Halloween Cookies!

Halloween was sneaking up on us and we were running out of time to do my absolute favorite Halloween activity - making cookies! Thankfully we didn’t have much to do this weekend and I crammed it into the schedule at the last possible weekend opportunity!

The boys were so excited about helping until they realized that they would rather be drinking hot chocolate and providing words of “encouragement” than helping. Whatever - it goes a little faster this way. ;)

The boys don’t play dress up nearly as much as they used to, but it being close to Halloween got them in the spirit again.

I struggle with thinning out the icing appropriately some times and I may have gotten it a little too thin. There were some complaints from the peanut gallery about not being able to make the details they wanted to. Such critics!

You can see the youngest creeping into the back and trying to steal the icing bottle. After she ran off with critical supplies for the 5th time (or so), I decided I probably needed to manage it.

So we decorated her a Halloween cookie all for her and trapped her in her high chair! She mostly just licked the icing off of the cookie, but it worked to keep her occupied.

The icing may have been a little too thinned out for details, but it sure worked great for whatever this methodology is. Henry was having a blast making a crazy marbled looking ghost. He needs to work on his eyeball placement though - unless he is making him have eyeball buttons?

Finally got to put her “grab things and run” skills to good use when we needed to clean up the supplies. ;)

All finished! They are getting so good at their decorating! You can still pick out ones they did when they go crazy with the sprinkles, but the ones they decorated to copy me are pretty much dead on. You can also see that the eyeballs on Henry’s ghost started to creep off the side. That’s what happens when you drown a cookie in icing!

Next year, I’ll try to plan ahead a little better and maybe we can invite some friends over. It goes much faster when you have help!

State Fair of TEXAS!!

There are many good things about us moving back to Texas. But honestly, the #1 thing is the Sate Fair! We used to go religiously before we moved to Alaska and I only managed to time it right once on our annual trips back to Texas to attend. I loved the Alaska State Fair, but it was so exciting to be going back to the original! ;)

The one trip I made with the boys and Nonni a few years back was fun, but it was nowhere near the food extravaganza that it should have been. But with them being a few years older and having their dad along, I figured we could do a little better. Starving them a little helped too since they were ready for food as soon as we got there.

I’m kidding a little, we did go pretty much as soon as it opened, so I didn’t let them eat a big breakfast. ;)

Natalie is pretty hit or miss on food, but she seemed pretty intrigued by the Texas nachos!

The cinnamon rolls and nachos are just as good as they always were. Loooove starting the fair days off with the old classics!

It took Natalie a while, but she was determined to eat that chip…! Also glad to see Big Tex back into the blue and red color scheme. I really didn’t like the years he was wearing a yellow shirt. ;)

I tried to plan some indoor activities around when Natalie needed to eat and it lined up perfectly with the pig races! The boys thought the racing pigs were hysterical and Natalie liked them enough to chill in her dad’s lap while I fed her. Win-win!

We finally met up with Nonni and Grandpa! They rode the train over from Fort Worth, so we definitely made it there sooner. I was on a mission to find the kid’s play area that we enjoyed so much back in 2015 and everyone was happy to just follow the determined momma.

Along the way, we ran into this cool map where you could put a sticker on where you were from. You can see it was near the end of the fair by the number of yellow dots already on the map!

We took it to mean where everyone was born because that was more fun. Henry was super excited to find Alaska, but didn’t understand why it was sooooo small? You people do know it’s bigger than Texas, right?

As we kept walking, I finally realized that the kid area just wasn’t there this year. I was so bummed - the kids loved it last time. But we stopped to figure out what to do next just in time to catch a milking demonstration. The boys were quite entranced by the whole operation, but I have no idea why Thomas suddenly decided to put his arm around his brother. It was super cute though!

It was way past due for Natalie to take a nap, but she wasn’t having it. I tried to encourage nap time by laying her stroller back, but she was not encouraged. She did launch her shoes out of the stroller though… Someone nicely handed one of them back to us when we didn’t notice it go sailing.

I kept craving a funnel cake, but none of the stands we walked by had one. I finally spotted the fried golden treats and abandoned my family to go get one. A craving is a craving!

Once we were done devouring it (I did share!), there was a pile of powdered sugar left on the plate. Well their dad was going to let that just go to waste…

Henry thought it was awesome, but I think Thomas was less impressed by the face-full of powdered sugar. ;)

Thomas didn’t remember a lot about the fair visit 4 years ago, but he did remember seeing photos of himself on the kid rides and was very insistent that they got to ride some rides. So once Natalie was crashed out, we went over there to let them ride some rides. And of course the motorcycles was Thomas’ top choice. He was much too focused on the ride to look at me, but Henry smiled for me!

Ice cream time! We all got our favorites! :)

And more rides. They were a little hesitant to climb up the never-ending stairs to the giant slide, but they loved it so much! They asked to go again and again, but I cut them off after the second run. Based on how much we paid and the crowd present at this ride, this ride was raking in the big bucks!

Also, the guy at the top flipped Thomas’ hat around for him so he wouldn’t lose it. I told him he looked like a super cool dude. I was a little bummed that they didn’t need our help for the slide rides anymore, I loved riding down with them in Alaska. But I also didn’t really want to climb all of those stairs either… Bittersweet, for sure!

Annnnnd done! Henry was out before we even got out of the parking lot. I think Thomas made it a little bit longer, but they were both worn out. Fried food, rides and heat worked it’s magic for a great nap time. Can’t wait for next year and hopefully Natalie will get more of the food fun than a chip. ;)

Walk for Hearing

Obviously we’ve become a family that cares a lot more about hearing since Natalie was born. But most importantly, we’re a family that cares about making sure Natalie know that there are other people that look just like her! So we decided to do the Walk for Hearing in Houston this year and invited anyone to come along who wanted to join us.

We even got some of our favorite people to take us up on the offer! We were so excited to have Allie and the Larson clan in addition to Nonni coming with us that I decided to make us shirts for the event! I found a place where you could design and order the most random sizing of shirts and their logo generator had a tsunami wave…

Those of you that know about our youngest’s birth story know that a tsunami warning went off in the hospital room right as she was born. We always refer to her as our little force of nature, so it was such a perfect logo! :)

The walk had some fun activities for the kids in addition to the actual walk. Natalie looooooved staring at the animals in the petting zoo. I wasn’t quite up for letting her in the pen, but she danced for the bunnies from outside the pen anyhow.

There were also several booths for hearing related products. We went over to say hi to the Cochlear people since she has a Cochlear BAHA and they gave her this super cool cape!

A true hearing super hero! :)

But you know who is not a hearing super hero? Her mom who doesn’t carry spare hearing aid batteries and we suddenly realized Natalie’s hearing aid was dead. I felt terrible that she wouldn’t be able to hear well at a WALK FOR HEARING…

We went back to ask the Cochlear representatives if they by any chance had any spares. They didn’t, but went and asked other people. Natalie’s deaf education teacher was also there and she asked all of her families. No luck! But one of the other mom’s did show me her battery holder she always carries with her. So next time we will be better prepared. :(

It was so hot outside! And all of the kids were sweaty and worn out before the walk even started thanks to all of the activities! And since Natalie’s hearing aid was pretty much useless, I took it off since it was just going to get all sweaty.

Thankfully, I had lots of helpers to push the stroller, so I got the chance to take some photos while we were walking! You can just barely see Theresa off to the side - her walk was starting with carrying her youngest. Maybe we don’t arrive early enough to wear the kids out next time.

At least part of the walk was in the shade. But it was soooo hot. Making me long for some Alaskan October days. We were definitely struggling more than the Texans who have been here the last few years.

Everyone wanted to push the stroller though! Which was more than welcome from me unless they started to steer like crazy kids. ;)

We may or may not have skipped part of the walk. It wasn’t intentional, but given how sweaty (and complainy) the kids were, I wasn’t go back to rectify it. I blame the misleading arrows!

And done! I decided Natalie was likely to fall asleep as soon as we got in the car, so I plopped her down to get a meal before we headed out. She really wanted to drink out of our water bottles instead of her thick water, so I finally gave her an empty one to pretend with to make her happy.

We picked up an extra kid on the drive home! The girls were going to look for a guinea pig and Wallace didn’t really want to go, so he was Natalie’s buddy on the drive home. He also stole my hat because he apparently loves float planes sooo much. I ended up having to sneak it back before he really stole it.

So many kids! Ours were playing outside and the neighbors came out to join in the fun. They mostly did a good job staying on the cul-de-sac part of the road, but I was helping on car watch just in case. Overall a super fun weekend and hopefully we can get more people to join us next year!

Colt Bolt

The boy’s school was having a fund raiser this week and unlike most of the school day activities, I was able to go! :)

The fundraiser is aimed at funding all of the PTA events the school does during the year (there are a lot!) in addition to providing equipment to the classrooms and specials. It’s also tied to starting the school year off healthy and is very much focused on the running part of the bolt!

Thomas’ grade was running first and I juuuuust missed the start of it. Thomas saw me towards the end of the first lap, but he wasn’t going to stop running just because I was there. So I had to wait until he was worn out to get pictures of him. I didn’t keep track, but he guessed he did 7 laps on the track. (Which is way more than I could currently do!)

He did briefly stop to get a selfie with his cheering section though. :)

After his class went inside, we had a few minutes to wait before Henry’s grade came out. Natalie took advantage of the emptiness to stretch her legs on the track! I took advantage of the time to move to a shadier spot - it was a hot morning!

Henry was excited to see us as well! He’s all smiles and ready to run!

I guess I haven’t seen Henry run since he started school and I was pretty surprised by his hustle! While I assumed he was just going to do the minimum of one loop, he didn’t even slow down when he ran by

Look at him go! I tracked him for a little while, but he stopped to grab some water and I lost track of him for a bit.

Quite a while passed and no Henry. Natalie was finally looking at me like “Mom, I don’t think Henry is coming back…?”

I had to admit she might be right, so we went off to look for him.

He totally abandoned us! His cheering squad was forgotten as soon as he saw some of his friends playing with all of the games scattered in the middle of the track. Soooooo rude!

We finally managed to steal him back for a photo as they were calling the kids to line back up and go inside. Besides the heat, it was a fun morning and even Natalie seemed happy to be chilling with her bros. And the PTA raised a ton of money. They should be able to fund everything they wanted and have extra left over! Go Colts! :)

September is All Random...

But that doesn’t mean it was uneventful!

The people that sold us the house left a lot of stuff in it for us because they thought it would be a blessing to our family. Stools for the kitchen counter, office furniture, patio furniture and a giant couch upstairs. They also left the washer, dryer and extra fridge for us. All so appreciated - but we now had two extra fridges! So we drove one to Theresa after she was lamenting about never having enough storage space in her fridge in the house. If you have space and kids - a second fridge is the best!

The kids were excited about getting to play with the Larson kids and all of their dress-up stuff. There were several different astronauts roaming around and I couldn’t always correctly guess which kid was inside!

Well she has moved back into loving baby food again. Yay!

And by loving I mean “will eat a few bites”. It’s all relative here…

Thomas got a new bike! One with hand brakes - thankfully he picked them up pretty quick. (Mostly…)

Which also means that Henry has a new bike! He actually did pretty awesome the first few times trying it out. Hopefully we will have two bike riders soon!

She was “cooking” for me by pouring bead necklaces from one bowl to another. It was apparently quite soothing as she did it for awhile. :)

I got to go on a work trip to Canada and it was gorgeous in addition to being an awesome field trip. The break in the hot weather was also quite welcome!

Sometimes I just don’t know what goes through a toddler’s mind. But she was very convinced she needed a sandwich bag on her hand to eat today. (Whatever keeps her eating…!)

Eliza is still hanging around, though pretty blind and deaf these days. She got herself so tangled up in Natalie’s high chair that she just gave up and decided to rest with her foot up in the air. Crazy dog…

I finally thought to try out the helper stool with Natalie while making coffee cake. She loved being up at eye level and actually behaved pretty well! Maybe she’ll get more hang out time in the future!

We went up to Dallas to go to the Children’s Craniofacial Association annual picnic. The kids had a blast even though it was crazy hot - their faces were so red & sweaty! We met a few other kids around Natalie’s age that had BAHA’s and a few feeding tube graduates. It was nice to meet some other families in similar boats to us and we’ll definitely try to attend more events!

The police randomly stopped by when they saw the crowd at the park and all of the kids wanted to take photos with them. Natalie looks a little concerned - like maybe they heard she was standing on the furniture even though she knows it’s off limits?? ;)

There was an incident with my parent’s neighbors and burning trash that led to the fire department getting called not too long ago. Since they don’t live very close to said fire department, Dad decided it might be worth investing in his own “fire tank” in case there were any more small fires to put out. He had just gotten the equipment set up, so of course the boys had to run through the water to make sure it worked.

I guess I don’t need to give them a bath now? :)

We stopped in our usual park in Waco on the way home. We need to come back some weekend and try to bike these paths - they certainly look fun from the playground!

The boys school had an International Festival to celebrate the diversity of the students and area population. It’s apparently one of their bigger events and I was amazed at how many people were there! Almost every booth had a food to try and a poster with facts about the country. The best part by far was that Natalie absolutely devoured the Panna Cotta from the Italy booth. I went over to try to get the recipe, but they had already packed up. I guess I’ll just have to pick a random recipe online to try!

We got our first good Tropical storm - Imelda. And I didn’t do great during it… Matt was out of town and I was offsite at a warehouse looking at rocks. I didn’t realize it was even raining that bad until one of the warehouse guys came to tell me I might want to move my car as the parking lot was flooding. The water was almost up to the door jam and I had no idea what to do. I mean, staying put is what I would have preferred, but I had no idea if I could get out later and the schools were all starting to close!

I decided to try and drive out the way I came. It was soooo sketchy! I was almost having a panic attack trying to decide what to do. I went through a parking lot at one point and the water was high enough it was making my proximity alerts on the bumper go off. Eeeek!

I finally got to the highway and they were ridiculously slow, but mostly out of the danger of flooding. I thought I was home free once I got to my exit, but every direction I tried to go a police or fire truck got there just in time to block me.

At the last intersection, the fire truck got on the loud speaker and started calling out cars to tell them they would not make it and needed to turn around! The one in front of me he called out wasn’t any lower than me, so I turned into a parking lot and decided to leave the minivan. I was a mile from home and already had soaked shoes from just trying to get to my car at the warehouse. So I wrapped up my work laptop inside of the boy’s raincoats (that I thankfully had in the car), stuffed it in my backpack and started the walk home through the flooded streets. People were still trying to drive down the road and no one would listen to the crazy lady walking down the median in a tropical storm who was telling them to stop. (I don’t blame them?)

I got home finally, grabbed Matt’s giant truck and retrieved the boys. Thankfully once the rain mostly blew through, the sewers could take care of the flooding in our part of town. It was truly a flash flood - I checked the stream gauges and the one near us jumped ~10’ in less than an hour. Craaaaazy!

I decided Natalie’s play room needed a little more color on the walls and bought these awesome circle stickers to decorate. The boys and I had a blast trying to make them just enough random to look good.

Someone discovered that the boy’s cereal is way more exciting than her Cheerios and is now demanding their cereal in addition to her own. Can’t really fault her for that…!

We discovered a new lunch spot for after church - Steak & Shake! It’s not really new, but I haven’t been in years and it’s pretty good food for pretty low prices. Plus they have milkshakes!

And you can tell that everyone obviously loved the hats as well. :)

Thomas isn’t the only one with a new bike! My old bike is now Matt’s new bike and I have this awesome bike with super big wheels. The selling point was really the raised handlebars - hopefully these won’t be as hard on my wrists as my old Specialized was. It’s definitely a bike for comfort - even the seat is nice and cozy! :)

Homegirl is ready for her first bike ride in the bike trailer. Though the helmet was more trouble than help in this case - she tried to choke herself pulling it off. We may give her a pass as long as she is safely in the trailer… Maybe.

Henry got a love note from a classmate…

I * am * not * ready * for * this!!!

It’s become a running joke how nice and presentable Natalie looks in the mornings when her nanny gets her up versus when I get her up. Whatever, she and I match… ;)

When I was a kid, I had a white blanket I drug around everywhere until it was literally falling apart. I guess my dad got annoyed by the strings it was leaving around the house and cut it in half. Then cut it in half again. I finally noticed what was happening and hid it away from him. I must have brought it up enough over the years how he destroyed my security blanket that he felt bad.

So he bought me a new soft, white blanket to make up for it! Which was commandeered by my eldest. That boy loves things that are cozy and warm, so I am not at all surprised by the theft…

Sometimes we forget that Natalie is getting old enough to play with some of her brother’s old toys and suddenly realize that there is a whole train set hiding in a closet she could have! Since we found it, I had the boys set up a fun track for her to play with. She loved it!

Then promptly went all Godzilla on it and destroyed it. Sounds about like the first few times I set it up for the boys…

The one sure way to get Natalie to try a new food is to eat it when you think she is not paying attention. She was very insistent to try the hummus I was snacking on and surprisingly, it looks like she really likes it! It’s like a more sophisticated version of baby food. ;)

I stumbled across these edits to the calendar I left in the boys room last time Matt and I were out of town on trips. Thomas had a ridiculously snotty nose the other day and I had to use a warm washcloth and scrubbing to get the dried on snot off (sorry - gross!). Well apparently the next day he woke up with the same problem and needed help. Most kids might just come find their mom, but he wrote this whole note with pictures (it’s a snot-stache!) about needing help from me.

Even he couldn’t explain his logic on that one…

The boys also brought up how I haven’t built them a pillow tunnel in for-e-ver! So I did my best to recreate the tunnels like I made in Alaska. The boys were excited, but not as excited as Natalie was! She had never seen such magic and was chasing her brothers through the cushions as fast as she could crawl!

I think she was just thrilled in general to be in the boys “Lab” and explore all of their fun toys. She even managed to turn herself into Wonder Woman with part of a Hot Wheels kit. Adorable! :)

Thomas got to pick a reward at school and picked out this checkers kit. When I got to school to pick them up that afternoon, the two of them were intently playing checkers instead of running around like their usual crazy selves. I love that the two of them are so into playing games! :)

August Random

With the start of a new school year, August really flew by! So let’s do the usual catch-up of the small stuff that happened. :)

Some days I get so excited about how well Natalie is eating and then other days, she only moves the spoon without eating anything. I try not to get frustrated, but it seems to be more of the latter these days. Here’s hoping the feeding therapy she is starting soon will help. :(

Though she does want to try pretty much anything her brother’s are eating! She may have only taken a nibble or two off the giant rice pop, but it was still pretty comical to watch. :)

I think we waited a little too long to change out her g-tube. With all that was going on, I realized it had been awhile - usually the valve starts to leak and remind us, but this one never did. But it also didn’t want to come out at all. It was terrible getting it swapped out - thankfully Matt was there to watch/help (I had to reassure him that it wasn’t normal to have such trouble!).

The piece off to the right is the deflated balloon and it just wouldn’t go flat no matter how much air we sucked out of it. It finally came out, but no one was especially happy about it. I now have a reminder on my calendar to make sure we get it out before it starts to have issues… :(

The most adorable biker gang ever! We finally got Natalie on the tricycle and it’s safe to say she loved it! She may have loved it more when Dadda was pushing it and being all crazy, but mom’s tame pushing is also acceptable.

We went to IKEA to get some shelves for her playroom in the new house and somehow came home with this play kitchen as well. I’m not sure if Natalie or Henry was more excited about it, but it was a great addition to the fun!

She apparently doesn’t think I have enough play food for her and was adding to her collection with anything she could reach in the pantry.

She is also very interested in helping me in the kitchen. See her mad silverware skills?? I, of course, pulled out all of the knives before letting her help out.

The new house is a lizard sanctuary and I LOVE it! They are so adorable! They will hang out by the windows and do the weird throat thing and their tiny lizard push-ups.

One of my favorite memories as a kid was when I got my very own library card! Our neighborhood library is pretty close by and we have gone there several times. So I went ahead and registered them for their own cards! Very high odds that they will lose them, but it is still worth it for the excitement of today. :)

I may be a little obsessed with Aldi and all the randomness that you can buy there. It’s like they know exactly what I can’t say “no” to. Case in point - these awesome taco plates! Taco night is going to be styling! (Not that I don’t still love the Tacosaurus, but the space for rice & beans is a nice upgrade!)

I’m doomed…!

She found the tupperware drawer. :(

Looks so adorable in the boy’s old apron though!

My boss has heard rumors that I am quite the baker, but so far I haven’t really made me anything. (In my defense, I am just now sorting out the baking stuff from the move!) Plus there is another cake baker on the floor, so it’s not like they are suffering…

But it was the other cake baker’s birthday, so I said I would make her a cake. I asked my boss what she liked and he said nuts, bananas and caramel. In hindsight, he problem meant for me to pick one, but I made a Pecan Bundt cake with Banana-Caramel sauce for on top. I skipped the banana part, but otherwise it was amazingly delicious. I think that he now believes the rumor. ;)

On one of my Friday’s off, I decided to walk the boys to school again. What can I say, I am a glutton for punishment in this heat. Plus they think it’s super fun!

This girl! She has a sixth sense for when I am not 100% paying attention and boy does she take advantage of it! Clearly her climbing skills have also improved…

And she’s turning into a ridiculous pantry thief! Cookies are her favorite target. And how can I say no to her when all I want is for her to want to eat? I feel like she knows this and takes advantage of it.

She’s clearly a smart cookie! (Ha!)

The 3D printer is back up and running! I have my very own office now and love having some “me” space. It’s a total mess, but I set the printer up right away. I’ve missed it!

The boys were pretty happy as well and were ready to be my QC staff.

Thomas has been asking me to make him this amazing marble machine we found on Thingiverse. I haven’t been up to it yet since it will take more than a day to print. But I thought we could tackle the smaller pieces first. And we clearly needed some tweaking! It took 5 attempts to get the screw to print out correctly

We’re obviously still learning what we are doing even after owning this printer for a few years! ;)

Side note - aren’t my new counter tops just the coolest? Such a fun rock to have on display! :)

Natalie started Deaf Education therapy and her new teacher had a splash party at her house for all of her kids to meet up. We, of course, went! We definitely want to be a part of that community so Natalie can be around other kids like her. But I was confused by the older teenagers there since Ms. Amy only has 3 and under.

Turns out they are all in the sign language program at the high school and were volunteering at the event. Ohmigosh, they were just the sweetest too! I am just learning some signs and they were clearly advanced in ASL. Plus they all loved Natalie, so they all seemed extra awesome to me. :)

I guess this guy is worn out from his long school days! The last two movie nights he hasn’t made it until the end before crashing on the couch. Also, this kid has an interesting sense of style and I love it! ;)

First Day of School!

I can’t believe summer is over! And I also can’t believe Henry is starting Kindergarten… Impossible!

I wasn’t the only one who was upset about what was happening this morning though! Natalie was so excited that everyone was home this morning and then lost it when we all walked out the door without her.

I mean, these two boys were excited enough to make up for it, but you can still see her crying in the background! :(

We figured the school parking lot was going to be a straight up madhouse and we don’t live very far away, so we have the brilliant idea to walk them to school! Except it is August in Texas, so I am not sure how brilliant it was. They had all of their school supplies to cart in as well, so Matt and I were hauling most of that as well. Thankfully the boys had enough excitement to power through!

Though you can tell that Henry’s perfect hairstyle got a little bit ruffled from wiping sweat off his face. But apart from that minor inconvenience, you can see how ridiculously excited he is! He’s been so ready to be a big boy and start school like his brother. And I think Thomas was pretty excited about having him there at school with him. :)

So many excited faces this morning. Part of me is indeed sad that my baby boy is growing up, but part of me is so excited for him to start school and be such a big boy. They are an awesome age and I hope that every age that is coming will be even more exciting! (Though I doubt that with the teenage years…)

I clearly don’t have the timing down great for pick-up yet and the traffic was ridiculous on our road! So I grabbed Natalie from the house and once again walked to get the boys from school. She was so happy to be included this time and the boys didn’t mind walking home once they realized I brought them snacks and cold water.

Overall a great first day of school and I can’t wait to see what a great year they have!

Bring the Future to Work Day!

I was pretty excited when I realized that work puts on a big event for bringing your children to work day - or Bringing the Future to Work Day as they call it. Thomas was in a half-day camp in the afternoon, so it was perfect to hang out with us at work in the morning! Henry was in a full-day science camp, so we decided to not pull him out and miss the robotics fun. (Plus it sounds like it is an annual event!)

I decided to sleep in a little and just bring Thomas is with me. Plus I saw that the cafeteria was serving kid-friendly breakfasts, so we definitely took advantage of that!

We had signed up in advance, so he had his name tag ready to go when we were walking in the door. He thought he could swipe his badge at the security gates, but I told him that it wasn’t a real badge and wouldn’t work. But I wasn’t thinking about how awesome the security ladies are at work - they opened it as soon as they saw him trying to swipe it. He was soooo proud of his badge after that. ;)

In addition to the outside groups (the zoo, the fire fighters, etc) that came for the event, almost all of the employee networks had booths for the kids. The Patriot Employee Network had cards for the kids to write thank-you cards to send to people in the military. So awesome!

One of the engineering groups had a “fishing” exercise to try and get a “fish” out of a piece of drill pipe. Thomas was one of the first kids to try it out and he got a real-deal hard hat for his success!

Fishing in drilling terms is when you get something something stuck in the hole - ie: drill pipe, wireline tools, bits, junk metal. It doesn’t matter what it is, once it is stuck and you are fishing for it - it is called a fish. In this example they used a binder clip and a hook, but the real options are actually much cooler!

I think his favorite part was all of the stations they had set-up at the company gym. He couldn’t quite figure out how to use the foam roller, but honestly I struggle with them as well. Hopefully my facial expression isn’t quite that comical… ;)

I did at least have enough skills to show him how to do pull-ups on the straps. He was pretty proud of how strong he was. :)

We met up with Matt finally and he asked what else there was that we hadn’t done. We just missed the fire truck, but the flight simulators were still up and running. So Thomas attempted a simulated landing at IAH airport. He tried his best, but I don’t think he will be flying big jets anytime soon… ;)

Overall, it was a great morning having fun with the eldest and getting to show him a little bit of what we do at work. Can’t wait to be able to show both of the boys next year!

Beach House - Golf Cart Parade

The last day at the beach and it was crazy packed compared to the rest of the week! Mostly because it was a Saturday and a gorgeous, sunny day!

My beach bum baby was back in action with her surfer girl! And a bucket to carry water around in. Because a girl can never have enough ocean water on her. :)

We luckily staked out a spot in the sand with the beach umbrella and golf cart to make sure the kids had room to play without someone else crowding us. The beach is narrow enough that people don’t generally get in front of you - unlike Galveston - so we only had to protect the flanks!

Oh and it was (obviously) so hot! The ice cream truck drove up and we promised the kids ice cream - then realized they didn’t take credit cards! Theresa had enough cash to buy a few ice creams and I sprinted back to the house to get money for the rest. Luckily it is close by, but I was still out of breath when I got back!

The ice creams were ridiculously cold - they must keep them on dry ice. It’s a great way to keep them from melting, but also made them a little hard to eat at first! Thomas was so excited about his watermelon bomb pop and Henry got a banana flavored one. It’s like they tried to pick my two least favorite flavors so I wouldn’t steal any!

Smart boys…

Henry graciously offered to give Natalie snacks, but I am 100% sure it was so he could sneak some Cheez-It’s while feeding her. I’ll take any help I can get, even the devious kind. ;)

We even lucked out and got the awesome golf cart parade! Theresa assumed it was every Saturday, but then we found out it’s once a year and we just keep getting lucky. The kids were ridiculously good at getting beads from the people driving by just by being their adorable selves!

Henry even got this crazy purple baton. I think they even ended up with pool noodles and boogie boards. How??

Meredith was very successful at bead collecting, but decided she had enough and decided to chill out in the shade for the rest of the parade.

All of the golf carts are decorated and since we had a golf cart, we thought we would join in! We didn’t do the full parade route, but we snuck in long enough to have fun with it. And I also got sprayed with ice cold water several times - apparently the people driving and the people watching are in a water battle that I was unaware of!

Once we parked the cart again, it returned to be extra shade and the sisters hung out to catch up! Sarah came for the last day with the rest of her girls, so she got to join in the most fun day. And somehow Natalie snuck in the photo… She’s sneaky like that!

Overall it was a great week at the beach and it will be sad (as always) to leave it behind. Can’t wait for next year and even more fun with the whole crew. Thanks for adopting me and the rest of my crew into this fun tradition!

Beach House - Galveston and a Rainy Afternoon

The other big fun day is travelling over to Galveston and going to lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe. The ferry ride last year was probably one of the boy’s favorite parts! This year was a little less fun because I was so worried about Natalie walking around that I only let them explore the observation deck that was enclosed.

But they still had fun at the Rain Forest Cafe! We actually went there with Matt when we were in Galveston last month, but it’s always fun to eat there with kids! Plus you can see that Natalie totally conned me into buying the rainbow cat she had been interested in last time.

And by that I mean, I thought she would like it and wanted to spoil her. ;)

All three boys were so excited about taking their photo with the frog character. I was getting a photo of my boys and Wallace insisted he be in the photo too. Of course!

On the wait for the ferry ride back, the heat and large lunches took their toll on the two youngest kids in my car and they both fell asleep. Since Thomas was bored just sitting there, I told him to bring his booster and sit up front with me while we waited to board the ferry. He thought he was the biggest and coolest kid sitting in the front seat. I’ve told him the house rule of being 12 before he can ride up there, so he thinks that means if he sees any kid in the front seat, they must be over 12!

Got back to the house just in time for a big rain storm to blow through. This little one was not thrilled about being stuck on the porch instead of playing on the beach. But she thought the thunder and lighting was basically nature’s party soundtrack and was running around under the overhang dancing. She’s taking a quick break here. ;)

Once it stopped raining, we headed over to the beach to squeeze in as much time as we could before more rain blew through. Everyone was all smiles again!

Natalie has a new thing where every time I squat down to take a photo of her, she squats down too. It’s a little challenging to get a good photo of a squatting baby. But this time I didn’t even notice her while I was taking a photo of Henry - she’s got some mad photo bomb skills.

As a side note - she really does love that surfing toy. It was well worth whatever it cost!

The boys were having a blast just riding around in the surf on the inner tubes. I can’t blame them - it looked pretty relaxing since it wasn’t terribly sunny. Every now and then they would get stuck up on the beach and holler for help getting back in the water.

What a life!

We finally decided it was looking a little too threatening and started packing up to head back inside. Natalie was given the very important job of helping Ruthie wash the sand off all of the beach toys, so she didn’t notice we were packing up until it was too late. Though I think she had a busy enough day, she didn’t even protest too much once she realized we were leaving.

Or she knows we’ll be back the next day? ;)