Thank Yous

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

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


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

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

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

Christmas Card Wreath

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

The Aftermath

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

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

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

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

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

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

Merry Christmas 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cleanup Christmas Eve

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

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

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

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

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

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

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Snapshots About This And That

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gingerbread Train

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

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

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

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

Big Boy Little Boy

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

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

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

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

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

Boys and Girls

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

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

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

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

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

Sea World With Eric

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free Weekend!

This is our first "free" weekend in a long time. Because of the birthday thing yesterday, we decided to go out for breakfast this morning instead of me making the usual pancakes and bacon. We slept in and got to IHOP around 9:30am. While we were waiting for our food, Patrick grabbed Eric's hand and guided him into writing "Eric". I could see Eric's face start to light up as he started recognizing that was his name they were writing. He loves to show off that he knows how to spell his name. He actually started writing his name by himself in this picture.

Since the kids are on their Christmas break now, they need something to do when they're at home, so we went to the library after breakfast to get some books. Alex stayed home, which surprised me, since he usually loves books too. He's been reading some books recently that we already own, so maybe that's what he has planned. Eric was very interested in "buying books" that were Christmas-themed. I read him some books at the library and I read him some books at home. I love that he still fits very nicely on my lap and I can hug and hold him while I'm reading to him.

I guess I'm still catching up on sleep from the past week, because when we got home, I promptly cuddled up in bed and took a nap. When I awakened, Patrick took Anthony to his friend's house to hang out. His friend is moving to Dallas soon and he was having some friends over before he leaves. Alex was trying to catch up with his lace of PS3 time this past week. Natalie played with her neighborhood friends. Eric played outside for a bit too, as did both of his brothers.

All week we've been planning to go to Santa's Railroad Wonderland at the train museum. We've been going every year and Eric has been asking to go for a couple of weeks or so. Patrick and I figured that with this being our first free weekend, we had to go there today, since they're only open a few more days this year.

Anthony was still at his friend's house and Alex wasn't interested in going, so it was just the four of us. Natalie was pretty wired when we went. She was jumping around and being very chatty. Eric was just taking it all in. He was totally fascinated with all of the trains. He and Natalie even got to visit with Choo-Choo Claus. I love seeing the excitement in their eyes. Where the big boys are more concerned with their usual lives, these two are getting more and more excited the closer we get to Christmas. To be fair, the big boys are more restrained with their outward emotions. Alex did say today that he couldn't wait for Christmas. It's just nicer to see and it's therefore easier to feel Natalie's and Eric's excitement about Christmas. I feel like I'm already in Christmas vacation mode with this free weekend, except that I still have to go to work on Monday.

Sweetness Overload

I had a great day today. I went to work, hoping for a short day. I worked with a very capable resident and my three cases went very smoothly and quickly. I was allowed to go home at about 11AM, but I stayed a bit longer to chat with others. No one made a big announcement on the overhead intercom like they did last year, which was nice. Everyone was SO sweet to me--I got quite a few nice birthday wishes. One of our PAs even wanted to admire my cool red purse (I love that purse!) and asked to touch it. :) I was going to miss the department holiday party, which I was sad about, but not enough to pass up having lunch with Patrick and Eric.

I met Patrick and Eric at The Cheesecake Factory. Wow, it was super crowded and I had to wait a while just to valet park. Even the valet parking got full but luckily, I got the last spot. They were already seated and I had my favorite dish there, the Chinese Chicken Salad and then had the Kahlua Cocoa Coffee Cheesecake for dessert. I had lots of leftovers that I'm planning to have tomorrow. Yum!

Because we had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, we missed the Chinese parade that Natalie's class was putting on at 1:30pm. The whole third grade class had been studying China and the parade was a sort of culmination of the study unit. We got there shortly after that and I was greeted with this beautiful reaction from Natalie. The fact that she was so surprised and excited to see me really lifted my spirits even more.

Because of the China studies, the theme for their party was a Chinese New Year. The room mom organized a meal that included some fried rice and egg rolls. They also had McDonald's Chicken Nuggets and cookies. Even though Eric had eaten a little mac and cheese at The Cheesecake Factory, he ate three chicken nuggets and half a cookie.

Natalie also got a goodie bag with a "chinese" bracelet and two jelly candies. They even passed out red envelopes to the kids with another "chinese" bracelet inside. Natalie shared everything with Eric, including her seat. She was so sweet to him and he ate it all up.

Almost all the kids were being signed out early from school so they could go home with their parents who had attended the holiday party. At first Natalie hesitated, because her school bus driver had told them that he was going to be passing out candy canes on the bus ride home. Patrick had already given Mr. H one of the Ghirardelli chocolate bags that we gave all the kids' teachers in anticipation of not seeing him in the afternoon. Natalie ended up going home with us since we already had candy canes at home from the Breakfast With Santa event last weekend. As we were leaving the school building, we saw Mr. H standing near the front doors. He knew that several kids would be picked up early from school and wouldn't be riding the bus, so he waited at the school to hand out candy canes early. How SWEET is that? He even gave a candy cane to Eric and said that Natalie was his "doll" because she always greeted him with a smile. It's nice to hear about the good things that your children have done.

We went home and then later, Patrick picked up Alex from the nearby middle school. He always loves to take the bus instead of being picked up at his school. I picked Anthony up from school. Before I picked up Anthony, I went to Starbucks to pick up my free birthday drink, a Mocha Frappucino. I didn't have the coupon I had received in the mail. When the lady manning the counter heard that today was my birthday, she said that she would buy me one. How sweet is that? I've seen her there a few times before. Each time she asks for my name to put it on the cup, I reply "Melanie" and she says, "That's my daughter's name!" This time I told her that is what she always says. I certainly don't expect her to remember me, but she was still sweet to me.

We went to P.F. Chang's for dinner. We ordered entirely too much food, but it'll be great to eat that for dinner tomorrow. Eric had brought a piece of a candy cane from home. I let him eat it before the food arrived, to keep him busy, and he ate the rest of it after dinner. I told him I wanted to take a picture of him eating the candy cane and he made the biggest show of it! He kept opening his mouth really wide and closing his eyes as if to savor the candy. He was cracking me up with his antics.

After dinner we were too full to go out for ice cream, my original plan, so we're going to postpone that to later this weekend. So much sweetness already today! We went home and I got to open my presents from Patrick and the kids. I already opened my presents from my sisters and in-laws earlier when the boys weren't home yet. I figured they wouldn't care about seeing those gifts and I was too excited to wait. Patrick was so sweet and got me a couple of items from my very specific list. I was very happy!

I also had lots of wonderful friends and family post birthday wishes to my wall on Facebook. How sweet is that? My day was filled with lots of sweetness and other good things. That's all I could ever ask for. :)

Back To Normal

Patrick took this picture of Alex for me before taking him to school this morning. He may look happy, but that is an exaggerated smile just for the picture. He kept doing his frown that he does for pictures. Patrick would take a picture and see that he was frowning and tell him to smile. He would smile in the next picture. Patrick took about four pictures like that. We are just glad that this project is over. Now on to the next one!








Alex's favorite thing to do is play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for the Playstation 3. He finally got to play tonight after a week of not playing it at all, and he only got to play for a short period before getting back to work. All is well now. :) I thought he and Eric playing games while sitting on the living room sofa made a nice picture. :)

Tomorrow is party day for Natalie (at school) and actually for me too (at work). I'm hoping that I'll be able to get out early so I can attend Natalie's party. That would be a nice birthday present.

Castle Wrap-up

Here's the finished castle complete with flag flying. Patrick spent his day painting and repainting the outside because he ran out of the "stone" paint spray and the paper outer layer of the foam board started buckling and warping. He finished up with some acrylic paint. I think the different colors on the outer wall adds to the texture and looks nice.

After Alex finished his other homework tonight (luckily he didn't have that much other homework tonight), he put together the buildings on the inside (stables, armory, eatery, and barracks) as well as the keep and a well. He labeled all of these areas and painted the inside "floor" a grass green color. He did a lot of work tonight and hopefully he'll get a good grade.

His friend from the carpool made his castle out of wood. Patrick found himself wishing that he had made this castle out of wood too. The foam board would have been easier for Alex to work with, but we hesitated when he cut himself with the craft knife.

I feel like I'm not going to get any time to work on my December Daily album. I'm not even doing a lot of Christmas related activities. I spent my time tonight driving around. I came home after work, picking up Alex and his friend on the way home from the nearby middle school. They like to take the bus even if they get home at the same time or later. I spent a little time at home then I took Eric with me to pick up Anthony. It was a lot of driving, but at least I feel like I spent more time with my family.

Castle Progress

I miss my family! Today, Anthony and I didn't get home until 6:30pm. It was just like yesterday except that today, only Alex was at home. Patrick had taken Natalie to swimming practice and with no one to baby-sit Eric, he took Eric along and put him in the gym childcare area. When he got home around 7pm, everyone was super hungry. Natalie had eaten a PB&J before swimming practice, but when she saw that Alex was making frozen pizza, she got hungry again. Eric had eaten too, but he also wanted pizza when he got home.

Patrick has been working hard on Alex's project. Alex designed the castle and measured out the parts, but Patrick has been the one cutting out the parts and gluing them together. This is a picture of Eric watching Patrick gluing the castle together. He was completely fascinated and luckily he was just watching instead of "helping". It was funny because, at one point, the glue that Patrick was using made a squirting sound. Eric laughed and said, "The glue tooted." He's such a boy! :)

Alex had lots of other homework to do, which is why he wasn't doing all the gluing. His teachers are all supposed to work together, so why do they give so much homework knowing that there's a big project due on Thursday? Patrick and I still think the school is good, but if the projects are this much work, we hope Natalie doesn't end up going there like she says she wants to. On the plus side, we're getting some bonding time with Alex--maybe?

Project Update and Teacher Gifts

Anthony texted me at quarter to 8am this morning to tell me that he had soccer practice scheduled after school. Thanks for the warning! He told me an hour, but it ended up being two hours! We didn't get home until almost 6:30pm.

Patrick ran a lot of errands today with a three-year-old in tow. He spent a lot of time cutting pieces for Alex's castle project out of foam board. They finally started gluing it together tonight. When I took this picture, Patrick asked me, "Are you taking pictures of MY project?" Alex is so lucky that Patrick is helping him with this and I hope he appreciates it. For our part, Patrick and I feel like we need to help him because we're afraid Alex will cut himself with the X-acto knife again.

Between the four kids, especially the middle schooler and high schooler, they have about 22 teachers. With so many, we really can't spend a lot of money for each one. The exception is Natalie's main teacher, because she spends most of the day, everyday, with her class. I decided to dress up the packaging for Natalie's teacher gifts because Natalie might actually care about it and notice that I did that (in contrast to the boys). This was so easy that I would consider doing it for all of the packages if I had started earlier. She'll give these out tomorrow.

Homework Sunday

After having been on call for the past two Sundays and soccer and other kids' activities on the weekends before that, it was nice to not have anything officially scheduled today. Instead, everyone worked on homework or homework-type activities. That meant that today wasn't exactly fun, but it was definitely productive.

Alex had some homework in a couple of classes plus he worked on his big project for this quarter, which is building a castle. He had already measured out the walls and drawn them out on some foam board. He did try cutting the walls out himself, but he cut himself with the X-acto knife, so Patrick went ahead and did the rest. I haven't helped at all with this project yet. I'd like to keep it that way. I had my own "homework" to do. Alex still has to do quite a bit of work on the castle this week. It's due on Thursday, so time is running out.

Natalie is laughing here because I'm taking a picture of her while she's making her own PB&J sandwich for lunch. She didn't have any school homework, but she did have some "piano" homework. She usually has lessons on Mondays, but she had an extra lesson yesterday to make up for the lesson on the 20th when her teacher will be on vacation. She has another lesson tomorrow, which makes three lessons in a week. During her lesson yesterday, she was in "la-la land", meaning she couldn't focus, so that meant a wasted lesson. Today I wanted her to practice a lot so she can actually show some improvement for her lesson tomorrow. She ended up practicing about 30 minutes and she spent most of the rest of the day outside playing with her neighborhood friends.

Anthony also has a big project due this week. It's a group project for Chemistry. They had to create a game about the Periodic Table. They used the board game Trivial Pursuit as a model for their game. He finished his project today and the best part was that his group didn't have to meet today to finish it.

Eric didn't have any homework, of course, but I couldn't exclude him from this post. He seemed tired--all he did was stare out into space during church instead of playing with the cars he brought, but of course he didn't take a nap. He played indoors and out today, so maybe he'll sleep well tonight AND take a nap tomorrow.

What was my "homework"? I had to make ten more Christmas cards, I wrote in a few of them, and I put address labels on most of them. I still can't believe that I made all 100 cards and I think I'll need more next year! Here the kids are applying the return address labels, while watching one of our "No Ordinary Family" DVR tapes. They look rather mesmerized, don't they? I also worked on my December Daily album. I hope I'll have some time this week to catch up in that album so that I can finally post some finished pages.

Because we had taken over the sofa with all of the label stuff for the cards, Eric just stood there and said he was "looking for a place" as in a place to sit. Patrick put him on his lap instead. I love how Eric looks so relaxed on his Papa's lap. We were all pretty busy today, and my poor boy didn't have anyone to play with. He'll be "playing" with his Papa all day tomorrow, though. Hopefully he won't prevent Patrick from mailing all of those cards and getting some teacher gifts. That's this week's project--teacher gifts, then we'll be all done for Christmas.

Breakfast With Santa

The big boys were at a debate tournament all day today. Alex was actually competing and Anthony was getting some service hours being a judge. The rest of us went to the gym that we belong to, Lifetime Fitness, for their "Breakfast With Santa" activities.

Their setup wasn't nearly as nice as the one at the mall, and the lighting was horrible. They had Santa sitting in this cardboard thing that was supposed to look like a sleigh. Eric had to stand in order to be seen behind the front part of the "sleigh". Eric and Natalie had the most fake-looking smiles ever for the "official" photo. I figured that I already got a good picture of Eric with Santa, so I didn't mind that the photos today weren't good. I still like this picture because it shows Eric hugging Santa.

We went to see Santa as soon as we got there, then we ate. Eric ate a lot--two pancakes, half of a link sausage, and almost two mini-muffins. Natalie ate ate two pancakes, two sausage links, and two chocolate-covered strawberries and a marshmallow. She was so busy cutting her pancake that she didn't even want to look up for this photo.

After Eric was done eating, he wanted to go home. He wasn't interested in any of the crafts, although he watched me make a reindeer out of a candy cane (pipe cleaners for the antlers and scarf and glued-on eyes and nose). They had these bunches of balloons for decorations, so he did play with one of the bunches. He would pull on them until they bounced down to him and then up again. He also rummaging through the goodie bags and eating the candy. Luckily, he patiently waited for his sister to get through all the craft activities, because she pretty much did all of them.

Natalie went to every craft station, except the one where they were making snowflakes out of gumdrops. I thought that was way too messy and sticky and I was glad she didn't want to do that one. She made a wreath ornament out of a pipe cleaner and beads. She mixed together reindeer food. She decorated a sugar cookie with red and green M&Ms. She made the candy cane reindeer that I described earlier, and she made another ornament by gluing rhinestones onto a piece of tree-shaped paper. She enjoyed herself so much!

Besides the Breakfast With Santa, Natalie had piano lessons today and Patrick and I went to see "9 to 5" musical at the Majestic Theatre. I actually had time to take a nap this afternoon! Hopefully the schedule will relax a bit more in the next week or so. Patrick and I need the break!