with her good friend Lucas, who is six months younger and still in elementary school. Lucas' mom was one of the previous organizers, and although they moved away, they came back this year to spend some time with their old neighbors. Natalie was a little embarrassed and reluctant to get a picture, but I'm so glad she finally allowed me to take this picture. Lucas used to be her main playmate and we just don't see him much anymore.

In the background is a "haunted house" in our neighbor's garage. Carmen is in the background of this picture, and they do something like this every year. Sometimes they build this in their front yard. It's elaborate by neighborhood standards and the kids have fun walking through.

The neighbors had started getting some tables set up by the time I came home from work, by 4pm or so. We fed the kids then proceeded outside by 5:30pm. Eric took a long time to eat his pizza, so I went outside with Natalie first while Patrick got Eric dressed. Patrick asked Eric if he wanted him to wear his costume also, and of course Eric said yes. Patrick wore this Huntsman costume (from the movie Snow White and the Huntsman) for the Halloween party we went to last Friday. With temperatures up to the 80s, I decided it was too warm for me to put on my coordinating Snow White costume. Patrick complained that he was hot but he kept that costume on until Eric and I finished trick-or-treating.

Natalie was waiting for her friends Margot and Ally to arrive. They were walking from Margot's house, which is probably about half a mile away. I'm certain that they were chatting and taking their time, and probably trick-or-treating on the way, so it was taking them a while to get to our part of the neighborhood. They had decided to dress as characters from the Adventure Time show, a show I had never heard of until Natalie mentioned it in conjunction with planning her Halloween costume. She went shopping with Margot and her mom last weekend to get this DIY outfit. I provided the purple ribbon for her waist. You can't appreciate it in this picture, but she also sprayed a pink color on her hair. Apparently this character is Princess Bubblegum? Natalie does not usually like to wear pink nowadays, unlike when she was a toddler and would only wear pink, so I was surprised at her choice. To me, this shows the Margot's power to persuade her to wear more girly stuff. I don't mind that at all.

Natalie allowed me to take one more picture of her, with her friend Anna. Anna's mom texted me earlier in the day. Anna told her it would not be cool to go trick-or-treating with her 6-year-old sister, so I was happy to volunteer Natalie. Natalie had planned on including her anyway, but I wanted to make sure. Natalie also promised me that I could get a picture of her with her friends when they all got there. Well, it was 6pm and they were still not there, so I went ahead and started trick-or-treating with Eric. Later, I saw them running by me. She never did stop for that group photo so I'm very happy that I took these photos already, so I can preserve this pink costume forever in a photograph.

Eric's and my first stop was Anna's house. Whereas she didn't want to trick-or-treat with her sister, Eric definitely wanted to trick-or-treat with her sister. Aren't they adorable together? Sofia is so photogenic and Eric has such a great smile.

Sofia had a her mom Alicia, a school friend, and her school friend's parents with her. Sofia and her friend were both running from house to house. They were SO excited. Eric trailed behind the whole way. Their bags were pretty full from just a few houses, but not full enough that they were interested in stopping or needed their parents to carry some of their loot. I had brought along a plastic bag in case Eric wanted to lighten his load. We've had to do that in the past, but this time he did not want to let go of his bag or any of the candy in it. Instead he had me carry his lightsaber.

Our blocks are pretty long. We went to the next block and went down then back up to the main street. We went down another block to the cul-de-sac on the end and Eric was done. He wanted to go home. We had to go up the same distance back to the main street again to get home, but he wasn't interested in stopping at any other houses. Sofia and company kept trick-or-treating. I convinced Eric to take his bath, then he could eat what candy he wanted before brushing his teeth and going to bed. We got back after 7pm, so that of course shortened the time that he could eat candy (sneaky mama) from about 7:30-8pm, since his bedtime is 8pm. He was definitely ready for bed at 8pm. He was one tuckered out boy.

Since the contractors left on Tuesday, we've been in clean-up mode, dusting and washing everything before putting things back in place. Halloween was a welcome distraction.

Throwback Thursday Halloween

I'm going to be busy with the Halloween festivities, so I thought I would post two of my old Halloween scrapbook pages. I vaguely remember when I still used to scrapbook. The first one is from 2003 (the kids were 8, 4, and 1) and the second from 2004 (ages 9, 5, and 2). I'll try to post these year's Halloween pics tomorrow. Happy Halloween!

First Band Concert

After being in band in middle school, high school, and then college, I never thought I would have a child also in band. Natalie decided last year that she wanted to be in band, playing percussion because she wanted to "hit things". Yes, that's my girly girl--not.

She finally had her first band concert on Monday night. They structured this band concert differently than what I've seen before. It was like having three band concerts in one night. The Concert Band performed first and the Honors Band was last. The Beginner Band, the one that Natalie is in, was in the middle. Parents could come to one performance and didn't have to stay for the other. That made this much more enjoyable for me.

The sixth graders in the Beginner Band all have different classes during the day, according to their instrument. That meant that they had not all played together until Monday night. They definitely sounded like a beginner band, but it was neat for me to see the excitement and nervousness in their facial expressions. That brought back memories for me.

Each section--flutes, oboes and bassons, etc. down to the percussion, which was last, all played separately. The flutes started out by playing a rhythm with just their mouthpieces, and then played a simple song using the whole instrument. Each section took their turn with the same procedure--a basic rhythm with their mouthpiece then a simple song. The percussion played on their drums then a simple song on the bells.

Of course the percussion players were standing in the back of the room the whole time, making it difficult for me to take pictures. I responded by standing near them, next to the wall. The band was placed on the cafeteria floor and not on stage (too big) so there was space for me to stand nearby. In the end, the band director asked each section to stand for pictures. I was ready to take a photo of Natalie and the other percussionists, but then he told them to all come up front for pictures. I managed to get this one. The rest of them had Natalie looking away every chance she got. All night long, every time she saw me with the camera trying to take a picture, she would look angry and turn her head or completely leave the room if she could.

Her friend Margot and her mom Nancy came to the concert with us and when I asked for a photo even before going into the building, Margot encouraged Natalie to stay still for a picture. The one I got probably caught Natalie mid-blink, but she totally looks like she is shooting daggers at me with her eyes. At least she has a neutral expression in this photo.

This concert was more of a "see what your child is learning in band" concert. The next one is in December and it's the Christmas concert. It'll be interesting to see the improvement in the kids' abilities. Maybe Natalie will let me take a picture next time.

Finished!

I don't have much time to post. Our kitchen and downstairs bathroom are finished! They were just leaving when I got home from picking up food after Eric's soccer practice tonight. I took some photos but I haven't had time to do anything with them and I definitely don't have time to do a whole blog post about them. I wanted to go ahead and post at least one picture.

Alex has such a great sense of humor. I was signing a school paper for Natalie on the new kitchen island countertop. Alex takes a picture of us and announces, "First Signing on the Counter". Natalie then proceeds to place the pencil that I had just used to sign her paper on the counter and announces, "First Pen on the Counter". In response, Alex plops some tortilla chips, Doritos and a container of cheese dip on the counter and announces "First Meal on the Counter!" He tries to take a selfie with his phone and attempts to include his sister who does NOT like to allow anyone to take pictures of her. While they were doing that I tried to take my own photo, but they both immediately hid their faces under the counter. In the end, Alex decided he would allow a photo because he wanted to eat and couldn't do that with his head under the counter. Also notice the foot sticking out from behind Alex. That is Natalie allowing a picture of her leg--just not her head.

I'll post more photos this week.

Halloween Party

Warning--photo-heavy post ahead! Our Halloween-loving friends had their annual Halloween party last night. Finally, Eric had a chance to wear his beloved Anakin Skywalker costume somewhere else besides our house. He likes to pose "with style".

Patrick and I thought about dressing in the same Star Wars theme, but there aren't that many Star Wars-themed adult costumes, especially for women. I considered Princess Leia briefly, but I didn't like the costume, so instead we went a completely different direction. We have costumes based on the Snow White and the Huntsman movie--not exciting but the costumes are nice.

Eric was thrilled at the elaborate decorations. This was a little table to the side of the food serving table. Eric pointed out the eyeballs and wanted to show them to me. They were probably edible, but I didn't want to ruin the decorations, so we left them alone. He did get to eat some gummy worm ice cubes, though.

The theme of the party was a haunted asylum, and this was the hospital ward area and was also next to the "morgue". Eric was fascinated by the monster baby in this "patient's" arms. It seems ironic that he has that big smile on his face.

Besides looking at all of the decorations, there were a couple of small children there when we got there, one of which was a small boy that was about a year to a year and a half old. He LOVED Eric's lightsaber, especially when it lit up and made noise. We all had to laugh at how his expression changed when he saw that the lightsaber could do that. Eric was so cute. He really seemed to enjoy sharing his lightsaber. He got down to the little boy's level and talked to him sweetly.

It seems that each year the decorations get more elaborate. You can tell that a lot of "love" went into these decorations. This is the operating room area next to the food serving table. There were also lots of decorations in different rooms and on the walls.

Natalie doesn't see her good friend Maya anymore. Both of them have gotten a bit taller in the last few months. Even though Natalie is only one month older than Maya, she is now in middle school (6th grade) whereas Maya is still in elementary school (5th grade) because of where their birthdays fall. We were talking with Maya's parents about how the two of them always pick up where they left off whenever they do see each other. Maya is as busy with taekwondo as Natalie is with swimming, so they don't get many opportunities to see each other.

Natalie didn't have a costume until about 5:30pm yesterday afternoon. She started looking through the costumes I have had in the past couple of years. She decided on the pirate costume and asked if I would braid her hair. I discovered that I can no longer look over her head when we are both standing, so I needed her to sit down so I could braid her hair. She was also eyeing the Snow White costume I was wearing and anticipating maybe using it next year. Scary. ;)

Kelly, Maya's mom, made sure to get photos of all of her guests this time, so we had the opportunity to get a family photo in front of some of her elaborate decorations. Alex didn't come with us, of course, because of his excuse that he didn't have a costume. Honestly, he used to be good friends with Maya's big brother Alejandro, but with different middle schools and now different high schools, they have grown apart.

I wasn't originally going to post this photo of Maya and her family here, but don't they look awesome? They already have a theme for next year's party. I'm sure it'll be another cool theme.

Weekend Swim Meet

This weekend we had our first 2-day swim meet of the season. This one was different in that we got a chance to sit with Natalie's friends and their families. This made it much more fun for her and for us, since we got to socialize in between events. The girls tended to gather in the chairs on their electronic devices, and the boys tended to gather on the ground on a blanket playing with Lego Mini-Figures.

On Saturday, Patrick missed Natalie's first race, the 100 yard Butterfly, because he was with Eric at Eric's first soccer game. Natalie's seed time was 1:24.95, and she swam it with a time of 1:23.94 (both are "B" times for 11-year-olds). She was upset when she got out of the water, and she sobbed in my arms. Then, she started not feeling well. She complained of a headache and stomachache. We tried giving her some ibuprofen and it helped a little.

Patrick was there for her next race, the 200 yard Freestyle. Her seed time was still from Long Course (2:54.19L), even though she last swam it in the Summer Splash Meet in August with a time of 2:43.43, maybe because the long course time is a "B" time for long course, but the short course time from the Summer Splash Meet is considered "Slower than B". She swam it in 2:37.26, which is a true "B" time for 11-year-olds. As per her usual, she wasn't happy with her performance, even though she had dropped time.

On Sunday, Patrick brought Eric to the meet since Alex had slept over at a friend's house on Saturday night. There were a lot of younger siblings there, and Eric played with them on the ground on a blanket that one of the moms had brought. I wanted to include this photo because of Eric smiling. I was playing with the focus on my new camera and as soon as he saw me he smiled. At least I have one child that is willing to be in a picture. Every time I tried to take a picture of Natalie, she covered her head in her towel. The only reason I was able to get the first photo above was because her friends wanted to be in a picture with her.

Natalie's first race on Sunday was the 100 yard Backstroke. She was in the same heat as her friends Renzi (Lane 2), Ally (Lane 6), and Aspen (Lane 7). Natalie was in Lane 5. In fact, they knew all the girls except for one. In the photo I show lanes 4 through 7. Her seed time was 1:19.32 and she swam it in 1:15.70, both are BB times for 11-year-olds. She was still upset, and she got more upset as she started not feeling well again. This time she didn't look well either.

Her next race was the 200 yard IM (seed time of 2:55.33). She seemed strong at first but really faded and finished with a time of 3:00.73 (both are B times). She was pretty unconsolable, but finally accepted some ibuprofen. She really didn't look good but she made herself swim the 100 yard Freestyle. Her coach was proud of her for giving it a try. Her seed time was 1:09.80 (B time and close to BB time of 1:08.29), but she swam it with a time of 1:14.26 (slower than B time, which is 1:13.59). We left as soon as she cooled down so she could get some rest and so she could feel better. We didn't allow her to go to her friend Margot's house. She needed to get some rest. She said later that maybe it was because she was nervous because she feels somewhat similar before a big test. We discussed how this is why we sign her up for so many meets, so she'll get used to competing and not get so nervous.

Interestingly, Natalie was in her first big meet this same weekend last year. This was all new then, but it's "old hat" now. Even then, she still has the same high standards for herself, but now she usually handles competing better than her Mama does. Natalie just keeps getting better and better, and we couldn't be more proud of her.

First Soccer Game

Eric wanted to play soccer again this year, but Patrick didn't want to have to coach him again. He called around to a couple of the club teams, and we settled on SA United, the club that Anthony played for in his junior year. The practice time was more convenient--on Tuesdays from 5-6pm at the STAR fields. They had already started practicing by the time we signed Eric up, but they welcomed him.

His first practice was this past Tuesday, and the first game was today. It was a good thing Eric was there. The game was set up as a 4 vs. 4 game and Eric's team only had four players show up--including Eric. I missed the game because I was with Natalie at her swim meet. I was so happy that Patrick took a few pictures. He'll be "guest blogging" below.

Eric had a blast at his first practice on Tuesday evening, but there was a different coach for him for the game today. Any concerns were quickly alleviated. This coach is fantastic, he is great with the kids, encouraging them to do "bunny hops" or "do the wave" while they set up balls for goal kicks, or when there were other things going on. Several of the kids on the field were very good players but Eric did a great job holding his own and got a lot of "touches" on the ball and narrowly missed several goals. The coach went out of his way to keep all of the kids involved and playing, and always cheered on both teams. The coach for the other team did the same.

All of the children on both teams were laughing and having a great time. This is always a goal for us. We weren't ready to start soccer practices in August when CYO was starting and then we needed to get schedules down to find a good fit. I am thrilled that this seems like the perfect place for Eric to play soccer right now. Practices are small and the kids get a lot of individual attention, and the games are small-sided 4v4 games designed specifically to allow all of the children to be involved.

It was a bit cold this morning so we had fewer children than expected, but I am sure the other teammates will have just as much fun next week.

First Piano Lesson

Eric has always been musical. He loves to sing and dance to songs on the radio or to the songs his older siblings play for him. He always cracks me up when, even in the middle of a store at the mall or at a restaurant, he'll break out into a strange dance when he hears music. We wanted to take advantage of this love of music by getting him piano lessons. We finally got him signed up for piano lessons last week, and he had his first lesson yesterday.

Justin was Natalie's teacher, not her first piano teacher, but the one that took over when her first piano teacher moved away. He is now Eric's teacher. The first lesson was a basic one. They talked about how Eric should sit and how he should hold his hands when he plays the piano. They talked about numbering the fingers 1-5 and playing some very simple songs.

Natalie was a little older by the time she had Justin for a teacher, so she wasn't so playful at that time like Eric is now. Eric really seemed to really enjoy his lesson. Justin was so good with him and he was smiling constantly. Justin would ask Eric what dinosaur a certain song or certain piano keys sounded like. For the lowest notes, Eric said "T-Rex". For the highest notes, Eric said, "Compsognathus". Yesterday, the song sounded like an "Ornithomimus". Justin just smiled and said, "Wow", and tried to repeat whatever dinosaur name comes out of Eric's mouth.

We are using the Primer Level Lesson Book that Natalie used, but we got Eric a new theory book and performance book. I had Eric write his name in the books. I think Natalie was around the same age or even younger when she used this book. Her writing was so much neater than his, and I loved having both of their names in this book. I've never been happy with the way they teach them how to write with sort of hybrid printing/cursive letters because it's just not as neat. That's another topic for another blog post.

I helped Eric practice piano this afternoon. Thankfully, it's only some very short exercises and he was very eager to play. Let's hope this excitement lasts for a while!

Visit to the Children's Museum of Houston

Natalie, Eric, and I made a short trip to Houston this past weekend. We had not seen my parents since June plus this was going to be the last free weekend for a while.

We used to be members of the Children's Museum of Houston when we lived there. Anthony even used to take some of the classes they offered for kids and we have many fond memories from our visits there. It's been years since we've gone and I wanted Eric to experience what a great place this is/was.

The first picture is a display of "nano-size" magnetic particles and how they behave differently from larger particles. Eric and I both thought it was pretty cool how the particles looked "like the sun" when they were near a magnet.

They also had this big funnel that the kids could throw a ball into. The ball would spiral down into the hole at the bottom, going faster as it got to the bottom. Eric made an interesting comment. He's been learning about the planets in school, and he said that this was like planets going into a black hole. I thought at that point, "Eric is going to be a science geek." That's not too much of a stretch, considering his father and older siblings, but still, it was interesting to see him so excited about science.

I took the second picture in the puzzle area. They had different puzzles, from trying to build a bridge using only wooden planks to a matching game to this life-size puzzle where you had to fit the pieces together to form a cube. As you can see, we didn't solve it. I would have tried some more but he seemed content to sit on it and he wanted a picture, so I took one.

They had the museum decorated for Halloween. In fact, they had some sort of Trick or Treat activity where they had stations throughout the museum where people were giving out candy. I didn't choose to look into that at all since just being at my Mom's house meant that the Eric was getting plenty of treats.

They had this big poster with a mummy-looking creature on it. They had some small mummy-wrapped figures nearby also. I asked Eric to stand in front of the poster for a picture. He decided to stand on one leg and look like a monster. He was having a blast!

Near the poster they had a station where you could fold a piece of paper (the blue paper that he is holding). There was a shaft in the middle of the table where air was being blown upward. You could put your folded piece of paper on top of the air shaft and the paper would go flying up and around--very cool. I took a video that I can't seem to post here on the blog. There was another station where you could build a structure out of blocks then you could turn on the wind storm to try to blow it down and/or you could crank the handle to create an earthquake to knock it down.

Here is Eric again posing for the camera next to another Halloween-themed display. There were a ton of kids there, as I'm sure there are on most Saturdays. We were still able to play with the things we wanted to play with, although I texted Patrick with a comment about how I remembered the one thing I hated about the Children's Museum--kids who were unsupervised, even if their parents were standing right next to them. When I was building a bridge out of the wooden planks over a "river", a girl came up and started taking the extra pieces and throwing them all into the river. I didn't feel like I needed to be the one to tell her not to do that with her father standing right next to her looking at what she was doing. Eventually of course she knocked down my bridge and at that point I didn't think it was worth it for me to continue building. Her father didn't say a word or made any motion toward her. Sigh.

There was a new area that wasn't there a few years ago during our last visit. It was a play area with different active things for the kids to do. Eric's favorite activity was this big play structure made out of circular platforms placed at odd angles to each other with all of them encased in netting. The whole thing was three stories tall. It was sometimes tough for me to be able to see him despite going up and down the stairs. He stopped to look for me a few times, smiling and waving, and posing for a picture.

There were lots of other things we saw and did. In all we spent about three hours there. Natalie stayed at my parents' house with her cousins. They were watching something on Emily's iPad when I left. They would have had fun if they had gone along, but frankly, I only had energy for one and I was happy that I could devote all my attention to my sweet little man.