Lazy Labor Day

Yesterday we went to Barnes and Noble to turn in Natalie's Summer Reading form so she could receive a free book. She was really gung ho about reading and about filling those forms out this year. We turned one in for Borders earlier this summer. The Barnes and Noble one was almost forgotten.

While we were there, she wanted to stop by Bath and Body Works, which is probably her favorite store. In fact, my daughter is obsessed with Bath and Body Works. She is constantly asking if we can go there. She got a pocket-sized "Vampire Blood" (red-colored and plum-scented) hand sanitizer from my sister this summer, and she got a couple for her birthday from my mom. She hasn't finished those yet, but she wanted another one. We spent too long in the store, waiting for her to decide what to get. She also wanted some bath gel, but the current offer is to "buy 3 and get 3 free". Well, we don't need that many, so I convinced her to wait until the next sale. She did settle on another hand sanitizer and a hand sanitizer holder so she could attach it to her backpack.

On a side note, I loved watching her walk through the outdoor mall. She walked with a purpose ahead of me, with her purse on her shoulder and her skirt sashaying around her. She really wanted that hand sanitizer. :)

We've been taking it easy this weekend. Today, we all stayed at home all day except for dinner out. When given the choice of going to the pool or the waterpark, the kids just wanted to stay home. This afternoon and tonight we saw a couple of Netflix movies that we've had for a few weeks, "Back to the Future" and "Percy Jackson". We also watched one of our DVR tapes. Eric had gotten up too early and he lounged on his Papa during the DVR tape of "Unnatural History". He had his beloved stuffed dog behind his neck. He's been very attached to that dog lately.

Tomorrow we're planning on spending time at the pool, Anthony has a birthday gathering to attend, and then he has soccer practice--not quite a lazy day, but it's been nice to spend some family time together this weekend.

Shake Your Booty Song

I got home from picking up the boys from school and Natalie was playing with her friend M in her room. Of course Eric was there too because he just LOVES M and always hangs around with Natalie when M is over at our house. He was playing with one of his "electric guitars" that plays music. He was so cute that I had to start taking pictures. I even took some video, but I haven't edited that yet. Anyway, he was playing a song and he tells me "this is a shaking your booty song". He then proceeded to turn around and shake his booty in my direction while "playing" his guitar. He was really getting into playing that guitar, too. I have no idea where he got that phrase or those moves from, but I laughed so hard while I was taking the video!

As I was taking pictures, Eric would stop what he was doing so he could see the pictures in my camera. A little bit later, Natalie and her friend went downstairs to watch TV, but Eric was having so much fun with his guitar that he wanted to play upstairs. I started showing him the video I took of him and he wanted me to play it over and over again. I took the video with my phone, so I was also trying to figure out how to edit it like I can edit videos in my regular camera. I also had three other short videos of him and he played those over and over too.

There is a feature on my iPhone 4 where the camera can be turned to face the person operating the camera. I did that and Eric giggled with excitement! He loved being able to see his face and making faces on the screen. I even took a short video of him doing that and that quickly became his favorite video. Unfortunately, I let Eric do the pressing and he inadvertently erased the video. I loved seeing him having so much fun playing on the phone.

This is just a somewhat random jumping shot. This is a typical look at my active three-year-old boy. He was watching videos and suddenly he started jumping up and down like a frog. Notice that he still jumps with one foot before the other one. Eric can be pretty good about keeping still, but eventually he always turns into active boy. He's a typical boy, after all.

Spicy Lunch

Natalie loves it when I bring her lunch at school. She's been asking all week if I would do just that because I've been off three days this week. I wanted to exercise this morning and I didn't think I would have time to do that plus go home to take a shower before her lunch, so I told her i wasn't going to bring her lunch. Well, it ended up that I took an earlier, shorter fitness class except we ended up stopping at Costco first. I really wanted to make my little princess happy, so I decided that she wasn't going to care how I looked, and we picked up her favorite of the moment, the Spicy Crispy Chicken Nuggets and a Frosty from Wendy's, and Patrick dropped Eric and I off at the school before heading home to put away the groceries. Natalie was so happy to see us!

In the past I've thought that she actually wanted the food itself and not the fact that I brought it to her. I don't think that any more. She looked so happy and excited and she thanked me for bringing her lunch at least three or four times. Love you Princess!

Eric found a pack of five Thomas the Tank Engine books at Costco. We already had two of them, but that didn't matter to him. Here he is "reading them" to himself. I thought it was cute that he perched himself on the steps with the books all spread out around him. His concentration reminds me of his older siblings when they read. Patrick and I usually don't limit them when it comes to getting new books. We're lucky that they all love to read!

This little man also had the Spicy Crispy Chicken Nuggets for lunch. My kids love spicy food! Ironically, he usually likes Flaming Hot Cheetos also, but this afternoon he kept complaining that the Cheetos were "hot" when he was eating them. Of course we told him to stop eating them and he finally did. I'll post some really cute photos of him tomorrow that involve dancing and videos.

Babysitting Fail

Patrick and Anthony like this one website called Fail Blog. They have pictures with funny captions and they often have "FAIL" written on the photos also. This picture would probably have the caption of "Babysitting Fail".

Last night, I was on call and Anthony was left with the younger ones while Patrick went to Alex's middle school orientation/Parent's Night with him. We realized that Anthony should be left with more specific instructions when he babysits. To his credit, he was doing his homework, but the kids weren't in bed yet at 8:30pm when they should have been in bed by 8pm. Natalie still had to take a shower. Apparently Anthony had told her to take a shower, but she blew him off. Once Natalie and Eric were in bed, and while I was on the phone with Patrick, they discovered the poster board in the picture above.

All I heard on the phone was "Oh no! Oh no!" I was a bit alarmed but Patrick finally explained, "Think someone's big project due tomorrow." Ugh! Alex had this project due today (Wednesday) and he had been working on it all weekend. He left it out on the formal dining room table and apparently Eric decided that there was too much white space and he colored it with some black marker. Luckily, the project consists of printed sheets of paper that are glued on a poster board and luckily all of those sheets were saved on the computer. Patrick helped him print everything and put it together and all was right again.

(By the way, in case anyone is wondering what the project is about, they had to make up their own numbering system and present it on a poster.)

Eight Games

As I mentioned before, the boys each had four games this weekend, for a total of eight games. Anthony's games were as follows: Friday @ 7:45pm (0-0), Saturday @ noon (3-3), and Sunday @ 7:30am (3-3) and 4:40pm (6-0). His team got second place. If they had scored one more goal in the final game, they would have won. Alex's games were as follows: Saturday @ 8:45am (1-3) and 1:45pm (0-4), and Sunday @ 1:45pm (0-1 they lost to the eventual winner) and 4:15pm (1-2).

Because of my family visiting (and because of the early games I didn't get up for), I only got to see the first half of Alex's last game and part of the first half and all of the second half of Anthony's last game. Eric would not have made it the whole day so it's just as well that we only went to those games.

I got this great shot of Anthony heading the ball during the last game. He got a lot of play time, even when he didn't start the game. Both teams have new players who should help them do well this year and we're hopeful that will be the case.

I fully expected Natalie to complain a lot more about being at the soccer fields, because it was really hot and there were lots of bees. I kept them busy and cool by getting them sno-cones. I hadn't had a sno-cone in quite a while and I'd forgotten how good they taste. It got a bit windy and that kept the bees away, otherwise, they were everywhere, especially near the trash cans.

As you can see from this picture, we were sitting on some "bleachers" made out stone. The tournament was held at the new STAR soccer facility here in town and the fields are nicer than any we've played on before. They had paved parking and lots of it. Patrick had to park quite far away but by the time I got there with the little ones, some tournament brackets had already finished and those people left empty parking spots. They actually had fields that were clearly marked and they actually had nicer bathrooms instead of the usual port-a-potties or small bathrooms. They even had a permanent building for concessions and for posting the results.

They also must have had some nearby train tracks, because at a certain point, we heard a train whistle. Eric's interest was piqued and he looked and looked to see if he could spot the train. He smiled as he said "diesel" and I was lucky enough to catch the moment with my camera. Notice the red coloring around his lips. Both of the little kiddos had the strawberry flavor that left its mark.

Now we have a couple of soccer-free weekends before we start having regular weekend games. After the eight games this weekend, we certainly need the break.

Our Boring Day

Today was a pretty "boring" day overall, but I thought I would still post a few pictures. This is a photo of "the girls" or as Eric seems to call them, "the grels", playing with Play-Doh. It's interesting what a great toy Play-Doh is. Kids of all ages love it, even the older ones. This is a set where they make "ice cream". They were enjoying the different patterns that resulted from mixing colors.

Alex was gone most of yesterday playing soccer, so cousin Nick was entertaining himself most of yesterday as a result. Last night and today they made up for lost time by playing lots of "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" on the PS3. I made a comment to my sister Cynthia, Nick's mom, that I never take a lot of photos of the boys because they are always just sitting there in the dark, mesmerized by their video games. What a boring photo!

Eric has been getting even less sleep than usual with the cousins here. He seems to be stumbling about and hurting himself because he's so tired. Here he is putting an ice pack on his foot and telling me, "Don't take a picture of me!" Of course I had to take a few photos anyway because he looked so cute with the ice pack wrapped around his foot. We have to keep the ice handy so he can get it himself from the freezer, otherwise we would have to get up quite often to get it for him. At least he is still at the age where a little ice and a kiss will work miracles.

My sisters left around noon and Patrick headed to soccer again for Alex's game. Anthony already had a game at 7:30am. By the time his team "woke up", they were down 3-0. They managed to come back with a tie, at least. The rest of us went to the last two soccer games. Alex and Anthony's last games overlapped today. That's a total of 8 soccer games this weekend. I was with my family for most of those, but Patrick was there for every single one.

I'll post tomorrow about soccer with some other photos.

Birthday Celebration #3

With her cousins in town, today was another celebration for Natalie's birthday. It wasn't all about her this time, however, since her older brothers had three soccer games between them today. We did start the morning with the usual Saturday breakfast of banana chocolate chip pancakes and turkey bacon. After breakfast, Natalie and her cousins decided that they wanted to play with Anthony. They were pretending that he was a vampire or monster or something and they were cutting him up with their play swords and knives. Eric jumped in on the action. They're all actually tickling him behind the knees in this picture--he's very ticklish behind his knees.

As you can see from the smile on Anthony's face, he was being such a good sport about this. He is SO good with kids. There aren't many "almost" 15-year-old boys who play with their 8-year-old sister and cousins and have fun with it. He usually only puts one earbud in his ear when he's listening to his iPod, and he did get upset once when they accidentally dislodged his earbud. As long as he was able to listen to the music, he let them do what they wanted. They mostly sat on his back while he was laying on the floor, so he could just lay there ignoring them.

Patrick was off with Alex for his 8:45AM game this morning. The rest of the adults wanted to go to the gym. This is probably the first time that my sister Melissa was the one prodding everyone to go to the gym. Natalie wasn't all that crazy about having to go to the Child Care Center at the gym, but at least she had her cousins to play with. My sisters and I took the cardiokickboxing fitness class while my brother-in-law lifted weights. After the gym we took the kids to Chick-Fil-A for lunch then home.

Melissa wanted to take Natalie shopping at the local family-owned toy store that we like to go to, called Toy Zone. Cynthis stayed home with Eric and her son Nick. Melissa and I took the three girls. Natalie didn't find anything there that she really liked, but her cousins ended up buying Silly Bandz there. We went next door to the Hallmark shop where Natalie picked out some stationery that had "N" on them and a Halloween toy that records your voice and repeats what you said back to you in a "scary voice". She also picked out some gum and some cute shaped erasers.

After the shopping, Melissa got a manicure and spa pedicure, I got a spa pedicure, and the girls had their fingernails and toenails painted. They were super busy at the nail salon, so while Melissa and Emily were finishing up, the rest of us got smoothies for the girls to snack on to tide them over until dinner.

My brother-in-law left for home as we were leaving for church. He had to get back so he could play in his soccer game on Sunday morning. After church we had dinner at Chili's. It was so cold in there that we had to ask them to turn down the A/C. After the kids were finished with their meals, I took them outside to play while everyone else finished up. I took a bunch of photos of the kids jumping off the rocks and just running around the building. Eric even asked me to take a picture several times. I would take the picture and show it to him. He would giggle and go about his business.

So, this wasn't really a traditional birthday celebration, but Natalie had a lot of fun today, and that's all that matters.

Cranky Boy

I picked the boys up from school today, and when I got home, Eric didn't come out to the garage and greet us like he usually does. He was sitting in the dining room eating Easy Mac and he asked for Goldfish crackers. Patrick told him "no" because he already had a lot of snacks today. Of course he made a sad face and tears filled his eyes. I needed a couple more shots for my photography class, so I started snapping away with the camera. He did his usual thing and tried to hide his face, sometimes peeking to see if I was still there or not. If he saw me, he continued to hide his face. If he didn't see me, he would put his face on his folded arms instead until he saw me trying a different angle, then he would bury his face again. That's sort of how my whole night went.

After he finally finished eating, he wanted to watch the "show with songs" with me. By that he meant the show "Glee" which he watched with me earlier this week. When his sister walked in after playing at our neighbor's house, he made a big deal about wanting her to leave the room. Because he was so loud, I paused the show. Then he got mad because the show wasn't playing. It was like an endless cycle! Eventually when the show was over, he asked to watch another episode. That was my only episode, but he wouldn't accept that there were no more episodes. Ugh! He was really frustrating me.

He was still grumpy when my sisters arrived with their families. He didn't nap today but he probably should have. I think he fell asleep fairly quickly despite his sister and girl cousins making lots of noise in his bedroom. Hopefully he'll be in a better mood tomorrow.

Joint Bathtime

Natalie and Eric still take baths together. A couple of months ago, Natalie went through a phase where she preferred to take showers on her own or with me instead of baths with her baby brother. That phase was short-lived. They just have so much more fun when they're in the tub together. Tonight they wanted a bubble bath. They spent the time putting bubbles in Eric's sand wheel toy and watching the wheel turn. Sometimes I hear screaming and crying, but tonight it was mostly giggles and laughter. It won't be long before Natalie will want to take her own showers. For now, it's nice to see the two of them having fun and enjoying their baths together.

First Day Recap

With all of the older kids off to school, Patrick and I took Eric to ride the train at Brackenridge Park. I've never actually ridden the train until now, and it was fun watching Eric and his facial expressions during the ride. At first he looked very serious, mostly looking down at the rails as the train rode along. We encouraged him to wave to people we saw along the way. I loved seeing his little smile so we encouraged him to wave at me so I could take a picture.

We made a short stop at the Japanese Tea Garden and then went home. Patrick left to pick up the big boys around 2:45pm. After we had some brownies that I made for the kids, Eric and I headed outside to wait for Natalie. I treated him to a juice box to keep him cool in the 100 plus degree heat while we waited for the bus to arrive.

The kids varied in the amount of information they shared with us about their first day at school. Natalie talked about how her teacher kept her classroom at a very cold temperature and how Natalie was glad that she brought a jacket to school with her. She seemed excited about learning her multiplication tables and even though she didn't have any homework per se, she still sat down for about 15 minutes to work on her multiplication. Alex talked about how they spent all day with their advisor, which is what they seem to be calling their homeroom teacher nowadays. Mr. L apparently teaches Geography and they played a fun game in class. Alex also talked about how he didn't have to tuck in his shirt or wear a belt--"no one else" did. Anthony was the least talkative, as usual. When I asked him what he did for his first day, he answered, "Nothing at all." Later he at least elaborated that they spent all morning in their Advisory Period taking care of paperwork and such. He didn't even get to go to Soccer.

Today Eric had HIS first day of "school". He started Tuesday/Thursday "preschool" at the same daycare that his siblings used to go to. He started off a little grumpy this morning when we wouldn't let him play "Plants vs. Zombies" on the iPad. He didn't want to let go of me when Patrick and I dropped him off and he cried when I put him down. Oh the mommy guilt! I knew he would be fine eventually, but I was only reassured when Patrick picked Eric up this afternoon and he told me that Eric's afternoon teacher said he had a great day. I was supposed to work late tonight but I was able to come home by around dinner time. I was glad that I was able to chat with the little man about his first day. I get a kick out of how he says, "Umm" a lot when I ask him questions, but he really does try to answer them, a stark contrast to his oldest brother.

First Day of School 2010

Patrick got Natalie up at 6AM today. She usually takes a long time to dress, eat, and get her stuff together, but today she was downstairs in about 10 or 15 minutes. I was hoping to buy a new "first day of school" outfit for my only girl, but we didn't find any cute outfits that she liked when we went shopping. Natalie really likes this outfit, and she wanted to wear it today, so I thought this was as good an outfit as any we could have picked out, even if it isn't "new".

Her bus doesn't technically arrive until 7:04AM, which is actually earlier than it has been the last couple of years so she sat on the sofa reading for a bit before I took her out to the bus stop. We got to meet out new neighbors from across the street and we were glad that their old bus driver, Mr. H, was still the bus driver. The bus had a different number, so when we got the card in the mail letting us know what bus Natalie would be riding, we were afraid that Mr. H had retired. He has been the best bus driver ever.

The whole district moved to earlier start times this year. I'm not sure why they did this, but I suspect it has something to do with doing away with the block scheduling in the high schools--seven shorter classes daily instead of four longer classes with the same class every other day ("A" days and "B" days). The move was a cost-cutting measure because then they didn't have to have as many teachers. As a result, Anthony's school days are longer. The one thing he likes about it is that he has a longer lunch and that lunch is at the same time every day. In any case, the earlier start times might be due to the different schools using the same buses and bus system.

Patrick got Alex up at around 6:45AM and Anthony some time after. Generally Anthony can get ready quicker than Alex. Today is the first day of school and everyone is a little excited, so everyone got ready sooner than usual.

At first Anthony was going to wear one of his older soccer practice shirts on his first day of school. His reasoning was that he was going to wear the same shirt tonight for his soccer practice. His reasoning reminded me of Patrick's reasoning--very practical. All Patrick had to do to make Anthony change his shirt was to tell him to wear something that the girls would like instead. :)

Alex didn't get a choice in what to wear. He had to wear a uniform, which he was unhappy about, or in other words, "standardized dress", as the school manual states. Patrick and I thought he looked good, as he always does when he "dresses up" even a little. He couldn't understand why he had to wear a uniform, especially when the high school kids don't have to wear uniforms. Apparently they imposed the uniform standard in middle school to get them ready for uniforms in high school but then they did away with uniforms in high school and kept them in middle school. However, not all middle schools in our area wear uniforms.

We usually take the kids out to eat after their first day of school, but that won't be practical tonight or most days this week since one of the boys has soccer practice nightly from Monday through Thursday. Instead we picked up P.F. Chang's last night and we watched "The Spy Next Door" from Netflix. The kids had a relaxing evening in preparation for this exciting day.

No Parents Allowed

Natalie had a piano recital yesterday. Her teacher billed it as a "kids only" event. Apparently, in the effort to make it a "fun" recital and "low pressure", the kids voted to have "kids only" and no parents at the recital. Accordingly, Patrick and I planned to drop her off and stay home. Then, on Friday night, Natalie tells me, "What's the point of having a recital if the parents aren't going to be there?" In other words, she wanted me to go. So, I went. I was the ONLY parent there, except for her piano teacher and her husband. The parents did chip in to pay for pizza for the kids and many brought cookies and other desserts, but otherwise they all dropped off and picked up. No one else stayed.

Natalie played duets with two of the girls, both were younger than her and they looked and acted like it. On one duet, her partner needed the teacher to count out for her when to start playing. On the other duet, Natalie and her partner did not seem to be on the same tempo. If one messed up, the other still went along as if nothing happened, which meant that their timing was off. Still, all the kids seemed to enjoy themselves, and I guess that was the point of it.

Natalie's teacher did give out a couple of awards. Her students had to compose a short song and she gave awards to the two who she felt had the best compositions. When Natalie figured out that her teacher was talking about Natalie's piece called "Excited Boy", she made the face in the picture above where she was trying to hide her face in her shirt. She was all smiles under that shirt! She has made embarrassed faces before, but she's never tried to hide her face until now. She was pretty excited that her piece won! After everyone ate, I asked Natalie if she was still glad that I came even though I was the only parent. She nodded enthusiastically and said, "Yes." I guess in the end I was glad I was there to share this with her.

On another note, I finally ordered more of our everyday dishes and they arrived on Saturday morning. This is a picture of Natalie helping me remove the labels that were on each individual piece (although I bought a complete set). We actually only needed more bowls and small plates. It cost just a little bit more to get a whole set (of 8 place settings) than to buy the pieces individually, so I bought the whole set. I started out with 8 coffee cups from this shipment. Alex accidentally broke three of them between yesterday and today. For some reason, there are only 7 coffee cups left in the cupboard. Patrick and I are wondering what happened to the other coffee cups we had. These are the perfect size for a small helping of ice cream, so I thought we had about 4 or 5 already. We're still looking for the others...

Discount Tax-Free Shopping

I had a 30% off Gymboree coupon burning a hole in my pocket and it was only good for this weekend. I can't seem to pick out clothes that Natalie likes anymore, so I had to take her with me to pick out clothes. Unfortunately, I was exhausted yesterday (from a stressful week) so I had to take a nap first. We didn't get going until about 4:30PM and this weekend is the Texas Tax-Free Weekend for back-to-school shopping. Luckily, there weren't a lot of people at the mall yet.

To my constant disappointment, Natalie doesn't like the girls' clothes at Gymboree anymore, but she did like a couple of the Halloween costumes. Her first choice was the chef costume with the white jacket and puffy white hat, but they only had three of them, none in her size. Her second choice--a firefighter costume. Yes, my little girl wanted a shapeless, mostly black outfit made mostly for boys. *SIGH* She refused to even look at the dainty girl costumes. Her doctor costume from last year will still fit easily, but she was so excited about this one and the 30% off coupon and tax-free weekend made the cost reasonable. She can always use it for dress-up and her brother will still get some use out of it. This one is still a little big for her.

Because his sister was so excited about the Halloween costumes, Eric picked out one for himself. His natural pick was this "Bob the Builder"-type construction worker outfit. It's perfect for him because there is a minimal amount of trespass. That is, he can wear it like any other piece of clothing with no extra material to worry about. He also still has his train engineer costume from last year. I love these Gymboree costumes because they really are built to stand up to constant dress-up use year round.

He might have picked the dinosaur costume, but it was furry and way too warm to wear for our usual Halloween weather. It's always a possibility that it will be cool for Halloween, but warm-weather costumes are more versatile--the kids can always wear something underneath them. The cold-weather costumes would be impossible to deal with in warm weather, especially for my children who sweat very easily.

For some reason, Alex decided he was going to put Eric's construction worker hat on and he was even willing to let me take a picture. I always joke about how Alex has such a big head. That small hat really emphasizes his big head!

So, on our shopping trip yesterday, I was also able to get another couple pairs of khaki uniform shorts for Alex. I want the option of only having to wash his uniforms once a week, so we now have 6 yellow polo shirts and 5 khaki shorts. I also bought one more pair of khaki pants to add to the one pair Alex already has. He is not likely to wear pants very much, even in winter, so I think we'll be good with that for most of the year. All of that was also tax-free AND I had a 20% off coupon. This shopping was the reason why we were running late for the Meet the Teachers Night. I did not want to HAVE to go back to any shopping area this weekend. Tax-Free Weekend is usually absolute chaos. It wasn't bad shopping on Friday night, but I could see that lots of people were coming into the mall parking lot as we were leaving at 6:30pm. I'm pretty happy with the deals I got while we were there.

Meet Mrs. W!

Last night was Meet the Teachers night at Natalie's school. It still seems weird to say "Natalie's school" because this is the first time she has gone to a school without her brothers. Anyway, we met Mrs. W, who will be her third grade teacher this year. Patrick and I didn't know that much about her, but she was a second grade teacher last year and she has been at the school for many years. We heard absolutely glowing reviews about her teaching both from those whose kids had her as a teacher last year, and those whose kids had her a few years ago. One former neighbor said that Mrs. W was the best teacher her son has ever had. Natalie knew her from last year and she was very excited to see her again!

Patrick and I were a bit more lax about going to this event this year. We skipped the principal's talk that starts everything out (plus I was running late after returning from back-to-school shopping with Natalie and Eric). There's a new principal this year because the previous one retired. We figured that we already knew the school's general policies and if anything has changed, we'd find out about it later. It was much nicer (and shorter) to just go, meet Mrs. W, and then go home.

We bought the prepackaged school supplies that the PTA sold as a fundraiser and Patrick helped Natalie unpack it and put it all in her desk. She's all set to go for Monday!

No Pictures!

I really wanted to practice with my borrowed camera today. I took this picture and realized that it's too dark because of the bright light behind Eric. He wanted me to take a picture of him with Maya the Dog. Unfortunately, he wouldn't let me take any more pictures of him with Maya the Dog. Instead, he kept running away from me whenever I pointed the camera anywhere near him, saying "No pictures!" I got around it by taking pictures of Natalie instead and occasionally, when he wasn't looking, I took some pictures of him.

Of course, what got him to let me take a picture of him again? I mentioned taking a picture of his bottom again, just like yesterday. Natalie got as excited about it as he did. They both let me take pictures of their bottoms! (See below.)



I hid behind the bed for this shot. After this, he and Natalie started fighting over who would get the gun. Either he was crying or she was pouting. Still, they love to play together. Obviously they like similar things.

Eric loves stuff animals much more than his siblings ever used to. Here he is with Shamu (that used to be Alex's) and a penguin. He really looks like he's concentrating, doesn't he? He's watching Anthony play Assassin's Creed 2 for the PS3, and so was his sister. I started by taking shots of Natalie and Anthony and after that, Eric was so busy watching that I could take all the pictures I wanted.

Alex went to his middle school orientation today. They signed up for lockers and they showed them around the school. Apparently, they'll be helping all of the sixth graders find where their classes are next week. It's nice that, even though they're "big" middle schoolers now, that the school will still "hold their hands" for a little while longer. Alex seemed to enjoy his morning there, although he wasn't all that talkative about it today.

I'll post about Natalie's Meet the Teacher night (which was tonight) tomorrow.

Middle School New Parent Orientation

Patrick and I went to Alex's middle school tonight for "New Parent Orientation". We bought Alex's PE uniform and "spirit shirt" and signed up for the PTA. The director of his magnet school also spoke to us for a bit, informing us what to expect and letting us know about the various school policies. He was very energetic about his school, and as a result, we got the same feeling of excitement that we got last year when Anthony's school's director spoke to us. Alex seems really excited about this school and it really seems like an amazing school, so we'll see how it goes.

Alex didn't go with us tonight because he was at soccer practice. One of our neighbors did us the favor of taking him back and forth to practice. Her son happens to have practice at the same time and place. Yay!

Anthony had Eric all ready for bed when we got home (Natalie got herself ready). This isn't the best photo, but I wanted to see how this camera would perform in really low light shooting. One of my colleagues let me borrow her Canon 7D DSLR for a few days and I haven't been home enough during the daylight hours to test it out. It's supposed to be better than my camera in low light, so I wanted to test that too. Eric was already in bed and his bottom bunk was basically in the dark. He happened to get in this pose without my prompting him, so I wanted to take advantage of it. The color was totally off and I tried to adjust it the best I could, but no matter what the color or lighting is, I really love this pose. He looks really sweet and innocent and totally NOT mischievous, doesn't he? ;)

Long Summer Days

Another long 12 hour day at work today--I really hate this schedule! I got home around 7pm. On the plus side, it's meant more days off, which has been great for doing fun stuff with the kids this summer, but the days I do work can be so long and tiring. Supposedly we'll go back to 9 hour days after Labor Day. I'm really looking forward to the shorter days, but I'll miss the more relaxed summer days.

When I got home tonight, I saw Eric sleeping on the sofa. He fell asleep on the way back from taking Anthony to his soccer practice and he stayed asleep when Patrick put him on the sofa. I'm not sure who piled up those stuffed animals next to him, probably Natalie. He's really been into stuffed animals lately, especially Maya the Dog (the blue one). He stayed asleep and Patrick put him in bed when Natalie went to bed. *SIGH* For him, by the time I get home from work tomorrow, it'll be like I was gone for two days. I hate that! :(

Alex was playing "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" online. That's actually Anthony's game but Alex has been playing it quite a bit this summer. He's been saying that he wished summer was longer. This might be because we didn't set strict limits on video game time during the summer. During the school year, the boys are lucky if they got to play at all on a school day. Yes, the boys will definitely miss the long days of Summer.

I'm so tired that the post above probably won't make sense. Oh well!

Camera Shy

This is a child who does not want his picture taken. At first he would peek out from one side of the chair or the other and then hide behind the chair when he saw me. Next, he would turn the chair around and around to see if I was still there. He buried his face when he realized that I could just walk up to the chair and look over it. I told him I was going to take a picture of his bottom. After a few minutes, after he knew that I had been taking photos of him anyway despite his hiding his head, he got off the chair and came up to me, asking if he could see his bottom on the LCD screen. I showed him this photo, he smiled and giggled a little, then he started asking if he could play "Plants vs. Zombies" on the iPad. This tells me a few things. First, he is a boy (because he was tickled that I took a picture of his bottom. Of course that could be due to his age also. Next, he's a toddler with a short attention span and he's totally addicted to "Plants vs. Zombies"--although he did play "Angry Birds" first. :)

The other kids have already been subjects for me for my photography class assignments. It was Anthony's turn. We're learning about light and how shooting from different directions with different types of light gives you different results. I liked this one the best. One of the other ones might have had slightly better exposure, but I like this expression on Anthony's face the best--plus the fact that he has that one earbud in his ear while the other one is hanging down his shoulder. Supposedly that's so he can listen to his music AND be able to hear sounds around him, like his Mama telling him where to turn. I love this smile because it's genuine. He's still my precious little boy.

Speaking of little boy, the older three had their doctor's appointments today to get their yearly checkups for school. Both boys also got booster shots. Their vital statistics are as follows:

Anthony--138 1//4 pounds, 5 feet 10 1/4 inches
Alex--99 pounds, 5 feet 1 inch
Natalie--54 pounds, 48 1/4 inches

They're not so little anymore.

Birthday Celebration #2

We got to celebrate Natalie's birthday again today. Instead of the usual "birthday party", we invited a couple of her friends to spend the day with us. One of the friends she wanted to invite started school today, but the other two each received this cool little package, if I might say so myself. Natalie has been enjoying playing school with her friends, so this package has a "Teacher's Planner Book" and "Teacher's Grade Book", a Dry-Erase Board, Dry-Erase Markers, and assorted pencils.

One of her friends, M, is the one that she has been friends with since M was 6 weeks old when they were in the same "class" at daycare. She has a brother A who is Alex's age that Alex has been friends with for the same amount of time, when they were three years old. Their mom dropped them off on her way to work, which was around 7:30AM. When Natalie's good friend A arrived around 10AM, they all proceeded to play with the school goodies, including Eric. He got his very own dry-erase board and markers, which he LOVED.

We waited until some time after 11AM to leave the house since the Fiesta Texas waterpark doesn't open until noon. Even then we had to wait 15 minutes in the heat until they let us all in. Natalie had requested to go swimming, but our neighborhood pool isn't open on Mondays. I wanted to do this today since I'm off work today. The girls had a blast. Natalie usually has fun at the pool or at the waterpark, but she had even more fun because she had some pals her age to play with. As far as I could tell, they all got along very well. Each girl kept asking to do one more thing because they didn't want to leave. They spent a lot of time in the Lazy River and one of the tube rides as well as the wave pool. They also enjoyed the kiddie area where Eric spent his entire time. There were some slides in the kiddie area and we finished out our stay there. The boys had asked to leave about an hour before the girls were ready.

We had a coupon for free ice cream from Coldstone Creamery for Natalie's birthday so we used this as an excuse to go there after the waterpark. Eric had "white ice cream" today. At first we thought he meant the vanilla ice cream, but of course he wanted something fruity--the lemon sorbet. He followed Natalie's lead and got gummi bears mixed in with his ice cream--yuck! Natalie got her usual chocolate ice cream (with gummi bears). The girls all wanted the "medium" size but I convinced them that was too much ice cream. Usually only Anthony gets the medium or "love it" size. This time he got the cheesecake flavor. That boy has been stuck on cheesecake lately. Patrick, Alex, and I got shakes.

We had to get home to drop A off because she starts school tomorrow. The rest of them start school next Monday. It's been tough getting back on the school sleeping schedule this week. We're so used to the more relaxed pace of summer, even if it means later bedtimes for all of us. Tonight, Alex and Natalie played with their friends until about 7PM. I couldn't say "no" with less play time in the near future.

I have to end with this photo. There was some great light coming through the window at Coldstone Creamery, so I took the opportunity to take some photos for my photography class. If I had been able to get Eric to turn a little more to his right, the light would have been perfect. If I had been able to stop him from doing his "cheesy smile" the pose would have been perfect too. Notice his rosy cheeks. Yes, we spent a little more time outside today than we had planned, but at least we all had fun.

Eating Out

We eat out entirely too much, but it's so yummy and so much more convenient than cooking at home. I would have made my usual banana chocolate chip pancakes and turkey bacon, but we didn't have the bananas or the bacon. Instead, we got Anthony up early so we could go to IHOP for breakfast. The waitress told us that she thought it was great that all of us ordered pancakes because most of the time people order other stuff. Eric ate a little of my blueberry pancakes but he ate mostly the blueberry topping. Alex had the strawberry banana pancakes, Anthony had the New York Cheesecake Pancakes (can you imagine how many calories that must be?!!), and Patrick and Natalie both had chocolate chip pancakes.

We had such a late and big breakfast that we didn't really have a real lunch. In the picture above, you can see some yellow residue around Eric's mouth. He wanted to have a "snack" around 12:30PM and he asked for yogurt. Since he really didn't eat a huge breakfast, I told him he had to eat something else first, so he ate some Easy Mac. Natalie ate the little bit that was left and then ate yogurt too.

We went out to Chili's for dinner after church as per our usual routine. We were all pretty hungry except for Anthony who had "lunch" around 2:30PM before he played a game at Laser Quest with his friends. Despite that, he still managed to eat most of his big Jalapeno Bacon Smokehouse Burger. Patrick had his usual Ground Peppercorn Burger with Blue Cheese Dressing and Alex and Eric both had the pasta with alfredo sauce. Natalie ate almost all of my salmon (we shared this time) and broccoli. I should have given her the rest of it, but it was delicious and I didn't want to give it up. Yes, eating out constantly will eventually make us all fat, but man, it's good stuff!