Random November

There were some cute moments this month that I didn't want y'all to miss out on!

Someone has developed a habit of going into the pantry and hiding to eat food. This week it was chips and she seemed very concerned Eliza was going to steal them away…

Let the weather get a tiny bit cold and we are ready to pull out some awesome beanies! (We have way too much cold weather gear for our current climate…)

He is such a cool dude!

For the first time in almost forever, I got to teach a geology field trip! We went to Del Rio, where the Eagle Ford rocks we produce from come to the surface in outcrops only a few miles away. Of course the first time I saw the rocks was about 2 minutes before I had to teach them, but I think I pretty good all things considered! And while Del Rio is right on the border with Mexico, that’s not the Rio Grande, it’s the Pecos River - and a nice, scenic lunch area!

But being field trip leader and logistics coordinator is hard work! I may have been hiding under the bus drinking my coffee before trying to round everyone up to go home on the last day. ;)

Someone was so tired today, but fighting taking a nap with every possible breath. So Neema decided to use a trick she employs with her sons and tied Natalie onto her back to walk around the house. Natalie was out like a light in no time!

The boys and I found a 3D printing design book at the library. Some of the designs were pretty involved, but we did manage to pull off this impossible sphere and cube. Definitely more our level of skill! The left side shows how it prints with supports and the right is after you clean it all up.

Someone is double checking the paperwork, but yes - it does indeed say that she is cleared to start weaning off her feeding tube! It won’t be a fast change, but man are we excited either way!!!

Pretty sure that shirt was on correctly when I put her down for a nap… lol

It's never a good feeling when water starts dripping out of a light fixture. This tiny pinhole leak took some effort to locate and probably had been going for awhile before it made a dramatic exit from the downstairs ceiling.

I guess opening drawers is the hobby of the month??

Probably should be quiet and stay thankful she's not emptying them as well… ;)

Thanksgiving Break - Dallas

After San Antonio, we headed north to Waco to spend two nights before heading over to Matt's family Thanksgiving. Except I somehow messed up the dates and tight we were doing Thanksgiving on Friday - we weren't!!!!

So despite booking the hotel for two nights, we only got to stay one. And the hotel had Texas shaped waffles - my favorite!!!

And no biking, it was definitely an easy breakfast and get on the road or we'll miss it kind of day.

Oh well, Waco will still be there for exciting some other time…

Thankfully we made it in time for Thanksgiving! The extended family was all pretty excited to meet all of the kids, we've missed most if the recent family gatherings being so far away. Natalie obviously was her charming self and managed to con her aunt into wearing her bracelets all afternoon.

And we managed to leave San Antonio without Natalie stealing Scout! Violet is still clearly her favorite. ;)

Once again, I failed to get photos of family! But as always, I managed to get photos of my kids and their fun food?

My deepest apologies to my family members. I swear I love you more than candy bar pancakes!

But since we're taking about them… The boys love these pancakes! Clearly, we're at one of my favorites breakfast spots in Dallas - Cafe Brazil! While these things make my teeth hurt to imagine eating, my usual breakfast there was as tasty as ever!

Hope everyone had an equally amazing Thanksgiving break and maybe a little less stress about where to be/when!

Thanksgiving Break - San Antonio

I may have spoken too soon about Natalie always being willing to eat yogurt… there was no interest in it the next morning!

After seeing my family in Austin, we headed South to spend a few days hanging out with the Larson’s and exploring San Antonio!

Can you even say you are exploring San Antonio if you don’t make an obligatory visit to the Riverwalk? We certainly don’t think so!

Even Natalie was enjoying chowing down on some tortilla chips!

Getting the boys educated on some Texas history while on vacation! Turns out I needed some education too - I never realized that the final day of the battle of the Alamo coincides with our wedding date (March 6th!).
Or I’m so Texan that I must have picked the date subconsciously?? ;)

The boys did actually seem interested about the history of the Alamo, but they also seemed equally interested in finding their names on a memorial!

The next day we headed out to explore some bike trails, but the weather was not cooperating. Can you tell that Natalie‘s mood mimics the weather…?

The forecast still looked promising for the afternoon, so we did some shopping and headed off to the trail head. We figured by the time we finished lunch it might be clear enough to ride.

Also we discovered Freddy's! I think all of us fell in love with the fry sauce. Most of us only used our fries in it though, not our teething biscuit like Natalie… yuck!

Natalie may look a little skeptical about her bike ride in this picture… It’s possibly because her mom did not attach the tire correctly and it fell off shortly after the ride started? Don't worry - she's totally fine. :)

As usual on these rides, Natalie fell asleep pretty quickly to the hum of the tires (once attached priority) and her Violet singing to her.

The trails Theresa had recommended were pretty awesome. And Thomas is doing such a good job riding on his own! we’re still working some on trail etiquette, but honestly he does better than several adults we have come across.

Did I mention we loved Freddy's? We decided to go back after the ride and eat some of their custard too!

Natalie may not try every food we offer her, but ice cream is always a win!

Oh and she discovered Meredith has the boy version of her Violet doll: Scout! She then needed to carry both of them around with her - thankfully Meredith didn't seem to mind too much.!:)

The boys had so much fun with cookies last month, that I bought some decorations to do Thanksgiving cookies. And what's more fun that decorating cookies with friends??

The icing color choices the kids requested were… unique?

But there were some traditional choices for the holiday!

My kids definitely decorate differently than Theresa's, but everyone was having a blast!

Apparently in their famiky, they usually have a contest on the cookie decorating as well. This was new to use, so everyone did their best attempts at the perfect Thanksgiving cookie.

Josh took his task of judging the cookies very seriously and handed out awards in several categories. The fiercest competition might have been on “most sugar used” - lol.

Natalie was not interested in cookie decorating this year and seemed pretty happy to discovered a delicacy called Jello. Not sure it's the highest nutritional value food, but she sure did love it!

Larson’s - thanks for letting us crash with you for a few days and hopefully we get more if these visits now that we don't live far away in Alaska anymore!

Thanksgiving Break - Austin

The kids get all week off for Thanksgving, so we decided to take the week from work as well. We thought about renting an RV and going camping, but we waited a bit too late to book anything and all of the good campgrounds were busy.

So in a change up for us, we decided to stay at hotels. Even better was that I didn’t have to make breakfast! It’s the little things that really make it a vacation for moms… ;)

I still always worry about what Natalie will eat, but luckily this breakfast buffet had fruit and yogurt - her two favorite breakfast foods!

One of my other favorite things to do on vacations with the kids is to check out the local science or kids museums. Austin has a great one called the Thinkery - which was even a free visit with our museum pass!

I had my fancy camera with me and took way too many photos, but you can see what a neat place it is and how much fun the kids were having:

There were giant magnet puzzles and a Wooly Willy (I had to look the correct name up for the bald guy!)

Things to push and pull. Circuits to complete!

A farmer’s market and cooking area!

A toddler area that was the least exciting place for my toddler… ;)

An outdoor area with all kinds of crawling structures and creative musical instruments!

And a whole section devoted to light and color!

I love these shadow walls, but the best photos I got are without the shadows - ha!

Someone was so proud of their stacking skills. Rightfully so!

we could have stayed there all day, but we did eventually start to get hungry. After a quick lunch nearby we took off to explore some bike trails!

Thomas is doing great on his bike! And Henry is much more helpful on the trailer bike than Thomas ever was in Alaska. And thanks to the bike trailer, Natalie usually gets a good nap in. My secret plan for the bike paths was to get to this giant spider, the boys were as impressed as I hoped they would be!

Once Natalie woke up, she wanted to have some fun too! So we rode back to the playground across from the museum and let her go crazy. And to top off an exciting day, the ice cream truck showed up just in time to get some sweet treats!

we were actually in Austin because my sister was in town for training and asked if we would celebrate Thanksgiving early since she’s so close. My parents came down and stayed with them in a rental house, but we opted to spare them the chaos of our kids and stay at a hotel. ;)

Somehow I managed to not get any photos of the family having Thanksgiving together…. The only photo I got from the evening what is this one of Henry after he lost a game of Uno. He was mostly upset that he had a giant Draw Four and never got to use it!

School Happenings

It’s been a busy month at work and for the kid's school. But it’s a fun busy!

The PTA at the school hosted a mother-son game night. It’s hard to tell who was more excited about the games - the boys or me! We even managed to run into our neighbor who offered to take a photo of me and the boys. So rare to get ones that aren’t selfies. :)

It was also pretty much the only cold day this month - thus the Alaska jackets. Unlike Alaskan events though - there was no coat rack!

I may not have been paying much attention to the game while playing this giant Connect 4 with Henry. I thought I could get a cool photo of him through the holes and he decided to just beat me in the meantime. Devastating…!

We had soooooo much fun playing Bingo! I think the boys were most excited about the Bingo markers, but they also seemed pretty thrilled to win!

On one of our Fridays off, Matt and I decided to pick the boys up from school on the bikes. We strapped Thomas’ bike to the back of the trailer, so everyone got to ride along! Pretty much any slight change in routine is fun to them and they were ecstatic about this. :)

Plus we made it more fun by stopping at a new playground on the way home. Natalie has walked over here with her nanny before, but the rest of us had never been. Matt was pretty excited about the motorcycle!

There were even some structures for the bigger kids - my eldest was off and climbing as soon as he saw them!

This red coat barely fits her anymore, but I think she looks super adorable in it! The red just makes her eyes look extra awesome, huh?

Last, but not least, it was open house night at the school! After getting denied on the stroller for meet the teacher night, I decided to try a different means of toddler containment. While I used this baby carrier for the boys quite a bit in Alaska, Natalie hasn’t used it much.

She was not impressed…

It did work to keep her from running away, though she discovered a new sound to convey her displeasure. Luckily it was a pretty entertaining angry growling/gurgling sound.

Henry was so excited to show off all of his schoolwork in his class, but this one was by far my favorite. I think the assignment was to tell an interesting fact about yourself. And for those of you that can’t read Kindergartener it reads:

I [have] been in an earthquake.

Hahaha - good choice of facts, Henry. :)

Happy Microtia Day!

Last year we celebrated alone up in Alaska, but part of the fun of being back in Houston is having a community for almost everything. The Texas Children’s Hospital hosted an event for National Microtia Day and we were super excited to attend!

We even convinced Nonnit come down and join us! Plus the event was supposed to have talks for the parents, so I thought it might be good to have some extra help…

Last year, I got Natalie a onsie for the occasion and she has clearly outgrown it, but I was happy to see they still had it as an option in a toddler size! And since I wanted to be supportive of the Ear Community group that makes the shirts, I bought the polo option for all of us!

Don’t the boys look extra handsome in their polos? They were pretty excited the even had fun activities for them as well. Natalie seems to be a bit confused as how to play corn-hole though…

You can see the Cochlear people gave her another cape. I tried to tell them that she got one at the Walk for Hearing, but they weren’t going to let her walk around and not be a hearing superhero. ;)

Once the lectures started, we tried to steer the boys to slightly less noisy activities. The one option of throwing tennis balls at cans seemed like a terrible idea for a large room with speakers trying to be heard at the front. Luckily the rocket ship painting was an acceptable alternative to them.

Natalie even got to make some of her own artwork! Her skills are improving…? ;)

And she was even willing to sit still long enough to get an ear tattoo. I think that’s pretty much the only time she was still though - she had a blast being around her family and some other kids her age. I don’t know that she made any lasting connections this year, but I’m still glad we can take her to stuff like this! :)

Since we had the extra help, we dropped mom and Natalie off at the house after the event for nap time - then headed over to the library for a “maker” event they were hosting. I am loving having a library that does fun events for the community, especially if it involves 3D printers and robots. The boys got to play with Botley, the robot, at one of their STEM camps this summer and they haven’t stopped asking for their own since!

Overall, a super fun morning for everyone!

Can I go take a nap too??

October Random

This month wasn’t all about Halloween…

And here are the photos to prove it. ;)

Matt had to run an errand at lunch and offered to bring lunch back. Little did I suspect he was going to pick up lunch from our absolutely favorite sushi restaurant. What a great weekday surprise! :)

Someone is absolutely, positively a pantry thief! I mean, I am glad she’s more interested in food, but I could do without food being scattered everywhere… ;)

Also, I was clearly lying on the floor trying to recover from the boy’s Colt Bolt and letting her go crazy. Thankfully that bag was still sealed…

Thomas and I got to go on a bike ride together! He did soooo awesome on it and was having a blast. Until we headed back home and I forgot to mention that slowing down helps with corners - poor guy hit the guardrail pretty good when he didn’t quite make the turn.

Natalie loooooves bubbles, but can’t quite figure out how to make her own. This is the closest she’s gotten to figuring it out, but she wouldn’t let me help her hold the wand just a little bit further from her face.

But rubbing bubble solution all over your mouth apparently works out in the end - she yelled “bubble!!!” at one of the ones Nonni blew and made her own!

My new battery holder keychain came in! No more dead hearing aids when we are out and about!

Can you tell that this girl likes being loud? Loud and colorful is actually a perfect description for her personality in general! :)

Her nanny told me that Natalie seems to think she is the head of the neighborhood watch and I got to see it in action. Nothing is going unnoticed under Natalie’s watchful eyes!

Another roadtrip up north and a great excuse to stop for Chick-fil-A. I have never noticed that they have these great disposable placemats for kids and I was so excited when I found it! I decided to order Natalie some of their yogurt to try and eat and she shocked me by being pretty excited about it.

On the way back, we decided to stop around halfway and let the kids run around. They were pretty bummed the splash pad wasn’t working, but I was pretty glad to not have to change kids out of wet clothes! And you can just barely see Natalie’s imitation of Harry Potter’s lightning bolt scar. She fell face first down the stairs in Grannie’s garage. Thankfully it looked worse than she seemed to act. :(

I bought a new best friend! Kinda kidding, but all these tube feedings are giving me some pretty bad wrist and hand pain. It’s been hurting to grip things strongly, so I decided that I needed some machine help. This little pump is sold as a bare bones alternative to the standard $$$ pumps and it is perfect! It’s a little louder than I expected, but totally the best purchase I’ve made in a long time!

I mean, I get that they match the tone of your outfit, Natalie. But please don’t ruin my too expensive shoes so soon after I bought them! :(

This lunchbox has now been accidentally “swapped” at school about 3 times. So I decided that it needed to be a little more obvious on the outside who it belongs to. Hopefully this helps!

I absolutely love playing games with the kids and they are finally starting to enjoy some of the more grown up games. And to be honest, they are pretty good at Catan! They haven’t beat me yet, but it’s not going to be long…

Matt was so proud of himself for this one. He came back from running errands and told me that he was worried about Eliza. “She doesn’t look so good, you should check on her” And this guy was in her dog bed waiting for me. Soooooo funny!

She is falling apart a little bit, but she’s still hanging in with us! And the weather was nice enough the other day, she was happy to hang out in the flower beds like she used to love doing.

Halloween week and my favorite Halloween socks had a giant hole in them when I put them on.

Devastating!!!

Lucky for me, I had a reasonable back-up! Hahaha - I love thematic dressing, this month is pretty much my only chance to wear that orange shirt. :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! The big day was finally here and the boys were pumped to go out trick-or-treating! And for once we didn’t have to layer into a million clothes to be warm… ;)

The boys were insistent that we hand out candy. I told them we couldn’t both go out and stay home and hand out candy. So they recommended we stick a bucket out and just put a sign on it so people didn’t take too many. I applauded their faith in humanity, but told them that people would empty it out quick. But I went along with it and made a rhyming sign to go with the giant bucket of chocolate.

Natalie didn’t really know why everyone was so excited about the orange buckets, but she was finding fun, new uses for them!

The neighbors even invited us over for dinner and going out with a group of kiddos for getting candy. They have three kids similar ages to ours and at the same elementary school, so we were excited to get to know them better! The boys were so impatient for me to take their photo because they really just wanted to run around with their friends. Sooooo sorry boys!

Natalie was a little more cooperative with photos. And looking oh-so-adorable in her hippo outfit!

Thomas wanted to be a police officer, again and again, but his old police outfit was falling apart from use, so I bought him a new one with fancy new accessories. Henry really wanted to be a skeleton - which is just a Halloween classic! I found this one online that was an x-ray skeleton and he loved it. He didn’t wear the mask more than a few minutes, but he still looked adorable.

And you can see they were wearing their fleece pullovers under their costumes - it’s not freezing, but it was a chilly evening!

I tried to get a cute selfie with my youngest, but she wasn’t having any of it. Probably my fault for giving her this fun wand of glow sticks. Can you tell from my hat what my costume was???

(If you guess Waldo, you are right!)

Look at all the neighborhood kids! You can see why we like our neighborhood so much. :)

The candy buckets were filling up pretty quickly, but the boys know that if they ask for help carrying it, it’s going to get eaten by their parents. Fair is fair. ;)

This one could care less about candy, she just wanted to eat her glowsticks. Thankfully she didn’t actually manage to break into any of them, but they definitely kept her entertained. :)

We were circling back to hit the other side of the street on the way back home when we saw a fire truck heading down the street! It was actually the neighbor - he was on duty tonight and wanted to give his kid’s a fun treat of a fire truck visit. We were all suitably excited because you never outgrow fire trucks being cool. ;)

Well look which mom was completely wrong about the Halloween candy in a bucket. There was hardly any even missing! The few remaining kids that stopped by once we were home got giant handfuls of candy when they rang the doorbell. Happy Halloween for everyone. :)

Hope everyone else had a Happy Halloween too!

Pumpkin Carving

We are running out of time - Halloween is basically here - and we still haven’t carved pumpkins!!! Thankfully there were still plenty of pumpkins in the store and I was determined to make it happen.

I bought these fancy counter covers for the pumpkin carving. One of the benefits to waiting so long is that the Halloween stuff is already on discount, so they were pretty cheap. I don’t know what genius thought to put sticky stuff on a parchment sheet to keep it on the counter, but I support them!

Also, the giant knife sticking in the pumpkin was not used by the kids, but I figured it made for a cool photo. ;)

They were much more helpful with scooping the pumpkin seeds out this year. Turns out they really like roasted pumpkin seeds and they won’t get them without helping me.

There was only one giant pumpkin scraper, so they had to take turns with the dinky one. It’s so terrible in comparison…

Someone was a little upset that all of the action was happening out of her reach! So she went into the boy’s cabinet in the kitchen and stealing all of their stuff.

Daddy came home mid-carving and decided my counter top location was muuuuuuch too dangerous for the boys to be attempting carving. I mean, maybe…

Either way, it was nice to have some extra help since I was also trying to make dinner. ;)

Of course, someone was super excited she could now be in the mix of things. I guess Thomas’ pumpkin looked like a great place to store her toys.

But look at how well this guy is doing carving his own pumpkin! I was super proud of him patiently cutting away. I ended up helping a little bit, but he did awesome. :)

The final products! They both went with the classic happy pumpkins this year. And we got all of our usual Halloween related fun in before the big day - whew!

Field Day!

Field day was quite possibly one of my favorite things in elementary school. I feel like my schools did it in the spring, but their school was going for earlier in the school year.

They wanted the kids to get involved by holding signs for their classes. I figured the boys could handle the sign making on their own and I minimized my effort by ordering the posters with my weekly grocery delivery.

Thomas’ class chose to be the Astros, even though their team shirts were green. Whatever, we made it work with orange paint and printed out the official Astros mascot to put on there. (Orbit!)

Henry’s class went with the name “Winners!” which is awfully bold. I love it! Henry was insistent on using multiple colors and not getting help on spacing out his words…

Sooooo they were not the neatest posters, but I think they were awesome since they clearly did them on their own! Henry’s says “Go Mr. Nguyen’s Winners” in case you can read between the random line breaks. He also drew on a medal and trophy since that is what winners have. And a pumpkin because it’s October. I love this kid.

You can also see my note to them on the whiteboard to not forget their water bottle and to have fun. :)

I couldn’t make it to this particular event, but one of the other moms sent me a photo of Henry! I’m not sure which mom made the cool headbands for all of the kids, but Henry loved his!

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and field day had to be moved inside. They still had a blast thankfully! Maybe they will get a redo in the spring?

As a side note - Thomas’ class chose the Astros name because the Astros are in the playoffs! We are by no means a sports family, but even we watched the games. I was so excited when I remembered I used to have an Astros shirt and managed to find it in the closet! It even has a mustard stain on if from a dollar hotdog baseball game long ago. ;)