Our Holiday Visitors

This is Short Round. OK - well that's what we have decided to call her for the moment. The name on her tag says "Gabby", but really that just doesn't seem to fit. So the story is that we found this little gal at the park on Tuesday. Although she is teeny tiny, she is not a puppy. It was rather warm on Tuesday and Wednesday so we kept her in a kennel in the garage. A cold front blew through overnight though and now it's too cold to have her outside. She is currently residing in our downstairs bathroom. So far so good, she seems to be doing just fine and Tucker is not bothering her too much.

It's now 4 days later (I started this on Christmas eve) and Gabby has been happily reunited with her family. We decided to drive around again to look for signs and we just happened to find one. So Christmas Eve we delivered Gabby back to her grateful owners. And yes, had we been unable to find them we would have kept her.

We had another visitor (this one human) the day after Christmas. One of my friends went into labor and we happened to be on call to watch her other little girl. So Astoria came to stay with us on Saturday. Her baby sister Krynn was born Saturday evening and everyone is doing just fine.

Now it is back to our usual loud and unruly house, just the 4 of us. Sometimes I think we need more unexpected guests just to calm things down!

Birthday Boy

I never did get around to making Ben a birthday cake - shhh, don't tell anybody :-) Anyway, here is the "official" 2 year photo. Happy Birthday my sweet little man!

So here it is...

Just another random post. I had fully intended to post more in Nov. and certainly early Dec. Thanksgiving was fun, lots of food, lots of fun, lots of people.

Then came early December and with it the end of Mike's job. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but that has been difficult to deal with, for all of us. So, while I thought of my blog often and all of my faithful readers, my heart just wasn't in it. I thought long and hard as to whether this is the appropriate outlet for those innermost feelings, which I would no doubt share with any of my readers out there (cause the only people that read this are related to me!!). Ultimately I decided that wasn't what I wanted to do. So. Today.

Well, today is Benny's 2nd birthday. I started the day thinking that every day in this house ought to be a birthday because man, those little munchkins ACTUALLY BEHAVED this morning. We made it until nearly 10 o'clock before a major meltdown. Then the rest of the day set in. A & B have been hyper, super hyper, more ridiculously hyper than should ever be allowed. And we haven't even had cake, or anything else sweet for that matter. So now they are napping and I am pooped and I should be napping too. I did take some birthday pictures of Ben, and like so many other broken promises on this little diary, one day I'll get them posted.

If I get my stuff together I'll go downstairs and make Ben's birthday cake - it will be strawberry this year. Most likely I am just going to go take a nap because I am cold and tired.

And now, for the final note, a friend of mine from highschool has a blog and she is doing a silly little christmas giveaway and if I mention her blog in my blog, well it doesn't really matter. Point being, it's been mentioned!

Today's Alex-isms

On route to a friends house - as we are nearly there he says "Be sure to pay attention now mommy." And when we pull into the driveway, "Good job mommy, you paid attention today." (For background, this is a house that I have had trouble finding repeatedly in the past.)

Perhaps even better, the housekeeper is here today, after she cleaned the boys room we headed upstairs for a nap. Alex came out of his room in tears "Mommy, my bed is all messed up. Miss Lillian messed up my bed." Of course, what this really means is that the bed was all neatly made. Hmmmm, guess I ought to work on making the beds more often!

Today was...

A good day :-) Honestly I wasn't sure how it would be, the boys were up very late last night and then up at their usual time this morning. But, the reduced amount of sleep didn't seem to faze them. We went to a friends birthday party first thing this morning. It was at a lovely little park and the boys had a great time playing with their friends. It properly wore them out and after lunch Ben crashed for over 3 hours. Alex slept for about 45 minutes, but hey, at least he was in a good mood when he got up. We spent the rest of the afternoon outside playing and wouldn't you know it ALEX RODE HIS BIKE!!! I think it was just the cosmos aligning exactly right. It's very much a learning process but he had a great time and seems anxious to try again tomorrow, hopefully he will still feel that way in the morning. If not, at least he tried it today and that is something to build on!! Yay for the small things :-)

Thursday Again

There must be something about Thursdays in November. Last Thursday had me thinking that shipping the munchkins off to somewhere for awhile would be a good idea. Today really wasn't much different. Alex was in this "I must torment Ben" mood all day long. It was utterly ridiculous. No matter what toy Ben played with Alex would take it, even if they were in completely different parts of the house. Ben would be sitting quietly on the floor and the next minute screaming his head off because Alex came over and tackled him for no reason. Then Alex would sit there and poke and kick and tickle and "kiss" and everything else, simply NOT leaving Ben alone. When he wasn't bothering Ben he was screaming at the top of his lungs, mad because I told him to stop bothering Ben. We played outside for awhile on the new playscape (yeah I know, I need to post pictures), again constant bickering and fighting. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we haven't done pretend school this week, both of the boys classmates have been sick, tomorrow is cancelled as well. I don't know.

Instead of griping I should be posting all the bright spots of the day/past week. So, here I am giving that idea the ol' college try. The house is finally getting painted. It was worth the wait, the guys have been here 7 days so far, and they should be able to finish up tomorrow. I have never seen a more thorough job. After the painting, we'll be getting the roof replaced - thanks to that hail storm way back in March. The playscape is a bright spot, it's nice to have a place for the boys to play outside, and they seem to love it, particularly the picnic table underneath it. The weather is another bright spot, it's been gorgeous the past couple of weeks (aside from a rainy sunday). And of course, that I get to stay home and play with the munchkins all day long, even when I feel like I have completely lost every ounce of sanity I may have once had, is definitely the brightest spot of all.

Thursday Thoughts

My first recognizable thought of the day: Sometimes I think boarding school is a great idea.

As the day wore on: I love that the boys love art projects and I hope Daddy doesn't mind too much that I am bringing Ben home from the park covered from head to toe in paint.

After dinner: How do I get Alex to understand that I can't always make things work the way he wants them too, just like I can't make trains come.

Finally: I'm really glad tomorrow is Friday, hopefully the twin bad attitudes will take tomorrow off.

Butterflies, Connect the Dots, Free Ice Cream

The subject pretty much sums up our day. First, I am very proud to say that Alex did some connect-the-dot puzzles ALL BY HIMSELF today! Yay Alex :-)

Second, some more great reasons to love Austin:

1. We are on the route for butterfly migrations. Love this time of year and all the butterflies. We were sitting at a stoplight and there was a continuous sream of butterflies fluttering across the road. The are headed to Mexico for the winter.

2. Amy's Ice Cream. Really, need I say more? Today Amy's was celebrating their 25th anniversary. In honor of the occassion they were giving away free ice cream. Not just a scoop of vanilla or chocolate, but anything on the menu. I took Alex to meet some friends. It was fun to have a little one-on-one Alex time. Ben was napping at home with Daddy.

3. It's early Nov. and the weather is gorgeous - near 80 today and clear skies. Yep, I'm enjoying it, especially after the toasty summer.

Playing at the Grocery Store

What's this you say, a third post in 3 days? Just to keep things exciting, we're going to go for the opposite of what we've done in the past. I'll inundate you with mundane details of our everyday life because I know you check every day to see what's new. Gone are the month-long waits, now you only have to wait 24 hours!

OK, so normally one goes to the grocery store to buy food or some other household related item. Not us. Our sole mission at Whole Foods today was to play. Yet one more reason to love Austin, the flagship Whole Foods Market has a little playscape up on the roof. It's a great little secret, no one is ever there. So we go and grab a snack from the store and then head to the roof to play. Some day I'll take some pictures because the cactus gardens up there are just gorgeous. After Whole Foods we hit another of Austin's finest landmarks - Book People, best bookstore around. Today I didn't have time to look, Alex wasn't interested in the "mommy books" he only wanted to head upstairs to the children's section - which comes complete with tunnels to walk through. Anyway, it was a fun morning.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's exciting episode of "What's Happenin' in A-town".

Dinosaurs!

Pretend school was all about dinosaurs today. Since I was "teaching", (not sure that's the proper word, I think leading is much more appropriate...) I started the day by making some dinosaur shaped muffins. Thanks to my nifty spiffy dinosaur cupcake/muffin pan, they looked pretty darn cute. Unfortunately for Alex & Ben's classmates I did not veganize the recipe so they couldn't enjoy the muffins. We read the Dinotrain book, watched Dinosaur Train on PBS, did a rubbing of a sandpaper dinosaur footprint, and stamped all of our toy dinosaurs feet on inkpads and then on paper to make all kinds of fun dinosaur tracks. Alex & Ben are quite well versed in the names of the various dinosaurs. It's quite amusing listening to a not-quite 2 year old ask for a stegosaurus by name, and then actually knowing which dinosaur is really a stegosaurus! Aside from watching Dinosaur train (which we did before everyone else came over) all of our fun activities managed to take up a whopping 30 minutes! Usually we can keep the kiddos occupied for at least an hour in pretend school. Oh well, we had lots of great playtime, a fun lunch with everyone and a well earned nap later in the afternoon.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, pretend school is our version of preschool. A couple of my friends and I decided that we didn't really want to send our kids to a "real" preschool yet we wanted them to have some sort of learning environment. So, 3 days a week we get our munchkins together and try to teach them something. We have had lots of really great, fun activities and Alex & Ben just love it. They are always so excited to go to pretend school! Here's a picture of the "class":

Halloween

Instead of playing catch-up (which I again need to do...) I'm just going to pretend that I am not a month behind in updating this little piece of history. Yesterday was Halloween. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Mike and Alex spent a good chunk of the morning clearing some trees/brush from the backyard while I took Ben to the park to play for a bit. After lunch and a nice long nap, it was time to carve our pumpkins. Actually, Mike and I carved while Alex & Ben painted. This was the 2nd round of paint for the boys pumpkins. We went pumpkin picking a couple of weeks ago and shortly there after Alex and Ben put the first coat of paint on their pumpkins. We got some very heavy rain and all the paint washed right off! So we now have paint circles on the front porch, hopefully those will wash right off too.

Anyway,the real festivities started soon after the pumpkin carving/painting. We took the finished masterpieces around front and discovered that one of our neighbors had set up a ping-pong table in the cul-de-sac. From there on out it became a sort of neighborhood (or at least our little cul-de-sac) block party. At some point we broke away from the fun, fed the kiddos dinner and got them ready for trick-or-treating. I took them down the street, initially only stopping at a couple of houses where we knew the neighbors pretty well. They were having such a good time though, that we ended up stopping at just about all of the houses on our street. I took them back to the little party and handed them off to Daddy. Mike then took them up another street. They were both having a great time. Alex loved ringing the doorbell and saying trick-or-treat. Ben insisted that the candy be put in his hand and then he would put it in his bag. At some point near the end of the walk, Ben's bag sprung a leak and by the time he came home it was completely empty. Fortunately, he didn't care, in fact I don't think he had any clue he lost his loot. I'm pretty sure it was the fault of those darn oranges someone snuck in there! Anyway, we all had a great time and here are some pictures for you.

So far behind...

Everytime I think I'm catching up and spending a few days updating this blog I seem to let it lapse for another month. By now I am sure all of you faithful readers are quite aware that this will never change. No doubt you check each day, waiting with your breath held as the page refreshes in the hopes that I have some new tidbit of something to share. As always, I am sorry to disappoint you so frequently. However, today is different, as today I am posting something, just for you!

Now I can't really think of anything terribly relevant or exciting to post, so I'll do the usual "this is the past month" update. We'll start with the most recent and work backwards as that is how my memory seems to be working at the moment.

We had a wonderful time with Grandma Rita and all of the Snyder family. It's awesome that you all could come down and spend so much time here. We packed in so many fun activities, had a blast with all those kiddos running around all over the place and hope we can do it again soon!

Pretend school - really this deserves a post in and of itself, so I'll keep it brief and plan to do just that sometime soon. The long and the short of it is a couple of friends and I have been getting our kiddos together several times a week for our version of pre-school. So far so good, we are all having a blast.

Curling started a few weeks ago. As you well know, this is just the cat's meow for me (ok, really bad metaphor there but hey, what do you expect??!!) Anyway, I love it, and am thoroughly excited about the upcoming season. Somehow or other I have managed to attain the position of Skip this season, so I have my own team and get to call the games for my team. I am really excited, have tons to learn, and just hope to win once or twice, or not get totally completely blown out of the water when we do lose. I've got 2 other experienced curlers and 1 newbie on my team, it will be great!

And finally, for now anyway, I'm just going to say that I want my stupid sinus infection to go away!!!

(Really, the last thing, the weather finally broke, it has rained, flowers are blooming, it's been lovely enough to spend ALL day outdoors. Of course it's also the reason that I am in week 3 of this stupid sinus infection...)

Random Things

Well, it seems to me that I had about a million little tidbits to write, of course that was on Friday, and mommy brain has kicked in and now I can't remember anything of interest. So, here goes with today's pointless musings:

This is officially the hottest summer on record for Austin. We have had 67 days of temps 100 or higher this year. Two more days and we tie the 1925 record of the hottest year ever, three days and we break that record. It probably won't happen this week though. A cold front blew through the other day and dropped temps to the mid - upper 90s, yeah 99 is a break in the heat! Actually, for the first time in months yesterday morning it was cooler outside than inside, we actually opened the windows for a few moments. It was 74 degrees outside ;-)

I have just finished reading my 30th book of the year. I don't think there is enough time to get 20 more read by the end of the year, it was a noble goal but probably unreachable.

School started in the area this past week. While it doesn't directly have anything to do with us, it is nice being out and about at some of our favorite spots and not having to battle 500 kids, almost all of whom are bigger than A & B!

It rained this week. Notable only because that just doesn't seem to happen much here these days. In fact we got a good soaking on Thursday night, enough so that the sand volleyball pit at the park was still wet. Alex was thrilled to be able to build sand castles Friday morning.

I bought a stevia plant at the farmer's market yesterday. It's an herb that is naturally very very sweet. I have some wonderful tea with stevia in it. Now I can't wait to harvest my own leaves. Generally it is used dried or as a syrup that has boiled and set to steep for 24 hours prior to use. I actually ate one of the leaves right off the plant and it is so good, really interesting little plant!

Alright, I think I have sufficiently killed enough time to ensure that everyone is down for their nap and I can now take mine!

Oh - only 2 more weeks until curling, yay!

Story Time

Most libraries and bookstores have a designated kid's story time. We are fortunate that the Barnes & Noble bookstore that is closest has a really talented and engaging man lead the story time/activities for the kiddos. He has puppets and sings songs and dances with his ukulele and the stories he reads are just the right length.

Today, for the first time both Alex and Ben sat and paid attention for the whole show. And, they even wanted to stay and do the art project afterwords (coloring a snail and gluing on his shell). I hesitate going to story times because I know Alex will sit still but Ben usually doesn't. I guess he has finally reached that age where his attention span lasts more than 30 seconds!

Naked Boys

It's almost bedtime. Alex has stripped off all of his clothes and is running around naked. Mike and I should really be paying more attention to them right now, but we're not. So just a minute ago Ben comes streaking by - yep, he's naked too. Alex, being the good big brother that he is, "helped" get Ben ready for bed. All I can say is I'm really happy the diaper that was laying in the middle of the floor was only wet...

Sleepy Time

You just never know how sleep is going to happen in this house. I am so accustomed to not getting more than 2 or 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep that when Ben has a really good night where he actually sleeps through until 5 or 6 I almost feel that I've had too much sleep!

But really, that's not the point of this post. Ben put himself to sleep yesterday for nap and then for bedtime. At nap he had fallen asleep in the car and didn't quite transfer to his bed. Everytime I went to get him he would smile and close his eyes pretending to sleep. Eventually he stopped wiggling around and actually just went to sleep - he never fussed or grumped. For bed, I read him "Ten Apples Up on Top" and he said he wanted to put himself to sleep. Again, I put him in the crib and walked out of the room. I went to check on him a few minutes later and he was sound asleep clutching his little yellow matchbox truck (he refused to go to bed without it!!).

I can't decide if this new found independence is good or bad. It's not often that he wants to snuggle with me so naptimes and bedtimes are always kind of nice. On the flipside, it's also nice to not have to sit with him for 20 or 30 minutes while he tries to fall asleep thinking of all the other things I should be doing. Anyway, who knows if it will last or not.

And Alex, yeah, he still wants one of us to lay with him for a little while before he falls asleep. At least now he knows we won't stay for more than a few minutes.

Snake Farm & Playmates

I had intended to post some pictures, which is why it has taken me so long to post an update. But, I don't have the camera handy now and I'm just plain too lazy to go get it. So, use your imagination, or do a google search, or whatever :-)

Mike had his last 3 day weekend of the summer a couple of weeks ago. We decided to do something fun for his last Friday off and ended up at this Snake Farm in New Braunfels. That's about an hour south of here, just on the outskirts of San Antonio. We had driven by the place dozens of times and I actually had a friend who said it was pretty fun. Now, the place looks like a total dive. It's right off the highway, you exit and have to stop pretty darn quick so you don't drive right on by. We paid our little entrance fees, bought a bag of feed for the petting zoo and set out for the mini adventure that was the Snake Farm. It was actually pretty cool with an impressive display of reptiles, lots of snakes, some alligators, turtles, etc. There was even a smattering of scorpions and tarantulas. We got to get up close and personal (with a glass wall between us) with a king cobra, pythons, rattlesnakes, and every other kind of snake you can imagine.

Out back was the other part of the Snake Farm - a petting zoo and some "exotic" animals. The petting zoo was quite fun although Alex got his finger nipped by a goat - no harm done, not even any tears actually. Alex was trying to reach into the bag of food to get some for the animals but he is shorter than they are and the goats were in a hurry. One of the goats started eating the bag with Alex's hand and the food still in it! Anyway, in addition to the goats there were pot bellied pigs and ducks and a llama, and I don't remember what else. As for the exotic animals, well there were some monkeys, a breed of really itty bitty tiny deer, a zebra, some parrots, and a few other things. Anyway, it was a fun day and another reminder that things aren't always as they seem on the outside!

Part 2 of this post is playmates! We've had a lot of tot company the past couple of weeks. A friend of mine had a baby 4 weeks early. The long and the short of it is we ended up helping take care of her older daughter (she is nearly 3) while mom & new baby sister were still in the hospital. It was our first experience with a sleepover and everyone had a blast. I'm happy to say that the 4 week preemie baby is doing great. We have also had that same little girl over to play a couple times since the new arrival, just to give her some non-baby play time. It's great because it keeps A & B from fighting. Not so great, because it runs me ragged. Earlier this week I had the little girl and another child plus my 2 ALL DAY LONG! Crazy day, and I don't think I've yet gotten enough sleep to make up for it. I have another friend who has recently bought a house. While they are having some work done prior to moving their belongings in we have been hanging out in the big empty house to keep them company. They also have a little girl who is almost 3. It's fun seeing Alex & Ben play so well with other kids. And, they actually all play together. Gone are the days when the kids sit and play side by side with their own toys. They build things together with blocks, race cars together, and generally have a good ol' time.

Well, preseason football is on, Alex & Ben are sleeping, and I'm done wasting my time up here :-)

Ben

It's high time I dedicate some space to my little Benny :-)

His favorite book is "Ten Apples Up on Top" by Theo LeSieg (a.k.a Dr. Seuss, but this was written prior to taking on the Dr. Seuss name.) We read it at least 3 or 4 times each day, always before nap and always before bed, and often times in between. He walks around saying "read up on top". It's actually only been the last couple of months that Ben will actually sit through an entire story, he never seemed to have the patience for it before. Now he will read for hours (OK, maybe not QUITE that long, but a really long time for a really little guy!)

He loves to wear my shoes, and I certainly leave him plenty of opportunity as I seem to have a hard time putting them away. The other day he was getting a little frustrated because he was having trouble walking in my Z-CoiL sandals, so I let him wander around in my gym shoes for awhile - too cute!




Ben is definitely attached to Daddy right now. When Daddy isn't with us on our daily excursions he does just fine with me. But, whenever Daddy is around, that who Ben wants and mommy might as well cease to exist. That's alright, big brother Alex went through the same phase. I'll get over it :-)

There are a million and one cute things he does every day, it's hard to pick one or two to share. He's so sweet and I don't even have the words to express it! We're so lucky to have him, and even luckier to have two kiddos like that. I often take it for granted, especially when I have to deal with their VERY bad days, but the truth is even on the awful days I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Adventures in Scale Modeling

I think everyone who reads this knows of Mike's great love (and, in my opinion, wonderful talent) for scale modeling. From the time Alex was a teeny tiny little baby Mike has talked of "one day" getting the boys some models to build. He has built special airplanes for both the boys and probably has so many more projects planned to involve them in that I have no clue about. At any rate, a few weeks ago he thought it would be fun to get some little snap kits that the boys could paint. We found some fun sporty little car models that also seem pretty durable (of extreme importance with kids under age 4!) and Mike put them together, well mostly together anyway. He didn't glue the tops on just yet, but left the cars in 2 separate pieces so that the boys could paint the inside AND the outside. Alex's car was molded from red plastic and Ben's from blue. Alex had a blast painting his own car, Ben really just wanted to play with his. At any rate, here are some pictures from the painting session. Enjoy!

The rest of the summer...

Here are some highlights from July:

Last week there was a snake in our driveway. Ben nearly stepped on it (none of us saw it initially). I pulled Ben back and yelled for him to STOP! Alex just looked at me and said in his most sweet and soothing little voice "Mommy, it's OK, the snake just wants to say hi." We then had the fun of watching the snake slither off and climb up a bush. The snake was actually quite long, a good 4 feet at least. The best part of the whole snake story is that later that afternoon Alex was rifling through his animal encyclopedia books. I thought he was just playing. As it turns out he told me he was looking for the book about snakes so that he could look and see what kind of snake it was. Awww, doesn't that just melt your heart??!

Today it rained, beautiful glorious, wet, cool, rain! And it was a nice, hard shower, actually it poured, for a really long time. It was so beautiful that we couldn't resist playing in it. The boys and I got soaked to the bone and played out in the downpour for a good half hour or so (as long as it lasted actually). We only had one little oops - Alex fell and got the tiniest of scrapes on his knee. Since there was actually a single drop of blood we determined that it was a band-aid worthy injury. As I was getting Ben dressed Alex went running off. I found him in our bathroom with the biggest band-aid he could find sort of half stuck on his scrape. He proudly told me that he got the band-aid all by himself. He had dug it out of the drawer, got it out of it's sterile wrapper (which was strewn ALL over the bathroom) and the one sticky part was stuck right on the scrape and the other sticky part was sort of half folded over. He was so proud of himself for fixing his own boo-boo though. I did help get it on the right way and he wore the badge of honor most of the day.

For my birthday we all went down to the Children's Museum and then had lunch with Aunt Stephanie. Alex told me that it would be really nice of me to share my birthday cake with everyone. On Saturday, Aunt Stephanie & Uncle Michael came up for dinner and playtime. Alex apparently was getting very tired and he announced to Aunt Stephanie & Uncle Michael that he didn't want to play with them anymore and it was time for them to go home.

I guess I haven't mentioned much about Ben. He is Alex in miniature - not in looks, but behaviour. Everything that Alex does, Ben must copy. He even copies some of Alex's silly little phrases. Ben adores talking on the phone, in fact it is very difficult to have a conversation with anyone without letting Ben get on and say something. Today when Alex fell outside, Ben sort of threw himself on the ground too, just so he could get a hug and a kiss for his knee. The two of them are constantly romping and chasing each other, crazy kids!

We had our first full length movie theater outing this week. Regal Cinemas offers free family movies during the summer. It's a pretty nice little program, especially as it gets so darn hot here. Last year when Ben was about 6 months old, I took the boys and we lasted for about 30 minutes of a movie. This week, the feature film was Curious George. We had not seen it before and both the boys just loved it. Best of all, we made it all the way through the movie with no tears or fussing or anything. Just plain fun, and Alex in particular thought it was so special to get to see a movie in the theater. Next week is actually the last of the free movies until next year so I think we'll try it again.

As for the rest of our life, the parts that are non kid related are few and far between and surely not nearly as interesting! We painted a couple of small walls downstairs a really dark chocolaty brown. I really like it, I think it's starting to grow on Mike, hopefully he will find himself liking it soon. My gardens are sort of surviving, the native bed and the container gardens out front are doing just fine, the pizza garden is OK - still nothing on the tomato or pepper plants. My hope is to get them through the heat and maybe they will bloom/fruit in the fall. We have picked an area in the back yard that has never grown anything but dirt and in the fall or spring we plan on building it out into a garden. That will be where we plant the herbs and vegetables next year.

Alex still isn't interested in riding his new bike much, but it has been really hot and we haven't spent much time outside. He has hit a growth spurt so I think the next time we go out it will be a bit easier for him. Ben can reach the pedals on the tricycle now and I've not doubt that he will be cruising around on that soon.

Surely I have missed dozens of little anecdotes that I had every intention of sharing. Who knows when I'll get around to updating this again. But, for a certain nagging follower (and you know who you are!!!!!) I'll try :-) Until next time, thanks for reading!

Happy Independence Day!

The boys are in the bathtub, which means we are NOT going to see fireworks tonight, well not up close anyway. The day started off well enough, everybody even slept a little later - it was almost 7 before everyone was finally up. Mike told Alex that today was a special day and that we were going to see a parade and watch fireworks, all very exciting stuff. After breakfast we headed up to the park to see the parade and that's when the day started to fall apart. Alex was a little grumpy that we weren't DRIVING to the parade, we had to walk. We let him take his tricycle because the kids get to ride in the parade if they want. So, long story even longer, we parked on a corner and waited for the parade to come by. Alex decided he wanted to go see what was going on up at the park so I took him up there and he ended up riding his little tricycle in the "parade". Parade in this since is a grand stretch of the word, really it was just everyone in the neighborhood walking while their kids rode bikes. We did a loop that was about a mile and ended up back at the park where there was water and watermelon for all. Alex was quite upset that we had to eat the watermelon the old fashioned way, right off the rind. He really wanted it cut up into nice little pieces in a bowl. Oh well, he got over it.

To really drag out this months long post, the rest of the afternoon just wasn't a great one for Alex. He fussed and grumped about every little thing. He was in a right awful mood and we opted to skip out on the fireworks, none of us could take anymore excitement!

Mike and I did get to catch a few fireworks right up close and personal. Our next door neighbor for some reason or other thought it was a good idea to set them off right in the street, we're talking about the big ones that make everyone go "OOOOHHHH", and "AAAAAAHHHHH". Yeah, too much beer for them that night I think!

Beach Pictures

HOT!!! HOT!!! HOT!!!

Yep, it's summer in Central Texas. I'm NOT complaining, just commenting. It's hot, really hot, ridiculously hot. It's 9:30 p.m. right now and it is still about 95 degrees outside. At 6:30 this morning it was already OVER 80. We're hanging out in tripple digit heat during the day. It's only June. August and September are typically the hottest months of the year here. OH, and did I mention that rain just doesn't seem to exist here anymore? Yep, it's hot.

Soooo, what do we do all day long since it is generally recommended that you not spend much time outdoors between the hours of 10am and 4pm? Well, LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of playing! I'm trying to get creative. Besides finding about a million and one excuses to wander aimlessly through Target and Hobby Lobby (mostly not buying anything) I am trying to be creative at home. We have been frequenting the park - first thing in the morning (we're home by 10 - 'cause by then it's just TOO HOT). We've been making popsicles - yum! If you are interested, greek yogurt + fruit (or juice) + a pinch of sugar = popsicle. So far so good. Alex wants to make banana/choclate one tomorrow - only problem is we're out of bananas and chocolate.

We went to the beach last weekend - had so much fun we ended up staying an extra day. One of these days maybe we can do a long term stay of a month or so, wouldn't that be fun! The boys loved it.

Oh yeah, had to have the AC checked today - it's HOT, really HOT. They added a bunch of freon (it was about half full - or empty - depending on which way you want to look at it). That should get us through the summer. Probably have to replace the unit in the fall/spring (it's old). At least we can get the thing to cool off below 80 now (wasn't working too well this week).

Finally, a gardening note. It's HOT. Yep, hard to keep anything alive. So I should have harvested my corn before we went to the beach, it was overripe and half eaten by the time we got home. Not a failed experiment, just poorly managed. Will try again next year. Fish Emulsion fertilizer - nasty stinky disgusting stuff that plants LOVE - plus it's organic. Apparently raccoons like it too. They uprooted and killed one of my tomato plants - knocking the tomatoes off in the process, unplanted 2 of my herbs (I was able to save these). Hmmm, the plants need the fertilizer, how do I keep the raccoons away? I think all the plants are going to migrate to the front container garden anyway, not as much sun, and everything there does really well. I don't have much hope for more tomatoes though - how am I supposed to make my pizza sauce now???????

OK - I'll say the usual of check back for beach pictures. I fully intend to get them up but you all know that probably won't happen anytime soon!

Sunflowers

Pizza Garden

There was an article in the paper over the weekend about getting kids interested in gardening. Now, that's not actually a problem here. Alex LOVES to help me plant and water things. Ben loves to dump all of the dirt out of the pots and then poor water all over everything, so I guess he loves it too. (I'll also add that the little stinker has figured out how to turn on the spigot outside, oops!!) Anyway, the article was about planting things that would go on a pizza. It went into pretty thorough detail about even laying the garden out in the shape of a pizza with each vegetable, herb, etc. in it's own slice. The slices would be separated by a rock border or something. I thought it sounded like a fine idea. So, we did our own version of a pizza garden this weekend. Instead of a designated "pizza" shaped plot dug into the ground I opted to plant my pizza makings in pots. So, we've got tomatoes, bell peppers (purple), oregano, thyme, marjoram, basil, and rosemary all happily growing. We fought a fantastic nursery and the plants are just thriving. If I can figure out how to grow those tomatoes out here we'll be in good shape. (Tomato growing in TX is somewhat of an art, I have failed miserably at it in the past...) Anyway, Alex is very excited about the pizza garden and no doubt we will have fun watching it grow.

The pizza garden is actually a good start for my herbs. Not sure if I related my herb growing experience this year or not. I decided I would grow them in pots and start them from seed. I got all the stuff together, planted the seeds, watered properly and NOT ONE SINGLE SEED from 12 DIFFERENT kinds of herbs sprouted. How ridiculous is that?? Anyway, now I have six established plants, and they are doing beautifully. (In addition to the ones I listed already I also have some mint). Now I know where to go to get the rest of the herbs if I want.

All of our gardens are actually doing quite well this year, must be just the right conditions. Let's hope for a bit more rain so they keep looking good!

Oh, and one last gardening note, our edible gardening this year also includes corn, the one peach currently left on the tree, lemons, and, if they grow carrots, raspberries, and blueberries. I'm not holding my breath that the last 3 will actually produce fruit, but the plants at least look good at the moment.

What, it's been a month already??!!

Hmmmm, still waiting on pictures of the bunkbeds are ya? Well, guess you'll just have to wait a little bit longer, because I still haven't taken any.


You would think that the extreme length of time between posts would indicate that we've actually been traveling the world or on some other great adventure. Nope, I'm just a great procrastinator and really, I swear I thought that I had updated this thing just a week or so ago.


So, in a nutshell, the last month? Well, it's been warm enough to swim so we filled the wading pool in the backyard and have been hitting it hard fairly often. The boys were so excited the first couple of times to go play in the water that they couldn't even be bothered with swimsuites. Yeah, they were skinny dippin'. Really, the only reason the bathing suits ever made it on was because there tender little heinies were getting stuck on the slide.

We've been having our share of around town playdate/adventures. Nothing too exciting or out of the ordinary.

Mother's Day was really nice. Mike and Alex got doughnuts for breakfast, we went to the park and rode the train, had lunch, napped, fixed dinner and even though it's been awhile, I think that we made it through the day with very minimal fussing from either of the munchkins.

This past weekend was a nice little 3 day holiday for Mike (weekends aren't much different than weekdays for me). We had friends over Sat. night and stayed up late playing games. The kids did good. Ben lasted until about 8:30 or so and then I had to put him to bed. Alex stayed up until 11. Now the only reason that is noteworthy is because he was up at 6 that morning and didn't nap at all during the day. Oddly though, he managed to stay in a good mood all day long. And no, he is not giving up his naps, that was just a fluke. I work very hard to wear them both out in the morning so that they take a nice long after-lunch nap. Anyway, Sunday we headed down to Camp Mabry to check out the Armed Forces Museum. We figured the tanks and planes would be a big hit. They were. We stayed around for a 1944 reenactment but got rained out. After lunch/naps we headed back downtown to the children's museum for a bit - they are free from 4 - 5 on Sundays. I wish I could say that Monday was also a fun/good day. No, Alex decided to drag out his alter ego of "I'm a major grump" and was an absolute nightmare all day long. Bedtime just couldn't come soon enough. Oh well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad.

As for me, well I seem to always find my way into about a million different projects at one time. So, I'm trying to keep on top of it all, and instead I'm procrastinating madly and reading books and playing games and doing anything but the stuff I should be doing.

That probably explains why it is 3 AM and I am updating a blog instead of sleeping :-)

Texas Open Bonspiel - April 17-19, 2009

My big weekend away - first time ever away from either of the boys for more than 3 or 4 hours.

The weather was crummy, I saw the same nasty thunderstorm 3 times on Friday and it just kept getting worse each time I came across it.

Our first game was Friday night and it was the first time any of us had played in about a month. The game ended in a tie so the skips from each team had to throw a single rock. The rock closest to the button (center of the scoring zone) won. We lost that game by about 6 inches (maybe a foot). It's a loss we could really feel good about though, as the team that beat us ended up playing for the bonspiel championship on Sunday. They ended up losing on the last rock. Anyway, this was our only loss of the weekend. The one benefit to this particular loss was that it meant we didn't have to be back out on the ice until late Saturday afternoon. It just so happens that we were right by NASA and the Johnson Space Center. One of my teammates and I spent the day touring the space center. We got to see the original Saturn V rocket, the real astronaut training facility, and the world's largest collection of moon rocks (which actually was VERY cool). It was fantastic, and Alex and Ben (Mike too) would have just loved it. We will be going back! We left the space center around 2 to get some food and get ready for our afternoon game. The weather, which had been drizzly and gray all day, took a sudden turn for the worse. Right around the time I was leaving the hotel to get some food, the tremendous downpour started. During my 15 minute meal, the deluge continued and the roads started to flood. I had to go back to the hotel to change because I was soaking wet and couldn't play in my dripping clothes (I probably would have stuck to the ice!!) As soon as I set out for the ice rink I realized that I might not make it in time. The ice rink was about 3 miles from the hotel, about a five minute drive. I had about an hour and a half before my game. Somehow or other I made it about 20 minutes before we were supposed to start playing. If I hadn't had the big truck I would not have made it to the rink. I have never seen flooding like that, it was insane. Cars were stranded left and right and I had no business being out in all that crap.

Long story even longer, I made it, we wond our game by forfeit because our opponents were all flooded out. So, my teammate took me onto the ice and gave me some great pointers. After a bit of practice we decided to get off the ice and try for the hotel. That was not to be. The roads were even worse, and the rain wasn't going to let up for several more hours. I was about the last person that actually made it to the rink for a number of hours. To make things even worse, the other games had to be stopped midway through. The compressor working the dehumidifier on the ice rink stopped working and water started pooling on the ice. After an hour or so, they got the compressor working, and they then had to do a bunch of work to get the ice back into a playable condition. They restarted all the games that were stopped earlier. We still won as our opponents still couldn't get to the rink. About 8 or so, the water finally started to recede so I finally left the rink. I stopped at a bookstore and crashed for the rest of the evening. My roommate got back about 1:30 in the morning, there were still some games going on. The weather totally messed up the whole schedule.

So, Sunday we had our first game at 7 am. In my opinion that is way too early to be up on a Sunday, even worse when we were expected to function. Our game started off well enough, we were up 5 points about midway through. Our opponents came back though and then were ahead by 2 going into the final end. We actually scored 5 points in the last end to win the game. That win put us in the "B" event final. (There is an A event, B event, and C event - the A winner is the tournament winner - B winner is technically 3rd place I think).

So, just before the last game, everyone that is playing in the final lines up on the ice. We all walked down to the opposite end together while bagpipes are being played (yep real bag pipes). Then the skips of each team take a shot of scotch and the games begin. Our last game started off not so great. We were down by 3 points after 3 ends. We slowly came back and going into the last end we were up by 2. They would have needed 3 points to win, but they didn't get them!

We played some incredibly challenging and fun games and we are already planning on doing it again next year. And yes, the winners got prizes. There were all sorts of prizes, everything from prints to brooms, to silly little cow statues. By the time our team got called to the table to collect our prizes, about half the stuff was gone. I got really lucky and there was a pair of curling gloves (and a hat and a bottle of champagne) that I REALLY wanted, so I was happy.

Of course there is always so much more to tell, but this has gotten really long as is!

Tune in tomorrow for tales of the bunk beds!

Easter

Although it was only a couple of weeks ago, Easter seems as if it happened in another lifetime.

As with all holidays lately, it seems that we started celebrating weeks in advance. Between the 3 different mom's groups and private parties we were invited to, we must have done at least 4 or 5 egg hunts this year. The upshot of it all is that we could reuse all those plastic eggs! The boys had a blast and loved all of the eggs.

At home we hunted eggs with Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Michael. Oddly, this is how we ended the day instead of starting it. Doesn't matter, it was fun. The boys had so much fun with all of their easter baskets and buckets and presents from everyone. I swear it rivaled Christmas this year!

I dyed some easter eggs and Alex died a couple too. I wanted to try "natural" egg dyes. What I learned was it takes LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of whatever you are going to color your egg with to actually color an egg. I tried red onion skins and instead of a nice red color, I got a very brown egg! I also dumped a bunch of food coloring in some water when I was cooking eggs and got a really nice pretty pale green egg. Again, it takes a lot of food coloring for a little bit of color. Alex did the Snyder family tradition of q-tips and food coloring for his eggs. Anyway, it was fun. Here is a picture after one of our many egg hunts.

Separate posts coming soon...

Look for more on these exciting topics in posts to come:

Easter - lots of fun, eggs, and play

Bunk Beds - yep, 2 levels of trouble now!

Texas Open Bonspiel - horrendous weather complete with flooding, a trip to the Johnson Space Center, and oh yeah, "B" event winners! A truly unforgettable and fabulously fun weekend!


Oh yeah, and after 3 weeks we still don't have our car back. The latest is supposedly this Friday, and the damage was more extensive than they originally thought - about another $1000 actually, out of the insurance company's pocket, not ours!

Chicken Soup

I made a lovely pot of chicken soup for dinner. Alex gulped it down. Ben didn't want anything to do with it. Yet, he would eat the tofu & chicken pad thai from yesterday. Go figure.

And the list goes on...

The insurance adjustor made it out today to view the hail damage to our roof. Since we are making a claim for the roof we figured we might as well add the canopy that got shredded and the roof to the shed to the claim as well. As the adjustor was walking around she noted that the front door was all dented, a couple of window screens are damaged and the cover to the a.c. compressor is all banged up. About the only thing that didn't get added on is a new paint job on the house. It's too bad about that, because the house REALLY needs to be painted and gee, wouldn't it have been nice to have gotten that in with the rest of all this stuff.

Otherwise, this was the first weekend in a very long time that we had absolutely no plans, not even Sunday morning curling. We had a list of things to take care of, managed to get those all done on by lunchtime Saturday and had the rest of the weekend to sit and do as we pleased.

Ben did his first finger painting this weekend and he had a blast. He also managed to get paint ALL over his face, good thing the stuff is non-toxic!

We're getting ready for the Easter Bunny this weekend. I've got to get myself in gear and make some eggs for the boys. I'll start on that tonight.

We had one easter egg hunt last week and we have 2 more (maybe 3) scheduled for this week and that doesn't even include Easter. If last year was any indicator we will spend all day Sunday looking for eggs, hiding them, finding them, hiding them again, finding them again, and so on. I might even try my hand at some natural egg dyes this year. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Well, it sounds as if Alex has just awoken from his nap so it's time to go.

Just some updates

I can't guarantee the quality of anything written here tonight. You see, I'm just too darned tired to spend time proof reading tonight! I just finished taxes, probably the latest that I have ever gotten them done, but at least it's before the deadline.

Anyway, it's update time. Hail damage: The car is NOT totaled, yay! There is about $4000 damage to it, and we took it to the shop today to have it repaired. We'll get it back in 2 weeks. I think we got the grungiest rental out there. The car is so disgustingly dirty on the inside that I really don't want to touch anything I don't have too. Plus, it's got scratches ALL over the outside. And yes, the rental company does have all of this on record so we won't be held responsible for it. As for the house, we had the roof checked out today. Sadly, it apparently needs to be replaced again. The roofer said the insurance company would consider the roof to be a total loss. It's not leaking, it's not going to just start falling apart but apparently it's not in great shape either. We can probably wait for quite awhile before we have it replaced. Too bad it's a brand new roof that got wrecked! Oh well, if we do file a claim, maybe we'll be able to get the shed roof redone and a new canopy for our backyard furniture as well.

Curling - Houston is on! Apparently they got a few last minute entries so I am set to go.

The boys are good, nothing new to report there. We're going strawberry picking tomorrow. It is supposed to be some of the best picking that the farm has ever had. Mike is taking the day off and will join in the fun! I'll try to remember to get some pictures.

And lastly, speaking of pictures, while I haven't actually added pictures to specific posts I have added the nifty little slideshow. So, enjoy my babies :-)

Hail, Pony Rides, Curling Fun, etc...

Here's what we've been up to this past week.


We had a whopper of a hail storm on Wed. The biggest hail was over 2" in diameter. It was crazy. I'm taking the car in tomorrow to get the damage assessed. I've heard from several people with seemingly less damage than our car sustained that their vehicles have been totaled. Hmmm, not sure how I feel about that. Right now we're looking at a cracked windshield, cracked tail light, and umpteen million dents ALL OVER the car. We shall see, we shall see...


The crazy weather popped a little surprise rainstorm into our day Friday as well. We were supposed to head to a park for a book fair and dig in the sand to find dinosaur bones, all followed by a picnic lunch. All of which got rained out. We ended up splashing in puddles outside instead. It was messy and fun!


And the crazy weather lasted into Saturday - it was quite cool yesterday, only in the 30's in the morning. But the sun was shining and it warmed up enough to take the boys up to the Cedar Park Heritage festival. Ben & Alex enjoyed their first pony ride. No, I didn't have the camera. There was also a little petting zoo for the kids with goats, ponies, ducks, chickens, rabbits, and a few other farm animals that I can't think of. Alex watched some older kids chase the ducks and laughed hysterically at the antics. Ben made a dash for the goats and loved petting them. I think he was so interested because of the ones up the street that we feed so often. Anyway, the festival was fun and the boys enjoyed it.


Today was gorgeous and sadly it was my last day of curling for the season. I've got the Texas Open Bonspiel coming up in April (although that might actually get cancelled... more on that if it happens). The last 3 weeks were the league playoffs/championship. My team actually won! IT was a hard fought battle and some really tough games but last Sunday we played amazingly well and won the championship for the season. Today was the 2nd Lonestar Curling Club Weirdspiel. Just a fun little competition. Teams are chosen at random and we play a series of really short games. Well, my team won todays weirdspiel as well. So, coupled with my weirdspiel win in Dec. that makes me 3-0 for the season!!! I love curling :-) Enough about the games though, the club had a big picnic at Zilker after curling today. Mike brought the boys down, they ate, we all played and just about the time the food was cooked and ready to eat we had to bail because the boys were tired. That's a huge disappointment because Uly was the grill man today and he can really cook. The real kicker is that Mike and I didn't get lunch at all, the timing was just off. Oh well, at least we had a good dinner.


Not sure what fun things we will do this week, but we never fail to find ways to keep busy during the day. I know that my evenings will be filled with taxes for at least a couple of days! Cross your fingers, maybe we'll get a big refund!

This One's for you Grandma!!!

Pink Plastic Curlers - need I say more??!!

OK, so yesterday was toddler pottery in the park. The good news was that it was tons of fun, Alex and Ben LOVED it and it was a gorgeous day to be doing outside artwork. The bad news, apparently not too many of the other people that said they were going to come actually came. In fact only 3 other people (out of 13) came. Well, poo on them! It's a bit irksome that I bothered to plan this, get supplies, set everything up and then have no one show up. Well, at least Alex and Ben had fun!

What do pink plastic curlers have to do with all of this? Well, I picked some up at the dollar store thinking they might work in making cool patterns in the clay. Sure enough, they did and it was probably the most popular and easiest tool to use!

Grandma, I was thinking about you and all of your plastic curlers the whole time we were playing in the clay!

This, That, and the Other!

Here again I am writing another totally random update. Really I'm hiding at the moment (everyone is quiet so I'm sneaking away), shame on me :-) A belated happy St. Patrick's day to everyone. In true "mom" fashion I was heavy handed in my use of green food coloring yesterday. Alex LOVED his green milk. He drinks plenty of milk as is, but it was just super special yesterday, so he had it every chance he got. Also in the spirit of St. Patrick's day Alex helped me make some Irish Soda Bread. He calls it special St. Patrick's Day bread. Sadly though, that is about the extent of our celebration. We did make it to the park to play for awhile and visited the goats up the street.

Ben is officially 15 months now too. He threw a major fit at his checkup today, the likes of which I have not seen since his colicky days. That boy did NOT want to be touched by Dr. Mary. The good news is that he is perfectly healthy and growing like crazy. His vocabulary and understanding continue to grow by leaps and bounds every day. He saw a picture of a train today and proudly said "choo choo".

Tomorrow I have the daunting task of teaching a group of roughly 20 toddlers how to make pinch pots with real clay. No play-doh for this group. Not really sure what I was thinking when I opted to do this, oh well.

Curling is almost done for the season. We have one final real game and then a funspiel. And yes, my team is playing for the league championship this weekend!!! Honestly, I don't think we have a chance at winning (the skip of the opposing team played for team USA in the deaf olympics a couple of years ago) but it will be fun and the worst we can do is come in 2nd, so not bad for the season. Oh, and one more fun little curling thing, I get to play in the Texas Open Bonspiel in Houston in April. Yay, I can't wait for that!!! Mike and the boys will be flying solo that weekend so Aunt Stephanie & Uncle Michael, if you're reading this and you want to help...

So that's that. Dinner that I had planned to have ready for everyone to eat at a reasonable hour of course got derailed slightly. It's in the oven, but the boys will undoubtedly get hungry before it's done, so I think we're in for another round of veggie quesadillas.

This & That

I always seem to think of many amusing tidbits to share but when the time comes to actually retell those tales I usually can't remember what I wanted to write.

So, the latest happenings here:

The beautiful big new garden is planted, complete with a very cool little ant sculpture. In time hopefully my plants will grow big and fill out some of the holes. Anyway, it makes me happy everytime I look at it and it's a great feeling to know that something will live through the summer Texas heat down in that little corner of the yard. So long grass, I don't miss ya!

On sunflowers, best to plant the seeds directly in the ground because those tender little sprouts are a big pain in the you know what to transplant.

Alex and Ben seem to be afflicted with some sort of silly juice tonight, wow are they wound up! They are splashing up a storm in the bathtub. Hopefully they will sleep well tonight.

It has now ben several hours since I started this, and I have no clue whatelse was on my mind. It's late and I'm tired so time to say night-night :-)

Another Reason to Love Austin

Yesterday was the 81st annual Austin Kite Festival. It's exactly what you would think, everyone gathered together in a big park flying kites. This is the 3rd or 4th time we have gone to the festival, and it is always a blast. So, while all you east coasters were getting pummeled with snow yesterday, we were enjoying temps in the low 60s, having a glorious picnic lunch lunch with family and friends and flying kites. We got the cow kite up easily, had a little more trouble with the fish kite (needed more room and a bit more wind). In addition to everyone being able to fly their own kites, there are demo areas with kites bigger than you can imagine, stunt kites, homemade kites, everything. There is also the requisite amount of food, music, and alcohol. Really there was no down side to the festival, it's just a blast and everyone has fun!

In other news, Ben's vocabulary is ever increasing. One of the first things we taught Alex to say was "Up, please" when he wanted to picked up for any reason. It always came out sounding like "uppies". We were trying to get Ben to say Up Please or Uppies or something, what we got was "Up go". He also says "here ya go" if he's handing us something and "wanna go" if he wants to go somewhere. They all come out sounding as if it is one word instead of multiples, but it is just so cute!

Our massive garden project is off to a splendid start. We spent some time at the coolest garden center in Austin this weekend, got some plants and finally got them in the ground tonight. We actually couldn't plant them this weekend because it got too cold in the evenings. We need a few more things, but hopefully we have chosen well and the plants will thrive and fill in our huge new garden. We even found a couple of nice big rocks to fill it out.

Ben got his first haircut tonight! Alex is so good for me when I cut his hair that I didn't remember how wiggly Ben would be. Of course he is a good bit younger than Alex was at the time of his first haircut. Anyway, it's not a dramatic change, just enough to keep it under control a little bit. Yes, I got pictures, yes I need to post them, no I don't know when I'll get to it!

Ben is sprouting bunches of teeth too! For all of you that have to deal with cranky teethers I truly am sorry. It's no big deal for my guys. If I didn't periodically do a tooth check, I'd never even know a new one was coming. So, he has 3 on the bottom, one front one and one molar on top. Yep, it's kind of a weird order in which they are coming in but as long as they all cut through eventually I guess it doesn't really matter.

Surely I had many other things to mention, but I can't think of them at the moment. So all you folks back east enjoy that snow. I'll be enjoying temps in the 70s and 80s for the rest of the week!

Goats, Birthdays and catching up

It seems this little whim of mine has garnered quite the familial following. Thanks family for reading (and the pressure to post more frequently...)

As usual I have let many days lapse since the last post. It's not a lack of "things" to post, just a lack of time. You see, this is the first evening this week I have spent away from the sewing machine (I made a lovely little baby carrier for a friend). Furthermore, I should be doing actual work right now. I'm REALLY behind in updating the curling website. Since I'm not working though, I'll fill you in on the "things". I had planned on several entries but I'll condense and do one for now.

The birth of a goat. Did I get your attention with that one? It was very cool, very random, and totally amazing. Just luck that we got to see it. I think I've mentioned the storage lot with the goats that's just up the street. Anyhow, one of our evening walks stopped us by the fence to feed the goats. All but one went away, and to make a long story short, a few minutes later there was a brand spankin' new goat.

Alex's 3rd Birthday. We had such a fun day. I made dinosaur shaped muffins for breakfast, we rode the train at Zilker, had lunch at Hula Hut, opened lots of presents and even managed to squeeze in a little cake right before bed. He's such a sweetie and so proud to be 3. Our good friends Monica & Gabriel spent the day with us along with Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Michael.

I was going to post some musings about birthday cakes and how I never can seem to get them done at a reasonable time, and a few other things, but oh well.

My sunflowers are about ready to go into the ground, if it's nice, we'll do it this weekend. Otherwise it will wait just a little longer. I've decided to try and sprout some carrots too, fun, fun, fun!!

Oh yeah, Ben can say "bye" now. He's such a ham, and a darn cute one too!!

The Flip Side

Every coin has two sides, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, every day has a night, and the list goes on and on and on. I looked over some of the past posts and realized that they all only tell half the story. I really don't think that most people want to hear the "bad" side of Alex and Ben, but I think I'd be at fault if I neglected to mention it at least once. I'm not looking for sympathy or advice or anything else. Mostly I'm just bored at the moment, putting off many things that I should be doing in favor of wasting time for your entertainment! Which means that today's topic is all about the temper tantrums. And it goes something like this...

Ninety-nine percent of our days start off with two happy boys. This lasts anywhere from 5 minutes to maybe half an hour, really just as long as it takes us to change diapers and do the few "upstairs" chores of our morning routine. Then we go downstairs, maybe the action of going down is symbolic. It seems that as soon as we set foot on that last step, happy goes out the window and isn't seen again for at least an hour. For whatever reason, Alex feels it necessary to be upset by EVERYTHING in the morning. Routine is not a factor, we can follow the exact same routine and he still falls apart. To make a long story longer, Alex generally ends up in time-out back up in his room at least 2 or 3 times during the course of breakfast. When breakfast is finally over he turns into mister happy and is usually pretty OK for the rest of the day. The really bad part is that EVERY single day starts off bad, which puts me in a very bad mood thinking about what I am going to have to put up with ALL DAY long. So, my very sole wish in the world right now is ONE single little morning of peace. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, but hey, I can always dream. I guess it's just part of the whole "terrible two's" process that kids go through, but I am really tired of it and as Alex is days away from being 3 I hope he is getting a bit closer to outgrowing this incredibly obnoxious stage. I love him dearly, but he sure is trying sometimes!

Ben is still little enough that he hasn't gotten onto that extreme emotional roller coaster yet. His fussing in the morning is simply his stomach talking. The sooner I get breakfast into him, the happier he is. He does have his moments though. He is a super grump when he is tired (guess he gets that from me) and man can he pitch a fit when you tell him no. He also likes to randomly lay down on the floor and cry for a minute, then he gets up, runs off and is fine.

Yes, I am sure that at some point I'll look back at this and shake my head, thinking they really weren't that bad. In all fairness, no they aren't that bad. I've been around plenty of other children who are far worse than my little A-man. Fortunately he keeps his really bad attitudes for home and is always a perfect angel out. Unfortunately, no one except mommy and daddy EVER see the "other" Alex.

Conversations

Prior to having my own beautiful boys I never really paid much attention to the development of language and verbal skills. Now, it's quite fun watching little kids discover this part of the world. Alex didn't really say anything until about 19 months. He would do animal sounds before that and occasionally he would say ball or trash. Then it all came flooding out. By 22 months he was putting words together into simple sentences. By the time he was 2 he was telling you his life story. He talks ALL the time about everything. His latest mission is to teach Ben to say "Alex".

Friday was a very bad day for Alex, nothing made him happy. We were having a houseful of company for dinner. In the frenzy of trying to calm all of the little Alex meltdowns, I was making no headway in getting the house clean and do the prep work for dinner A friend (with a brand new baby) wanted to take us out to lunch. With 4 kids in the mix, we scheduled a time that worked for everyone, it just happened to fall on this very bad Friday. So everything got put on hold and I grumpily got the kids in the car to head to lunch. I was very happy to get lunch, but at the time I was wishing I could have left the kids at home this particular day!

So in my crummy mood, the boys actually decide to behave in the car. Ben is babbling, lots of da-da-da sounds coming out. Alex tells Ben "No, my name is Alex. Say Al-ex." I kid you not, the next sound was Ben saying his not quite right version of Alex. Thus began the first real conversation between Alex & Ben. Alex got Ben to say "Alex" a couple more times, and then launched into a diatribe about the macaroni and cheese that they would be having for lunch. Ben would respond at the right time with whatever sounds he deemed appropriate.

It was so sweet and helped a little to get me out of my funk. Lunch went well, the boys did great and by the time I got home everyone was really happy. Our little dinner party went off without a hitch and fortunately for me, my day ended on a much happier plane than where it began.

Uh-Oh, Computers!

Ben has become quite the vocal little man, always babbling and no doubt telling me many interesting things that I just don't "quite seem to get". As for real words, he can sort of say Alex, he did pick up a toy phone and say hi. Last night I got him to say uh-oh. The best part is the crazy face he makes when saying it, really emphasizing the "oooooooh".

As for Alex, he has decided that he would like to have his own computer. It happened like this:

We were talking about teaching him to write. He seemed all for it and we said that once he could actually write out letters we would create an email address for him. On route to the post office Alex and I continued this conversation. Out of the blue he informed me that he needed his own computer if he was going to have his own email address. Hmmm, I think not.

These guys are too smart for me!

Art Projects

It was quickly pointed out to me that I have NOT been keeping up with this silly little project of mine. Hmmm, I guess people read this stuff afterall.

You may be wondering just what's been happening these last 3 weeks, NOT MUCH! Alex helped me plant a bunch of sunflower seeds last weekend. A bunch being roughly 300 seeds. They are sprouting and I can't wait to get them into my garden. He also helped me plant a blueberry bush and a raspberry bush. Next on the garden agenda, strawberrys, herbs and some veggies (thanks Steph for the veggie seeds!!)

But, the real point of this post is a special shout out to Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Michael. Thanks for entertaining Alex yesterday. His PMS (that would be Post Michael Syndrome) was not too bad today. For the rest of you that weren't here, yesterday was art project with Alex day!! It was a bit too cold to play outside so Aunt Stephanie had the awesome idea of spending the day with the kiddos doing art. Ben sat and colored with crayons until he just couldn't stay awake anymore and Alex got to dig into his special art box and go hog wild. We painted, and glued, and stamped, and cut, and punched holes, and everything else you can think of. I've got a stack of art to do "something" with now. I'll try and remember to get pictures and post them at some point (along with all of the other pictures that I'm supposedly going to post...)

Anyway, we really did have a great day and Alex just loves to create. He's been talking about the "projects" all day long.

New Shoes

In an effort to keep up with my goal of 1 - 2 posts a week, I thought it was time for a new one. I don't have a whole lot to write about. The weather is doing its crazy central Texas thing - 80 degrees yesterday, 45 today, 30's tomorrow, and back up into the 60s/70s Tuesday. Man these temp swings can be tough. Summer clothes never totally get packed away. Ahh, but you don't want to hear about the weather.

We bought Ben his first pair of "real" shoes yesterday, which is actually his second pair. The shoes he had been wearing were pedipeds. For you non-moms out there these are soft soled shoes, supposed to be good for those little toesies when the kiddos are learning to walk. I bought them because Ben was standing and I didn't expect him to be taking off walking quite so soon. But he did and the shoes actually worked out really well for him. That was back in the beginning of Oct.

As you well know, kids feet grow faster than any other part on their bodies apparently. I took stock of Alex's old cast off shoes and loaded the boys in the car. Off we went to Sandy's - best place in town for kid's shoes. Ben's got big feet! Alex's old shoes were either too small or too big, Ben happened to be in that one size that we never bought for Alex.

I'd like to say that Ben adjusted to his new real shoes immediately. My normally smiley baby had no problem with me or the salesperson putting the shoes on his feet but he absolutely refused to stand, for anything. Sandy's is a great shoe store, and it's got a fantastic selection of toys too. Nothing in that store would get Ben to stand. So, I left the new shoes on his feet, paid for them and carried him next door to the best toy store in town. He finally stood at the train table with Alex and Daddy. He tripped a couple of times when he first started out, but he's a pro now. I guess he just needed to have the old shoes out of sight/out of mind!

Side note to all of this. We hadn't planned on going into the toy store. Well we did initially but Alex was being a crab so we decided he didn't quite deserve the treat of Terra Toys. But, his incredibly wet diaper leaked and I didn't have a change of clothes. Normally not a big deal but we did have other things to do and couldn't let Alex be uncomforatble in wet pants all afternoon. Terra Toys just so happens to carry a little boutique line of childrens clothes. While Mike took Alex to go buy diapers (yep forgot to bring the diaper bag) I went on the hunt for a pair of pants that wouldn't bankrupt me. I finally found a pair that was obscenely expensive (considering that I rarely pay over $4 or MAYBE $5 for clothes for the kids). It would be fitting if I said that the pants were poorly made and a huge waste of money. They fit Alex better than any other pants he has and they are cute and well made and I'll be able to pass them on to Ben. Expensive, yes, but worth every penny.

Happy New Year!

Here are some funnies for the first day of 2009:

I've bookmarked my own blog in my browser favorites list, complete with a typo. It says "Christina's Bog" - a subliminal message maybe??!!

A couple more Alexisms:

• When Alex wants us to read him a story he says "You can talk it to me". This really means that he wants us to actually read all of the words instead of just flipping through quickly and looking at the pictures.


• When he accidentally gets a little bit of cat hair in his mouth he says "I have some cat in my mouth".

And Ben, well he's always mister smiley and everything he does is funny.

Have a great 2009 everyone! I'll try my best to update a little more frequently than I have in the past couple of months.