Happy Birthday, Grandma!

After a low key day at work, I came home and we met Grandma and Grandpa at their house. Alex had gone to the Fiesta Texas theme park, so he was not with us. Unfortunately, he apparently came home shortly after we had left, and he could have let us know and we would have come back for him, but he seemed to want to chill at home, so he was okay with it. He watched the last two episodes of Dr. Who from this past season instead.

When we got to their house, Patrick and I helped Grandma set up her new Fitbit Charge fitness tracker. She has seen Patrick and I exercise to get fit and she wants to do the same. Good for her! We then set off for McAdoo's seafood in New Braunfels for dinner.

It was quite a popular place to be, and even though we got there around 6:30pm for our 7pm reservation, we didn't get seated on time. They only had a few tables that seated seven, and the one they were waiting for had a party that had been there for 2 1/2 hours. Grandpa in particular, was getting restless, but finally we got to sit down.

One side of the table was a booth-like bench, and Natalie, Grandma, and I promptly plopped ourselves onto it, while the "boys" all sat on the chairs on the other side of the table. Patrick mentioned there being a "boys" side and a "girls" side, and we were happy with that.

I took this picture with my phone while we were waiting. The building the restaurant was in looked like it used to be a US Post Office, and you can see the sign on the wall behind them that says "United States Post Office New Braunfels". The first thing Anthony said when he saw this picture was that he looks like a giant without Alex there! I really missed Alex being with us, and it wasn't for the height. :)

After dinner, some of us had dessert. Grandma (see above picture) had a complementary key lime pie for dessert. They put a candle in it, but she was glad that they didn't sing to her. She wasn't keen on the public display. The kids and I sang "Happy Birthday" silently. I told Patrick to get a picture since he was seated on the opposite side of the table. Natalie leaned her head on Grandma just as he snapped the photo. I like to think that Grandma had a nice birthday celebration.

Earlier in the day, Anthony took his little brother to Magnolia Pancake Haus for lunch. He met Alejandro, one of his one of his best friends there. Alejandro came with some other friends, and after lunch they went to the Laser Quest nearby. Eric has been wanting to play laser tag with his brothers since he first went there a year ago for a friend's birthday party, and I can feel his excitement in this photo that Alejandro sent me. Alejandro is Eric's "other brother", for sure. :)

Tomorrow will a pretty low-key New Year's Eve for us. Anthony is planning a party at Alejandro's apartment, so he will be gone. Alex is planning to ring in the New Year with friends as well. Luckily, the repair guys will repair the ceiling tomorrow and we will at least be able to ring in the New Year with our house again intact.

Holes in the Ceiling

Today was another busy day for me, with five scheduled pediatric ENT cases. I then took the opportunity to go to the gym after work, before heading home. It gave me some time to work off some of the stress of the last couple of days.

Patrick sent me these two pictures today. The first one is of the kitchen/breakfast dining area. They had to empty the entire contents of the pantry so that the repair guys could make a hole in the ceiling of the pantry. There was stuff everywhere, including the formal dining room. It took me a few minutes to locate the ice cream cups tonight when I wanted to eat some ice cream.

These are two of the four holes in our ceiling, located in the living room near the foot of the stairs. This is the location that had to be repaired a few years ago when the dryer vent got blocked and moisture started collecting around that area. They opened up the ceiling again to get at that dryer vent to clean it out. The bright side is that the dryer vent is now fixed and we can again use the dryer. The bad news is that now we have to get someone else to come fix the ceiling, because the guys that made the holes squeezed this job in to help us out and they won't have time to come fix the ceiling for another couple of weeks. Hopefully we'll get someone else to come sooner than that.

Along with sending me these pictures, Patrick texted me that he wanted to go out to eat, since obviously there wasn't any space to cook dinner or to serve it. We ended up going to Fuddrucker's tonight. Tomorrow we'll be having dinner with Patrick's parents to celebrate his mom's birthday. December is a busy birthday month for us.

Back to Work

No pictures today! I had to go back to work after the long holiday weekend. It's so hard to get up when it's still dark, it's cold outside, and the rest of the family is still snuggled in their beds. This was also a busy day for me at work, with six scheduled pediatric urology cases. I was exhausted by the time I got home around 4:30pm that all I could do was sit down and not move.

Patrick did not have a great day either. He got some repair guys to look at our dryer problem. Over the holiday weekend, he noticed that the water was leaking from the dryer. We haven't been able to use our dryer, but Christmas is not a great time to be calling for a repair job. The problem is likely somewhere along the path of the dryer vent, and when I got home today, he was talking to them about making holes in the ceiling to find out where the problem was. They're coming back tomorrow.

Other than that, the kids had another low key day, readying, playing video games, and for Natalie and Eric--going to the library. The whole family had lunch at Whataburger, and then Anthony went to visit his friend Alejandro. I didn't get to see him at all today.

Lego Dimensions

The kids got a Lego Dimensions game for the PS4 from Santa this year. Santa has a pretty tough job getting presents for the older kids. This year it was nice to get them a "toy" that they could all play together. This first picture was taken on Christmas Day and is of Anthony building the platform for the game with Eric helping.

First of all, notice that Anthony looks a little dressed up with a jacket on. That was his Christmas gift from us that we bought in Italy. We had been walking around one of the shopping areas in Rome and Alex wanted to go into the David Naman store. He found this jacket and he really liked it, but he decided not to get it because he really wanted us to buy him a Roma soccer jersey instead. Anthony noticed and he decided to try it on, too. Since he had not given us a Christmas list to speak of, I asked him if he wanted it for Christmas. He said yes, so we took it home with us, wrapped it up, and gave it to him for Christmas.

This is more of a closeup of the platform/portal for the Lego Dimensions game. What is cool about this game is that you have to build some of the objects you use in the game out of the included Legos. During the game, sometimes instructions will flash up on screen for a "rebuild" or building something a little different out of the same pieces. Natalie loves this part, which is great since she doesn't usually play video games, but because of this feature, she participates in this game. It's really nice to have something that all of the kids enjoy together.

This is Eric playing by himself this morning. Natalie was still in her room probably reading or listening to an audiobook. His brothers were still in bed asleep. He was up too early as usual, and this was keeping him quiet. The pile of Lego Dimensions Legos are still all over the floor. Patrick gave them ziplock-type sandwich bags to use for the pieces so at least the mess is somewhat contained. Santa did a great job picking their gift this year. :)

Wings

After quite a bit of begging and persuading from Alex, Patrick finally smoked some chicken wings in his smoker today. He went all out, with a nice dry rub on five pounds of wings. Alex invited two of his friends (Dylan and Jeremy) over tonight to have some. We used the same Frank's Wing Sauce in the Hot Buffalo flavor that we used a week or so ago with some wings that I baked in the oven and that the kids loved.

Anthony had to photobomb my photo of the wings, of course, but I didn't mind. He is only visiting us for such a short time that I'll gladly have him in every picture to remember his stay!

Alex was laughing at Dylan because Dylan's eyes were watering even though he didn't have any of the hot sauce on his wings (just the dry rub that Patrick had put on there). According to Alex, Dylan only had five wings, but he did say he liked them. Alex himself probably ate a couple pounds of wings, and Jeremy had quite a few also. The rest of us loved them too. That smoker has been the best Father's Day gift that Patrick has ever gotten! :)

Christmas Eve 2015

Before I go into today's events, I have to tell a funny story about Anthony last night. Patrick and I went to the gym to exercise from about 6-8pm. Patrick texted Anthony to tell Eric to take a shower and go to bed by about 8pm. Eric has been staying up until around 9pm or later every night, but yesterday he got up at 6am and Patrick said he had dark circles under his eyes, so Eric had to go to bed earlier. Since we had such a late lunch yesterday, we all ate dinner when we got hungry, so that was at different times. Anthony had put Eric to bed shortly before we got home. Anthony had not realized until then that we were not home and had not fed Eric any dinner. Anthony put Eric to bed without dinner! He forgot that Eric is not a big eater and will not necessarily complain when he is hungry. Since Eric was still awake when we got home, Patrick got him up to eat a sandwich, something small that would at least keep him full during the night.

Christmas Eve morning started out like any other day during the kids' vacation. I had scheduled hair cuts for Natalie and Anthony. Originally, Alex was also scheduled, but he wasn't sure of his plans, so he wanted his hair cut last week. Natalie doesn't get her hair cut very often because her mama is too cheap to take her when all she gets is a simple cut, but which costs me a lot just because she has so much hair. This time, at least, she brushed her hair before going to the hair salon, and this time, she asked for a little more to be cut--like about five inches. She was pleased that this time, Ryan said that she was tall enough (she liked hearing that) that she could sit down while he cut her hair. In the past, she has to stand up because her hair would hit the chair in an odd place and make it difficult to cut straight. I also bought her some additional hair products to hopefully keep her hair from frizzing as much.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxed until it came time to get ready for church at 4pm. Since the kids all dressed up (more or less), I wanted to finally get a good picture of the four of them for our Christmas Card photo. I decided early on that our Christmas cards would be late this year because I wanted our traditional card with a photo of all four kids together. This will probably have to change in future years, but for now, I insisted on getting a picture of the four of them. Interestingly, Anthony is the one that was complaining, although in the first picture I took, Natalie looked very annoyed. I don't actually expect them to smile for the camera. For example, I actually think Alex looks more handsome when he doesn't smile. I think Natalie, however, looks prettier when she smiles. What I don't want is for them to looked annoyed or angry in the photo, which Natalie looks like when she doesn't smile.

We wanted to go to the overflow mass in the St. Francis church hall instead of the church itself because Natalie's and Eric's piano teacher was playing at that mass. We got there earlier than we usually do, but later than we should have for a Christmas Eve mass (about 3:45pm for a 4pm mass). Patrick dropped us off first so he could park way out on the soccer/baseball field and we could find seats (if available). There were no seats except for one or two here and there. We wanted to stay together, so we refused some offers for the one or two seats here and there, until they put out some more chairs right in front of us, and I convinced Natalie to sit down since it would be better for her back. She took Eric with her so she wouldn't have to sit alone. The rest of us were right behind them anyway.

Eric and I went to say "hello" to his piano teacher before the mass started. We lucked out and our main priest was officiating at this mass AND he had a shorter homily. He even mentioned that we probably would not mind a shorter homily, and we were out of there in about an hour.

As we were leaving mass, Alex asked if we were going to have any outside lights up for Christmas. Patrick has been busy and didn't make time for putting up the outdoor lights, but the boys offered, so I told him to let them do the lights themselves. We think they did an excellent job! I took this picture as proof, and we encouraged them to do the outdoor lights in the future.

I took this photo tonight of our new tree with the stockings by the fireplace, all ready for Santa's visit. Tomorrow will be quite hectic and exciting.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I didn't take any pictures, so I got a screenshot of the official picture of the new Star Wars movie from their Facebook page. The kids have been chomping at the bit to see this movie, which came out last Thursday night. A lot of the early showings were sold out or almost sold out. I even thought briefly about seeing it on the evening of my birthday, but the showings would have been too late for Eric, even though last Friday was basically a party day for him at school. Alex also said that we likely would not be able to sit together in the crowded theaters, so we waited for Anthony to come home. Of course, I had to work Monday through Wednesday of this week, so we couldn't see the movie when I was working. Today, I was able to get off work early, so we made plans to see the 12:30pm showing at the Regal Huebner Oaks theater.

There was plenty of room in the theater. We could pick and choose where we wanted to sit plus we could all sit together. The kids sat down without asking for snacks, so I think they were a little excited to see the movie. When Patrick mentioned getting some snacks since he had not had lunch yet and he was hungry, they all got up and left me to save their seats.

The movie was better than I had expected--lots of action mixed with some humor. We all enjoyed it, especially Eric. I loved looking at his expressions during the movie. We're all already looking forward to when the next installment in the series come out in May 2017.

After the movie, some of us had expected to go to Panera Bread for a late lunch, but Anthony was never a big Panera Bread fan, and he said he wanted to go to CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) instead, so that's where he went. He and Alex split two types of pizza. Natalie only ordered a caesar salad. Eric had his usual Fusilli Alfredo from the kids' menu. Patrick had his usual chicken quesadillas, and I had my usual mushroom and spinach flatbread. Everyone was too full to go to Brindles afterwards, so we just went straight home. This was such a great day. I had to go to work, which was short and sweet, but then we had a lot of family time the rest of the day.

Welcome Home Dinner

I didn't take any pictures yesterday, plus I was on late call, so I didn't even get home until around 6:30pm. All of that equals no blog post. They are redoing the floors in the new building operating rooms again, so we are down to half the staff and half the amount of operating rooms we usually run, so I was afraid we would be super busy, but it wasn't too bad. No surgeons yelled at me, and that makes for a good day.

As for the rest of the family, Anthony saw his friend Alejandro when he came over late on Sunday night. He then saw his friend Jake yesterday. All the kids saw the first three Star Wars movies (Episodes IV, V, and VI), and when I got home, they were all watching the last one in the game room.  Alex's "friend that is more than a friend but not a girlfriend", Coral, was over watching with them earlier, but she left before I got home. Patrick was busy buying Christmas gifts for his side of the family, then he smoked some pork loin for dinner, so he was pretty busy all day. After dinner, Anthony left to spend the night at Alejandro's house.

Today was a shorter day for me, but still busy at work. Anthony didn't get home until after I got home from work, which was around 4pm. He had tried to go see his good friend Maddie, but that didn't work out. Alex played video games with at least one friend here at home, then went to play soccer with friends at McAllister Park. He didn't get home until we were about done with dinner. Natalie's friend Monse came over for a visit and she had dinner with us. Patrick spent all day smoking some pork ribs for dinner. We took a walk together in the neighborhood after I got home from work.

Grandma and Grandpa came over early for dinner so they wouldn't have to fight as much traffic. We had a nice welcome home dinner for Anthony. Anthony got to taste Patrick's smoked barbecue ribs for the first time--he loved them, of course, and he also got to have one of Patrick's margaritas. He was as horrified as Patrick usually is that Eric eats his ribs with ketchup instead of barbecue sauce. Alex came home when the rest of us were finishing up with dinner, and even after he ate, there was still quite a bit of leftovers, so we could easily spare some for Grandma and Grandpa to bring home with them. Grandma thought she was getting spoiled with the doggy bags we keep sending with her to have for lunch the next day.

After dinner, Eric wanted to play Star Wars Battlefront on the PS4. Here he is on the sofa and I love how he and Anthony both have such intense looks on their faces while they are playing. Later, Alex took a turn after he took a shower. Eric gets to go to bed early tonight because he has been going to bed even after 9pm but still getting up by 6:30am or even much earlier. That boy needs some more sleep!

My sister Melissa texted me this photo tonight. My mom actually took a picture with her iPhone. Growing up, my dad was always the one taking pictures, and I never thought Mom would take pictures, but here she is taking one with a camera phone, no less. Apparently, Dad was looking at the bill from when he was in the hospital, but he is wearing two pairs of glasses. Mom hasn't answered my text yet, but I wonder if Dad is wearing two pairs of glasses because he forgot he was already wearing a pair. Poor Dad!

That's enough rambling for tonight. I'll have more stories to tell tomorrow. We're going to see the new Star Wars movie after I get home from work.

He's Home!

Anthony is home!!! That is the big news for today. Patrick drove to Houston yesterday afternoon so he could pick up Anthony this afternoon and not have to drive back and forth in one day. He stayed at my sister Cynthia's house, but didn't see her because she and my brother-in-law John were out at a neighborhood party. Patrick got to see my nephew Nick and niece Aly, though, and took them out to dinner. This morning, he was out for a walk when Cynthia got up, so they barely saw him. Anthony took a while in Customs so they didn't actually leave Houston until around 4:30pm after Patrick took him to Smashburger for food (one of Anthony's favorites).

Anthony left Venice yesterday and had an overnight layover in London. He said he didn't sleep at all there, on purpose, so he would be super tired by the time he got on the plane going to Houston. He said he was able to sleep on that plane for eight hours.

Patrick missed seeing the Packers game because it was at 3pm and he was waiting for Anthony at the airport then. Natalie, Eric, and I were with him in spirit, though, wearing our Packers T-shirts and Eric wearing his cheesehead, just like last week. Eric was still wearing his cheesehead when he greeted Anthony.

Eric was so excited to greet his brother that he had to run out to the garage. Anthony still had to grab his suitcase and come in, but Eric ran up to him and hugged him. When they got inside, Anthony immediately took his laundry and put a load in the washer, then Eric hugged him again (see photo above). Eric and I had a full day today that started very early.

Eric got up around 6:30am this morning. I had asked him to knock on my bedroom door when he got up because I wanted to spend some time with him and because I wanted to know when he got up. I originally wanted to go to the gym when I got up, but I was not ready to go to the gym at 6:30am. By the time I was ready, around 7:30am, I realized that if I went to the gym then, I wouldn't get home until 9:30 or so, and Eric would be super hungry by then, so I decided to take him to breakfast instead. Eric's choice was Starbucks.

Eric placed his order all by himself. I only said "tall" as the size drink he wanted. He got everything else. He proceeded to sit in one of the comfy chairs instead of one of the tables, and pulled up one of the side tables so he could use that as a table. He then ate his blueberry scone over his bag, just like I've made him do since I started taking him to Starbucks, except now, he doesn't leave crumbs all over the floor. In fact, he got very few crumbs even on his lap.

After Starbucks, we went to HEB. I needed to get some muffins for everyone else to eat for breakfast (Natalie, Alex, and Alex's three friends that had spent the night), plus some supplies to make food for Anthony to enjoy when he got home. I decided to make Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars and Stuffed Jalapeños for tonight, and have the ingredients to make Banana Pudding later in the week.

I let Eric play on my phone, so I put him on the cart so I wouldn't have to worry about what he was walking into or where he was while playing on my phone. The cart was getting full with everything arranged around him so he wouldn't be too crowded, and I wished that I could take a picture of him distracted by the phone in the middle of that, but I needed my phone to take a picture. I asked for my phone back to take a picture, and of course Eric decided to pretend he was a Jedi with a lightsaber in this picture.

I went to the gym shortly after we got home and unloaded the groceries. When I got back, I took Alex and two of his friends (Jeremy and Christian), Natalie, and Eric to Torchy's Tacos in Lincoln Heights and then to Paciugo's for gelato. Oh how I've missed gelato since our trip to Italy! I started cooking soon after we got home. It took me from about 4pm to about 7pm to make the two dishes plus clean up. I had just taken the stuffed jalapeños out of the oven when Patrick and Anthony got home.

Since then, the sound of lightsabers and gunfire has filled our home (from the Star Wars Battlefront PS4 game). There's been laughter shared by siblings, bonding over smoothies (Alex couldn't wait to make smoothies for Anthony), and conversation. All is well in my world tonight. Anthony is home.

Eric's First Belt Ceremony

Grandma came with us to Eric's first belt ceremony this morning. Grandpa didn't come because Grandma told him that she planned on going shopping after Eric's ceremony and he didn't want to go shopping with her. He could have hung out at our house instead, but he was probably more comfortable at home anyway. Alex also came with us, but Natalie was still in her pajamas when we left the house at about 9:40am.

I'm still new to the whole Jiu-Jitsu experience, but Patrick has been saying that they don't have as many belts as in Taekwondo that our family used to participate it. To me, this means that each belt ceremony will be fewer and far between, and therefore a little more special. This one was special just because it was Eric's first belt ceremony.

Professor Daniel, Eric's instructor, gave an opening speech, then gave out stripes, which consisted of putting "stripes" made out of tape on the belts of those that qualified. Those that were receiving new belts had to test separately, which Eric did the week after Thanksgiving. He basically had a private lesson/exam where his instructor would ask him to do certain moves. He had to come back on another day because he didn't remember four things, but he remembered those things during the second "test".

I remember when we had the big, public tests followed by the belt ceremony when we used to participate in Taekwondo. At first, Grandma had thought that this would be the case with Eric, and she wasn't interested in seeing her grandson in a headlock at any time. We reassured her that she wouldn't have to see that today.

Eric was the first one to get his new belt. Professor Daniel called out Eric's name and Eric came forward. He went down on one knee and took Eric's white belt off, tied the belt so Eric could hold it, then proceeded to tie Eric's new grey white belt on. As with all the others who received belts, he would tell them something privately as he did this. You can tell the man loves what he does and he loves each of his students.

After the ceremony, we dropped Grandma off at home, she got in her car, and went shopping. I had some lunch, then Natalie went with me to go shopping for stocking stuffers. We were at World Market and I saw this collection of different hot sauces.

I immediately thought of Anthony, so I snapped this photo and texted it to him. He was going to be traveling from Venice to London today. He will have a long overnight layover in London before he gets on a plane to go to Houston. Patrick left late this afternoon so he can spend the night, pick up Anthony from the airport tomorrow afternoon, then drive back home.

After our shopping trip, I spent most of the afternoon in bed, either asleep or relaxing. I got maybe one hour of very broken sleep last night in between all the "major" traumas that came to our ER. I was very tired today, but I had a great day watching my Eric get a big reward for his hard work, and spending time with my dear daughter. She is very helpful with gift shopping because she is very decisive. She also saw how tired I was this evening, and frustrated at all of the dirty dishes in the sink from earlier today when Alex had some friends over and didn't clean up. She cleaned up all of it, even the big crock pot from Friday's meal. She even hung several ornaments on the tree. She really made me happy today!

Christmas Cozy

I was off this morning because I am on call this evening. I had mentioned to Natalie and Eric last night that if they wanted, I would take them to Starbucks for breakfast. Eric didn't remember anything about it this morning and went ahead and ate breakfast at home. When Natalie got up, she immediately went to my room to basically ask me if I still wanted to take her to Starbucks. Of course!

I am well aware that my kids are spoiled when it comes to getting to go to Starbucks fairly often. I got a little love in return today, though. When Natalie was in the car with me on the way, she said that she wanted to spend some time with me since I would be working tonight and not at home. Awww, what a sweetie! Natalie can be sweet when she wants to. :)

Starbucks had a promotion only good for today. They offered this "ugly sweater Christmas cozy" for their rewards members (which I am, of course) for free with the purchase of a frappucino beverage. This is Natalie's mocha frappucino with no whipped cream, her new favorite Starbucks drink. It contains coffee, so she knows she has to ask me first if she can get it, which she did. She also got her usual--the Old Fashioned Doughnut. I didn't get anything because I was planning on going for a run after I dropped her off at school.

I had plans on going to the CAbi store and other stores in the San Marcos outlet shopping area, so after I went for my run and took my shower, off I went. It was such a beautiful day that it was fun just walking around. I drove straight down I-35 after my shopping trip to go to work. First, I stopped off at the Starbucks on Walzem, the one I've gone to ever since Anthony started going to school near there, and now Alex. I got a venti-size Caramel Brûlée Frappucino drink with my free drink reward and asked if they had any more of those Christmas cozies. They did, and I was so excited that I snapped this picture and texted it to Natalie. I told her I didn't know why I was so excited and she replied, "It's so cute!!! That's why you're so excited." I was also excited because she actually responded to my text!

Work has been busy, and chances are that I won't get much sleep. At least I now have two "ugly sweater Christmas cozies" to use the next time I get my favorite Starbucks drink!

Happy Birthday to Me

Today was my 49th birthday and I took the day off from work. A few years ago, one of my work colleagues made an overhead announcement on my birthday asking everyone to wish me a "Happy 50th Birthday". He was joking, of course, but I worried that some people believed him. Ever since then, I decided that I should ask for my birthday off so I could do whatever I wanted on my birthday.

I started off today walking Eric to the bus. It was a chilly 39 degrees with a breeze outside at that time. Eventually, Natalie went to the bus, and then Patrick and I took Alex to school. We went to the gym then went home to take showers, then went to lunch. This is our routine for many of my days off. I chose Boudro's Texas Bistro for lunch. I love their duck spring rolls, which also comes with a sort of Asian-type salad, and that's what I had today. For dessert we had Haagen-Dazs ice cream, a mixture of the Belgian Chocolate Chocolate and Coffee. The Belgian Chocolate Chocolate flavor is not available at the grocery store, so Patrick and I order it every time we get a chance to go to the actual Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop.

It was already almost 1pm by the time we finished, so we went straight to Alex's school to pick him up. He had an early dismissal today, at 1:30pm, because of finals. We went home and the I took him to his hair appointment. We got home in time for me to get Eric from the bus. Natalie came home on the bus soon after.

I asked two things of my children for my birthday--that they clear the living room of clean laundry by folding the clothes in the laundry baskets and putting them away, and that they put ornaments on the Christmas tree. They did finish the laundry but didn't even start the ornaments. I'm a little disappointed, but unfortunately, not surprised. I'm still hoping they'll do that when I'm on call tomorrow night.

We went to Paesano's 1604 Restaurant for dinner. We met Patrick's parents and our good friends Al and Alicia and their kids there. I had my favorite, the Shrimp Paesano and then Cappuccino Pie for dessert (basically coffee ice cream with chocolate on the top). Natalie also had the same dessert, which she shared with Eric.

Patrick had his usual Veal Parmesan, and the kids had their usual Fettuccine Alfredo with Alex adding chicken. He can have that almost every meal just like I could have pasta with mixed seafood for almost every meal (when we were in Italy). Patrick's mom also had the Veal Parmesan, and his dad also had the Shrimp Paesano. Patrick had the Gianduja Double Chocolate Cake with ice cream covered in hazelnuts, as did his father. We all had a very full, and very delicious meal.

By the time we got home, it was almost 8pm. I opened my presents, a Silhouette Portrait die-cutting machine, two more pairs of Feetures brand running socks, and a flashing LED light that I can wear on my clothing when I run in the dark. Alex asked Patrick why we have so many die-cutting machines. He replied, "Because they make your mother happy." Yup, that's pretty much why! :)

My sister Cynthia sent me a present that arrived today with a beautiful birthday card to go with it (see picture). She didn't have to mail my present. I would have been just as happy to receive it next week when we visit her, but I really appreciated it. She does such a beautiful job on her cards and her wrapping. My present was another pair of Features brand running socks, a turtle fur headband to keep my head/ears warm, and a pair of running gloves. My in-laws gave me some money and two pairs of running gloves. Al and Alicia got me an Amazon gift card. Cool! I am all set for running in the cold!

Patrick took the first two photos above. The second picture was actually the first picture he took. The kids insisted on taking a picture laying on the sofa like that, so I was fine with it, then I wanted one with us sitting up. I'm missing my oldest child, but he will be home on Sunday. In the meantime, I had an awesome birthday complete with tons of birthday wishes on Facebook. Thank you to ALL!

Willie's Night and Gifts for Friends

I was going to take pictures every day this month, but I failed to take any photos yesterday. Along with that, I didn't blog about yesterday either, so I decided to put yesterday's and today's stories all in one post.

It wasn't particularly busy day. In fact, I was off from work, and as such, I usually pack my days off with all sorts of errands. Patrick and I went to exercise at the gym after dropping Alex off at school. We went home and took quick showers then headed out for a quick lunch at Schlotzky's. Nowadays we will split a medium Original Sandwich rather than each getting a small. I went off to my hair appointment after that.

When I was done with my hair appointment, I went to the grocery store to get a few things for dinner for today, and other staples like milk, Dole pineapple orange juice (one of Alex's staples), bananas (Alex's favorite fruit and a necessary ingredient for the smoothies he likes to make himself and the family), and more frozen Tropical Fruit mix (another common ingredient for Alex's smoothies).

Ironically, none of us saw Alex after he went to school. He went to a friend's house after school where a bunch of them were going to study AP Physics. Once there, he realized that he had a long worksheet where he only knew half of the questions. He got home some time after Patrick and I both went to bed.

I took Natalie and Eric to piano lessons, then I dropped Natalie off at home while the remaining three of us went to Willie's Icehouse and Grill for Eric's school's fundraiser night that they have on the third Tuesday of each month. When we were there, Eric and Patrick both got interested in something on the TV about the sport Kendo and how it related to lightsaber battles on Star Wars. There was no sound on the TV, only closed captions, so I didn't get the whole story. The whole day wasn't remarkable, but one of these days I'll want to remember these types of days.

Today was so different. I had an interesting morning doing OB Anesthesia with a very nervous patient getting a Cesarean section. Our second patient was so young that she was born only shortly before I graduated from med school. That made me feel old. At lunch, the operating room staff had their Christmas Party during lunch. My resident and I just picked up our meals since we had the second Cesarean section to do. This is a picture of the meal catered by Bill Miller Bar-B-Q. I ended up splitting my meal in half and giving the other half to my office mate. I chose wisely since I was very full after eating just the one half. It wasn't a low calorie half anyway, especially with that apple pie, which I ate with the little bit of ice cream that I've had in my work freezer for months.

Usually the OR Christmas Party is scheduled for the Friday before Christmas, before we go to a half-schedule for the holidays. This time they are redoing the floors in the COTO building again, so they are moving all the equipment to the other building on Friday the 18th, so they had the party today the 16th.

After work, I went to Starbucks to load a couple of gift cards that Natalie had picked out this weekend for two of her friends. I then picked up Alex. Patrick had picked up Eric early from school then picked up Natalie from her school because Natalie had a physical therapy appointment at 4pm. He dropped her off but then had to take Eric to Jiu-Jitsu class at 5pm. Alex and I went directly to physical therapy to pick up Natalie after her appointment was done.

After that, the three of us went to Starbucks (again). Alex wanted to get a gift card for a secret Santa gift. The name he drew was his friend John's girlfriend Lilly. She apparently likes coffee, thereby the reason for the Starbucks gift card. He then wanted to get her a bag of Doritos because she loves Doritos. John doesn't like Doritos and doesn't like the smell of it on her breath, so Alex would end up giving Lilly gum daily, so he got her some gum too.

Natalie got a couple of different types of sweets/candy for her certain friends (Sour Punch and Jolly Rancher Candy, Pizelles, Milano cookies). She also got a three-pack of some lip balm that she loves (Eos) so she could keep one and give two to one of her friends. Natalie also bought one banana to give as a joke to one of her friends (as in giving that to her and then giving her the real present). Of course I can't go to the grocery story with Alex without him picking up some snacks for himself, like cheese crackers, some sort of guava juice, and sour cream and onion Ritz Chips.

Alex's hand is in the picture because after we got all of that stuff on the moving belt thing, the lady in front of us, who looked like she was done and all she had to do was pay, wasn't done. She paid in cash and credit, she asked some questions, and then she decided to add thirteen gift cards to her purchase. It was way faster to move to a different cash register.

I'm sure I was rambling during most of that post, but there were at least a couple of interesting stories in there, I think. I'll definitely take more pictures tomorrow.

Head Bonk

Yesterday was a routine day for us, one of the last of the year. Alex had morning soccer practice, so Patrick left by 6:10am to get him to school by 6:30am. Patrick got home in time to take Eric to the bus by 7:08am, then waited at home until Natalie left for the bus stop by about 7:30am. Eric's bus is officially supposed to get there by 7:14am, but she is often early thereby the reason why Patrick leaves the house by 7:08am with Eric. Patrick went to the gym and I was at work. I picked Alex up after work at the Bill Miller Restaurant across from his school. I used to go to the school itself, but traffic getting out of the school parking lot was a big source of stress, and Alex doesn't mind walking across the street, so we switched it. As I have done more often in the last couple of weeks or so, I stopped by Starbucks first to get myself something and to get Alex their Bacon Gouda Sandwich which he loves. He is always hungry, especially after school.

Recently, Alex and Patrick have been making more time for practicing driving, and they've made it a Monday routine. That means that either we meet at home and then I leave to take Eric to Jiu-Jitsu class and they go driving, or Patrick and Eric meet us at the actual Jiu-Jitsu place. Today, Eric was grappling close to the door dividing the seating area and the mat where they have class, so I took the opportunity to take some pictures.

Notice the smile on Eric's face in the photo above. He really loves Jiu-Jitsu, and it shows, even when he isn't "winning". He is learning a lot and he really loves his "Professor Daniel". I watched him grapple for most of the class while he was near the door, but when he was away from the door and hard to see, I looked away. At one point I noticed him with what looked it could be a water bottle or, as it turns out, was actually a bag of ice. He looked like he was playing with it, so I didn't think much of it. The next time I saw him was at the end of class when they line up in a row so they can high-five the instructors. He had a huge knot on his head, but didn't look distressed at all. In fact, he was still smiling.

When he came out of the class, I told him to hold still so I could take a picture of the bump on his forehead so I could show Patrick. I wasn't sure if Patrick was home yet or if he was still out with Alex. Eric was surprised at how huge the bump was when I showed him the picture. He said he did cry a little when he first got it bonking heads with another boy, but that then he was okay. He is still smiling in this picture, as you can see.

I haven't been posting a lot of Christmas decoration pics because we don't have them out yet. Patrick puts up the tree and then the rest of us are supposed to be decorating it. The kids have not been helpful and the tree is still undecorated. For today, I decided to take a Christmas-y photo at work instead.

Sometimes when I'm not busy at work, I take "walks" to bump up my step count for the day. I walk briskly so I can count it as exercise in case I don't have time when I get home. I took this photo from the third floor on one of those walks today. They have these trees decorated in what they call the Medical Mall area on the first floor. They have decorations in different themes and it looks really nice. Hopefully I will be able to take a picture of our decorated tree by this weekend.

Spoiled Children

This was the view of the path I was running on this morning when I went out for a run. It rained last night, so the ground was still damp, so it was nice that I got to run on the pavement. I've been ramping my running up slowly since Thanksgiving week and my knee isn't hurting any more. I'm still surprised that I enjoy running where I didn't before. I can listen to my podcasts, and it can be rather peaceful. The cooler weather has definitely helped my enjoyment.

Patrick left the house at around 6:30am. His Alamo City Cheeseheads group, a local group of Green Bay Packers fans, was having a tailgate party today, and he got there early to help set up, came home briefly, then went back to help cook. Because he wasn't home anyway, and because Alex was still sleeping, I took the other two kids with me for breakfast at Starbucks after my morning run.

This is the picture that Natalie took with my phone, so she could send it to Patrick. In the below screenshot photo, you can see the text exchange. I had gotten Eric a blueberry scone from Starbucks on Friday evening, and he ate it for breakfast on Saturday morning. He almost always gets a vanilla bean frappucino and blueberry scone whenever he goes to Starbucks, but he reasoned that since he had already had a blueberry scone yesterday morning, he could have something else this morning. In the past, he has "shared" the Bacon Gouda Artisan sandwich with Patrick and/or me. I say "shared" in quotation marks because he will eat as much of it as we will let him. This time he decided to get one for himself that he didn't have to share.

I told Patrick that and he responded that we have spoiled children. Natalie grabbed my phone when I showed her that he had called them spoiled. She said that she does know that she is spoiled. I loved that she took the photo of her little brother eating his sandwich.

After breakfast, we went to Target to get tissue boxes. Eric has been going through quite a few of those and I needed to replenish our stock. I also got the last few Christmas gifts. Natalie helped me by distracting Eric while I completed my purchase. I have to go back and get stocking stuffers at World Market. We went there also, but Eric would have seen what I bought there, so I decided to go back this week. I usually finish Christmas gifts by Thanksgiving, but our vacation put me behind.

We grabbed Whataburger for lunch, then I took Alex to a friend's house to do homework. He has been there all afternoon. Patrick and I were texting during the Packers game this afternoon. The kids were not interested enough to go meet him, but we were all wearing our Packers shirts. Eric was even wearing his Cheesehead hat that Grandma gave him. He only took it off when I told him the game was over. Alex wore his Packers shirt too. I told Patrick that his kids supported him and his team in spirit even when they didn't want to watch the game. Yes, they may be spoiled, but we're glad that they seem to realize it and give us some love and support in return. I guess we're spoiled too.

Rock Climbing

On several Saturday mornings this Fall, Patrick and I have a routine. He gets up to have breakfast so he can take his medicine. Sometimes I've made breakfast, but often I don't. We go to the gym with Eric in time for me to go to the 10am Cardio Kickboxing class, and then I do some weightlifting, or often I'll do the weights before the class. Patrick also does weights and cardio, then picks up Eric from the childcare center and takes him to the Rock Climbing wall that opens at 11am. There are a few Saturday mornings when Natalie comes with us, but her back has been too sore (again) lately.

Eric really enjoys rock climbing, and he seems to have a knack for it. In this first picture, Eric has climbed way up high on a difficult part of the wall. He has the safety harness in place, so he is safe, but my son has no fear.

I got the above photo after I finished my workout, but Patrick got this second photo earlier and posted it to Facebook. It's a cool perspective.

It was a cloudy, drizzly day, so we didn't do too much else. By the time we got home, it was almost noon. Patrick and I took our showers, and then the kids weren't in any hurry to get out of the house, so we didn't go out for lunch until almost 2pm.

We went to Chili's and Alex ordered their "Wings Over Buffalo" Wings for an appetizer. He let Eric, Natalie, and I all have one each and he had the other five. I got the idea to try making some similar wings, so I found a recipe that copies the Chili's recipe, except I baked the wings instead of fried them.

This is what it looked like when it was tossed with the Frank's Red Hot Wings Hot Buffalo Sauce. The kids loved them, and so did I. Patrick, who says he's "not really into wings" liked them too. We ate such a late lunch that we all didn't eat much for dinner. Natalie had five of the wings, Eric had two, I had three, Patrick had one, and Alex had five. There were two left that Alex wanted to save for his friend Jeremy who just took Alex to North Star Mall. This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Christmas Party

We had our department Christmas party tonight. In previous years, it's been at various restaurants and it's been at people's homes. This year it was held in the party room of The Broadway, a high-rise building here in San Antonio. My long-time office mate, Tripp, lives in the building with his family. He put the party together, reserved the room, ordered food (heavy hors d'oeuvres), etc. The room was beautiful and it is always nice to see my co-workers all dressed up in "regular" clothes instead of scrubs.

For the first time ever, I also got to see where Tripp lives. Patrick and I got a personal tour of their condo from Tripp and his wife Chaney. They bought 2 two-bedroom condos and put them together. Their furnishings and decor were model-home quality and their views from each room were absolutely fantastic, especially this time of year. The University of the Incarnate Word is right across the street and all of their trees are lit up with colorful Christmas lights. The Christmas tree in this picture was almost completely covered in nutcracker ornaments. I told Patrick, "See--you can never have too many ornaments!" He always tells me that we have too many ornaments. Of course, I had to get a picture in front of their fabulous tree.

Tripp is very crafty. When I was asked to donate a gift basket that can be auctioned off, I had no idea what to do. He gave me ideas about getting some things while I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago. In the end, I didn't even get any souvenirs for myself in Italy, so I brought nothing back to put in a gift basket. Tripp did it all for me. The theme was "Melanie Was in Italy". I gave him money, and he bought everything, including the packaging--biscotti, coffee, mugs with pictures of Italian landmarks. He did a great job!

The one thing I was unhappy about was that none of the residents or Anesthesia techs that I work with were at the party. The Residency Director last year decided to have his own party and invite only the residents. This year was the same. It was always nice to see them in "regular" clothes too, and to meet their spouses, but I guess graduation will be the only time we can do that now. It's a great deal for the residents because they don't have to pay anything for their party. Because of the separation of the residents, the Anesthesia techs were also left off the list. I'm not exactly sure how that came about, but I know several of the Anesthesia techs and they usually came to every party, whether it was a retirement party, promotion party, or holiday party. They are fun to be around, and I'm hoping they'll be included next year.

I'm going to end this post with a little of "real life" for me on this eleventh day of December. Every year, Eric's school has a Story Jam where parents and other adults read stories to groups of them. Patrick has done it in the past, but it didn't work out this year. They kids get to wear pajamas to school, and Eric decided to wear one of his new Minion pajamas. His legs have been growing, because his all of his pants (now that it's cooler and he wears them) are too short, so I've bought him some pants and pajamas lately. Anyway, Patrick was good to me and took a picture of Eric with his pajamas on, just after he got off the school bus.

What I noticed first about this picture is that Eric's face is getting more "grown up". He is not a "little boy" anymore. He will always still be "Mama's baby", though, even when he is (hopefully) bigger than me! That's what I've told his older brothers and sister, too!

Wait, I have one more story. Today, I posted on Facebook that a couple of the young enlisted guys I work with were sitting near me in the lunch room. They both said something about how they were both only one year old when Buffy the Vampire Slayer came out in 1997. I said that made me feel old. Anthony replied in the comments, "Everyone can see you stopped again at 29, Mama. It's (Papa) that's the old one." I replied back to him that he was a sweetie. One of my Facebook friends replied also and said, "You have an awesome son!" :)

Santas are Out

Alex mentioned to Patrick just this afternoon about how he wanted to make a French dish to bring to French class tomorrow for extra credit. He said that he was going to ask me this past weekend, but he didn't. I had plans to go to a friend's house tonight for one of those at-home shopping parties, so I was busy. Patrick stepped up to the plate and looked up a recipe and went to the grocery store to buy the ingredients. Did I mention that I am a lucky girl?

After dinner, Patrick set out the pre-made pie crusts. He planned to use one of the Pillsbury pie crusts (there were two to a package) to make one apple tart, and Alex was going to do the second one. Patrick was using a combination of recipes he found. First he mixed up some cinnamon and sugar, spread that on top of the pie crust, laid out the apples, then spread the cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the apples. He baked the whole thing in the oven, then spread a mixture of apricot preserves over the top. I came home after the party and found this already in a big plastic container, ready for Alex to take to school tomorrow. This is the apple tart that Alex did, which Patrick said was "prettier" than the one he made. Did I mention how amazing Patrick is?

Speaking of amazing, when I came home from work (and Patrick had gone to the store), I saw this. He was busy today putting out more Christmas decorations, specifically, the many little Santas that I have accumulated over the years. I loved collecting these. This one is on the unused shelf high above microwave oven in the kitchen. Just seeing that up there made me happy.

This one was on top of the living room entertainment center, in between the pictures of the kiddos. I didn't take a picture of the other ones, but I do have a few others. There were lots of boxes out, since Patrick had to dig out all of the decorations. He's been doing a lot of work, and I am so grateful.

Tomorrow evening we get to go to my work party. I'm hoping to take a few pictures there to share here tomorrow.

Our Tree is Up

I don't usually post twice in one day, but the subject of this post is so different from the last post, that I felt like I had to separate them. The last post was more of a regular event, Art a la Carte class, that occurs throughout the school year. This post is more related to my December Daily album.

Our Christmas tree is finally up! I'll take a better photo later to show the lights better, when we put the ornaments on, but I wanted to go ahead and take at least one photo of the tree in our living room. Patrick just bought that tree at Costco last week. He had thrown away our old tree last year because the lights weren't working correctly anymore, and Patrick was tired of having to jury-rig them to make them work. This one has LED lights that can switch from white to colored, and even comes with a remote control to turn the lights off and on, keep them either white or keep them colored, have them flashing or not, and/or switch from white to colored in a flashing manner. So far we've chosen the last setting.

Part of why it took so long to get this tree up was that Patrick did some cleaning and rearranging first. There was a bookcase in the right side of the living room, where the lounge chair is in this photo. We decided to put that bookcase up in Natalie's room because she has been asking for a bookcase, and because that leaves more room for the lounge chair that is usually in the left side of the living room, but that we move to the right side every year so we can put the Christmas tree next to the window.

This is a picture of Natalie's room right after Patrick moved the bookcase in there. Notice the stuff piled up on her bed. That stuff was on the floor where the bookcase was placed. Patrick made Natalie clean her room this evening and boy was she in a fantastic mood. At least she now has her requested bookcase to fill with her books that are currently in the bookcase in Eric's room.

Now I'm sure this next weekend's project will be putting up the ornaments.

December Art a la Carte

Today was Eric's monthly art class, called Art a la Carte. This class was originally supposed to be last Friday, but because of class field trips, they switched it to today. They did some switching in October and I found out too late to make any changes. Today was already a scheduled day off for me, so for once, the stars aligned and I was able to be flexible and volunteer for the art class today.

I feel like I say this every month, but I really do learn some thing when I go to Eric's art class. His art teacher does a very good job of explaining things on the kids' level. Today, she talked about the painter Rembrandt van Rijn, otherwise known as "Rembrandt". I don't know if I ever realized that Rembrandt was his first name and not his last name, but I know that now. He painted a lot of self portraits, and that's why he is associated with the art project this month.

This is the bulletin board that Mrs. R did to show what the art project for the month is for the third grade classes. I like taking a picture of this every month so I can see how Eric's actual art work compares to hers.

When I saw Mrs. R put this picture up on the Smart Board, I had to take a picture so I could keep it. I have some drawing talent, but faces have always been really tough for me. Knowing about some of this proportion thing will really help me in the future when I try drawing faces again. This is what I mean about learning something new each time I volunteer for this art class. This time it's even something I can use in the future.

For the class, the kids painted self-portraits using water colors. When I asked if we were handing out mirrors to the kids (because I've seen her do that before), she said that this one was only "loosely" a self-portrait, so no mirrors. Basically, each child used colors that somewhat matched their hair, eyes, and skin, but there was no instruction about making the painting actually look like themselves.

This is Eric with his completed painting. The skin color was a watercolor wash, using water then a cotton ball dipped in one of two colors that were themselves already mixed with water--a watered-down brown and a watered-down orange. If Eric's painting looks like it has a five o'clock shadow, it's because he didn't spread out his face color as much as maybe he should have, and the brown is darker where the color pooled a little.

I thought it was interesting that he made the hair spiky. He also drew his ears really sticking out. When I saw that he had chosen orange for his self-portrait shirt color, I remembered that he said last summer (on schoolwork that he brought home) that orange was one of his favorite colors. Also note the almost non-existent mouth. All the boys drew their mouths very thin just like Eric. Mrs. R gave them ideas that were tailored to the sex of the child, so she said that boys usually don't want to draw more than a line for their mouth, while the girls usually draw fuller, redder mouths.

As I mentioned above, I didn't get to volunteer for Eric's art class in October due to a schedule switch, but I saw this hanging in one of the hallways--Eric's art from his October class. I have no idea what they were learning that day, but I might have learned something that day. Hopefully I'll get to go to all of the other art classes this school year.