Girl's Weekend!

Theresa and I had started a tradition a few years ago to try and fit in a girl’s weekend or week since we were living so far apart. :(

Even though I am back in Texas, I don’t want to give up such a fun tradition. We obviously love our kids to the moon and back, but it is nice to get away for a short time to catch up! We decided a bit last minute on doing it this year, so we decided to go back to Fredericksburg.

The boys looooove Buc-cee’s so much. But the other day Thomas couldn’t remember the name and was telling us: “The place with the bear on the sign!” And it took us forever to figure out he meant Buc-cee’s - because the mascot is a BEAVER! So we have been giving him a hard time about it since then. So I snapped this selfie with the Buc-cee statue just to tease him about the bear with the weird teeth. ;)

I mean, he was giving me a hard time about leaving him for a whole two nights, so I think it’s fair to tease him. ;)

The weather was supposed to be super clear, so Theresa offered to bring her telescope to play with. And we got some awesome views of the moon! We managed to get an awesome photo of it using the phone and the eyepiece. So beautiful!

Also since we are back in Texas, we have more friends to invite along! Brittney and Rachael were both pretty excited for this get-away as well. (Brittney even was nice enough to drive us from Houston). Also, I think we got the coolest rental house in Fredericksburg. Plus the owners made us all kinds of yummy baked goods!

We only had one repeat winery from the previous tour we did - Santa Maria Cellars. It was one of my favorites, so I was happy! But I wanted to try and find the same spot we took photos the last time, but Theresa and I couldn’t agree where that was! So we did the best we could…!

Here’s the spot 4 years ago. I think the tree in the background is the same, but we definitely weren’t in the full sun! I also realized that we didn’t get any good ones with both of us last time, but I love this one of Theresa! :)

We also attempted to get all four of us in a selfie! At least we have some shade this time, but the tree is much further away. I am convinced there must have been another tree that we stood under for shade that has since been removed. We probably could have asked the winery owners, but it was more fun to debate about it. ;)

That was about it for photos this time since I didn’t pack my fancy camera. We may have spent more time talking with each other (and the other 6! people in the bus) instead of taking photos this time. It was a great trip though and I can’t wait for repeat visit in a few more years. ;)

Before I left, I set up with one of the iPads so the boys could text me and I could send them photos. They mostly texted me how much they missed me and when would I be home, so I am not sure it was my best idea…!

But I sent them this one when we were on the road heading home that I had my coffee and was on the way home to them. Plus the blasting air conditioner in the car gave me super model hair… ;)

A Morning at the Park

They had so much fun at the splash pad in The Woodlands, I thought we would try one closer to home this weekend!

While her first swimsuit was cute, the seam for the ruffles at the bottom was hitting right where her g-tube is. So I tried to find a longer, ruffle-free swim shirt. Which apparently meant I had to go to the boy’s side of the store… This one was pretty gender neutral and cute.

I did keep the pink bottoms from the first suit though! ;)

The boys were so excited when I said we were going to a splash pad, but were a bit let-down by this one. I don’t blame them… It would have been less exciting either way compared to the first one, but half of the water features weren’t even working! Oh well, I tried?

Once again, my fast walker tripped and fell at the park. And scraped her knee in the exact same spot! I swear she has it out for the knee…

Luckily, I noticed the park had some trails they could ride their bikes on and we brought them along as well. So while the splash pad was lame, they still got to have fun riding bikes! Thomas is doing so awesome on his bike - we let him ride around the big walking loops all by himself!

Henry still needs some more practice with the balance bike… We managed to find a small incline that he could ride down and get a little bit of speed. He bit it a few times, but he’s making progress!

May Random

It’s the end of May already? This year feels like it is flying by…!

Also as a fair warning: this is a long random post!

Someone looooves hats! She knows the sign for them and trying to make anything and everything a hat. ANd sometimes more than one at once! :)

Who is this giant baby?!?!? We stopped using this wedge a few months ago because she was moving around enough to get the side clasps undone. I pulled it out of the closet today and put her in it just to see how much she has grown - so much! She used to fit in just the harness part of the wedge when she was swaddled as a baby. The first photo I have of her in it is on this blog post, second photo down if you also want to be amazed!

We watched our first Marvel movie with the kids the other day. Someone promised me that Ant-Man was totally fine for kids and after we screened it, we totally agreed! They loved it and we happened to be at a party a few days later where Henry found this Ant-Man mask. He was so excited!

My sister sent this easter egg roller dyeing kit to the boys and we never got around to using it. Well the boys didn’t forget about it and we had a later Easter Egg dyeing day!

The boys both loved it! It was a little tricky to not have the colors bleeding into each other, but they still looked good!

We found a fun new park to explore and Natalie was all about climbing the equipment with her brothers. She’s also not about walking slowly these days and goes everywhere like she is late for a meeting. She may have gone a little too fast today and fell on the sidewalk. Her knee was bleeding and she was just mad I made her stop to check the injury!

Also, as her dad pointed out - she really looks like Thomas in this photo!

We got the boys back into swim lessons! They seemed pretty excited to be getting back in the pool and this time they were even in the same class! (Much easier on us - though the every night for two weeks wasn’t ideal…)

So excited that they are wearing their fancy swim school shirts! But mostly they are excited here that their dad picked up Waffle House when I put him in charge of grabbing dinner on the way home!

I dug out the different baby carrying devices we had to see if any of them would work for hauling her around without the stroller. She was not impressed by me getting her into either of them, but was happy enough once we were walking around the house.

Of course, when Matt saw the one carrier sitting out, he put it to work hauling around the biggest kid with Nerf guns to attack poor, unsuspecting Henry! Don’t worry - Henry got to pay Thomas back later… ;)

There are sooooo many squirrels in this yard! They are usually running all over the tree and fence. My dad noticed them last time and made this corn holding contraption to see the entertainment value it would provide. The squirrels didn’t know what to think of it at first. But then one brave little guy made the jump!

Which of course inspired the others to attempt the same feat! It was quite entertaining seeing how much they could get the thing swinging, but once they had it down the corn was all picked off in no time!

We decided the boys needed some form of water shoes for the beach visits and going to swim lessons. Despite my dislike for Crocs, they wanted to be just like their dad and picked out these camo ones for kids.

Ugh…

We had a bit of an incident with the BAHA that led to it get broken (!!!). Thankfully Cochlear replaced it since it was still under warranty. But since the band was broken as well, we had to order a new one of those. So I saved the old “block” to see if I could use it for a new band. It kinda works, though I had to modify one of the old ones I already had and it has an extra hole it shouldn’t have. But still useable and no feedback like the other block.

We started watching our old favorite tv show, Stargate SG-1, with the boys. So far they are loving it! And it’s pretty kid friendly compared to most sci-fi shows these days… “/

Such an amazing breakfast I have made for her. And she ate about two blueberry halves. We have good days and we have bad days with the eating. Hoping that overall we are making progress…

Went out and left a very important piece of equipment at home - the syringe!!! I managed to get the squeasy bottle shoved into the extension enough to squeeze it straight out of there into her belly. But it was definitely not an efficient way of feeding her. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got this whole tube feeding thing down and then other days…

I can’t believe I haven’t thought to break out the crayons until now! She wasn’t terribly sure what to do with them, but she made a few scribbles on the paper. Have to start having art time for her to build some coloring skills!

Her nanny had her citizenship ceremony this month and needed the morning off to attend it. I considered taking Natalie to the ceremony to cheer on one of her favorite people, but wasn’t sure how well she would do sitting for so long. Instead we made her an American Flag cake!

And dressed her in the best red, white & blue outfit I could find. Neema was so excited to see her and the cake. But we’re even more excited for her! Congratulations!!

Some of our Alaskan friends were in the Woodlands for a few days, so we made the trek up north to go see them. I figured since we were up there, we should find a park to go play at - and I found the coolest one that also had an awesome splash pad. Natalie was quite excited about the whole adventure!

This guy was too! And thanks to the new crocs (ugh), he was able to put them on right after playing in the water to be able to explore the playground as well.

Movie night with the boys and I let them have pudding cups. Henry was veeeeery excited about them!

I told Neema to try out the finger paints since Natalie seemed to like the crayons. But Natalie did not like the paint on her hands. She totally lost it and Neema felt terrible about making her cry. I sent her the photo of Henry losing it on me with finger painting so she would know it’s apparently just my kids way of dealing with painting the first few times. ;)

Thomas brought home this awesome portrait of me! Lol - solid resemblance!

The oldest might be a little bit excited about school being over…? I am so proud of how well he adjusted to the new school even with moving half-way through the year. The little guy is more resilient than I give him credit for sometimes…

This gem came home in his end-of-year stack of papers. I loooooove this glowing review of Chick-fil-A! 5 stars!

They had a chalk day on the playground for their last day and I was trying to get him out of the playground when he had to stop and draw something. I was about to hustle him out, but realized he was writing me a note. Glad I let him finish - love this kid to the moon and back infinity times!

We went over to the Luster’s house for a play date and they have this totally awesome inflatable water slide! We brought their water guns and all of the kids had a total blast!

The fact that they also have power wheels was just icing on the cake… ;)

First week of summer camp and I sent him to the same STEM camp that he went to over spring break. He had a blast with their “Maker” week and built this awesome house from his imagination. You can see his dad’s influence with the skateboard half-pipe in the yard. Matt has been trying to convince me we need one…?

Memorial Day @ Galveston

We had so much fun at the beach the first time we went that we decided to go down again for Memorial Day! I thought the public beaches would be super crowded and we just bought a Texas State Park pass, so we drove down to the Galveston SP to check it out.

Unsurprisingly, it was also pretty crowded, but actually a really nice park to go to otherwise!

Since we knew they wouldn’t be renting umbrellas, we took the time to find the sun shade tent that I bought for one of our previous Texas trips. It worked pretty well for shade, but was a little difficult to set up - definitely a two man job!

I finally bought this girl a swimsuit since it was pretty clear she loved the beach last time. She didn’t exactly get in the water, but she did get her feet wet this time!

The boys were pretty excited with the additional beach toys we brought this time. Though you wouldn’t know it from Henry’s expression. Maybe he’s just squinting in the sun…

This girl was not still for more than a few seconds this time. She would grab her snacks and ruuuuuuuun! It was not the most relaxing beach trip for Momma…

I think the two of them were trying to dig a giant hole in the sand again, but weren’t making much progress this time… ;)

I was so excited about this girl and her snacking! She apparently got hungry and actually ate some Cheetos! And she drank when she was thirsty! I know that seems so normal and it is - just hasn’t been for us. It feels like such an improvement! :)

She just didn’t do so great about finishing her Cheetos without dropping them in the sand. So once they hit the deck, I threw them off to the side of the tent. And kinda forgot about them until we were packing up and the seagulls found them! They must have really good eyesight!

And it’s not like we can go to Galveston and not visit the ice cream shop! We may have ordered a bit too much ice cream, but we ate as much as we could…!

Before we went down to Galveston, we set up the tent in the yard to make sure we wanted to take it. I looked out the window later and saw this guy just chilling in the tent enjoying the fresh air. I think he’s happy to have a yard free of moose and bears that he can go hang out in. :)

May the 4th!

I don’t know when I discovered the whole “May the 4th be with you” fun, but I am always keen for a random holiday and especially one that supports Star Wars! I may not be a super fan like some of our friends, but I do love the movies! And despite them not having seen any of the movies yet, the boys are also fans!

I claim full influence over this!

So when I saw the local library was having a May the 4th celebration, I conned my parents into watching Natalie so I could take the boys. They were super excited about learning some “light-saber” skills! I had to fill out waivers for them to participate since there was obviously a slight chance of injury… And the lady helpfully pointed out that their dad could also participate if he filled out a form.

Their dad?!?! What???

She finally noticed which parent was actually wearing the relevant shirt and offered that I could also join in if I wanted to…?

Hmmmph!

I decided to just let the kids have their fun and take photos instead. Besides, I don’t think I could keep a straight face trying to light saber duel with these super fans that were the instructors… ;)

The boys were (thankfully) very tolerant of me wanting to take photos of them with all of the fun props!

And they even took the time to make some awesome Yoda ears! Such cute little Yodas! :)

Thanks to Matt for putting up with us and our Star Wars geekiness.

Happy Birthday 7th Thomas!

I have a 7 year old! Amazing how the time flies by…

He actually got his cake a few days after his birthday since his birthday was during the week. But I like this photo of him with his number 7. It’s not my prettiest cake, but it sure was tasty!

Back to his actual birthday! Since we were (again…) not having a birthday party, we let him pick a restaurant for dinner. He picked Uncle Julios - we had been a few weeks ago for Taco Tuesday and he really wanted to come back for a certain item. (It will show up in a second!)

He was more than happy to wear all the birthday swag this year, but I imagine some day he won’t want to wear any of it. Gotta get my fun in with the birthdays while I can!

Natalie was interested in the beans, but nowhere near as excited as she was by the napkin pirate hat her dad made her! I have to admit, I was pretty impressed as well…!

Thomas has been asking for this for his birthday since we saw it the last time. A chocolate piñata! We watched several people get them and send chocolate flying off the table when they whacked them. Thomas listened carefully to the instructions and broke it perfectly!

Look at that beautiful mess of dessert. We tried, but couldn’t quite finish it all… So many tasty treats!

And a fitting birthday present for a kid who is enjoying new activities and hanging out in the outdoors - a skateboard! His dad will definitely be the one teaching him that as I have approximately zero skateboarding skills.

And look what his Aunt Heather got him for his birthday… Nerf guns! To be fair, she did ask for permission first and my only feedback was to get two so there wouldn’t be any fighting. I did not realize quite how much it hurts to get him with a Nerf dart though!

Looks like I need to come up with some fun targets to shoot because there will otherwise by a war in this house and I am not ready for that… ;)

Happy 7th birthday, my biggest-little-man. I love the boy you have grown into and despite my insistence that you stop aging, you are so very fun right now!

April Random

One crazy thing that happened in April was that I took my first away trip since before Natalie was born. It was my first work trip in years and absolutely first time away from Natalie. It also happened to be April Fool’s Day the first morning I woke up in Austin.

And got a phone call from my mom (who nicely offered to go help out Matt with the kids). Thankfully she started the phone call with “Everything’s ok…”

But Natalie was hanging out in the ER with Nonni and her very new nanny. Sometime in the night, her g-tube balloon had popped and the whole thing had fallen out. By the time mom was getting her up in the morning, the hole had already started to close! (This is why we always care a spare in an emergency kit). She did manage to get a catheter tube of a smaller diameter in the hole to keep in partially open, but not they were hanging out in the ER trying to get the hole back to where they could put in a new g-tube.

It took several hours and obviously Natalie couldn’t eat until it was replaced. She didn’t melt down too much, but did take an extra morning nap to pass the time. She was finally cleared to eat a few hours late and everything worked out ok! Luckily my mom was there or we might have scared off her nanny in the first few weeks. Whew! :)

Not a very nice April Fool’s joke, my little one…

Thomas’ school had a spring carnival and we all walked over to join in the fun - it’s so nice being in walking distance from a school. Especially with no mountains to traverse… ;)

We’ve had the small honey bear for her to practice drinking since the swallow study last year. I decided to buy a few more so we could try both milk and water. She’s definitely improving on her straw skills! :)

Also, she was supposed to be asleep, but after an hour of her marching around her crib - I gave up and let her come hang out again for awhile. Milk and crackers should help her feel sleepy, right??? (Lol - nope!)

I think this photo captures the randomness that usually happens when we get home. No matter what her brothers are up to, Natalie wants to hang out with them! Also, the shopping ads are my favorite mail to get these days. I can’t get over how cheap the produce is and I have to text Kathryn photos when it gets ridiculous - like 3 mangoes for $1!!!

The third Superbaby to grace the family! :)

I love getting to hang out with Natalie on our Friday’s off while the boys are at school! But her nanny tends to miss her on those days, so I sent her a photo of Natalie wistfully thinking of her favorite nanny! :)

The rental house is in walking distance from Target! Sooooo dangerous. And she clearly needed some summer clothes for this heat… ;)

Another road trip means another stop to feed homegirl! This one was at Buc-cee’s and I fed her while Matt took Eliza for a walk to go potty.

Sometimes she gets a little tired of me taking her photo all the time. Too bad for her! ;)

You can also very clearly see the safety line on her BAHA in this photo. It is very similar to clear fishing line, so sometimes it hides pretty well!

She didn’t want to eat the food I packed for her at lunch, but she did want to gnaw on my lemon slice. I figured she’d try it and spit it out, but she gnawed on it quite a bit. Guess she inherited her dad’s lemon eating tendencies…

Beach Day!

With two actual trips under our belt, we decided to try a day trip down to the beach in Galveston. It’s certainly getting hot enough for it and we figured the boys would have a blast!

Henry was ready to go as soon as we got down to the sand. Not so fast there, little guy - you are still as pale as you were in Alaska. I lathered him up with sunscreen and made him chill for a bit under the umbrella before letting him go crazy. On a related note - the umbrella rental is a must for me. We went to the beach all the time as kids and my parents would never rent the umbrellas & chairs!

The first time I rented one, I realized why (so much $…!!), but I still consider it part of going to the beach. It makes it so much more enjoyable for me! :)

The boys have no problem hanging out in the sun though! And they don’t even care if they have sunglasses on! I am not 100% sure they are mine… ;)

Natalie wasn’t too sure about her first glimpse of the ocean. It is pretty big and scary when you are a tiny girl. But she warmed up to the beach quite quickly though and was wandering all over the place.

Except into the water. To be fair, she doesn’t have a swimsuit! We obviously never needed one in Alaska and we haven’t bought one here yet. I’ll add it to the list for the next Target trip!

She seemed happy enough hanging out with her momma on the sand though, thankfully!

The boys were nonstop entertainment of running into the water, running out of the water and repeat!

I plopped Natalie down in a chair to try and get photos of the boys and she was not at all interested in sitting still. Eeek! These beach chairs are not that sturdy to be climbing all over them…

So I put her on the sand (in the shade, of course!) and that was ok. She wasn’t terribly sure about all of the sand sticking to her legs, but thankfully she wasn’t trying to eat the sand. Side note - aren’t those the cutest little water shoes?? They were in the giant pile of clothes we got from a friend and I love them - I kinda want an adult sized pair for me! The boys need some water shoes as well. We are clearly not a beach-ready family yet…

I think Matt finally got tired of being in the water and made the boys come play up on the beach so he could chill out for awhile. So I was finally able to get some photos of them playing while still staying close to the little trouble maker.

Except she doesn’t like not being the center of attention and tried to put the cap back on my lens to stop me from taking photos. Lol - it looked like a giant, black starfish was attacking me!

The boys were trying to dig a hole and then bury Henry’s legs in it. I think they got tired of digging and started pouring water in the hole instead.

So Dada got involved in helping bury all of Henry in the sand. Henry was looooving it! Until his dad starting tickling his feet and he couldn’t get away! He was laughing hysterically and trying his best to get free. It made for an awesome photo and the perfect image for what a fun day it was. Glad we are back to being able to take fun day trips, even if it requires a bit more attention on packing than before. ;)

Easter Trip

Given the success of the first Texas road trip, we decided to join the rest of Matt’s family up in Dallas this weekend to celebrate Easter! It was even nicer since the schools and work both count Good Friday as a holiday and we got a 3 day weekend out of it!

We had a non-rushed drive up to Dallas on Friday and got there with enough daylight to hang out in the yard enjoying the nice Texas spring weather! Natalie was super excited about walking around the yard and discovering all the “treasures” Grannie has hiding there.

Matt has been obsessively talking about buying a truck for years (so many years!). He was so close to buying one in 2017. It was in Fairbanks and he was talking about flying up there with his dad (who was in town) and driving it back down. So I tried to force him to follow through by buying them on-way plane tickets. Luckily Alaskan airlines has a 24 hour cancellation policy, so I refunded the tickets when I realized he still wasn’t going to go. But since we have moved down, he’s ramped up the truck searching again.

He was chilling on his mom’s couch on his phone when he sprang into action! “I have found the truck!”, he proclaims. “I am going to go buy it!” Neither I, nor any of his friends he was texting with believed him. But he has shocked us all and came back to the house with a brand spanking new tank! Ahem, truck!

Saturday morning, I drug everyone out of bed with a mixture of cajoling and threatening to make sure I got Cafe Brazil this morning! Since I skipped our usual Texas trip last year, I haven’t had it in sooooo long!

While they were moving slow as can be getting out of the house, they both seemed pretty excited about the candy pancakes!

I tried to give Natalie some of the fruit off of my usual pancrepe breakfast, but she wasn’t terribly interested. I even offered her the strawberries and blackberries, not just the bananas I didn’t want! ;)

There was a slight snafu last night with the wiper blade on the truck, so he had to take it back to get it fixed. But once it was ready to leave the lot again, the boys abandoned me to ride with their dad in his monster truck!

The rest of the family arrived and they brought Easter gifts for the kids! Natalie was in love with her pretty bunny ears! :)

I wouldn’t let the boys start looking for easter eggs until they took a photo with their sister. Probably would have had a better photo if I hadn’t stuck Thomas right in the sun, but by the time I realized my mistake they were not going to stop easter egg hunting to take another photo… Ha!

Thomas and Buckwheat were by far the most energetic of the easter egg hunters. He was running all over the place grabbing eggs and Buckie was never far behind.

Henry was more on a mission to find all of the easter eggs that were too high for him to reach and making Aunt Jo help him get them.

Thomas did take a quick stop from running to smile for me - mostly because he could tell he was sooooo far ahead of Henry!

Natalie even managed to find one and claim it! Good thing she didn’t find many more since I didn’t have a basket for her…

Also, doesn’t she look extra adorable in her bright clothes on this bright day??

Eliza was more than happy to just lay in the grass and not get involved with the egg hunting. She finally got her Texas haircut, so she no longer looks like a wooly gray sheep.

Looks like they ended up about even on the eggs they found! And they both had a blast! Thanks again to the nephews for hiding all of the eggs for them - you did a great job! :)

Road tripping back to Houston and we had to stop for a break to feed her and let the boys play at the rest stop playground. Unfortunately, the play ground was closed!!! They weren’t too upset and we just gave them races to run in an attempt to wear themselves out. Everybody looks pretty happy to be out of the car for a little while!

I got the one cute photo out of them and then the little one spotted her food syringe and grabbed it. I had to stop taking photos and intervene before she sprayed it everywhere. She’s unfortunately strong enough to be a little bit dangerous with her syringes. Never leave one pre-loaded with water laying around or you will get wet…! ;)

Kid President

Henry had photos prior to Easter at his new daycare and his dad told him he should wear his suit to look extra handsome for them. I didn’t see him until I picked him up after work and he had already changed and messed up his hair. So I wasn’t expecting much when I went to look at the photos and pick a favorite.

Oh this one is definitely a keeper!

Wait… What???

I don’t love paying for photos, so I usually only buy one.

This one might be better. I’ll go with this one!

Oh no…

It was about here, I started to think I might be in trouble. I can pick between any of them now!

Yup, I was doomed. I took a video of me scrolling through the pictures to ask Matt which one to get.

“All of them.”

So there you go. The combination of the outfit and this amazing photographer who got great expressions out of my Henry doomed my wallet. Worth it when he runs for President and can show how he has always looked the part! ;)