Weekend Recap

We started out with a busy weekend planned, but we got lots of rain on Friday night and all day on Saturday. Anthony's cross-country meet (at 8am) was cancelled, and so were Eric's and Alex's soccer games (at 9am and 1pm, respectively). We didn't have to take Natalie early to her friend's birthday party/sleepover. Patrick and I were able to have plenty of time to get to the wedding we were invited to.

Because of the more open schedule, I was able to take Anthony shopping for a new dress shirt on Saturday. He wanted a black dress shirt that was more fitted, and then a creme-colored tie or something like that to match his date's dress. This was all in preparation for Homecoming which is next Saturday. We spent a good hour and a half trying on various shirts. The selection was a little more limited with black shirts that with white. It didn't help that his neck is only 14 1/2 inches around. Several of the shirts had arms that were too baggy for his liking. Finally, we found two that he was happy with. One was $69.50 and the other was on sale for $45. I asked him if he liked the $69.50 one enough to warrant the price difference. Luckily, he said no and we got the $45 one. I asked him remember this reasoning when it comes to choosing colleges. ;)

After shopping with Anthony, we picked up Alex from a birthday party/sleepover that was located near the mall. I have to say that it was weird dropping him off at a girl's house for a birthday party/sleepover, but he went last year and we saw no reason he couldn't go this year. After all, there were 20+ other kids there. He had a lot of fun and he even got about four hours of sleep. We are glad when he gets out there and socializes instead of playing video games at home all of the time.

Since Patrick and I were at the wedding, we couldn't take Anthony to a party he was invited to on Saturday evening. Instead, he was picked up by one of his friends, the girl who he is taking to Homecoming. The party on Saturday was a big shindig for another friend's 18th birthday party. Patrick picked him up after we got home from the wedding.

On Sunday, Alex's soccer game at 4:15pm was also cancelled, but Eric's soccer game at 1pm was still on. Figuring out when we were going to church wasn't straightforward. We ended up going to the 11am mass and Patrick and Eric had to leave after Communion.

I picked up Natalie from her sleepover just before going to church. She claimed to have gotten about 9 hours of sleep, but she ended up taking a nap after lunch to rest up for her swim tryout at 4pm. I may have mentioned this briefly already, but she's been swimming at our gym for a while (2 1/2 years, maybe?). She's had really good coaches there and she's gotten a lot of attention (meaning small groups) but she has always been lacking good competition. In August, she went to her first really big swim meet, and she did really well. The best part of it was she got "official times".

There's been some recent coach turnover at our gym, and the experienced coach (Coach Kris) is now at a local swim club. Our gym now has a very inexperienced coach and they haven't been able to tell us when they'll get another one. Partly because of Coach Kris, and because of those "official times" in August, Natalie was able to get one of the spots on their team. It'll be a little cheaper, although the location is farther. They have practices on Mondays through Fridays for 1 1/2 hours instead of the one hour she's been practicing. The best part is that two of her friends from our gym swim team are also going to be there, and so will be her previous coach. She's pretty excited all around. She went to the "tryout" today, but that was more of a formality. We'll be going to a lot more swim meets in the future. She starts tomorrow.

For those of you needing an "Eric fix", here's a picture I took tonight. I had asked him to show me his muscles, which he did with his right arm, but he made this weird shape with his left hand. When I asked him about it, he acted upset and said that it was something he had made up. I'm still not sure what that had to do with making muscles, but he loves making up his own stuff.

Speaking of making up stuff, Eric and I have recently modified the words to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Basically, every time you're supposed to say "star", we say "dinosaur" instead. He gets all giggly every time we sing it, which is every night at bedtime. For a long time now, he's had me sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to him whenever I put him to bed. He likes that song so much that we sing it twice each time.

Tomorrow will be the first time in the four years or so that Patrick will not be picking up Natalie from her school for piano lessons. Eric will have to take the bus without her. He did fine last Wednesday for Natalie's first cello lesson. Lots of growing and changing around here!

Got Cello?

Patrick went with Natalie to rent her cello this past Tuesday. He went to a store called Antonio Strad that specializes in stringed instruments. They also apply a good part of the rental price there on the purchase of an instrument, which is wonderful considering the expense of a good stringed instrument. We were able to rent Natalie's cello (3/4 size) for $41 plus the protection plan. In this picture, she's very excited about getting it, and she still seems excited about it today. Several kids in her class are also taking Strings, including her good friend Margo, who also lives in our neighborhood. Can you say potential "carpool"?

Natalie had her first cello lesson on Wednesday. She didn't have too much to say about it, but that was probably because I was only able to talk to her for a few minutes on the way home from her friend Margo's house. Margo's mom had picked them up from Strings, so all we had to do was pick her up at their house. Natalie only mentioned that they were still learning how to read music, but they did get to pluck the strings of their instruments to play two notes. The rest of the ride home she was talking non-stop about how she and Margo had thought of another project to do together.

The rest of the story is long, so feel free to skip this paragraph if you're not interested. After Natalie's first lesson, her friend Margo's mom picked them up because Patrick had to pick up Alex around the same time. Margo had a dance class after Strings, so they took Natalie with them to that and then to their house. Meanwhile, I was working late and I didn't pick up Anthony until almost 5:30pm. We went by Margo's house to pick up Natalie on the way home, but they were doing homework, so I came by later, around 7:30pm, to take Natalie home. Patrick, meanwhile, had to take Alex to soccer practice, all while dragging Eric along with him. We finally all met at home when I got home from picking up Natalie. I know we'll miss the chaos one day when the kids are grown! At least that's what I keep telling myself! :)

Speaking of "grown", Eric does not look very "grown up" next to these basses. Patrick took this picture to highlight the size difference. Eric got a kick out of how big they were. I'll have to do another post about some of the things he's been saying and doing lately--maybe this weekend. Our weekend schedule might be clearing thanks to the heavy rain we've received this afternoon/evening.

Last Piano Lesson

I've been reminded that my nieces like to read my blog and that I haven't had a new blog post in a while. :)

Today was Natalie's last piano lesson. She's been taking piano lessons for about five years, maybe? We had originally negotiated with her (because she kept asking if she could quit piano) that she would continue taking piano lessons until she got into middle school. My hope at the time was that she would play an instrument in the band in middle school. She's the only child that has shown any interest in any musical instrument. I was in Band and I loved being in Band.

In fifth grade at Natalie's elementary school, they offer an after school program called "Strings" where the kids are offered free lessons to learn a stringed instrument. They must have listened to the different instruments at school, because Natalie came home one day and told us she really wanted to play the cello because she liked the way it sounded.

We didn't have much warning on when this program would start. We basically were told the week before it started, and it started last week. We were still obligated to have two more piano lessons before we could end them. Patrick spoke with the person teaching the Strings class and he said they were going to cover how to read music first, so we knew Natalie wouldn't really be missing much. She obviously knows how to read music already.

So, this opens another chapter in our lives. Natalie will be bused from her school, on Mondays and Wednesdays, to the middle school that we feed into. We'll have to pick her up from there at 4pm. Eric will take the bus home without his sister. Patrick will have to wait for Eric to get home on the bus, then he'll go pick up Natalie and then Alex.

This is the last picture of Natalie with her piano teacher. I've always thought their body language was interesting. Natalie used to hug her previous piano teacher constantly, but her previous piano teacher was a woman with two small daughters. This one is a single man with no children. There was no hugging. Still, Natalie seemed to do well with him as a piano teacher. Hopefully she'll do well with her Strings teacher too. We'll see if she continues with the cello after middle school. She may want to switch to a "regular" band instrument and be in Band like her Mama.

The Sweetest Thing

Anthony is very good with kids, but I love watching him interact with his youngest sibling especially. He is helping Patrick coach Eric's soccer team, an event he has affectionately nicknamed "midget soccer". The other kids are all over him, and Eric loves having him around.

This is a picture of Anthony walking to Eric's soccer game today. At first Eric was just walking behind him, but he caught up and grabbed Anthony's hand. That was so sweet! I love pictures like this from behind.

When they were warming up, Eric would chase Anthony around with the ball and sometimes he would go in between Anthony's legs to kick the ball. That usually ended up with giggles and hugging.

We set up the chairs, waiting for the game before us to finish. Eric plopped himself into one chair, and Anthony sat in the other one. At one point, Anthony decided to sit on Eric's lap, carefully, of course. Patrick then sat on top of Anthony's lap, briefly and carefully also so Eric wouldn't get crushed. Eric loved it and that just got him more and more giggly and excited. I missed that moment because it happened so quickly, plus I had the big zoom lens on my camera and I couldn't back up quickly enough to get all three of them in the frame. I took this picture later when Anthony sat on Eric's lap again. You can't see the huge grin on Eric's face, but clearly, Eric loved it--again.

As for the game, Eric was totally distracted during this one. Most of the time he spent dancing around or playing with his huge shorts. His team lost again. We lost count, but they scored three of the goals for the other team and didn't score any goals for themselves. We like to think that they still had fun.

Eric had a little too much fun on the bench. Patrick turned around from watching the game and saw that all of his players on the bench were wet. He asked who started it and all of them pointed at Eric. They had been playing with the water that was meant for drinking.

Eric wasn't around when the other kids used to play in recreational league sports games where the parents give the kids snacks after all of the games. Parents take turns buying tokens to give the kids and the kids trade them in for snacks at the concession stand. This time Eric got a red slushy and a ring pop. He finished the slushy there at the field but then had the ring pop in the car on the way home. He sucked on the red and blue ring pop and then opened his mouth and asked me if his tongue was red and blue--over and over again. His tongue was already red from the slushy.

This last picture was from the last part of the game. After the prayer, Eric looked for Anthony. Anthony picked him up and they gave each other a big hug. Isn't that the sweetest thing?

Tonight, Anthony went to a school football game. When Eric was about to go to bed, he was walking around downstairs and I asked him what he was doing. He said that he was looking for Anthony so he could say "good night" to him. I told him that Anthony was at a football game with friends. Eric looked at me like that wasn't a good enough reason, so I asked him if he wanted me to text Anthony "good night". He grinned and said he wanted me to. We waited for a bit after I sent the text to get a reply. Eric said, "But I can't read." I laughed and told him that I would read him Anthony's text back. Of course Anthony texted back to say "good night" back. Eric was satisfied with that. Now THAT was the sweetest thing.

What About Alex?

We are in the middle of our school and extracurricular activity chaos. This is how our next couple of months are shaping up, including school pick up times:

Mondays
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practice at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends
3pm Pick up Eric and Natalie from school for Natalie's 3:30-4:15pm piano lesson
5pm Leave home for Eric's 5:45-6:15pm swimming/Natalie's 6-7pm swim team practice
5:30pm Leave home for Alex's 6-7:30pm club soccer practice

Tuesday
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practice at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:20pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus drops them off
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends
5:30pm Leave home for Natalie's 6-7pm swim team practice
6-7pm Eric's soccer practice

Wednesday
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practicez at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:20pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus drops them off
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends
5:30pm Leave home for Natalie's 6-7pm swim team practice
5:30pm Leave home for Alex's 6-7:30pm club soccer practice

Thursday
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practice at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:20pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus drops them off
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends
5:30pm Leave home for Natalie's 6-7pm swim team practice

Friday
6:10am Leave the house for Anthony's Cross-Country practice at 6:30pm
7:04pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus picks them up
7:30am Leave the house with Alex's school carpool*
3:20pm Natalie's and Eric's school bus drops them off
3:25pm Alex's school day ends
4:10pm--Variable--Alex's bus gets to the local middle school
4:05pm Anthony's school day ends

There are other things like Anthony's after school meetings or other school or social functions. There also may be some additional changes in the coming weeks. Natalie now says she is interested in the "Strings" group. She says she wants to play the cello because she likes the way it sounds. She seems very excited about it, and because of that, we would like to be able to do this for her, but we have to find out more information. A bus would pick her up from her school on Mondays and Wednesdays. They have lessons/practices at the middle school that we feed into (and that Anthony attended for eighth grade). We would have to pick her up from there at 4pm. If she does this, we would have to drop the piano lessons. There is no way she can do both, from the schedule perspective, and from the perspective of having time to practice both instruments.

We have already cancelled Eric's swimming lessons, at least until January or so, then we'll see. He is tired after having school all day. Yesterday (Monday), by the time he came home from Natalie's piano lesson/his swimming lesson/Natalie's swim team practice, it was almost 8pm. He had to go to bed, but he didn't want to. He just wanted some time to play with his dinosaurs. We have to let him be a kid too.

Unless I'm off or on call and don't have to go to work until later, Patrick has to take Anthony to school for his cross-country practice, then come home and make sure the little ones get on the bus a little after 7am, then 2-3 days a week* he has to take Alex and Jeff, his carpool friend to school. The other days, Jeff's parents take them to school. The problem for the next couple of months is that Jeff has football practice after school, so we are solely responsible for picking up Alex. We pick him up either at his school or at the local middle school, whichever way the timing works better. The local middle school is obviously closer, but the pick-up time is very different and can be very variable.

We also have to add one more factor. My work schedule has changed and technically I have to work until 4:30pm every day. I can still pick up Anthony, but I'll be late, and I can't pick up Alex at either his school or at the local middle school. This is particularly troublesome on Mondays, because Patrick is at Natalie's piano lesson. We forgot about this until this past Sunday. We suddenly went over the game plan on Monday and asked, "What about Alex?" Luckily, my job can be a little flexible. I was able to leave work early, in time to pick up Alex from school. We waited around for Anthony to finish with his after school Model UN meeting, then came home. We had to pretty much turn around and leave again for Alex's soccer practice.

We found a temporary solution, but not in time to put it into effect yesterday. Alex has a friend, Marco, who rides the bus with him but does not live in our neighborhood. Marco's mom will pick up Alex on Mondays and take him to their house (a couple of miles from our house). We will return the favor on Thursdays. We don't like having to rely on a third party for our scheduling, but what else can we do?

All of that above is pretty confusing, so I'll change gears and share something else fun. There's been a cold front and the kids have started wearing jackets to school. The temperatures are only in the mid 60's but they insist that they are "cold". I had to take a picture, of course. They were trying to run away from me, hence the blurry picture. Eric was starting to wake up from all of that running around, which was a good thing.

Tonight, because I'm on call and have to be at work by 3pm, Patrick has to wait for the little ones to come home on the bus, then he has to go pick up the big boys at their respective schools, come home and feed everyone, then go back out for Eric's soccer practice. Natalie has to miss swim team practice.

Kindergarten Art

This was Eric's first homework assignment. On Howdy Night, he got a picture of a gingerbread man to color and turn in on the first day of school. Actually, this picture is another worksheet. The first one he got he barely colored at all. He got more colorful when he had to color another one at school. I like the way he got big and bold with writing his name.

They had a gingerbread man unit. During the first week of school, Eric said that they were going to make a gingerbread man in class. The next day, he said that they made one and he ran away out of the oven and they had to go looking for him. I was tickled when he emphatically told me (complete with hand gestures), "I kept finding footprints!" They apparently found the gingerbread man in the closet. Eric said matter-of-factly, "And then we ate him."

This week he showed me this gingerbread puppet and was making him talk. I couldn't get him to stop moving for the picture, but he was very excited about it. I can't even remember what his puppet was saying, but for once he wasn't talking about dinosaurs, his favorite subject to talk about.

His teacher is an experienced one, and seems to know how to really entertain the kids but have them learn at the same time. They must be learning about what letters are at the beginning of words, because he has been going around identifying that "dinosaur begins with d" and other such phrases.

Earlier this past week, he was asking how to spell "mama". With a little help from his big brothers, he was able to spell "mama" then he spelled "papa". Anthony, always the overachiever, then asked him to spell "disestablishmentarianism". I posted this on Facebook (for those of you not on Facebook). Poor Eric! Eric, surprisingly, seemed unfazed. He actually said "d" to start with and Anthony didn't make him say any more. On Facebook, Alejandro, Anthony's good friend and Eric's "other brother" replied that he would have asked Eric to spell "antidisestablishmentarianism". Later, he posted that he would have asked Eric to also spell "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconeosis." What a goof.

Most of Eric's art has involved dinosaur teeth. Eric has made up a bunch of dinosaurs on his own. One such made-up dinosaur is called a "Bigasaurus". He said that this picture is of the teeth of a Bigasaurus and that a "huge ship is stuck" in the teeth. He also said that the ship is bigger than a "Megalodon". That boy is fascinated with dinosaurs. In fact, he is behind me on the other computer playing games on the "Dinosaur Train" website with his sister. His active imagination should serve him well--hopefully. In the meantime, I'm getting lots of artwork of dinosaur teeth.

Eric's First Soccer Game

Today was Eric's first soccer game--ever! He was pretty excited, as you can see, still able to smile even after his Mama kept asking him to stand in different places so she could get a good picture of him in his uniform. His Uncle John would be happy to see that Eric's uniform is mainly maroon in color, the color of Uncle John's alma mater. For some reason, when I was changing him into his uniform, he took off his other clothes and then asked if he could leave his underwear on. Yes, silly boy.

Before talking about the game, I'm going to talk about our morning. I took Anthony to school at 6:30 for his cross country meet this morning. I had been torn whether or not to go to Anthony's meet or to go to Eric's game. Anthony, the sweet boy that he is, told me that he had lots of cross country meets, there was only one "first game", so of course I went to Eric's game.

I brought home Benny's Tacos for Alex and Starbucks for Patrick. When I got home I took the little ones to Starbucks--Eric's choice. We came home from breakfast and got him dressed for soccer. His uniform was a bit big. In fact, all the uniforms were big for all the kids.

The game started at 9am. We had an inexperienced referee. Instead of 10 minute quarters, which is the standard at this age, the first quarter ended up being about 20 minutes. The kids who were playing that first quarter were exhausted and asking for water. There were also a few tears from different children during the game, from colliding with each other, or from getting hit with the ball.

Eric did okay during the game. He was totally not paying attention, so he didn't get to play in the first quarter. He did a lot of standing around staring off into space. He got distracted during the opening prayer and started picking up something off the grass. In this picture, he is playing with his huge shorts while he is playing on defense with another boy. He started crying at one point because he had bonked heads with one of his teammates. Natalie was there to help calm him down.

He did play like he was supposed to for part of the game. He ran after the ball and moved it down the field. There were two players on his team that were particularly aggressive, both were girls. One of them basically mowed him down at one point, in order to get to the ball. Patrick had to remind them that they were all on the same team. Eric himself shoved a few kids because they were shoving him.

Eric also got his first taste of the post-game snacks. Each kid got two tokens to spend at the concession stand on whatever they wanted. Eric chose a ring pop and a bag of Doritos. Natalie and Patrick shared some of their snow cones with him too. He dropped his ring pop on the ground, so he didn't really get any of that--not a big disappointment for me and he didn't seem that disappointed either. He really enjoyed that bag of Doritos.

Eric has a total of 12 games scheduled, most on Saturday and a few on Sunday. I hope he still enjoys playing throughout the season.

Starting Soccer

On top of starting kindergarten, Eric started soccer also. The other kids got a chance to try out every sport when they when they were in kindergarten, so we want Eric to have the same experience. Patrick signed him up at our local CYO and also signed himself up to be his coach. The first practice was the Tuesday before school started, but Patrick didn't get any photos then. He took these photos this past Tuesday, the Tuesday after school started.

I love this first photo because Anthony is trying to get his little brother's cleats on, but Eric seems to be insisting on "helping". Anthony helped out at the first soccer practice, but he wasn't there for the second one because he was resting his leg. Apparently, some of the kids asked where "the other coach" (meaning Anthony) was. That is so cute! Eric also noticed at the second practice that one of the girls on his team is also in his kindergarten class. Alex says maybe another one or two are also in Eric's class.

Eric was apparently thrilled with all of the pictures that his Papa was taking. He told Patrick that this was the last picture. That was my fault since I'm always with Natalie at her swim team practice and I haven't been able to see Eric playing soccer yet. Patrick was only trying to do what I asked.

Patrick is a great coach and wants the kids to basically play during practice to get used to moving the ball around and get comfortable with the ball. At least one of the parents seems to be a bit competitive, but hopefully all of the kids will still be able to enjoy themselves. That's what it's all about at this age.

Eric's first game will supposedly be this coming Saturday. We'll see how that will work with Anthony's cross country meet also this coming Saturday. I know Natalie is looking forward to seeing Eric play soccer, because she says "He's so small and cute!"

First Day of School 2012

Today is the first day of school--finally. It seems like forever ago that we bought school supplies. Natalie was all over getting supplies and putting them all in her backpack, and Eric's. She offered to do the same for her big brothers, but they didn't want her to. Last night, they decided that it would be a good idea to at least get some paper and some writing utensils for their first day at school. The supply lists are different for the middle and high schools.

Eric used his brand-new dinosaur backpack, and he picked out a sleeveless dinosaur shirt. We realized this morning that he might get cold in the over-airconditioned classrooms, so we also packed a jacket in his backpack for him. The sun wasn't quite up when I was trying to take photos of Natalie and Eric, but I had to get those out of the way in plenty of time to catch the bus at a little after 7am.

I got up at 5am to make the requested first day of school breakfast--red velvet waffles and turkey bacon. I don't know if the boys cared that much, but Natalie was the vocal one, as usual, so we went with her choice. I was a little ahead of schedule and I had five plates of waffles out with chocolate chips on them already by the time Eric came downstairs already dressed. Patrick got Natalie and Eric up at around 6:10am. Alex was already up and getting dressed, although he was obviously not really awake. Anthony has been sleeping in Natalie's bottom bunk with my parents here visiting, and he got up at around 6:45ish. He's used to getting up earlier for cross-country practice, but he didn't have practice this morning.

This is one of my favorite pictures from today. I love how my parents came for a visit and stayed just to see Eric off on his first day of school. Patrick grabbed Eric's hand to cross the street and Eric automatically grabbed Lola's hand. She loved it. Natalie went ahead of them--she was rushing to make sure they made it to the bus stop in time. She's always afraid of missing the bus, maybe because she and Alex missed the bus a couple of times when they were both taking the bus--because of her.

We were only at the bus stop for a couple of minutes before we saw the bus driving down the street towards us. We think the bus driver was actually a little ahead of schedule (7:03 instead of the scheduled 7:04am). Natalie dutifully grabbed her brother's hand and helped him onto the school bus for the first time, then sat with him in the front seat behind the bus driver. I heard someone call her from farther back in the bus. I hope she doesn't mind sitting with her brother instead of her friends.

I took some photos of the big boys as well and posted them elsewhere on Facebook. I had to do a little bit of begging for Alex, but they both cooperated pretty well. Alex's carpool is breaking down a bit, since the other boy in the carpool has after school football practice. Still, it will be nice for Patrick to get a break some mornings when they take Alex to school, since Anthony will have to be at school by 6:30am for cross-country practice. That means a potential two trips out that way for Patrick every morning.

This afternoon, I'll be picking up the little ones from school so Natalie can go to piano. I'll have to get pictures of Eric getting off the bus in the afternoon on another day. I hope everyone has a wonderful Monday!

First Cross Country Meet

I still remember this time last year when school had just started and Anthony was training with the cross-country team because his soccer coach wanted them to get some conditioning in the off-season. Soon he was running with the cross-country team and invited to come with them to the meets. The best part, though, was that Anthony actually seemed to enjoy the running.

Patrick and I had a lot to learn as far as where we had to go to see him run, and when. They were never very specific as to the exact locations. That seemed to be something we had to learn with each new location. Sometimes they started in the parking lot and finished up in the stadium. Sometimes the whole meet was over dirt and natural areas with no stadium. We also never knew if he was running with varsity or JV. Because he had to juggle club soccer games with the high school cross-country meets, he was downgraded to JV just for lack of attendance at one point.

Well, we still don't really know if he is "varsity" or "JV". He chose not to sign up for club soccer this year so he wouldn't have to juggle both. He started training with the cross-country team about 2-3 weeks ago, but he injured his knee. The team trainers have been applying heat and ice and have told him that it is one of his muscles. So today he didn't know if he would run with JV just because he was injured. Apparently, because there were only four of them participating for various reasons, he ran with varsity. All of them ran with varsity.

He ran the 5K in 23:17. We're not sure what his fastest time has been, but it's definitely closer to 20 minutes. We knew he would be upset with his time. When we saw him right after, he ran and he was definitely upset. He said that was his worst time ever. Patrick told him, "Remember that you're hurt." Anthony replied that the fact that he was hurt was only an excuse. I love how Anthony just puts his head down and works hard, whether it's school work or athletics. I just wish his knee would stop hurting. I want him to still enjoy running, and that can't happen if he's hurting.

Oh the up side, my parents arrived yesterday for a visit. This is a picture I took with my iPhone at P.F. Chang's last night. Mom has a conference here in town every year at this time, so we went out to eat then drove her to her hotel. She is sharing a room with one of her co-workers at the conference hotel, the Westin Riverwalk. We're going now to get some Haagen-Dazs (their only stores here in town are near the Riverwalk), and then pick up Mom from the hotel.

Mom and Dad are staying until Tuesday morning after the kids go off to school. Mom wants to see Eric on his first day of kindergarten. He'll be so cute getting on the bus with his sister. One more day until school starts--or as Alex put it today, "one more day of summer"!

A Night At The Hospital

I was on call this past Wednesday, covering the OB area. Because Alex has soccer practice on Wednesdays, Natalie would not have been able to go to swim team practice. Patrick can only be at one place at one time. Instead she wanted to come to work with me. If I had been on Trauma call, I wouldn't have agreed. I wanted to be able to spend some time with her and not just leave her in my office or a little room somewhere, all by herself. OB tends to be less busy.

This is the picture I took of Natalie before we left home. She was all decked out in her "cool" sunglasses that Alex had given her. She is clutching her sleeping bag and carrying her overnight bag (red with a shark on it, of course--last year's birthday present from her Aunt Melissa). She looked so enthusiastic and so laden with packages that I had to preserve this moment in time with a photo.

We picked up some food from Olive Garden for a late lunch and for our dinner. Even though she had eaten a sandwich for lunch already (I didn't have lunch yet), she managed to eat most of her kids' Fettucine Alfredo when we ate at about 3pm. She barely ate anything at dinner, but I figured that she had eaten plenty already. She did almost finish off the breadsticks, though.

We watched a little TV when we ate. The rest of the time she watched movies or read a book on the iPad. Here in this picture, she is eating the popcorn I popped for her while watching a movie. She was cold so I grabbed a blanket and placed it around her. Basically, I was spoiling her.

I was on the computer when she was doing all of this, either reading articles or email, or surfing the internet. She kept asking me if I had done any work yet. Later, when we went to my call room, she set up her sleeping bag on the floor and grabbed one of the pillows. I usually don't go to bed until after 10pm when I'm on call because I don't sleep well there unless I'm exhausted. Because her bedtime for school is 8pm and we're transitioning to that this week, lights were out at 8pm for both of us.

My resident awakened me with a phone call at 10pm, after which I had a really hard time going back to sleep. Thankfully, Natalie didn't wake up. I woke up again at 3am for a twin delivery in the OR. Natalie did wake up then, but went back to sleep. When I awakened her just after 6am (again, because we're transitioning to school sleep and wake times), she could have slept more.

She went to morning conference with me, and then I took her to Starbucks for breakfast. We waited there until Anthony texted me just after 8am to pick him up from Cross-Country practice (Patrick had dropped him off around 6:30am), then we went home. Natalie told me that she really enjoyed being at work with me. My first response was that of course she enjoyed herself, I spoiled her! I was thrilled that she enjoyed spending time with me. It is only a matter of time before she grows up even more and doesn't want anything to do with her Mama. Let's just say that both of us are enjoying our time together while we can.

Howdy Night

Since we do live in Texas, instead of a "Meet the Teachers Night, we had "Howdy Night" tonight. We were a little worried about how disorganized it seemed, since we only got a generic email announcing the event. We didn't receive the usual postcards with the kids' teachers names on them nor did we receive the postcard announcing our school bus number and pickup time. Still, we were able to go up to the school and volunteers helped guide everyone to the appropriate classroom.

Eric met his new teacher, Mrs. S. She has lots of experience, and the GT teacher, Mrs. A, who all of our other kids have loved and respected, told us that Mrs. S is a wonderful teacher. Eric was very quiet and barely said "hello" to anyone. Still, we think he is so excited that he just shut down and got quiet. He did show a bit more activity in the hallway on our way to Natalie's classroom. In this picture, he started running back and forth stepping on the various colored squares on the floor. I could barely keep him in focus, but I love this snapshot of a boy containing his excitement for the start of school.

Natalie was excited that a couple of her good friends are in her class. Her teacher is Mr. G, who won me over with his love of photography. Natalie is usually drawn to female teachers, but we'll see what the year will bring with this teacher.

So, all of their school supplies were tucked into the appropriate cubbies, they met their teachers, and we seem to have everything else ready for Monday. Let the fun begin.

Seasonal Changes/Transitions

This week I think I was suffering from post-Olympics fatigue--from staying up until 11pm every night to watch the primetime tape delayed events. That meant that I was in bed by about 9pm every night, about an hour or more earlier than the rest of the year.

One important thing that happened this week--our new air conditioners arrived and were installed. Yay, no more box fans and no more of Patrick watering down the air conditioner outside to get it to cool the upstairs. The installation took two full days--one for each air conditioner. After Wednesday, though, we were happy because the upstairs air conditioner is the one that was giving us so many problems for the last two months. They still have to install the furnace, but we won't need that one for several months.

Also on Thursday, Patrick took the kids to Costco. This is not such an unusual event, but he was using our yearly Costco credit or "cash back" that we get from shopping there the rest of the year. We had to spend it by the end of the month. Among other things, he got a new kitchen trash can, one of the fancy ones where you can just step on the pedal and it will open without you having to touch the lid. Eric didn't realize it and was still using his hands--and leaving his little fingerprints on the lid. When I showed him how to use the pedal, he had a little trouble opening it at first, but then he "practiced" and was able to do it easily. I documented the event with a photo.

We also had a taste of our fall schedule this week. Alex began soccer practice at the usual time he'll be practicing this fall--Mondays and Wednesdays from 6-7:30pm. Unfortunately, our potential carpool families in our neighborhood have changed their practice times and we still won't be able to carpool this year again. Natalie is still swimming Mondays through Thursdays from 5:30-6:30pm, and that will switch to 6-7pm in September.

This time of year, there are a lot of people coming and going at work. The military tend to move on to other assignments during the summer. We had a work get-together called a "Hail and Farewell" to say "hello" to all of the new folks and "goodbye" to the outgoing folks. This was held at a local burger place called Bigz. There's a big yard area for the kids to play.

We only took Alex and Eric there because Anthony was at a soccer game and then he spent the night at Alejandro's. Natalie was at her friend Lucas' house for a pool party, an all-boy pool party--more on that later. Alex and Eric spent a few minutes playing with a soccer ball but then they basically just sat around. It was pretty hot outside and they didn't feel like being active.

When we got the food, I made a comment to Eric about how that burger bun was as big as his head. At that point he held it up to his face, and sure enough, it WAS as big as his head! He ended up finishing most of that burger! He had to take a couple of breaks where he said his tummy hurt and he sat in my lap so I could rub his tummy, but he surprised us by eating some more each time.

This morning, Natalie asked to go to Starbucks for breakfast. I'd been teasing Patrick because he went to Starbucks on his own a couple of times this week. He went right after bringing Anthony to cross-country practice around 7am. He likes the Bacon and Gouda "Artisan" breakfast sandwich there. He used to never go to Starbucks unless he was with me. Today he wanted to go too. Since I didn't really feel like making waffles, it was a good idea.

We sat outside because the inside was cold from over-airconditioning. Eric looked so relaxed after finishing his scone that he started putting his arms up behind his head. I had to take a picture, of course. He actually wore a shirt with no sleeves today, along with shorts. He has been wearing short-sleeve T-shirts with jeans for much of the summer. We think he might be following after Alex who will wear jeans even in the heat of summer.

All the kids will be going through transitions this school year. Eric is starting kindergarten. Natalie will be in fifth grade and in her final year of elementary school. Alex will be in eighth grade and in his final year of middle school. Anthony will be a senior and graduating from high school (eek!). I'm trying to enjoy this little bit of rest before the school year starts a week from Monday.

Natalie's 10th Birthday

Natalie's birthday started out harmless enough. I made her favorite breakfast--red velvet waffles and turkey bacon. She decided to squirt some double chocolate sauce on top of the strawberries over her waffles. She is of course drinking milk out of her shark cup.

I made the same amount of waffles I usually do, but we had eight more people here. My sisters and my mom were asking if there would be enough for the boys. Natalie, Patrick, and I had the same answer, "In our house, you snooze, you lose!" Luckily for the boys, most of the extra people only had small pieces, if any at all. Emily is apparently a big fan of red velvet cake too, so she probably enjoyed hers the most, next to Natalie.

Patrick picked up the cake from HEB at 10am. We thought they did a great job. They didn't have any shark-themed cakes, but we gave them a picture of a shark and someone hand-drew the shark on there. Natalie was excited about the cake, especially since it was red velvet cake. We also had shark paper plates and napkins, shark favor bags, and red cups (that we didn't end up needing). Of course Natalie had her red swimsuit and red swim goggles. Notice a theme here of "red" and "sharks"?

My niece Aly loves to go to the kids' weekly workshops that they have at Loew's and Home Depot, so her father John made some plans to do that here in town yesterday. My sister Melissa and her daughter Emily went too, and so did Eric. Natalie would have gone, but one of her friends was going to be dropped off at our house so we could take her to the party.

They had a Shrek theme and they made the dragon from the Shrek movies. John put his fingers in danger when he helped Eric put his together, hammering included. With Uncle John's help, Eric also named his dragon "Brother Carnivore". With a name so bizarre, I figured that John had a hand in it, although Eric is quite fascinated with the terms "carnivore", "herbivore", and "omnivore".

The party itself was scheduled at 11am. Luckily, I had made up extra party favor bags, because there were two extra kids that showed up that hadn't RSVP'd. I was happy they were there, though, because there had only been three that said they were coming. Natalie was very happy to see the others.

This was a swimming party at the Lifetime Fitness pool. As with many of these hosted parties, they gave us two "hostesses" or whatever they're called. We thought that maybe they would be giving the kids games and things to do, but they really didn't do anything. Luckily, the kids were good about finding their own fun. Of course, when the water slides opened up at 12:15pm, they kids were all about going down the slides repeatedly, even Eric. Look at that smile!

By the time the pizza got there at about 1pm, the kids were all famished. In fact, we had heard that the pizza was there about 20 minutes or so earlier, but for whatever reason, they didn't bring them all out until closer to 1pm. We hadn't ordered any extras because kids generally don't eat that much pizza at these parties. This time they ate a lot. With Alex and Anthony only eating two pieces apiece, the three large pizzas were gone. Those girls were hungry.

Some of my family went and got some Pei Wei later, mostly because they felt like having Chinese food. (My family "feeling like" having Chinese food is pretty typical.) Mom and Dad ate at the gym cafe. They wanted to come to the party, which I worried about because they whole party was outside and it was really hot outside. They ended up staying inside watching the Olympics on the big TV area in the front of the gym. They even fell asleep! Alex had wanted to stay home, but we made him go so he could at least help them out if they needed.

Despite thinking that I had taken care of everything, apparently there were two gas lighters and I brought the empty one. That meant that we couldn't light the red candles for the cake and that meant that Natalie didn't get to blow out candles. She isn't unhappy in this picture because she couldn't blow out candles. She is unhappy in this picture because I briefly suggested that she "pretend" to blow out candles. The two of us need to learn how to communicate better. I was actually fine with her not being able to blow out candles. I really wanted to take a picture of her with the cake! I could not get her to look up at me at all. :(

My consolation was that when we went out for dinner at El Mirasol (Natalie's choice, made completely independently of her father), Patrick asked them to bring a Tres Leches cake with a candle. I didn't bring my good camera, of course, but I did take this one blurry picture along with a video of her blowing out her candle.

Natalie had been playing all day with her cousins and after the party, she got to play with two of her other party guests at our house for another three hours. Surrounded by great friends and great family, her day ended up happily and so did mine. :)

Shark Girl and Dinosaur Boy and the Cavern Letter

It was going to be another hot day in San Antonio, but Shark Girl knew that this would mean some relaxing times inside before heading out to the swimming pool, one of her favorite places. She sat with reading a book while Dinosaur Boy played with his usual toys when the message came through on her secret phone. Central needed her to pick up a special message hidden in some caverns nearby. Apparently one of their scientists picked up some important information about some jellyfish-like aliens planning to invade earth. When she hung up she glanced up to find Dinosaur Boy staring intently, it was clear that he heard every word and was planning to come along on the mission.

"First," she told him, "We need to get our driver to take us to the Natural Bridge Caverns north of San Antonio. Then we need to take the Discovery Tour where we will find the letter right inside the entrance."

Strangely, they learned that their driver seemed to have some secret information of his own, as he was already preparing to take them on their mission. After a short trip, a trip that seemed a bit longer to Dinosaur Boy than everyone else, they arrived at their destination. After getting tickets and joining the tour, Shark Girl realized she forgot her camera (which secretly doubled as her communicator) so if anything went wrong on their mission they would be on their own.

The tour into the beautiful caverns began and shortly inside they were able to recover the letter. Of course, finding light to read the letter without anyone noticing was somewhat difficult. Once Shark Girl managed to peruse the message she learned that "Jellians," flying jellyfish-like aliens, were coming to invade earth. Fortunately, the scientist also learned that "Medusa Gaze" could turn them to stone and this was a technique that Shark Girl was taught only weeks before. They knew they had to get the information to Central as quickly as they could, but without their communicator they had no choice but to follow along with the tour.

As Shark girl thought about the implications of the Jellians coming to earth her contemplations were interrupted by a rude elbow to the ribs. Her anger, and the complaints coming to her lips, died when she noticed the same movement in the cavern that prompted Dinosaur Boy's elbow. She nodded, and they both stayed alert as the tour continued.

Soon she had her chance, she whispered "Medusa Gaze" to Shark Boy who promptly closed his eyes allowing her to practice her new magic skill to turn the Jellian spy to stone. Fortunately, the new stone matched the cavern formations so well the tour guide didn't even notice, although she pause for a moment during her narration.

Immediately after the tour ended Shark Girl and Dinosaur Boy recovered the camera-communicator and made a full report to Central. The Jellians would never chance earth now that all of the agents could turn them to stone. Shark Girl and Dinosaur Boy smiled at the success of their first mission and relaxed on the car ride home, their driver oblivious to the fact that they just saved the world from an alien invasion.

First "Big" Swim Meet

Yesterday and today was Natalie's first "big" swim meet. This meet had swimmers from a very large area and the events spanned two days. We saw one swim cap that said Del Rio, which is six hours away from here. The reason why there were so many people was that this was a "C" meet, or challenge meet, where swimmers try to get their best times to see if they qualify for the other meets. The other meets group swimmers according to their times. They can only swim in that meet if they meet a minimum time standard. Natalie doesn't have any official times, so now that she has "official times" this is the start of competitive swimming for her.

I love these types of pictures from behind. This is my girl before her first and only race yesterday, the 100 yard freestyle. She is wearing her team suit for Lifetime Fitness--or at least the suit that her coach picked out. She seems to be the only one with that suit, but it looks good on her, if I can say so myself. I bought her the flag swim cap yesterday too. She has been so excited about the Olympics and this one was almost like the caps worn by the US Olympic Swim Team. She made a comment that this one didn't have her name on it (like the ones the US Olympic swimmers wore). Of course her coach's (and Patrick's) response to this was that she will have to earn having her name on her cap. :)

This is Natalie with two of her Lifetime Fitness teammates, Maddie (also 9 years old) and Kate (11 years old). They had to swim as "unattached" swimmers without a swim team because the Lifetime Fitness team didn't jump through the hoops they needed to jump in order to be registered as a team. That meant that Natalie's coach could only watch from the bleachers like the rest of us. Hopefully one day soon the team will be "official".

Isn't technology wonderful? This is a screenshot from a phone app called Meet Mobile. A lot of swim meets are using this software to give "almost live" results. We had this for our neighborhood home meets and the championship meet in June. This meet didn't get the results out as quickly (but then there were a lot more heats for each event with mixed ages for each heat and event), but at least I can capture all of Natalie's results from this weekend on one page. The places that are listed are Natalie's ranks amongst the 9-year-olds. She also did well when compared to many of the 10-year-olds. Still, there were some really fast 9-year-olds there. It was good for Natalie to see that and to see that she still has some work to do.

One note--I had to miss her last race today because I had to go home, pick up Anthony, and take him to a Model UN meeting. I was sad that I couldn't be there, but at least Patrick taped the race so I was able to watch it later. She might have been able to do better, but her goggles apparently filled with water and she had trouble seeing. Still, her time and the rest of her times qualified her to go to a "B" meet. Her 50 yard freestyle was actually fast enough to take her a level up to a "BB" meet. I'm sure I'll become more familiar with all of these meets and levels and such in the coming months. For now, I have to say how proud I am of my little swimmer. She'll earn that name on her cap one day.

Chores for Eric

Eric has been helping with the chores lately. Here he is helping Natalie unload the dishwasher. He has also been helping to "fold" the laundry. I used the term "fold" very loosely, as he usually just makes the item of clothing smaller rather than actually making it neat. Alex has been encouraging him to help because Eric wants to earn an allowance, although he prefers getting toys like cars and dinosaurs because he doesn't really know what money is for anyway.

Tonight Alex tried to convince him that all the dinosaur shirts and sheets I got him recently count as his "allowance". That might take some convincing. One of these days, he'll know what money is for and maybe appreciate it. Until then, he'll keep asking for another car or dinosaur or other toy just because he doesn't already have that exact toy, even if he has thirty that are almost like it. Still, it's nice that he is getting used to the idea of doing chores.

Dinosaur Play

I've been posting a lot about dinosaurs lately. This was one of the scenes I saw played out in the game room on Sunday morning. Eric had arranged his dinosaurs and other animals. I thought at first that they were all randomly scattered all over the floor, but in reality, he had carefully arranged them and they were eating each other! He even had "herbivores eating other herbivores" which isn't really supposed to happen. I thought it was interesting how he was using his knowledge of dinosaurs and using his imagination.

Natalie had a birthday party to go to on Sunday evening and I took that opportunity to go shopping at the nearby Kohl's and Target. I bought Eric another dinosaur shirt, some dinosaur pajamas, and dinosaur bedsheets. I bought Natalie another shark shirt. When we were at the mall early last week, I got him a dinosaur shirt from the Disney Store showing the "toy" dinosaur from the Toy Story movies, as well as a Cars shirt--yes, he is still interested in Cars. Yes, I'm enabling my dinosaur-crazy boy!

Preparations

We haven't given a big birthday party for any of the kids in about four years. The kids didn't ask for it and we didn't offer it. The boys, in fact, barely wanted any sort of celebration for their birthdays--maybe a handful of friends at Laser Quest, but that's about it. I guess it's about time.

Natalie wants a swim party, of course, and I found these shark-themed birthday party products at Amazon. We're having the party at our local gym with some of her neighborhood friends, school friends, and swim team friends.

Yesterday, she had an extra practice at the other Lifetime Fitness in town. They have diving blocks installed next to their outdoor pool whereas ours doesn't have them. Four of the girls on Natalie's swim team are going to a big regional swim meet next week and Natalie's coach wanted to show them how to dive off diving blocks correctly. They were only allowed to do this after Family Swim time at that gym, which ends at 8pm. They ended up practicing for about an hour. There were adults that were going to be swimming at another big meet, and they were there too. It was pretty dark by the time they finished. By the time Natalie finished her shower there and I took her by Sonic for a little snack, it was already close to 10pm by the time we got home.

This morning, I made some banana chocolate pancakes instead of the usual waffles, and turkey bacon. Natalie and Eric really wanted to help, so I had them mash the bananas for me. It's been a while since I made them, and it was a nice change of pace.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, maybe even too relaxed. Since Natalie and I were at the swim practice last night, we didn't get to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, so we watched the tape this morning after Alex got out of bed and had breakfast--after 10:30. That was quite the spectacle, although Alex was talking about how he enjoyed the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games more. That was a few hours right there. We watched more of the Olympics after that. We went to church this evening and then came home for dinner just so we could watch some more of the Olympic Games plus a couple of other things we had taped on the DVR. I think it's interesting that the Olympics celebrates athleticism, but it's going to make us into couch potatoes for the next two weeks while we watch as much of it as we can.

I had to throw in this picture, even though it's not in the same theme as the rest if this post. Patrick took the kids to the Witte Museum yesterday afternoon. If I could ever get Patrick to post on my blog again, he could tell more of what they did. He even took some pictures for me. He does try to take them out to do fun things, especially fun indoor things since it gets so hot here in the summers.

I love this picture just because it shows Alex (who usually runs away from pictures) and because it shows Alex helping his baby brother. I always love seeing them getting along, and Alex can be especially sweet to his baby brother.

We'll be watching more Olympics tomorrow, and then Natalie has a birthday party in the evening.

Grocery Shopping Fun

I posted on Facebook this morning that I obviously don't have to go grocery shopping with the kiddos on a regular basis. I almost had fun with them along. I would feel differently if I had to do that all the time. After breakfast at Starbucks, of course, I took them the local HEB.

As soon as we walked in, there was a bin filled with kids' cups with different themed designs. Almost immediately, Natalie saw a Cars cup that she thought Eric would like, but it was way near the bottom. As she was trying to get it out for him, she found a cup with pictures of sharks on it. She got so excited that I was excited along with her. She said, "Mama, this cup has sharks on it!!!" :)

As Eric was looking around in the bin, he found a cup with dinosaurs on it--near the bottom, of course. He was desperate to get it out. He kept pulling on it and even tried to get it out from the small opening in the big bin, but there were hundreds of cups on top of it. He was able to pull the top part of the cheap plastic cup through but there was no way the bottom would bend in the same way. Luckily, we found another one that wasn't yet misshapen by having an eager five-year-old trying to pull it out.

The rest of the trip went similarly. When we got near the Fruit Roll-ups, they both yelled, "Fruit Roll-ups!!!" When we got near the ice cream, Natalie excitedly pointed out the Ben and Jerry's Red Velvet Cake ice cream. When we got near the Lunchables, Eric insisted on getting one, and so on. We didn't get everything that they asked for, but we got a few things. The trip took more time than it would have if they hadn't been along, but I enjoyed their company.

Look at their excited faces in this picture! We also got Eric some Dinosaur Train toothbrushes. He doesn't currently brush his teeth more than once a day, so this will help make that more frequent. Natalie even volunteered to help him in the mornings after breakfast. Also, look at how they're both wearing shark shirts. Aren't they the cutest? :)