Happy Valentines Day

I'll give Brooke the spot of honor this year, along with her valentines box we made last year!  She was in homeschool for v-day last year, so she didn't get to use it, but it's been sitting in her closet waiting for it's special day!

We've been doing secret valentines around here over last weekend, and on Monday Grayson wanted to draw a picture for his secret valentine.  I helped him get a paper and crayons, and after a few minutes he came downstairs crying.  When I went up he'd drawn that gray scribble, and he was crying because he didn't know how to draw anything.  So I sat down with him and we drew his t-rex toy piece by piece!  This is the first drawing Grayson has ever done!!  Pretty sweet.

I've been riding the train with Connor as he comes and goes at the same time as me. I was out waiting for him so we could walk over together, when I noticed that the stop light a few blocks down wasn't working quite right...  What was actually happening is that it was flashing between the correct current color and red, sometimes with both on.  Even when the light was red it was flashing.  Never seen something quite like that before.

Here's Grayson at preschool.  Remember that dino I said he drew, well they have those at preschool too, and here he is building one.  He's really good with the screwdriver and really good at working with his hands.

On Wednesday night we had a ward activity where we played bingo and ate brownies and ice cream.  No complaints here.  There were extra boards out to make sure it was easy for everyone to find one, so I was playing 3 for most of the time, until the Weeks left and Connor gave me another 3 to play.  They were calling numbers rapidly, and I couldn't quite keep up with 6 boards, nor did I have enough chips.

We got a new waffle iron this year that makes "bestie" waffles. (Thanks Hannah!!)  I think I like it more than our other one that just makes hearts with a waffle pattern this size.  This one's easier to fill and not overfill, etc. and the waffles come out great.  I also figured I'd throw an egg in there, and fortunately I didn't absolutely wreck our new waffle maker.

Valentine's day? More like fancy hair day!  Brooke's looking pretty sweet, and ready for love.

Here's Grayson, absolutely loving breakfast!

Grayson was off in his room one day, and I went to see what was going on.  He was listening to a book on his Yoto player, which is pretty typical, but he was laying in bed looking at books too!

I was cleaning the playroom probably a month ago when I found a screw on the ground.  I had no clue what it could possibly be for, and I honestly don't know if I put it somewhere or threw it away.  Well, later I found out this chair was missing a screw, and I checked all the obvious places I would have put it and didn't find it.  So I'd guess I threw it away.  Well, the chair really needs a second screw... so I designed one and 3d printed it!

It's been a hot minute, but Jelly finally found her bed again!  The baby bouncer has been put away for many years, which makes sense as we don't have a baby, but Winry wanted it out for her baby dolls.  Well, Jelly sus'd it out and took a nice long nap!

Monica and I spent Friday evening with the kids, and went on our Valentine's date on Saturday night.  We found a Thai restaurant to try, as we both really like Thai curry, and when we pulled up I realized we'd been there before!  We got takeout once a long time ago that I picked up.  We were a little worried since we didn't remember loving it, but we decided to try it again and it turns out it's super great!!  However, even the mildest the curry goes is still somewhat spicy, which is probably why we didn't ever get it again.  The kids just don't do spice well.  Anyway, the place is called Lemongrass if that might matter to you, and I'd recommend it.  After eating, we went to Pinballs.  We had a good time playing some pinball and various arcade games.

And of course we had to find a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, because this is where we fell in love!!.. Kinda.  Back in college we went to Nickle-cade and really liked playing TNMT together, and even both got on the top 10 high score list together.  I also used my hard-won ticket to get a ring for Monica that I later used to propose.  So yeah, gotta find TNMT and play it a bit!

And that wraps up our week.  Ciao.
 

Party Time!

It's time to celebrate!  Why? I got a raise at work!  Yay!  I wasn't expecting it at all as I've recently been in chats with my manager about going for a promotion this summer, so I figured if anything happened it would be around then.  Anyway, we had to celebrate, which meant Noosa yogurt!!  Yum!

We had Grayson's preschool here on Tuesday, and it looks like there was some fun painting going on.

On Wednesday there was a scheduled protest at the state capitol building, and I happened to take a step out on the roof while they were walking by.  Nothing I saw about it said what they protest was about, and I didn't pick up anything specifically from the roof, but they had a police escort, so good job doing it the right way.

Wednesday evening we had a work dinner as we had everyone in at the Austin office.  We went to a nice place, and I got to try octopus for what I think was the first time.  The food was good, and it was fancier than what I'd normally get, so it was fun to try some different things, like octopus.

I took Jelly to the vet this week because she's only willing to eat wet food lately, and we just wanted to make sure she was alright.  Everything was fine, but she was not thrilled to be there and would have loved to climb back into her carrier if she could.

On Thursday, Monica left for a girls weekend in Florida.  I went to pick up Grayson from preschool, and one of the kids in his class was doing a little birthday party after school which we stayed for.  

Grayson had a lot of fun, ate a cupcake and hit a pinata!  Good times for everyone. Whack whack whack.

After the party, Grayson wanted me to walk through the trees with him to a clearing, and there were these colored bands tied to the trees that we followed.  I'm not sure if it was really a path to follow, but it did seem following the ribbons was the easiest way through.  We saw about 10 or so deer along our way too, but they ran off pretty quickly.

Over in Florida, Monica was partying with her friends.  She can add any comments about her weekend she wants included here.

On Saturday morning, the kids and I worked on cleaning all of their rooms.  The deal was once they were finished we'd head to the park, and so off we went.  I wanted to go over and see what the water front looked like at the park.  It was nice, but nothing really of interest over there, so we went back to the park to play.

After the park we headed to HEB to get the rest of the ingredients we needed for dinner.  At the checkout at HEB they'll give kids buddy bucks that you can use to potentially win prizes.  The kids all got three, and on Winry's last buck, she got an instant winner!!

We went to a counter to pick up the prize, and they let each of the kids pick one.  They were pretty excited.

We got home, had lunch, and then I set a 30 minute timer to clean the play room.  We finished before the timer expired, so we continued on to cleaning the bathrooms, and with all that amazing cleaning behind us, it was off to Andy's for ice cream!  We all got worms in dirt, which was good because Grayson dropped his when he tried to set it on the bench and so I was able to just hand over my gummy worms.

We played Mario Wonder when we got home, and then the kids played Mario Kart and Mario Party while I was making dinner.  Good times!

On Sunday we went to our neighborhood park, and spent a good deal of time on the swings.  Grayson really loves swinging on his tummy because he can get himself going and spinning all on his own.  The girls and I also enjoyed jumping from the swings.

And that wraps up our week.  Monica is coming back tomorrow evening, and then things will get to go back to normal again.  I had a fun weekend getting to hang out with the kids, though it was a little crazy having to do all the things, but definitely a good weekend.

San Antonio Saturday!

We headed down to the temple in San Antonio on Saturday morning!  Monica and I enjoyed our time inside, while we swapped turns hanging out with the kids outside.  I had a great time, both in and out of the temple, and we'll chat about it more later.  Since you can see the water in the background here, and I didn't have a good fountain picture later, I guess now is a good time to say the kids did enjoy touching the water, and making swirls and stuff.  No one fell in, so it was all good fun in the end. 

Now, of course our week didn't start on Saturday, it instead started with Grayson, hanging a grape on the cashews.  Or at least that's how I remember the song going!

Monica grew two colors of cauliflower, I think green and purple, and purple was ready this week!  We ate it later in the week, and it was GREAT!

I went to the dentist this past week, and the one I tried out had a rooster that roams around.  It made it a pretty fun appointment.  I will say, it took a LONG time.  I was there for 2 hours.  I don't know if this was a new patient thing but if it's an every time thing I guess I'll have to find a new dentist.  They were also having issues with their computer not letting them log in, so hopefully it was just that...

On Friday night I had a sleepover with the boys!!!  Connor's family was in Utah visiting family, so Isaac and I came to keep him company.  We had so much fun!  We played some video games, watched a movie, and even snuck in a card game before bed.

And in the morning, Connor made pancakes!  What a hero!  I even made him wake up early because I had to get home so that we could head down to San Antonio.  Oh, I also stopped at HEB to get some pizza rolls and bagel bites on my way over to have in the evening.  Those seemed like good sleepover snacks, and also seemed like food items I haven't had since the last time I had a sleepover... 18ish years ago.

As mentioned, we headed down to the temple.  I don't know what all happened while I was inside, but when I was with the kid we had a great time.  We walked around the grounds, and then Winry had to go to the bathroom, so we went to the distribution center (a small store that sells church related items), and while Winry was in the bathroom Grayson massaged Brooke's back.

We continued our adventuring outside, and there is a lot of stacked rock walls that the kids had fun climbing on.  I originally wanted to get Moroni right next to the kids, but he was much too small for the look I was going for, and there was a truck in the parking spot I would have had to stand in.

One spot on the grounds was not so steep, which made for an adventuring spot.

Once Monica made it out, we headed to the zoo.  Here's Winry chilling with the Komodo dragon.  The actual one was just standing right up next to the glass.

The jaguar was walking along it's walkway, and it's always cool to see an animal walking over people.  I guess it also feels like you can get a little closer this way too, or maybe it's just that you get a really good view, but I always love catching a view like this.

I think these were called squirrel monkeys, and they could definitely see us through the glass.  Brooke was eating some peanuts, and they took note.  I felt a little bad holding up the container by the glass, since it felt like I was teasing them and I definitely couldn't give them anything, but we also got to have a cool interaction with them as well.

Sunday afternoon, I took the kids to the park.  They really wanted to go to the zipline park.  It's a fun park, but it's super big and super busy.  I followed Grayson around the whole time, and fortunately, I was always able to find everyone pretty quickly whenever I walked around to check on everyone.  Winry spent almost the whole time doing the zipline.  Grayson and I wandered a little more, and eventually Brooke joined us and went on the swing with Grayson.

To finish off our time everyone wanted to do the zip line just a few more times.  It was a great way to end, and everyone had a fabulous time.

I'll admit that I had a little bit of a rough time this weekend.  Staying up late Friday night got my eyes into a hurty state Saturday morning, and even though I slept like 9 and a half hours Saturday night, I still didn't feel quite right on Sunday.  Also, I think Saturday night is the longest I ever remember having slept.  Quite the night.
 

Snow Day!!

What?! Snow day in Austin? You bet!  And good thing it snowed too, because they called school 2ish days before!  It wasn't a ton, but the kids had so much fun playing in what we got.  There was a chance for up to 2-3 inches... maybe next year we can get more.  It's kinda painful to write this, because it's gonna get close to 80 today...

The snow day was Tuesday, and Monday was a holiday.  On Monday I was given a list of projects, so off to Lowes I went.  When I was stopped at a light I saw that the waterfall had frozen!  I wanted to get a better picture on my way home, and I was even at the front of the red light, but I just forgot...

My biggest project was to shiplap this white wall in the laundry room.  Here's the before.

We didn't actually use shiplap board, because it's pretty expensive.  Instead, we bought plywood, then I cut it into a bunch of thin pieces, and then left a nickel of space between the boards as I nailed them to the wall.

Ta da!  Shiplap!  I really like how it looks, and for the first few days it caught my attention every time I walked by.  The plan is to paint it, and then put up some hooks.  I also forgot to get caulk, so I still need to do that too.

The kids found the ukulele again, and we of course all know how to properly play that.  It was the kind of music you just can't not dance to when you hear.

And Tuesday we woke up to snow!  The girls got out first thing, even before Grayson was awake.  There was a LOT of excitement for the snow.

 

Here's a picture of our backyard.  The snow didn't fill in the grass completely, but the roads and sidewalks were completely covered.

We did everything in our power to bring the snow.  The girls heard at school that the things you need to do to get snow is to: flush 3 ice cubes down the toilet at 3, 6, and 9 o'clock.  Sleep with a spoon under your pillow, and wear your pajamas inside out.  When Grayson heard, he actually ran and grabbed a handful of spoons and put them under everyone's pillows!

I had to include this one.  Monica's phone auto "enhanced" this picture of Winry with a snowball!

The kids made some small snowmen while they were outside, and they helped Grayson make a wiggler like from Mario!  They in general just had a good time being in the cold.  We definitely miss getting to play in the snow.  I guess that's not too surprising seeing how much fun we had in Colorado in what was essentially frozen ice blocks.

Grayson's penguin slide broke.  I think this happened when we went out to Colorado right after Christmas, so it's been broken for a while.  I tried gluing it back together, but the pieces have to flex and bend when you put them in, and it broke again pretty quickly, so I designed a new piece to 3d print to bridge the gap!  Good news, it fits!  I have made an update to it so it'll be better if we ever need to print it again.

On Wednesday morning I walked the kids to school, and most of the snow melted Tuesday, but there were still some remnants of snowmen!

Here's Grayson from preschool, working on writing his name.

On Saturday we had Winry's birthday party.  We had it at our neighborhood park, and the kids had so much fun playing on the playground.  We also prepared games and activities, like pin the horn on the narwhal.

We had cupcakes for all the kids and of course sang happy birthday.  Then we opened presents after.

Here is the whole party crew.  I'm so glad for everyone who could make it.  Winry had a wonderful time, and I think everyone else did too.  Thank you everyone who came and made the party so much fun!

When I put Grayson to bed he always wants me to stay in for a little when he first gets in bed and listen to a part of his story with me.  He usually wants me to listen to one chapter of the book he's currently loving, like Zoey and Sassafras.  He was all snuggled and and just looked too cute to not get a picture.

On Sunday evening, the stake did a primary choir-side, and all of the primaries in the stake sang a song.  One kid from each primary also bore a testimony, and Brooke was picked from our ward!

That wraps up our week.  Birthday season is finally behind us, and sadly, there's no more snow in the forecast.  Hopefully you're having a colder week than we do here!