School's Out!

I haven't felt like doing a lot of blogging in the last few months, so those of you that read my blog regularly may notice some posts popping up with earlier dates that you didn't notice before. I have to catch up on my old photos and stories for the blog book I'm eventually going to make.

Yesterday was the last day of school. Eric came home with this paper the day before yesterday. On the left (complete with misspellings and lower case letters starting some sentences), it says, "I'm exited that there'll be no school. I'll get to play all day! Sometimes I'll play on my ipad. I like to watch Pokemon." On the right it says, "I'm also exited to play with my biggest brother anthony. he's very funny. he's also a very good brother."

I thought it was interesting that he called my iPad HIS iPad. We had a conversation a couple of weeks ago about how both of our iPads are MY iPads. He said something like, "Well, but I use it the most." I replied with, "But it's still MY iPad." It's true that he uses it the most and in fact, I barely use either iPad at all, but I still need to be able to control his time on them.

I took this picture last weekend, when Alex covered Eric with pillows as Eric was watching Pokemon on the iPad. When he got up this morning, he came to my room and asked to use the iPad. He was very reluctant to get off the iPad last night at 9pm when I sent him to bed--after all, there's no more school, right? I told him that he could play on it this morning when he got up. He knocked on my door at about 6:45am. He was in a similar position to the one in this picture except sprawled out on my bed. Now he moved to the comfy chair in my bedroom.

This is Anthony in the chair he has been sitting in almost continuously since he came home almost a month ago. I came home from work many times and found Eric watching with him on his computer. Apparently the current favorite is "Adventure Time". Anthony also Skypes almost nightly with his friend Julia, for hours at a time. We haven't put any labels on that relationship, because he doesn't know the exact status, but you can make your own conclusions.

He has seen a few friends, especially Alejandro and Jake. He has been really useful driving Alex around. Yesterday they went by the grocery store to pick up snacks on the way home from Alex's school. They spent $70 in mostly snacks. I was happy that he did pick up pizza rolls that we ate for dinner.

He has looked for jobs, too. He almost became a lifeguard at Six Flags, but in the process of becoming certified, he lost interest. Patrick and I were fine with that, since we worried about him being outside all day and about him not being so vigilant about sunscreen. He found a job at a local movie theatre instead. He has a couple of friends that work there, and his first day is today.

These are Natalie's beat-up Toms. She wore these shoes every day for the last four months or so because she couldn't participate in PE and therefore didn't need to wear her sneakers. She had already asked me for another pair so she figured it didn't matter what this one looked like, so she allowed her friends to sign them. She wears them like this and she's okay with that, so I'm okay with that too.

I'm off work today so I can be with the kids. Patrick left yesterday for Milwaukee so he could attend his aunt's memorial service this morning. I'll be a single parent this weekend, and thankfully it should be fairly relaxed. I just need to get through tonight and tomorrow morning and I'll be more relaxed. I have to get Natalie and Eric to swim practice tonight, while going to a graduation dinner for the residents at work. Anthony will be at work until 10pm, and Alex will have an undisclosed number of friends sleeping over. Tomorrow is a swim meet for Natalie and Eric. I actually think the summer is busier for us than the school year.

Back to Swimming

This is Patrick taking the helm again at Melanie's request.

Natalie is finally back to swimming with her club team, as well as the neighborhood team. After the physical therapist asked me to get her swimming a few times before our appointment with the sports medicine doctor Wednesday morning, I was fairly certain that she would be getting back in the water again. I didn't know what the restrictions would be, or what the plan would be to get her back to swimming at the level she was before.

Natalie's relief and excitement showed up almost immediately in the form of her being her chatty self talking about whatever random topic popped into her mind (she was hungry and cold at the doctor's office). The doctor got a chuckle out of it as I tried to keep her focused.

It is strange to think that we are relieved to again be driving her back and forth to practices, but we are certainly happy with the change in her mood. Right now she can swim her neighborhood practices (and join the neighborhood meet on Saturday) but she has a number of restrictions on her club practices (and other swimming too).
First, no breaststroke until she is swimming 100% in practice for all 3 other strokes (butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle).
No Dry Land training until she is 100% in training on breaststroke.
She will start practices at 50% in terms of time/distance. This means she needs to swim hard in practice but will only do half of the normal practice to build up endurance and to make sure she doesn't re-injure anything. This will slowly increase over time.
We are hoping that in 3-4 weeks she will be swimming full practices as she was so many months ago before the injury occurred.

I guess this is a fairly short update, but we are all excited that Natalie is back in the pool--it is much harder for her to be grumpy at us when she is in the water.

Memorial Day Weekend Activities

My weekend started with a day off on Friday, since I was on call for all of Saturday. As per the usual routine, I took Eric to the bus stop in the morning. Eric was in a funny mood, and not only did he feel like sitting down at the bus stop in the morning for whatever reason, but he also felt like clasping his hands together as if in prayer. He did something similar at church yesterday, but at church this is more normal.

After Eric was picked up by the bus, I took Natalie to Starbucks for breakfast. We used to go there together more often, usually before a swim meet, but of course we haven't had any of those for four months. She has done some swimming starting last week, so she is doing much better, but I'll have to write a whole update after she sees the sports medicine doctor this coming Wednesday. I'm crossing my fingers and saying some prayers that she'll be able to officially start swimming again.

Anthony's best friend Alejandro (on the far right) took his girlfriend Alexandra (middle) to her prom on Saturday. Anthony went with Alexandra's friend so they could go together. Apparently, Alexandra's friend wasn't that interested in going with Anthony, but at least Anthony got to hang out with Alejandro. They are really two peas in a pod. I asked him for pictures, but he thought putting the pictures on Facebook was good enough. I guess I should be happy with whatever I get, even if they are low resolution photos like this one. They are a good-looking trio, aren't they?

Eric had a baseball game on Saturday that I missed. He hit the ball for the second time during a game, and this time he made it to first base for the first time! I missed it because I was at work, but apparently he was very excited. Unfortunately he didn't repeat the performance on Sunday at the game I went to. He only has baseball practice left this coming Wednesday, and one baseball game left this coming Friday. He still hasn't found a sport that he really loves. He has said that he enjoys the baseball practices, but not the games. We might try some gymnastics and/or some karate this summer.

We had some thunderstorms and heavy rains last night and then for most of the day today. We had planned to go swimming today, but not with the thunderstorms. Going to the movies was perfect for a rainy day, though. Patrick, Natalie, Eric, and I went to see "X-Men: Days of Future Past" today. We would have taken Anthony, but he saw it last night with a friend of his. A couple friends of theirs work at a movie theatre, so they took the opportunity to see their friends and to see the movie. He wouldn't have minded seeing the movie again, but since he didn't get home until about 1am, he preferred to sleep.

We would have also taken Alex, but he was sleeping over at a friend's house. Anthony picked him up after we got home from the movie. He didn't tell me until later that we could have picked him up in the morning so he could see the movie, but of course he didn't tell us that before.

This afternoon, I made some stuffed jalapeños for dinner and Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars for dessert. After dinner we watched "Thor: The Dark World" with the whole family. We had offered up some other movie choices, but in the end, Anthony wanted to watch this movie since he had not seen it yet. We didn't get the outside time that we try to have on Memorial Day weekend, but at least we got the family time.

I'd Have No Photos Without This Child

Last night was Natalie's Spring Band Concert. I didn't even bring my big camera because during their Winter Concert, she gave me looks as if she was shooting daggers at me when I took out my camera--even my iPhone camera. Also, she is a percussionist and therefore she stands in the back behind a lot of other people, instruments, drums, music stands, etc. It's impossible to get a good picture of her being uncooperative. If it weren't for Eric, I would have nothing to take pictures of.

Here is my youngest angel climbing in the kitchen. He has been climbing everything lately. When we were at my sister Cynthia's house for Mother's Day weekend, he was constantly climbing on the outside of their staircase. When I saw him doing this on Saturday, I told him, "Just so you know, Eric, you shouldn't be doing this." I said this because I didn't want him to think that it was okay just because I was taking a picture. He has been more inquisitive lately, so he asked, "Then why are you taking a picture?" I accurately predicted he would ask that, didn't I? So I answered, "So I can show Papa what you were doing." So maybe that wasn't the best answer, but it was true.

Patrick and I are embarrassed to say that we let Eric wear these shoes. We bought these shoes less than two months ago. He wears them daily, even to baseball practices and games (because he prefers them to his cleats). As a result of the daily wear and tear, he also likes to kick at the ground and other such things that are bad for shoes. Finally, this weekend when we realized that how big the holes were in BOTH shoes, Patrick ran out and got him an identical pair, except in a bigger size 12 instead of a size 11. Even Anthony was shocked when he saw this picture.

For my final story (and picture), I was cleaning out Eric's backpack this morning when I found this. He has not more GT (Gifted and Talented) classes this year, so she sent home their work. They took a picture of him and he cut it out and glued it onto this piece of paper behind a clear plastic circle with small white circles inside. The caption says, "If I lived in a snow globe..." He filled in the rest as follows (complete with spelling errors): "I whoud always follow the orders from my minion dad." That answer is so typical for him right now. He totally relates everything back to minions and it just cracks me up.

Eric brings a lot of joy and laughter to all of our lives. Alas, I know that he won't stay little forever. Just last night when I asked him if he wanted me to sing a bedtime song to him, he replied, "No thanks." Sniff, sniff--it's the beginning of the end. This morning he still gave me a big hug while he was waiting for the bus. I had to ask him for the hug, but I was happy with that for now.

May Art a la Carte

On Wednesday of this past week, Eric had his last scheduled art class of the year. The lesson was about Eric Carle and his colorful artwork. They didn't use painted tissue paper like Eric Carle uses, but instead they used a simpler, faster method--crayons.

As you can see from the bulletin board teacher's example, the kids were going to draw seahorses. The teacher took them step-by-step through drawing the head, then the back/curly tail, then the belly of the seahorse. They started with using a pencil, then they darkened the pencil line with permanent marker.

The permanent marker made me a little nervous, especially in the hands of a couple of the more hyperactive children in the class. There is one child that almost always had an extra adult watching him. This time there were three adults watching his table of four kids. Two were teacher assistant-type people and one was his mother, who volunteered to help with this art class. Luckily, another mom was helping me with the other four tables (three tables with four kids and one table with five).

After they drew the eyes, they colored it in with white crayon. They then used colorful crayons to color in the body. One of the boys at Eric's table named Marcus (one of the kids that attended Eric's birthday party), colored his seahorse red and yellow. He has had an "Iron Man" theme on past art projects, so when I asked him if he was choosing Iron Man colors, he looked at me as if he was thinking, "Hey, how did you know that?" I had to laugh. Marcus also decided that he had to draw lightning bolts radiating from his seahorse (even though he knew that seahorses live in the water). Eric decided this was a good idea and therefore added some similar shapes to his drawing except in blue instead of yellow.

After the seahorse was done, they were supposed to draw bubbles and waves in white or blue crayon, and seaweed in green. Eric decided on red for seaweed for some reason.

The last step was to cover everything in blue watercolor paint. The crayon give a "resist" effect and the watercolor doesn't cover the crayon but instead colors the paper that doesn't have crayon on it. I couldn't convince Eric to paint over the crayon with the watercolor paint. Instead he sort of painted around the seahorse. As usual, Eric did what he wanted (as did most of the kids in the class), but in the end he was happy with his creation, and so was I.

The teacher gives each class points according to their behavior--if they line up quickly and quietly, if they raise their hands, etc. She usually cuts them quite a bit of slack, of course. She totaled up all the points from this semester, and Eric's class won for the first grade. That meant that they get an extra class. They got an extra class in January, and I didn't even know when that happened. It so happens that this time, I found out about it ahead of time. They're having the extra class next Friday when I'm off work. I guess I can volunteer for one more class, which I really enjoy, so I'll be reporting back on that class next week.

Lunch with Eric

I know I have way too many photos in this post, but I just love all of them. These pictures are just further proof that Anthony is HOME, and that Eric is really enjoying his company. I took these photos yesterday (Wednesday, May 14, 2014).

Anthony had just gotten out of bed when I left home to go to Wendy's, to get food for Anthony and Eric, so I got to the school first and Anthony met me there. Eric, of course, gave him a big hug and Anthony seems to enjoy lifting Eric up for a big hug.

Interestingly, Anthony commented that the school looked smaller than he remembered it. Alex said about a year ago that he remembered the school ceilings being much higher than when he went to school there. Obviously, both boys have grown quite a bit since they went to school there.

I had to take a picture of the two boys together--sort of a comparison shot of their sizes and what they were eating. Eric had his usual spicy chicken nuggets (10) and a small vanilla Frosty. Anthony had the Double Baconator and a large vanilla Frosty. He usually gets the chocolate, but that machine was broken .

Anthony likes to post photos to Snapchat, so I took a picture of him taking a selfie with Eric, a photo that Anthony then posted to Snapchat. They really look happy in this picture, don't they?

I also took a short video of Eric raising one eyebrow and then the other. He wasn't smiling because he was concentrating so much. I then cut to Anthony's face. Anthony is much more skilled at alternately raising one eyebrow and then the other. I posted the video to Facebook, so if you're on Facebook, go look it up--it's hilarious!

Of course, I had to take one close-up of the two boys. I love these two so much!

I had to go so I could help set up Eric's art class. Anthony stayed with Eric for a couple of minutes more before Eric rejoined his classmates. Tomorrow I'll post about Eric's last art class of the year.

Mother's Day Gifts

My sister Melissa gave me this card. The front of it says, "Have a Happy Mother's Day, Sis, and Remember", and the inside is show in this photo. "Your kids will always think I'm cooler than you are." When Eric read this, he just smiled sweetly and didn't say anything. Natalie flat out said that she agreed with that statement. Anthony was the one that laughed and said, "Of course not, Mama!" I didn't realize that Alex had not read the card until just now. When I showed it to him, he said, "That's what you were talking about." I guess he had heard me saying something to the other kids but he didn't actually see the card until just now. He quietly shook his head and then said, "Of course not, Mama." Anthony and Alex have gotten so sweet! :)

Eric had a Mother's Day card in his school backpack that I discovered in there when I was cleaning it out on Sunday. I'll have to describe that one another time when I take a picture of it. I thought it was funny that he didn't remember making it.

A couple or so weeks ago, I mentioned to Patrick that if he wanted to get me something for Mother's Day, he could get me an umbrella that I had seen at Barnes and Noble when we were there a few weeks ago, or a bamboo lap desk that I had also seen at Barnes and Noble. We haven't made it a habit to get each other gifts for many, many years, but I seem to be getting more sentimental in recent years, so I at least give him some suggestions. He never gives ME any suggestions, although he is much easier to get presents for than I am. I wasn't sure if he would take my suggestions or not, since, like I stated, we haven't made it a habit to give each other anything for birthdays and other special occasions for many years.

So, when I found the huge gift bag sitting on the sofa, I was surprised. I thought at first that it was one of the gift bags for Eric's birthday gifts that have been empty but still in the living room for a month now, so I peeked inside to see if it was empty and then I planned to put it away. I was truly surprised when I saw the umbrella, but having seen the umbrella, I knew immediately that the gift bag must be for me! I didn't want a plain photo, so I had Eric hold the lap desk and balance the umbrella on his head for fun. He makes a cute model, doesn't he? :) Thanks to my loving husband for surprising me with these fabulous gifts! They're exactly what I wanted! ;)

The best gift was later, when Natalie had gone to bed early but the boys were still up and playing the game Soul Calibur IV on the PS3. Patrick took this picture because I was upstairs at the time. They all took turns playing each other, even Patrick. Eric looked like he was in absolute heaven, being able to play with his brothers AND his father. He had spent some time discussing Pokemon with Anthony earlier and showing him his new Pokemon books that his Aunt Melissa had given to him for his birthday. He has really been enjoying having Anthony home again.

I've been enjoying having Anthony home again also. I missed my baby boy. What perfect timing for him to be home for Mother's Day.

Happy Mother's Day 2014

I'm currently sitting at our nearby Starbucks with Natalie, writing this post. We came home to no internet, no phone, and no cable. The worst part is that Patrick and I can't do our regular Sunday viewing of the new episode of The Game of Thrones. Tomorrow will be difficult trying to avoid all of those internet spoilers out there.

I had a long weekend because of a Thursday night call (and the accompanying "day off" on Friday), so we took the opportunity to go to Houston for Mother's Day weekend. We also took the opportunity to get a discount on a return flight for Anthony from Boston. The non-stop flight on Southwest Airlines only cost us $89 vs. his going to San Antonio for $210 on a plane with one or more stops. So, my dearest oldest son is home, perfectly timed for Mother's Day. I got a warm feeling when we got home from Houston this afternoon and I saw him coming out of the pantry with one or two mini Heath bars and another three or so in his hands. Yes, my dear son is HOME!

I got a chance to see my dear mother yesterday. My sisters graciously changed their plans for me. I wanted to have a dinner at my Mom's house (with takeout from a favorite restaurant nearby--Kim Son), so we could spend time with her in the comfort of home instead of fighting all the crowds for brunch on Mother's Day. I took this picture of my mom enjoying a video of Eric's first piano recital last week. I was playing it for her on my laptop and she really enjoyed watching it. I love that Eric is affectionate and came to watch the video with her. I love that she has a wonderful smile on her face while watching the video. I love that I was able to spend time with her and my dad.

Thanks to my dear sisters for taking time out of their own Mother's Day weekend to spend time entertaining me and my family. Thanks especially to Cynthia and John for putting my large family up at their house and feeding us. John grilled steak for us on Friday night and he was amazed at how much steak my family can eat. Of course, that was without Anthony's extra mouth to feed since he didn't arrive until Saturday. Thanks to Patrick for driving me to see my family this weekend and then coming home to prepare a wonderful steak dinner for us!

Happy Mother's Day!

Angry Birds Star Wars Telepods

Eric has loved the iPad game Angry Birds for a while, and when we got Angry Birds Star Wars, he was in heaven. He has been earning allowance for a year now, and he only spent some of it on the Lego watch he bought last year. The rest has been sitting in his drawer in his rather stuffed hand-me-down wallet. So, when Eric saw a toy called Angry Birds Star Wars Telepods Star Destroyer Set at Target a couple of weeks ago, I let him buy it. The retail price was $40, but it was on sale and we got it for about $25 after tax was included and after my Target RedCard 5% off.

Eric built this structure out of Jenga blocks, a structure something similar to the wooden structures that you are supposed to knock down in the classic Angry Birds game. He was so proud of it that he really wanted to show it to me this past weekend. He of course wanted me to take a picture to document his building. He used the launcher device to launch the telepods, just like in the game.

Telepods are sphere-like in shape, and look like the characters from the iPad/iPhone game. You can also use them to unlock those characters from the game, but Eric also likes to play with them on their own. They are almost always scattered about on his bedroom floor.

Later this past weekend, he used the Jenga blocks like beds for his telepods, to give the characters a place to "sleep". Here he is pretending to also sleep. I love it when he uses his imagination. His siblings don't show their imagination to me anymore, although I'm sure they use it in other ways, like in writing assignments for school. I also love that he still lets me take pictures of him and his toys. I know he'll stop allowing that in the near future, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

Big Weekend For Eric

Wow, it's been two weeks since I've posted on this blog. I'll have to play catch-up this month, to include photos from Easter. For today, I want to talk about Eric's busy weekend.

Eric had a "soccer festival" on Saturday, where each team played 2 games, with each game lasting only 10 minutes. After the games, all the kids got a medal and a cupcake. This marked the end of his Spring soccer season. The kids all mainly travel in a pack down the field at this age, and all season, Eric has mainly been following all the other kids in the back of that pack. Once in a while the ball ends up right in front of him. He tries to kick it, but invariably another kid gets in front of him and takes the ball away--sometimes even a kid from his team.

For some reason, the kids on Eric's team usually don't show up to the games. For the last couple of weekends, only two or three kids show up, counting Eric, even when there are eight kids on the roster. There were only two kids from Eric's team this weekend, so once again we had to borrow players from the other team, which is why Eric usually ends up wearing a penny so that his team and the borrowed players match.

The ball was traveling toward the goal. Eric was behind the another kid when the other kid happened to fall down right in front of the goal. That gave Eric an opening and he kicked the ball right in. The last time this happened, he kicked the ball into his team's goal, but this time, it was the other team's goal. GOAL! Eric scored a goal, his first goal of the season! He got his first goal on the last game day! He had the biggest smile on his face.

Eric missed his baseball game on Saturday because of the soccer festival, but he had another baseball game on Sunday. His baseball team has a roster of 10 players, and they usually have 8-9 players show up. They need at least nine players, and with eight players they have to give up an out in the #9 batting slot, so we try to go to all his baseball games. The scheduling was tight on Sunday since the game was at 1:30pm and Eric had a piano recital at 3pm.

Eric usually strikes out during his turns at bat, and he usually swings at every pitch. Patrick has to give him a pep talk before each turn at bat to remind Eric that he doesn't have to swing at every pitch. He gave him that same talk on Sunday. This time, he seemed to be watching the pitches and didn't swing at every one. He took a swing and happened to make contact with the ball. He looked as surprised as the rest of us, so he didn't start running right away. The other team had time to field the ball, so he got tagged out on his way to first base. He didn't look disappointed at being tagged out, he was smiling. That was his first hit! It was nice because almost all the boys got at least one hit during this game. They're all getting better. Unfortunately, the other team was significantly better, and we lost 3-10.

To cap off Eric's busy weekend, we went straight from the baseball game to Eric's first piano recital. Luckily, the game ended a little early, because he was the first performer. He even had time to change clothes. When it was his turn, he didn't hesitate. He walked up to the grand piano at the front of the room, he took a bow, then played his first piece. He made some memory mistakes, but he didn't seem nervous. He almost got up after he finished the first piece, then he realized that he had one more piece. He played his second piece, then took a quick bow, and almost ran towards his seat. He sat still for all of the other performances. Later, he said he didn't like all the pieces that the others played, but did like some. We were so proud of him for being able to memorize his pieces and then to bravely go up there to perform them.

After the recital, I talked to Eric about how he had such a big weekend, with the first soccer goal, the first baseball hit, and the first piano recital. I suggested going out to dinner to celebrate, and Eric enthusiastically agreed. We were so proud of him, and he was pretty proud of himself too.

Spiky Hair

Eric is entering the phase where he wants his hair "spiky". This is a picture of him after his bath yesterday. I told him that I would put gel in his hair to spike it up. He liked the idea and asked if I could make it a "mohawk". The hair on the back of his head is too short to actually make a "mohawk", but I did what I could on the top of his head. Apparently he and a few of his friends at school like this hair style and have gotten in trouble for making a mess in the bathroom because of all the water they use to get their hair to stand up and be "spiky".

He got his hair cut today, so the "spikes" are a little shorter. I think he looks better with short "spikes" anyway, and his hair will stand up easier and for a longer period of time with shorter hair.

This makes me wish I had a picture of when Alex was in this phase around this age. He got in trouble at school too, except he and his friends used the hand soap to make their hair spiky instead of just water. Ah, memories.

Monthly Lunch Date

Eric's monthly art class is right after lunch, so we've developed this routine where I first get him lunch at Wendy's and bring it to him. He and Natalie both like the spicy chicken nuggets and Frosties there. Natalie gets the chocolate and Eric gets the vanilla. Eric isn't always a big eater, but he can usually finish off ten of those spicy chicken nuggets pretty quickly. Of course, he has to get every last drop of that Frosty.

The school enacted this policy last year where parents and kids eating lunch together have to sit in a separate area. That's actually fine with me because when I used to sit with their class, the other kids would want to talk to me too, and Eric and I wouldn't focus so much on each other. The drawback to sitting with just Eric is that he's eating and therefore not talking. He usually smiles at me a lot, as if to say, "I have nothing to say about my day, but thanks for bringing me lunch!" I try to get him to tell me about his day, but he has a hard time describing it.

Yesterday I decided that I would take a picture of us both trying to raise one eyebrow. It's sort of an inside joke in my family. Patrick can't raise only one eyebrow without using his hand to hold down the other one, but I can, so we joke about the look I give to him or the kids where I raise one eyebrow. Eric can also raise one eyebrow, but when he does it, he looks so serious that the sight of him doing it makes me laugh, so this was the only picture of the four pictures that I took where I look somewhat serious also. Of course I realized that it's easier to see the eyebrow raising in a video than to see that it's raised in a still picture. You can also see all my eye wrinkles too well in this photo. Oh well. We had fun trying to get this picture.

April Art a la Carte

Today, Eric had his monthly art class, called Art a la Carte. This month's theme was Mexican Folk Art. This is the bulletin board example of what the art they made in class.

They started with a purple-colored circular piece of construction paper and a flat styrofoam circle covered with aluminum foil. They first made a radial design in the aluminum foil circle to mimic designs in metal in some pieces of Mexican Folk Art. They then used two different sizes of paper plates to outline the concentric circles then they colored in patterns of their choosing with colors of their choosing.

Most of the kids chose very bright colors, some of them with contrasting colors and some with similar colors. One boy used mostly shades of blue, and it took the outlining in black to be able to see what the actual design was. Many of the girls chose pink as one of their colors. Another boy used similar shades of orange and red that almost looked like the same colors. As usual, most of the kids had strong feelings about what colors and patterns they wanted to use.

This is Eric with his artwork. I would have chosen much brighter colors, but he made his own choices and this piece is all his work. The kids spent a lot of time coloring in their designs, and some didn't actually finish. Eric, for example, was supposed to fill in all of the purple-colored paper background with oil pastel, but he didn't really have time to do the extra coloring before the teacher started picking up their artwork to put away. One of the boys seemed satisfied with drawing his design and didn't really feel like coloring more than half of his design in, despite repeatedly being told to keep coloring.

It's hard to appreciate in this photo, but Eric filled in his middle foil section with a heart with arrows coming out of it, and then a scalloped line around that--similar to what the teacher had used as an example during class.

As usual, I enjoyed helping out with the class almost as much as the kids enjoyed doing the art work. Only one more art class to go this school year. I'm so glad that Eric is still at an age and stage of life where he enjoys seeing me at his school, because I enjoy being there.

Soccer Saturday

Eric had a soccer game this past Saturday at 8am. Only two players from his team showed up (white team), but eight players showed up for the opposing team (red team), so the coaches took three of the players from the other team and put them on Eric's team. Because they were wearing the opposite color, the coaches put pennies on them.

Notice Eric's stance in this first photo. He kept putting his hands behind his back. He can't run as well with his hands behind his back. He also did his usual routine of following behind everyone else running after the ball. I know that's what happens in this age group, but sometimes we get a little frustrated watching that as parents.

This is Eric doing a goal kick. I think this is hilarious. Alex tried to show him how to kick harder and farther a few weeks ago, but Eric wouldn't or couldn't do what Alex showed him. At least Eric seems to be enjoying himself and he's getting lots of exercise running back and forth across the field.

Patrick and I asked Eric what his favorite sport so far is. At first he said that he didn't really like any of them better than the rest. He then said swimming. He meant that he loved swimming when he gets to play, though, and not swim team swimming. Maybe we need to try some other sports, like gymnastics or hockey?

Party Party

We decided to go small for Eric's birthday party this year. Last year we invited his whole class and only two kids came. One of our neighbor friends also came, and only a couple of others even bothered to RSVP.

It all started when Eric mentioned that the movie Rio 2 was coming out on the weekend after his birthday. One of his classmates had a movie party a couple or so months ago, so I asked Eric if he wanted to do the same thing and invite his friends to see a movie. He liked the idea. Because Rio 2 didn't come out until yesterday and the show times weren't available until then, we couldn't plan the exact time, so we decided to have the kids meet at our house 1100 and we would take them to the movie. Although we could have taken two cars, it made sense to limit it to one carload of kids, since Eric's friends would want to ride with him and not in a second car.

Eric invited four of his classmates, and thankfully, all of them came. The first two arrived at the same time. Eric had the biggest smile on his face and he said, "This is the first time I've had friends over." I realized then that Eric has never had his school friends over to our house. He has had a couple of neighborhood friends over before. He also remarked that "all of the people I invited came to my party". I was so relieved, because last year was rather sad with only two classmates at his party.

The boys played for a bit upstairs in the game room. There was a lot of sword/lightsaber play as well as Nerf guns. There was also a lot of "pretend" this and that. Patrick went out and got some pizza, and the boys ate lunch. One of Eric's friends had a soccer game at 11am and didn't arrive until about noon. He ate when he got there then he also went upstairs to play. At 1pm, we left the house to go to the 1:30pm movie.

This first picture is a sort of bird's eye view of Eric with his snack pack at the movie theatre. It would have been cheaper to buy a large bucket of popcorn and then dole out the popcorn into smaller containers that they provide at the movie theatre. All the kids wanted drinks, however, so that wouldn't work. They all wanted blue Icees and it wouldn't have been right for them to have to share.

The boys were pretty loud in the theatre before the movie, but they did settle down for the most part. It was nice to hear them giggling and enjoying the movie. Of course they all had to drink their Icees until the very bottom and that slurping was a little loud.

After the movie I tried so hard to get a picture of all five of them holding hands as we left the theatre, but there was always one boy trailing behind everyone else. We went to Baskin-Robbins after the movie, and I tried to get a picture of them crowding around the ice cream case, but every time I was about to take a picture, one of them turned around to ask a question. Oh well. I did get a picture at home with swords, lightsabers, Nerf guns, and even a Thing fist. Most of the weapons are obstructing their faces, but it's pretty tough to get seven-year-old boys to stay still for very long. I'm only showing these photos because I didn't get this blog post okayed by all the parents first and these photos don't show any faces.

All the boys got The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ice cream except for Eric who opted for Daquiri Ice. They all remarked on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 poster advertising the ice cream and the movie coming out on May 2nd. They all said very loudly that they wanted to go see that movie. As soon as we got home at 4pm, the parents arrived to pick them up almost all at the same time. Eric had a lot of fun, and besides being loud, this party was tiring but doable again.

Some other observations are listed below:
--At this age, the kids still use booster seats (which we got from the parents when they were dropped off), and three booster seats side-by-side in the back row of the van is a tight fit.
--I never imagined that seven-year-old boys would be singing "Let It Go" from the movie Frozen, but they were, and it was very entertaining. They also sang the Olaf song from the same movie as well as a selection of other songs. Two of the boys were especially enjoying the singing.
--Eric is very compliant when I try to wipe stuff off his face, like ice cream. The other boys were not so cooperative, and since I'm not their mom, I didn't push the issue.
--Eric is noticeably shorter than the other boys. When we were in his class on Wednesday bringing doughnuts, he was noticeably shorter than most of the girls also.
--Five boys was enough--any more would have been hard to keep track of, especially at a movie theatre and in the parking lot.

Family Drinks

As I stated in my post yesterday, when Eric chose to go to Starbucks for his birthday breakfast, the whole family wanted to go too. The kids all wanted to go in my car. Patrick took a separate car because after breakfast, I was going to take Eric to school and then Natalie to school. Patrick took Alex home to finish getting ready for school, then he took Alex to school.

We all have our favorite drinks (and food) at Starbucks. Starting from the left hand side, Patrick likes the Mocha Frappucino with nonfat milk and no whipped cream. I like the Hazelnut Frappucino with nonfat mil and no whipped cream with drizzle all over. (A lot of people in my career field drink lots of coffee, but I always joke that I don't like coffee, but I like dessert. Those frappucinos are basically desserts, after all.) Natalie likes the Double Chocolatey Chip Frappucino with no whipped cream. Alex and Eric both like the Vanilla Bean Frappucino with caramel drizzle all over. I got them the Grande size since they were sharing, and Eric usually doesn't get whipped cream, but Alex likes the whipped cream. Eric used to like whipped cream when he used to get the Strawberries and Cream Frappucino, but Natalie convinced him that the whipped cream didn't taste good, so now he doesn't usually want it.

We all have our favorite food there, too. Patrick likes to get the Bacon Gouda Breakfast Sandwich, and so does Alex. I usually order that also, but I was going to go exercise after dropping the kiddos off at school, so I didn't have anything to eat. Natalie loves their Marble Loaf and Old-Fashioned Doughnut. Eric never goes to Starbucks unless he can have the Blueberry Scone. He also likes to take bites out of anyone's Bacon Gouda Breakfast Sandwich, if we let him, and he had pieces of Patrick's and Alex's sandwiches yesterday. Alex usually also likes to order a selection of their other pastries. Yesterday he got their new Ham and Cheese Savory Square.

At that time of the day (about 7am), when most people are running in and out of Starbucks on their way somewhere else, it was nice that the whole family was sitting around one table, having breakfast together. Even at home, because of the kids' different school start times (and therefore different wake-up times), we usually don't eat together for breakfast. It was really nice that we got to eat together for breakfast on Eric's birthday.

Happy 7th Birthday, Eric!

Today is Eric's 7th birthday. For those who are interested in the details of his birth, that can be found HERE. I took the day off originally because Eric was supposed to have his monthly art class today, but they changed that to next week. I went ahead and kept this day off so I could do some special things with Eric today.

I often try to do something special for all the kids for breakfast when I have the day off. Usually that involved my making something, but today, Eric chose to go to Starbucks for breakfast. When Natalie and Alex heard that, they said they wanted to go too. I'll describe that in more detail in a separate blog post tomorrow.

A couple of weeks or so ago, I asked Eric if he wanted me to bring cupcakes or cookies to school on his birthday so he could share them with his classmates. He said, "Well, what about donuts?" I laughed, because of the way he asked and because he obviously loves donuts.

I wanted something more special than bringing boxes of donuts to school, and I knew Krispy Kreme made "donut cakes", so when Eric and I were at Krispy Kreme this past Sunday, I looked at their book of donut cakes and Eric picked out this specific one just because he wanted the birthday hat. They even included an extra hat so he could wear it. It also has cars and noisemakers. Unfortunately, they didn't include enough of the cars or noisemakers for everyone in the class to get one, so we didn't give those out. We had plenty of kids asking about them, though.

Patrick and I took the donut cake to Eric's school at 2:15pm in the afternoon. His teacher wisely chose the end of the day so we could sugar up the kids and then send them home to their parents. Eric's favorite donuts are the chocolate iced ones, but he agreed to make the donut cake half glazed and half chocolate iced. The minimum amount of donuts was three dozen--plenty for his class, but not enough for more than one per child. There were also plenty of kids asking if they could have a second donut. We decided that the other parents would probably not appreciate their children having more than one donut, so we held it to one donut per child.

Eric's teacher also had him stand up on a chair so he could be higher than everyone else, and then all the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to him. He was so excited! After the donuts, they watched a short movie about animals and how they move around, then we took Eric home instead of having him take the bus (his choice).

Once all the kids got home, Eric opened his presents. We gave him a Lego Ninjago set and a book about the characters of The Lego Movie. We then went out to dinner at Chili's--Eric's choice. He had the Mac and Cheese kids' meal there like he has at pretty much every restaurant we go to nowadays, although Chili's does offer a mandarin orange side dish, and he really loves those, so that's probably why he chose Chili's.

Interestingly, he chose Chili's for this birthday dinner last year also, and just like last year, he chose to go to Baskin-Robbins for dessert. He had the Rainbow Sherbet, and so did Natalie. He had a little time to play on the iPad at home before going to bed. We also got some birthday phone calls. I asked him when I was tucking him into bed if he felt any different being seven years old. He said yes but he couldn't explain it. After talking with him a bit, he said that he basically felt the same as when he was six except that he was seven. What?? I guess that's what a seven year old would answer to such a question.

Back to Natalie's Back

This is Patrick guest posting for Melanie again. Natalie's back has still been bothering her, it is now over 2 months. Last week I took her back to the sports medicine doctor and then to have an MRI on her back. The good news is that the damage is all to her muscles, there is no damage to her spine or to any of the discs in her back. The bad news is that it is going to take a while before that damage is repaired. The doctor ordered physical therapy twice a week for 6-7 weeks and will want to see her again next week. The doctor also warned me that sometimes this type of pain might require some additional medication.

Yesterday Natalie had her first visit to the physical therapist. After a lengthy discussion and examination of her movement the therapist "realigned" her hips and did a number of exercises with Natalie to help strengthen her core and, ideally, help her muscles recover. I think she was a bit shy and timid at the therapists, but I believe she will warm up to it. If nothing else it does give her some physical activity which she has been craving. She isn't thrilled about having daily "boring" exercises, but if it gets her swimming sooner, she will do them.

The long break from swimming clearly has her feeling down. She got to spend a lot of time with one of her best friends this past weekend and I think that helped cheer her up a bit. We are concerned by her mental state, the long break from being physically active is really wearing her down. We try to keep her focused on getting better and remind her that she has plenty of time to get back into swimming. She is still an active girl though. During a special field trip last Friday she spent time playing laser tag- "I didn't run Papa, I just stood still and shot at people." I keep reminding her to be careful and "stay smart" but it is very difficult for her to restrain herself sometimes. We will see what a few more trips to the physical therapist does for her.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Ice Cream

I took these photos last Friday, but I didn't feel like posting them until today. Patrick, Eric, and I went to Baskin-Robbins. We used to go every week but it's been a few weeks since we went. There was a poster advertising their April Flavor of the Month--The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ice cream, complete with a picture of the superhero. The description said, ""Get tangled up in red and blue vanilla flavored ice cream with a dark chocolate flavored web and popping candies that combine to make a superhero of a flavor!" Eric was instantly interested in having some. He didn't even look at his usual Rainbow Sherbet. He wanted The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ice cream.

He was so adorable that I had to take a couple of pictures of him. He is my only child that smiles sweetly for me whenever I want to take a picture. Sometimes the smile is a little cheesy, but I love this smile. You can even see some of the blue color on his lips and teeth already, even though he had just started eating it. Later, his lips and teeth were considerably more blue, or maybe it would be more accurate to call them purple. After all, red and blue mixed together make purple, which Eric stated as he was mixing the two colors together with his spoon before eating it.

We asked Natalie if she wanted to go to Baskin-Robbins also, but she just wanted to stay home. I told her, "What have you done to my daughter?!!" After all, Natalie LOVES ice cream, but she didn't feel like going to Baskin-Robbins? Patrick and I have been a little worried about her mental state with her extended recovery period. Patrick will post an update about her back tomorrow. She just went to the physical therapist today. We're crossing our fingers and saying some prayers.

Minion Madness

This is a picture of the Minion stickers that Alex had put on his high-top shoes. He used yellow shoelaces to match the Minions plus he wore a Minion T-shirt. He didn't want me to take a picture of the shoes, but he took a picture later and texted it to me.

I got Natalie another Minion T-shirt last weekend, including one of the same design (from Target) that I bought Eric when I bought him several Minion T-shirts a month or so ago.

This is one of several Minion shirts that Eric owns. He even has Minion pajamas (his favorite PJs) that my Mom had bought for him. By the way, in case you're wondering--Eric has his shirt on backwards. He purposely wore it that way "because he felt like it". This is at least the second time he's done this. He gets a little silly once in a while, very much like his siblings.

This is just a short little post since I don't have any great photos or stories to tell right now. I may have more to say tomorrow with an update about Natalie's back.