What a crazy two weeks! Things started off with my birthday, followed closely by us hosting a Cinco de Mayo party the day before Mother's day. I think the second week was much more calm, but in a rush I totally missed writing the blog, and now I've got a long post of catching up to do. Things start off at Tyson and Tina's house on a Sunday long ago! May 1st to be exact. We headed up for dinner and brought my birthday cake with us. It was a lot of fun to see them all again, and the cake and ice cream were wonderful!
My birthday was wonderful too! For breakfast we had cinnamon rolls, and a little later we opened presents. I got a few pairs of running shoes, and a really great glasses holder from Brooke. I've got a picture of it toward the end of this post. Here's a picture of me and Brooke right before I opened her present.
And here's me with Winry. I like to try to put in a picture with each kid, and I liked this one more than the one with the present in it.
Also... I'm not sure what happened to the Grayson picture... (note, I FOUND it, I actually was going to put in a video of me and Grayson dancing together) anyway, things went well during the day. I had to go into work to do some stuff to get ready for our upcoming beam trip, but when I got home the girls had planned a surprise! We headed to Boondocks to find out that it's closed on Mondays... So we headed to a different bowling alley! We had a lot of fun bowling. I believe this was Grayson's first time bowling, and once he got started he wanted every turn to be his turn. We let him start after we finished our first game, so Monica and I mostly let him take over for our turns. Brooke wanted to try throwing the ball herself after a little, and she did a pretty good job and really liked it. Winry, not to be outdone, also wanted to give it a go! As always, bowling was a great time. That is, until some not so great stuff showed up on the TV and we ended up leaving a little early.
We stopped and picked up food from Spice Kitchen on our way back home for dinner. We had chicken tikka masala, and it was delicious as always! Fortunately the whole cake wasn't eaten the night before, so we were able to have cake and ice cream again after dinner (and sing happy birthday!).
Grayson love love loves the salad spinner. I think he's had it over with the toys for a few weeks at this point. He loves to pull off the top and put stuff in. I used to spin it a bunch, but I don't think he tries to very often any more, mostly just stores stuff in it. However, his best method to spin it is to sit down on top of it. I don't remember if he wanted to spin something in it, or if he was just looking for a place to sit in this picture, but he and that salad spinner are mighty close right now.
One day while Grayson and I were out playing in the backyard, I got the idea to collect balls in a bucket and dump them down the slide. Grayson really liked this game, and kept playing it over and over. We played that until I got him to reluctantly head in for dinner.
Brooke still loves the spiral rocks, and she and Grayson got to go play there one day while Winry was at preschool. They were having a good time, and I also went running at this time. The trail I run on even comes close by the spiral. On my way out I was thinking I needed to watch for them because they might be there on my way back, but on the way back I completely forgot. They saw me, and Brooke and Grayson even came running across the grass field calling out to me. Unfortunately I didn't hear them either, so I ended up missing them, which made Brooke a little sad.
Grayson still loves sitting in the window, and now he'll get buddies up there to join him, Here he is with Winry having a snack.
A Trader Joe's just opened up right by us, so Monica went to the grand opening with a friend. Monica hunted out the good snacks for me (Note: there's coffee in the Joe Joes (their brand of Oreos) so I didn't get to enjoy those), and the kids all got leis!
On Saturday (the 7th) we had a Cinco de Mayo party at our house. We figured it would be better to have it on the weekend. We had a great time having our friends over, and Grayson really enjoyed the horchata! He just wanted more more more! Also, note that he's up on his table!
Grayson loves a good story. Well... he also loves a bad story... Grayson loves stories! He'll sit on your lap and have you read the same book all day long. As soon as you finish he'll say "again!" We got some little board books from Chick Fil A a while back, and one is about your elephant getting sick. He's REALLY into that one right now, and in it the elephant sneezes and I say "ahhh, ahhhhh, ahhhhhh..." and he'll quietly go "chooo."
For Mother's day the girls and I did ALL the cooking for Monica. In the morning we made breakfast, and then when it was ready I let the kids start eating because I didn't want to wake Monica up. She came down a little later to find that we'd finished eating without her, and that's when I found out she had been awake the last 40 minutes, but was waiting in our room for the girls to get her for breakfast... Mother's day had a bit of a rocky start... but all in all it was a good day. Monica can add her gratitudes here if she so chooses: (Thanks!). Here she is with all the kids!
Winry had some birthday parties to attend this past week, so Monica took her to Target to get gifts. While there they saw some donut press on nails and Winry just HAD to have them. She used her allowance, and she was literally bouncing around with excitement all day after! Sadly, they didn't stick very well and many fell off that day. We got some nail glue a few days later, but I'm not sure we've re-applied the nails yet. Anyway, she was so cute about her donut nails!
Speaking of the window breakfast club, the whole gang eventually got together up there!
Brooke absolutely loves to go in the backyard, turn on music, and swing! We got a family tablet for Christmas, and I connected a bluetooth speaker to it, so Brooke heads out and can listen, and change songs, and swing to her hearts content.
While this is happening, Grayson loves to come steal the speaker, and then start pushing buttons, quickly resulting in the music stopping.
Brooke and Grayson are the best little book buddies! I'm glad Brooke loves reading so much, and that she'll share that with Grayson. Heck, she just loves to play with Grayson, so I'm sure if it wasn't reading they'd find something else.
We headed to Trader Joe's as a family, and they've got an alpaca/llama that they hide around the store. If kids find it, they can tell the cashier and they'll get a sucker or a sticker. We finally found it at the very far side of the store, but the girls were super excited (he's white and brown, and kinda looks like an eagle in this picture).
Oh my does Grayson love cottage cheese?!? Yes yes yes, and he gobbles that stuff up. He'll try to use a spoon sometimes, but he's still not very good, which means he usually resorts to his fingers... or... whatever this was...
On Saturday our next door neighbor, Aurelia, had her birthday party! The girls were so excited to go, and they were there all afternoon having a great time! I think the husband is from Ecuador, and Monica said that is pretty typical in Latin culture to have an all day party where you hang out and have a good time. The kids loved it, so no complaints here!
Sunday morning I headed to the airport to leave for Texas A&M. When I got to the airport I happened to notice someone had let their balloons go! Hopefully they were still warmly greeted.
After arriving in Austin we hopped in our rental cars and drove to College Station. We set things up at the facility, and when it was time to head back to the hotel... well, we got a little distracted on the way to the cars. My phone was not able to get a very good picture of what was going on.
Fortunately there were other phones there, where you could see the lunar eclipse MUCH better! So that was pretty awesome to get to see.
When I got back to the hotel, I whipped out my glasses stand that Brooke gave me for my birthday so that my glasses would have a safe place to spend the night. I ended up with some extra room in my suitcase, so I brought it along!
That night while at the facility I stepped aside for a moment to call home and talk to the kids while they were getting ready for bed. It's a little hard to tell because my video is in the way but here's Grayson kissing his tiger hand puppet! It's really nice now a days that even when I'm gone I can call home and see everyone, and still at least somewhat be a part of what's going on!
Well, that catches up the past two weeks. It'll be about another week before this post makes it online, as I'll have Monica proofread it once I get home from my trip. Hope everyone is having a wonderful May!
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