San Antonio Mini-cation

It rained!  It rained!  There were no crazy storms this time, but it's always nice to have some rain.  After Monica walked the girls to school, Jelly wanted to take her own stroll outside.  The umbrella does seem about the appropriate size for her to carry!

Here's a snap of Grayson at preschool.  I like this picture because it looks like they're doing a fun activity, and I really liked those rain boots with a yoga mat.

On Tuesday, the co-op preschool was at our house, and it was turkey craft time!  The kids all made pinecone turkeys, and afterwards made turkey cookies.  I assume they also learned something about Thanksgiving too.

On Friday afternoon, we went down to San Antonio to go to the temple and the zoo.  Friday night Monica went to the temple while I got the kids ready for bed.  I taught Brooke how to levitate while she was brushing her teeth, and everyone had some fun with that.

Once everyone was ready for bed, we played Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza for a little.  This is Grayson's favorite game right now.  It's one of those games where you have to slap the pile of cards to get them for yourself, so you have to go quick.  Grayson absolutely loves it when he gets the pile, and isn't quite as fond of the game if he hasn't take a pile for a couple of rounds.  But tonight, we all had a lot of fun with each other.

Fortunately the game was fun, because bedtime was not.  There was a lot of complaining about where everyone would sleep and arrangements got shuffled around probably 4 to 5 times before everyone was happy and went to bed.

The next morning I took my turn at the temple, and then we all went to the zoo together.  The zoo was decorated for Christmas, which was pretty fun, and most of the animals were out, and some were being pretty fun to watch too.  Definitely the highlight of this trip was the monkeys.  They were just so active, and there was even a little baby.  There was also a juvenile one that kept pulling the baby's tail, and the baby got passed around a few times, and the monkeys grabbed their lettuce and jumped up on top of the glass wall right in front of us to eat!  Very entertaining.

The girls pestered me through most of the zoo to go on the carousel, and I decided it seemed like fun, so we did.  The zoo here doesn't let an adult go on free to stand next to their kid, so if I have to pay to get on, I'm gonna ride!!  I even got lucky and scored a snow leopard or clouded leopard, not 100% sure which, but we'll go with snow because that's my favorite!

They had a few large wing picture spots.  The butterfly was too good to pass up for me, and yes, I did choose my picture over a picture of the kids.  To be fair, the kids make it in here all the time.

After the zoo, we headed back for home.  We watched a movie on the drive back, but with all the traffic, no movie was long enough.  That means we got to enjoy each other's company, which in this instance, also meant we got to hear how boring everything was 3 seconds after the movie ended.  But we all made it back, so it's all good!
 

Happy Birthday Brooke!!

Look who's 9!  It was Brooke's birthday today, and what a day it was!  Sunday is usually super busy, but we wormed our way out of meetings and had a day of family fun to celebrate Brooke!

On Monday evening there was a marching band practice, and we went with the Ellers.  It was pretty fun to watch the band, and fun to be in a stadium again.  I feel like it's been quite a while, and we wanted to go to a football game at the high school this year, but didn't manage it.  So when another opportunity to go came up, we pounced, and the kids had a lot of fun climbing around the bleachers. 

The cold has been trying to come lately, and the weather has begun to fluctuate with the occasional colder day.  It's cold enough for jackets on the walk to school, and Winry was sporting hers wonderfully, and looked rather elf-ish in my opinion.

The school had a movie night, and the kids really wanted to go.  There were lots of promises of being good listeners and going straight to bed when we got home, and since they said all the right things, and more so because I'm a sucker for fun experiences with the kids, we went.  Here we are taking the red carpet VIP (and only) entrance.

There was a big projector screen set up, and the movie was Cars.  We didn't stay for the whole movie, mostly because it was a school night.  The kids got glow sticks, and some of Brooke's friends came and picked her up to enjoy the movie together for a while.  We stayed for a little less than an hour, and then loaded Grayson back into the wagon and walked back home.  I'm really glad we went.

On Friday night, Vivian took Brooke to Pinballs for her birthday!  Vivian couldn't make it to Brooke's party on Saturday, so the original plan was just that she was going to come over Friday after school, but then her mom asked if Brooke would want to go to Pinballs with her.  I'm a little bit jealous, because I too want to go to Pinballs.  It's an arcade, and Brooke had a wonderful time.  She got this pillow from her as a present too.

Saturday night was Brooke's party, and she wanted to watch High School Musical for her party, so we moved the bean bags down for the movie.  It's pretty simple if you just throw them over the half wall.  Little harder to reverse this process to get them back up...

Here's everyone enjoying the movie.  They did a good job for maybe the first hour or so, and then the sugar, or childhood energy, kicked in, and most of the kids started jumping off the couch trying to touch the 9 balloon hanging from the fan.

And here's everyone together after the movie.  After that, Brooke opened presents.

And then it was time for cake.  We all sang happy birthday and dug in.  And that was the end of the party. Then the kids just ran wild until their parents came.

Sunday was Brooke's actual birthday, and we jump started the day with presents.  Brooke gets VERY excited for presents!

At church it was the primary program, and Brooke got to say the opening prayer.  It would appear a child or cat got to the keyboard before printing was started, and I guess we'll have to see if Brooke's new nickname sticks.

Here are all the kids up front singing.  Grayson was on the front row on the right, and Brooke and Winry were both pretty center stage.  Also, I was left all alone on the pew!

Grayson got some new Grinch pajamas, and he is VERY excited about them.  I need to work on getting as excited about things as my kids do!

And that's our week.  We had a lot of fun celebrating Brooke and her birthday.  I'm grateful she's such a wonderful kid, a great helper, and a superb older sister.  I don't think I could ask for a better example oldest sibling for the other kids to learn from!  You're the best Brooke!

A Spot of Rain

Reviewing the week, it seems like things were pretty tame.  Nothing jumped out at me other than Monica and I being sick, but we somehow are lacking fun pictures of that...  Not only were we sick, but the kids didn't have school Monday and Tuesday due to the election so things were more hectic around the house than usual.  Fortunately the girls have both been healthy, though Grayson may have gotten sick as well.  He's a little harder to track because one, he's got really bad allergies and has a runny nose, congestion and a cough off and on all the time, and two, even when he's got a fever he still runs circles around everyone else in the house!  We'll come back to him a little later, but through the first few days of the week we had off and on rain storms.  It's been quite a while since we've had rain, so it's been really nice, and the kids all went out in the backyard to play.

That night, the rain was quite a bit more intense.  Also, I've seen this downspout overflow many times, and I should probably go clean it out.  Not sure how easy it'll actually be as there are a bunch of bends in the downspout at the top and bottom, but I should at least give it a try... when I'm healthy.

We finished up this wall in the laundry room this past week.  I caulked around all the boards and Monica painted everything, and then we put up some hooks.  I'd honestly believe this happened at the end of last week, or at least I think I caulked on Saturday, but the final project wasn't until this week, or at least not in a picture!

I wasn't there for this picture, but it looks like the kids all sitting on top of my car eating berries, so pretty self explanatory...

The kids wanted to go play frisbee in the front yard, so we headed out and had a fun afternoon.  I had to duck out to go pick up Brooke from dance, and when we got back we cleaned up the front yard and had headed in for dinner.  I think this was the first time our kids really tried throwing around a Frisbee.  You never knew which direction Grayson would end up throwing, and they usually jumped out of the way when a pass came to them, but we all had fun.

Grayson didn't go to preschool on Wednesday.  Monica actually got him all the way there, and then when she was getting him out of the car she was getting ready to clean off his face and he was coughing and she thought "maybe we shouldn't do preschool today..." so he came back home.  Grayson's been seeming pretty tired during the day, but he super refuses to take a nap, so we've just kind of put him in situations where we hoped he'd fall asleep.  Usually that means trying to get him to play something on his own, and then finding him on the couch later like this.

Or the next day when I walked out of the office to get some water and found him in the middle of the floor at the bottom of the stairs.  Not sure what he was playing in this area, and our floors are super hard, but a nap is a nap.

On Saturday there was a primary program practice in the morning that Monica and the kids all went to.  The primary program will be next Sunday.  Exciting.

An odd side benefit of being so sick it's hard to sleep is that it helps you stay up for the whole BYU v Utah football game.  The game kicked off at 9:15 and didn't finish until 1 am.  I'll also say that through the game I could actually feel my sickness lessening.  I don't know what Monica and I have, but it's like spinning a mystery spinner wheel and finding out what the sickness will be like that day each morning.  Saturday was TERRIBLE for me (and Friday was for Monica, I'm a day behind, so I can "see the future").  I was super congested all day and spent a lot of time walking back and forth between the couch and the bathroom to blow my nose, so it was great to finally feel things clearing up, and Sunday was much better than Saturday.  Anyway, winning the big rivalry was worth a picture at 1 am to commemorate the moment.  9-0!

Sunday was so crazy for us.  The first meeting started at 9 am, and Monica's final meeting ended at 8:45 pm.  There was a gap for dinner, and that's it.  One of us was always doing something all day long.  When I finally got some daylight after my block of meetings I played Water Works with the kids.  It was a new one for them, but we had a good time playing.

And that's all for now.  Currently I'm counting down the days till Wednesday/Thursday when Monica will have hit 10 days being sick and can go get antibiotics if she's still not feeling better.  Then the next day if she's feeling better I'll be able to go get my own and get over this thing!  I don't even know what's going on, but I feel like everything here in Texas is bacterial (at least in our household) and lasts over 10 days.  Sickness has been terrible here!  I don't know if it's the humidity or just the area, but yikes!  We're hanging in there though, but fingers crossed next weeks post doesn't start with a picture of antibiotics!
 

Happy Halloween!

Trick or treat!  Here we are ready to hit the streets!  Our family costumes didn't quite work on Halloween night with Grayson wanting to be a black cat, and Winry a mermaid.  Good thing we went all out for the trunk or treat, cause we did not repeat on Halloween night.

Brooke had a dance performance in tumble pom this week.  Look at her go!

On Wednesday at preschool, Grandma Pumpkin came to read a story to all the kids!

Thursday morning we had spider bagels for breakfast, spooky and yummy.

It would appear we might have termites... We contacted our pest control company and we'll see what they say, but not exciting.

I had to put this picture of a butterfly in because lately I've been seeing small (5ish) swarms of butterflies fluttering around bushes.  I don't think I've ever seen that in real life, but I've seen stuff like that in movies or video games, so it actually kinda surprised me to see it happen in real life.

This little fellow came to help Monica in the garden.  He sat on the leaf watching, and didn't run away when she came to take a picture.  I guess maybe he thought he was really invisible on a green background.

Once the girls were home from school there was of course time for some Halloween bingo!  Everyone may have been gotten to eat a candy pumpkin or two.

After dinner we all got changed and headed out to go trick or treating.  We took pictures with our pumpkins as we headed out the door, mostly because we forgot to take pictures while we were carving them.

We had a lot of fun going through our neighborhood, and the kids got lots of candy.  One house was definitely aiming to be best in the neighborhood and they had a whole mini carnival in their front yard, bounce house included.  Grayson took some time to play the ring toss as well.  Grayson and Monica went home after we'd been out for a bit, and Brooke and Winry and I continued on until 8!  They had a lot of fun the whole time though.  It was great fun.

Cedar Park has been building a new library since we moved here and it finally opened this past week.  Monica went with Grayson to check it out on Friday, and they've got all sorts of fun stuff for kids.  Grayson really loved this giant water table like thing.

They also have a pretty cool playground out front that's shaped like a giant bird with flowers around it.

One of the hot items from trick or treating were sticky eye ball things.  The kids sure loved throwing them and specifically, liked sticking them to the wall.  It was all fun and games until it went just way too high on the wall, and over a ledge, so it was ladder time to save the day.

I was in Grayson's room at bedtime... or in the middle of the night. Don't remember now, but anyway, I thought Grayson looked real cute laying there asleep, so I took a picture.

Saturday was Winry's last basketball game, so we all went to watch and go out for some fun after.  Grayson got to bring a candy bracelet to help keep him occupied, and it worked pretty well.

Here's Winry with her team after the game.  She had a lot of fun playing basketball this season, and improved a lot.  After her game we went to a bakery and all got a treat, which we enjoyed at a table out front because the weather was cooled off some on Saturday.  There were even spots of rain through the day.  After the bakery trip we went to the farmers market, and probably got more stuff than we should have, and from there...

We all went to the new library!

Brooke really liked these circle seats they had, and want's me to build one in her room to read in.  I guess I'll have to look into that.

And the kids had fun playing with all the things in the kids area.  It's almost like a mini children's museum, which is pretty awesome.  This is one of the coolest places we've found to go so far in Texas, and the kids had so much fun.  The only downside was that it was crazy crowded for opening weekend, but give it a few weeks to calm down and it'll be great!

And that concludes our week!