Pumpkin Carving!

The boys would not stop reminding me that it was so close to Halloween and we still hadn’t carved pumpkins!

I got smart after last Halloween and bought a second giant pumpkin seed scraper. It’s so much more pleasant when there aren’t kids arguing over who’s turn it is…

Since I got a safety lecture last year about where the boys were carving pumpkins, I had them set up on the chairs this time instead of at the counter. And the garbage bags were much cheaper than those fancy counter covers I bought last year as well!

This year the boys were determined to do most of the work themselves. And this year, I was convinced they could do it without hurting themselves!

Thomas went with a very traditional happy pumpkin smile.

And Henry…

Henry made a Henry style pumpkin… lol

In looking for all of the Halloween decorations, I found this brain Jell-O mold that I hadn’t used in years. I thought if I put Natalie‘s favorite fruit in it - everyone might enjoy eating brains!

The boys also were quite vocal about the fact we didn’t have enough Halloween decorations. So we added a few new ones, including this guy who would move and make creepy noises if you walked by him. Natalie was not sure she cared for this new addition…

She did, however, love her new winter jacket I bought her. Doesn’t she look like a fierce little model?!?

Art & Nonni!

I still work from home Wednesday mornings so I don’t miss Natalie’s deaf ed therapy sessions. One of the upsides is getting to see all of the kids in the morning if I don’t have any early meetings.

This morning I ventured out to chat with the boys while they were finishing up breakfast and I surprised this guy. Don’t ask me why he was Mr. Sock Hands this morning, it wasn’t even the least bit cold. Maybe he is trying to imagine what it is like to be a lobster? A penguin? Who knows!

We had a little bit of time to kill that evening and three antsy kids. So instead of throwing electronics at them, I decided to pull out some art supplies and let them go crazy. They were super excited about getting to paint!

Especially this girl and her abstract design! I guess we haven’t done much painting with her lately. (In my defense, everything seemed overwhelming the past few months and even dealing with paint was too much…) But given how much she is enjoying it, we’ll have to try and pull it out more!

Thomas art is so neat these days. Natalie reached over and smeared some blue on his side. He just decided to incorporate her oops into his design.

(Which was much better than the expected freak out!)

Henry decided to make a giant one-eyed monster. Natalie also tried to help him and he had to incorporate her help. I guess they were playing nicely with the crazy painter since she was so excited about painting with them!

We finally killed enough time to the event of the evening. The usual International Festival their school holds was clearly impossible this year, so they pivoted to an International Car Parade. The PTA planned the route to hit as many of the neighborhoods as possible, but we had to walk down to the end of the block to see it.

But the kids decided it was worth the effort - they cheered for all of the 60+ cars! We got extra cheering time since the light kept cutting the parade every time it changed. It really is a terrible light for getting out of the neighborhood…

But the best part of the week was when Nonni arrived! I know we’ve seen her a few times recently, but we are clearly making up for sooooo much lost time. She also looks pretty happy to be hanging out with us again. ;)

I actually needed help because Neema needed a day off and I couldn’t easily miss that day at work. Nonni to the rescue!

Halloween was quickly approaching and I hadn’t even thought about decorations. But Henry and Thomas found the stash of Halloween stuff I put away last year - including these Halloween foam houses that I bought on clearance in November last year. So they pulled them out to put together this weekend.

I swear I have amnesia with these things and how much I hate putting them together. Thomas managed to get most of it on his own, but still needed some parental intervention. Also, they absolutely love these things, so that’s probably why I keep forgetting and buying them again…

The planned Ear Community picnics were all switched to virtual this year, which was a bummer since there was going to be a Houston one! I wasn’t as excited about the virtual one, but decided to call in and be supportive. It was actually pretty good and even had one of Natalie’s ENTs as a presenter. It was really neat to hear some of the stories about how some of the families with older kids didn’t know anyone else with microtia growing up and how easy it is for us to connect these days. :)

She’s doing soooo well on the balance bike that Matt wanted to let her have a try on a pedal bike. So we lowered the seat on Henry’s as much as we could and let her try it out. She wasn’t quite as excited about the concept as we were, but it was still pretty big for her.

Guess we’ll just need to see what pedal bikes we can find in her size and try again!

Martin Dies Jr SP

One of my coworkers went to my favorite part of Arkansas over Labor Day weekend and it really made me miss the days of going camping. We’ve never taken the youngest camping and the boys have only had a few camping trips if we’re been totally honest...

So I decided in these weird times, maybe a camping trip is just what we need! Though I may have gone halfway with it - I only looked for state parks with cabins. In an effort to try new areas, we went east to Martin Dies Jr. state park, which has a few different kinds of cabins/shelters.

The first night was a little rough. Apparently we haven’t used our air mattresses in awhile and 2 out of the 3 went flat. Natalie apparently doesn’t like feeling deflated when half asleep, so she was not a happy camper. (Pun intended!)

Luckily everyone was excited to eat some breakfast!

Well Henry is… whatever emotion Henry usually is? ;)

I promise the youngest was having a great time being out in nature. She was running all over the campsite, picking up leaves and rocks. But all the excitement must have been overwhelming, she needed a quick break for Violet to sing her some music…

She was good a few minutes later, don’t worry!

It was a really nice morning, with just a bit of fog over the lake.

We took off for a family bike ride on the off-road trails in the park. I was finally getting to test out the new bike trailer and it is great! In comparison to the old one, it feels like nothing is back there. Which Natalie may not have appreciated since I was possibly going a bit too fast down the first hill and hitting some tree roots. The eyewitness reports claim that the trailer went airborne, but that feels like an exaggeration….

Either way, the youngest one was ticked about the bumps and you can see her glaring at me. I slowed it down and tried to avoid the tree roots as best as I could, but she was really only happy once we were back on the pavement. Whoops!

Chilling at the campsite after the bike ride and these two got lost in books right away.

I can’t even be mad.

I can be a little jealous though, right?

This girl was being a huge toot on not wanting to eat anything. I tried to bring stuff she likes, but she just wanted chips & juice. You can see the half sandwich I made her got deconstructed and the ham and cheese ended up on my chair. Oh well, I tried…?

After lunch, we went to explore the nearby Livingston Lake state park. I’ve been trying to snag day passes for there for weeks since it’s a reasonably close drive to home, but never managed. But when I booked the cabin that was an hour past it, I figured we could check it out! (I did try to rent a cabin here, but they were all booked up - it’s apparently quite popular!)

We had fun playing in the day use area and then walking down some of the trails. Natalie pretty much just wanted to follow her brothers wherever they were exploring!

The only downside to the adventure was that it was super hot and we all failed to grab water before starting down the trail. So we ended a little short to get back to the truck and hydrate!

I am still not used to it being so hot in October!!!

At some point on the first day, Henry was pestering us when we were going fishing. Then dramatically stated “the only reason I agreed to come was to go fishing!!”

lol - not sure where this sudden fishing obsession has come from and not sure why he thinks attendance was optional. We did finally attempt fishing that evening, but nothing was biting. In a totally random occurrence though, we ended up choosing a fishing spot right in front of a shelter that was occupied by some of my former coworkers! They recognized us and yelled hello, so we got to chat a little bit while also trying to keep the younger ones from falling in the lake.

It was a total “what a small world” moment to be at the same park 3 hours from home and that we just happened to stop at the point to fish!

We decided to pack up the truck Monday morning and then try fishing again on our way out. Matt cast the line out to make sure it was working good for Henry and immediately snagged a fish. The little guy managed to get away before we could reel him in, but we were clearly in a hot spot!

Well apparently the first guy warned his buddies, because there were no more fish grabbing on the hooks.

I didn’t get to try my luck because I was chasing the toddler up and down the wooden ramp, but the boys gave it their best shot!

Natalie was mostly having a blast collecting pretty leaves. And running. Sooooo much running…

I tried to get her to just chill and enjoy the morning, but she wasn’t very interested in hanging with mom for longer than it takes to shoot a selfie. My only consolation was that she would probably fall asleep for a bit on the way home…?

The boys finally called it quits and we started the walk back to the truck. I asked Matt to deal with Natalie because I was worn out.

And that lasted for like 30 seconds before he was all “Oh, I want to try fishing here real quick!”

Y’all, he cast his line in a few times and then gave up. Proceeded to grab his tackle box and walk with the boys back to the truck. While I was again chasing the toddler.

He’s a brave, brave man considering I know where he sleeps...

So the first camping trip was a little hot, a little bumpy on the trails and we didn’t catch any fish, but the kids had a blast!!! Our little cabin was pretty basic, but at least felt a little more manageable with 3 kids than a tent.

But honestly the best part was that AC unit on the wall! Once we ditched these traitor air mattresses for some cheap ones from Wal-Mart, we all slept great in the cool cabin.

Ok, maybe we will try again on camping. Though if I am being totally honest, we’re bordering on glamping…?

Since there was no bathroom except the one down the road though, I am still calling it camping? Seems like a reasonable line in the sand. ;)

C-19 Week 30

I don’t know how to characterize this post. We’re obviously not staying at home, but things certainly aren’t back to normal… So it’s week 30 of the madness, despite where I spend my working hours. ;)

Mom was asking what she should do with the baby high chair seat since Natalie has clearly outgrown it. It was the perfect seat to kick back and let her hang with us at the table while getting her meals. You can see just how tiny she used to be here, so you can appreciate what a giant she is now!

Luckily, I have a friend who is expecting baby #3 and doesn’t have all the critical items yet, so the seat is going to a great home!

Natalie’s first happy meal!!! She’s eating so well that I thought she would eat it up, but mostly she ate the fries. Oh well, I am sure they are packed with calories... ;)

Also Matt decided to park across the street from the McDonald’s and managed to find the mosquito heaven. We didn’t realize at first we had been invaded and it was chaos trying to get them out and shut the minivan doors. Whoops!

The boys are in their “Challenge” classes together since school started up and they have been working on a geology unit. Clearly, I love that! They came home with these rad earthquake displays the other day that they wanted me to have. So one is on my desk at home and one is at work.

Also, neither one of them told their teacher they lived through a 7.0 earthquake!!! What is wrong with my kids?!? Those are serious bragging rights and totally on topic!

Apparently they had some computer lab time in Challenge and worked on the layers of the Earth. Henry wanted to recreate it for me when he got home. I had no idea what he was working on until he was finished - look how proud he is of his diagrams!!

Side note - the boys didn’t like the cotton candy from the fair last weekend! Sometimes I worry about these kids…

Thomas didn’t want to be left out, so he also made his Earth diagram. I think it’s neat that they work on the same activities in the class, but the teacher clearly expects more from the older students than the younger ones. Thomas seems to struggle with this concept and will point out what Henry missed on assignments.

Which leads to me having to point out that he is * two * years * older* than his brother and shouldn’t be missing any, right??? ;)

I was in a meeting at work when I got this photo from Neema that Natalie got this (ridiculously large) Minnie Mouse from her feeding therapist. I was a little perplexed because it’s nowhere near her birthday?

But that’s not why she got it...

The clinic lets the therapists pick out a giant toy for the kids that are crushing it in their therapy sessions. And this girl *is* crushing it! Despite losing time with her therapist during the pandemic, she is eating so well!

I went a little bit rogue on cutting back her g-tube feeds since March we didn’t have official guidance. End result is that since she’s started therapy about a year ago, she’s gone from supplemental volumes of ~27 ounces a day to a measly 6 ounces right now!!!

It’s hard for me to imagine the days when I thought this girl would never eat anything. I am so proud of her!!

Deaf Ed this week had a beach theme, so we crushed up some graham crackers to be the beach sand. Which was all well and good while we were on the Zoom session with Mrs. Amy. But once Amy was gone, Natalie just started eating graham cracker crumbs.

lol - I’m not even mad. :)

You might have seen the tiny bun-braids in the last picture. Well they caused a little bit of trouble with bike riding and the helmet not fitting, but look how awesome her hair was when I took them out that night!

So jealous of her fun hairstyles.

And another photo of kids passed out while driving. This will never get old…

But where are we going this time?!?

State Fair Drive Through

Like most things in 2020, the Texas State Fair was cancelled this year. But also like many things in 2020, they came up with a new & creative way to still have fair activities - even if it was different than before.

We clearly bought tickets for the previous weekend and missed out. But luckily for us, there were still available tickets for this weekend! It would have been nice to have swapped the dates, but they were non-refundable. We chalked the unused tickets up to a donation to keep the fair going!

It wasn’t actually the fair, but they were doing a drive-through to get all of the fair foods. There were window of time for entries, but they cautioned everyone that there would be some waiting to get in. There was a lot of weaving through the parking lot to get everyone queued up for entry off of the streets.

The kids didn’t mind the waiting at all because there were silly jokes on signs in the parking lot. That and the fact we let them hang out of the sunroof since we weren’t really moving.

Henry enjoyed the window gazing more than Thomas, so I offered to let him sit in my lap. I was just being sneaky on getting in some extra hugs. ;)

Of course, I wanted to get in on the fun of standing out of the sunroof. And what better place than when we were about to get Fletchers corny dogs??

I’m glad that they still went ahead and decorated for maximum fun even with the scaled back event. Now I really want a planter with Big Tex in pink & navy! :)

We mostly just grabbed the bags of food and stuck them safely on the floor of the minivan. But the fried oreos… well those got wolfed down immediately.

Sooooo yummy!

They even did social distanced photos with Big Tex, who was also masked up, because why not??

I didn’t even have to cajole the boys into wearing their Big Tex shirts - they were pumped to wear them this morning!

Well you may have noticed that the littlest one is missing. We were initially going to take her, but I thought she might not enjoy waiting in the car for so long and asked Mom if she would mind if we left the youngest behind?

Obviously Nonni didn’t mind at all! Natalie had a blast hanging out at the farm and meeting the goats! Of course, her hearing aid battery died and the spare battery was hanging on the keys in my pocket… Luckily they made it through the day with a bit more yelling and a few more “huh?”s than usual.

Back to the fair! We finally got all of our food and made it to the parking lot at the end to eat all of our yummy goodies. While not quite as good as when you eat the food right out of the fryer, it was still worth the trip. :)

Matt’s favorite has always been the corn and there is usually a fight over who gets to eat it all. Well the corn suffered the most in the wait to consume it, but Matt still gnawed on it. The boys and I all passed though.

We stopped by to see Grannie after the fair since she lives so close, but I didn’t get any photos while we were there. I promise we were super happy to see you Grannie, despite the lack of photos!

After sitting in the car most of the day, the boys were ready to stretch their legs and run around. We also discovered that Thomas is finally big enough to use the Green Monster that John & Allie gave us years ago. We’ve tried a few times before and he was always just a little too short to pedal well, but not this time! He was so excited to finally be able to whip it around the driveway.

This girl had plenty of time to run around, but was still up for more running around once we got back! And apparently now wants to be Canadian?

But the real excitement of the afternoon was the rocket launching time! Matt bought these rockets a few months ago and the boys helped him build them, but we hadn’t gotten a chance to launch them yet. Luckily there is plenty of room at my parent's house to launch these bad boys up in the air and not lose them in the breeze.

Honestly the most excited person about the rockets was my mom! She was just amazed by how high up they went and was super excited every time the parachute popped out. “There is it! Oh no, the parachute isn’t opening - c’mon parachute!!”

lol - my dad rolled up in his tractor to watch the show with his trusty side-kick, Anna. She is so happy to just go wherever he does.

But she had to vacate the wagon so the kids could finally get their tractor ride! Honestly the boys were more excited about the tractor ride than anything else. Thomas couldn’t stop talking about the tractor ride and was throwing a fit when we had to stop on the drive home to get batteries for the rocket launcher. We was being all sassy in the back seat “So I guess that batteries are more important than spending time with mothers and grandmothers??”

Well he finally got his tractor ride and then wanted to bail on the ride halfway through when he saw his dad launching rockets from across the field. I was getting a leg cramp from holding Natalie steady while also trying not to get my cool orange pants dirty - lol, priorities. ;)

Overall, it was a great day and I am glad we made a second attempt at heading to the fair. Hopefully we get the real one back next year though…!

Back to Work?!?!?

Absolutely, positively didn’t stay home this week in case the title didn’t give it away…!

But first, have to get through Sunday! And someone was in a great mood this morning!

We finally remembered to try the popsicles Natalie made last week! We had tried to eat them that night and they weren’t quite frozen, so I accidentally ripped the stick right out of the mushy center. Luckily they froze back together ok. And Natalie definitely approved of her juice pops! :)

I bet some people got in super great shape with all the extra time of not commuting to work. That was 100% not the case for me. Soooo I had to do a little sorting on which clothes were a little too tight at the moment. ;)

I also may never, ever wear heels again? I was already favoring my flats, but they might be my only work shoes from now on!

You think my office missed me as much as I missed it? So quiet… And the chair is sooooo comfy!

Though I do miss my yoga pants already.

Also, that door didn’t stay open very long. I mean, I trust that work is going above and beyond to keep us safe, but… Door closed feels better?

So there have been a few changes to work and the absolute best one is that the cafeteria now has an app to order food. You order it, then they send you a notification when it is ready. There’s a table right outside the cafeteria with mobile orders, so you just grab it and go. I loooooove this option and hope it stays!

I also didn’t intend to match my shirt and mask like some kind of Mortal Kombat character. We have to wear them pretty much whenever we leave our office, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. If the boys have to wear them all day, I can survive with wearing mine in the hallways. ;)

I may have turned into a Hobbit while at home and missed having multiple breakfasts*… I was starving by lunch time on Monday. Tuesday I came to work a little more prepared!

*Can’t imagine why my pans were tight ;)

I was sending out the second monthly email for our network and was planning this whole write-up about the clear masks we had available. And realized that it would be helpful to show the two different designs, so I took a quick photo for example in the email. Well then someone decided we should make a form online for people to request them and used my selfies for it.

Probably could have done slightly better photos if I had thought that one through… This is the better one of the two. I should have used Henry for the red one ;)

But look at how many people requested a clear mask right away! One person requested them for the whole group because there was someone on the team who is hard of hearing. So awesome to be able to help people communicate better! :)

A little “you survived quarantine” present to myself! I have had this bike trailer sitting in my wishlist forever, but couldn’t justify buying a new one when I already have one. But the one I have is too wide and so heavy…

So I finally bought it! We’ve been talking about going camping and I justified it as being better for biking around campgrounds with her. ;) She seems pretty excited about it. It still seems to have plenty of room for her, plus the harness looks much comfier and now she has cupholders! :)

Natalie’s new favorite thing to do when I get home is ask to go play in Momma’s car. She just likes walking around, sitting in the seats and pushing all the buttons. Whatever makes her happy and keeps her contained works for me after a long day. ;)

Henry decided to join us this evening and needed my shades to look like an official driver. I love these two goobers!

Their school had a walk-to-school day on Friday and luckily it was my 9/80 off, so I got to walk them up there! Plus it was wear purple day, so they wore their Team Natalie shirts because that’s the only purple they own.

Also I didn’t notice until leaving the school that the mascot was wearing a face mask too. They had to pin it on, but I loved that it was on theme for purple day!

Someone may have taken advantage of me being distracted trying to pack for the weekend trip… She found her brother’s Halloween stickers and put all of the eyeballs on her leg. Here’s hoping the boys will forget about those stickers if I just hide the evidence once she’s tired of them.

Not only did I lose Natalie’s last mask strap, I’ve made my 3D printer mad and can’t print anymore! Given I knew we would have to stop on the drive to Weatherford, I had to get creative with holding her mask on in the gas station. This purple monkey toy wasn’t quite as good as the usual strap, but it worked pretty well!

Stopping at Buc-ee’s might just be the riskiest thing we have done all year. There were many threats to the kids to not touch an-y-thing, but they were so excited to get Icee’s and all kinds of fun snacks. Worth a little bit of risk for as happy as they were! :)

C-19 Week 28

We made it through week 28 of (most of us) staying home!

I made the super awesome apple pie again! And this time I got a photo of it after it came out of the oven. Thank goodness for paper bag baking, because I would otherwise have quite a mess to clean up…!

Sadly this pie was for another family, so while I got to smell it, I didn’t get to eat any! :(

I was all about to tell Natalie the tiny straw wouldn’t work inside her water bottle spout, but she showed me I was wrong before I got the words out. She’s a clever one!

It’s very rare to ever see Henry not in motion, the kid is the definition of non-stop most of the time. So I kinda love it when he passes out on me while watching TV after dinner. He looks like a baby I used to know when he’s peaceful. ;)

Look at that ceiling! You wouldn’t even know there was a leak! We were able to get all the water drained out pretty well, then lived with fans blowing air up there for the better part of a week. Some repairs & paint and it looks brand new again. Thank goodness…

Part of her therapy this morning was making popsicles. You all know we are well supplied for this activity and she had a blast being the one in charge of making them for once! These are going to be super melty popsicles since they aren’t my usual jello ones, but juice boxes seemed easier for her to use.

Someone couldn’t wait for her brothers to get home and play with her after school!

We were supposed to head up to North Texas this weekend and stay at Nonni’s. I had the car packed and had started the engine to cool it down. I just needed to corral the kids! Then Thomas who hasn’t been feeling great suddenly tells me he thinks he needs to throw up. Soooooo we made the hard decision to cancel plans so we aren’t risking getting Nonni & Grandpa sick. Thomas and I were so bummed.

And of course he woke up Saturday morning feeling just fine. I think as long as he continues to feel ok, we’ll try again next week…

So long, week 28, you didn’t end that great, but at least no one is actually sick. And this girl is still adorable with her awesome wavy hair. I guess all’s well that ends well in this case? ;)

C-19 Week 27

We made it through week 27 of (most of us) staying home!

Sunday mornings are for cleaning around here! After church, of course. We sit in our upstairs living room to watch virtual church and that’s about when we realize what a disaster the upstairs is. After Natalie’s room was all tidy, I was trying to get a photo of her rocker to see if my friend wanted it for her upcoming baby. Of course the kids thought I was trying to get photos of them and posed for me.

It’s starting to cool down just the tiniest bit, so I have been trying to go back to our old tradition of hanging out in the yard after logging off of work for the evening. Natalie definitely approves!

Ever hear a kid suck in their breath and make that noise like they are terribly hurt? Yeah, I heard that from the kitchen and yelled “Is everyone ok?!?” That got a barely squeaked out “No!”, so I took off running for them. Turns out no one was hurt, but the window had a ball shaped hole in it…

The guilty party had already taken off, but Natalie was happy to tell me “Henry broke window!”, so at least she’s talking enough to tattle successfully! ;)

Luckily, Matt was able to replace the pane pretty easily. For some reason I thought this was all one giant window, so I may have been more upset than Matt was. (There’s a reason I am not in charge of house repairs!)

These morning walks are almost a pleasant temperature! Well at least on the way there, I’m sweating by the time I get home.

But still - an encouraging shift in temps!

This week went pretty well and I was ready for the weekend. Which is, of course, right when trouble started…

I heard water running above the kitchen somehow and was all “Matt - what is that noise??” right before water started pouring out of a light fixture. The upstairs toilet decided to overflow (thankfully clean water!) and the water went under the tub and down to the kitchen ceiling.

What a mess…

And because when it rains, it pours… Natalie was running to me in my office when I was just trying to “get a few more things done”, tripped on the doorjam and fell right onto the plastic drill she was carrying. So she busted up her mouth pretty good and it took forever to get her calmed down and for the bleeding to stop.

I thought I had gotten it to stop before I put her to bed, but when I checked on her later - her teeth were pretty covered in blood. (I’ll spare you guys that photo though.) Thankfully mouths heal quickly and she was all better in a few days!

Our local library still isn’t open, but they have been trying to stay engaged with the community anyhow. They sponsored an craft activity that I thought the boys would like, so I called to request it. Then they asked if there was anything else they could do for us and one of them was a book bundle option. She asked what kind of books the boys like and said they would get us books the boys would probably like.

They did awesome - the boys were super excited about new books to read! They have tons of books to read on the Kindle as well, but it’s hard to know which authors to search for, so this opens up a several new series!

And because I am a glutton for punishment, I decided to go ahead and start potty training the youngest. We went straight from diapers to undies for the boys, but given this girl doesn’t nap - I was a little nervous about leaving her alone for over an hour with undies. So we are doing mostly cold turkey, but doing pull-ups at times when she is supposed to be sleeping (we’re calling them sleepy undies - lol).

This guy already got enough “good behavior” tickets to get a prize out of the class treasure box! And he decided to get me this notepad because he thought I would like it, which I obviously love the Llamas!

What a sweetheart!

I got Natalie this new mat for her bathroom and it’s the coziest purple rug ever. So cozy, that she likes to pretend to go to sleep on it. And if I try to pick her up before she feels satisfied with her “Natalie sleep time”, I get to hear her yell about it. So this is me chilling with my “sleeping” toddler at the end of a long day…

Love her and her crazy ways so much.

C-19 Week 26

I can’t say we made it through the whole week staying at home, but we survived week 26 of mostly staying home!

Chilling on the couch after getting home from the beach house. We were all just a little bit worn out from all of the excitement…

If you look closely, you might notice that while all 3 kids think they are playing a video game together, one of those 3 has a remote from a different gaming system. The boys got smart and let her think she’s part of the action so she won’t turn the Xbox off on them. ;)

It’s finally happening!!! They are going back to school in person!!!!

I kept telling them their 183 day spring break is finally over! ;)

They don’t even care that they have to wear masks all day at school, they just want to be back in school with their friends and not doing virtual learning at home with mom anymore. lol - apparently I am not a great virtual school teacher…

Though let’s be honest, it’s a little hard to tell who is more excited here… (Trust me though, there are big smiles behind those masks.)

Matt gave me a hard time about not getting photos of them without their masks yesterday, so I made sure to get some today! And also I totally gave up on dropping them off at school. What * a * pain!

Taking advantage of working from home and walking them over instead! On the walk home though, I realized this would be even faster if we just rode the bikes!

Genius idea, Jen!

So I, being an awesome mom, drove their bikes over to the school on my lunch break so we could ride home together this afternoon!

Except that didn’t go so awesome-ly.

There was so much complaining about how heavy their backpacks were and how it was impossible to ride a bike with a backpack on. Obviously that isn’t the case since I ended up riding home with two of them on.

Scratch the bikes I guess…

To be fair, Thomas’ backpack is heavier than I would like for him. It seems that they are having them carrying all of their stuff back and forth to school every day. I guess if you are worried school might shut again suddenly, it makes sense, but it’s weighty!

Henry’s is fine, he’s just being dramatic. Case in point - we had to stop under the bridge for a break on the walk home from school on day 3…

And as if this week wasn’t full of kids being toots, I lost track of Natalie for a second and then heard Thomas yelling “Did you give her that?!?”

She comes running with my chocolate bar she stole off my desk, complete with missing bites. Soooooooo rude!

I would say that I don’t have to deal with this thievery at the office, but I know for a fact that my boss stole all the chocolate I had left in my office when he went back in.

Mostly with permission… ;)

Galveston Beach House

I really didn’t take missing out on our usual beach house vacation with the Larson’s very well. So I decided that even if we couldn’t hang out with them, we could still take the kids to the beach. Renting a house seemed pretty low risk, so I just booked it before I could change my mind!

We got down to the house pretty late at night - which explains why dinner last night wasn’t anything more ambitious than nachos. ;)

But as soon as we ate breakfast the next morning, we walked down to the beach! It was a super short walk and the kids were so excited to run and put their feet in the ocean once again! :)

Of course, the boys are technically still in school, so we had to make sure not to miss their school lessons and still fit in some fun. Quick trips to the beach, followed by popsicles, then logging in to a zoom meeting! It was kinda a pain on my side to juggle everything, but they were having a blast!

Well I mean, there was a little bit of complaining about having to do their school work, but I swear apart from that - they were having a blast.

It was unfortunate that Thomas’ school area was facing this encouraging sign to go to beach!

One of my favorite things about beach house vacations is hanging out on the covered porches. And this house had a great one! It even had a locking gate at the top of the stairs so Natalie and I could hang out without me having to worry too much about her taking off.

As happy as she was to hang out with me, she was not happy when I put her down for a nap. She cried for awhile after I left her in the room after lunch, but soon decided that wasn’t going to work. So instead, she opened the door and tossed my shoes out in the hallway. Then decided that didn’t show her displeasure well enough and chunked my pajamas out there too.

Such attitude in such a tiny package!

I should really just call it quiet time because she definitely didn’t nap... But she got some time alone to chill out for a bit. She was ready to hit the beach, but I managed to delay her a bit with snacks. ;)

The best part of the trip though is that my mom and dad came down to join us! And even more exciting, they brought presents! Which was kinda ironic because it was actually my mom’s birthday weekend, but the boys loved that they got gifts too.

These ridiculous llama teeth might have been the best part ever though. Henry looked hysterical!

Nonni & Grandpa got down to the house really late last night, so they were also anxious to see how close the beach was to the house. The kids were more than happy to take them as soon as I would let them. So I did make them eat first, but let them go in pj’s. It’s their vacation too! ;)

Chilling on the porch with my youngest while she’s enjoying some jello. We’ve been eating a lot of it lately, so I bought some pre-made cups for the trips. The boys said it wasn’t as good as the usual stuff I make, but Natalie didn’t care.

Natalie was so excited that her Nonni was here that she kept running over to give her hugs. Nonni was always happy to oblige!

Not the best selfie I’ve taken, but it was the only one of the three ladies I managed to capture! :)

But look you guys! I even remembered to bring the fancy camera!

This girl loves the beach sooooo much! I think about half of the photos I got of her were of her running toward the water!

Luckily this year, I can feel a little bit safer about letting her run to the water and back again. It was a much more relaxing beach trip when I wasn’t stressing about letting her near the water, her trying to drink the water, etc. She was just running around like any kid her age. :)

The boys were also clearly excited about beach time!

And so, so, so excited about hanging out with Nonni and Grandpa! I loved having my parents there as well, but I did have to share my awesome beach umbrella.

Ugh.

I mean… Worth it? ;)

She saw her brothers using the boogie boards and decided that she wanted to go catch some waves too!

Luckily Matt intervened with something a little bit easier for her to hold on too - though she wasn’t quite as prepared for riding the waves as she thought she was…

But the girl loves excitement either way, she was up for some more fun in the surf!

The grandparents brought these cool construction trucks for the boys. Natalie was highly offended that there wasn’t one for her, so she just stole their whenever possible! ;)

Henry is being Henry…

This guy is just crazy and I love him for it.

Of course whatever Henry is doing, his little sister wants to be right there with him. Luckily he still loves playing with his sister. :)

Matt bought them some kites to play with at the beach and Henry was ready to hold on to his own! He was super focused on keeping it up in the air and I was getting photos of his seriousness. Then he was all “Mom, my arm is starting to hurt!!”

lol - I guess it was a bit windy for him.

We got a lot of building time in the sand since we had plenty of beach to ourselves. Well not ourselves, but everyone is keeping their distance these days. It might look like this volcano is Matt’s idea, but I started this trend! This is probably our 5th rebuild of the beach volcano. (It was quite popular).

You can see on this version, Natalie is helping add a trench around the base.

The trench is necessary because I keep building the volcanoes up just to pour water down them like lava. As many times as I did it, it never got old! :)

Though clearly the boys did lose interest…

I did help Henry make some traditional sand castle buckets of sand, but he then proceeded to destroy them all, so…

You’re on your own, bud!

I managed to use a towel and my soccer mom chair to give myself some shade since my umbrella tent was getting crowded.

And of course, I then lost my shade to my youngest… Such a hard life!

I managed to get a photo of the kids with Nonnie & Grandpa, though not one where everyone was smiling. Though dad was half in the sun, so I can’t really blame him. ;)

Look - there are even photos of me!

It’s so rare for someone else to grab my camera and take photos, but Matt got some of Nonni & I playing with the kids!

These were technically some pool toys that Nonni brought for the boys, but they were so much fun to toss around at each other. Even Natalie tried to get in on the action! Well done, Nonni!

And, unlike our ring frisbee, these toys actually float! We’ll miss you, drowned frisbee. :(

Well that’s a wrap on our beach house trip. It was the get-away that we all needed!