An Art Filled Weekend

This weekend was the annual Texas Clay Festival. This is a fantastic festival for anyone who is a potter or interested in pottery. It features potters from all over Texas. There are lots of demo areas and everything imaginable made out of clay. I could easily have spent all weekend there. But, with two little guys who are much more interested in playing than looking at a bunch of things they aren't allowed to touch, we only spent a little time at the festival, most of which was actually in the kids tent messing with clay. For the first time I did not bring home anything and that is only because I didn't have enough time to look and narrow down my selection. It was worth the drive (about an hour to a town called Gruene) just to get the inspiration to go back to my wheel. There was also an added bonus of lunch at the Gristmill.

The art festivities continued on Sunday when we met Steph & Michael for the reopening of a gallery here in Austin called Arthouse. Very cool place. The main exhibit was glass bottles that had been reformed and made into dishes. Sounds kind of weird and the picture in the paper didn't do the exhibit justice. It was just really well done, really neat. Of course the boys sniffed out the kids craft room. They have a knack for finding the project areas wherever we go. They seemed to like the gallery too.

As for the rest of the weekend, lots of the usual playing and watching football. I curled Sunday morning, lost my game by about 1/2" on the last rock thrown. Heartbraking, but that is the best way to lose. Way better than being completely thrashed by the opponent. I'm still looking for my first win of the season. Technically we won a game, but at the time we agreed before starting that the outcome would be a draw no matter what.

I finished Alex's halloween costume. He will be the best looking chef ever. I'll post pictures when I get them.

Tucker's leg is healing, we are midway through week 2 of 12 in the crate. He gets his staples out this week and hopefully that means the end of the cone of shame.

The boys recovered quickly and fully from their illnesses, good Alex seems to have returned and that's about all I;ve got for you for now!

What a week - blah.

Alex got his first stomach virus last Thursday. He was sick enough that he wasn't even upset about missing school. We thought we were out of the clear and were celebrating the fact that none of the rest of us got that nasty little bug when...

Ben got croup. Fortunately it wasn't a bad case. Nights have been a little rough, but he is almost better. Just to be on the safe side we took him to the doctor. In doing her routine exam she discovered that he has a nasty ear infection.

Then Tucker injured his leg last night. Turns out he blew out his cruciate ligament. The only cure is a very expensive surgery. It's very unfortunate that there is no health insurance for pets.

For a house where people/animals/things virtually never get sick, it's been a nasty week.

Oh and Alex has decided that it's time for him to take a little vacation and be replaced by his evil twin Horribly Fussy Grumpy Alex. I really hope it's a short vacation, because mama is REALLY short on patience right about now.

Ok - so I'm done grumping.

Home Depot Kid's Workshops

Home Depot does a free Kid's Workshop on the first Saturday of each month. It's a fun little project for the kids to do (with help from mom & dad if necessary). Mike had been taking Alex off and on for about a year. We decided that Ben was finally old enough to join in the fun. In truth he is still a bit young, but he does pretty well. So in September we all went for the first time. The boys made little stands that held a couple of flags. The project for October was toy fireboats. The projects are always wooden and involve nailing, sanding, glueing, sometimes screws too.

The fun part about October's project was that they had firemen and paramedics on hand to show off their stuff to the kids. There was a firetruck in the parking lot the kids could go on, they got little fire hats and they got to see a first response helicopter up close. We actually were right there when the helicopter landed.

All Home Depot's do this every month so if you have kids check it out sometime.

This and that...

I got so far behind that I think I just didn't want to play catch up again and everytime I thought about updating this blog it was just too disheartening. So I didn't update it for a long time.

Nothing super momentous that hasn't already been mentioned in another post happened during the past couple of months. The weather turned nice a couple of weeks ago and has simply been gorgeous. We usually don't see this until the end of Oct. or early Nov.. The windows are open and we spend far more time playing outside than inside. I went to the park 3 separate times on Tuesday and 4 times Wednesday. Each time we were there for a good hour or so. Alex decided Tuesday that he wanted to try riding his bike again. He is doing great, we're not ready to give up training wheels yet, but at least he is comfortable riding in general. Ben too has figured out how to get the tricycle moving on it's own. We have a little bike that is his size and I think it is about time to get the tires inflated and let him go.

So why did I pick today to update the blog. Mostly it's because I have the time. Alex seems to have caught some little bug, he is a bit under the weather today. It's a movie watching day. Ben is content to sit and watch movies all day too. So that leaves me with plenty of time on my hands. I've been semi productive in folding laundry and doing a little cleaning. Mostly I've been wanting to stay close to Alex. The boys never get sick so it's hard on me when one of them isn't feeling quite up to par. Anyway I've got to do something to fill the hours today. It's not quite noon yet and it has been a LOOOOONG day already.

My gardens have had an interesting fall. In early September tropic storm Hermine paid us a visit. Actually a rather extended visit. The storm remained formed and as a tropical storm that sat and churned over top of us for about 2 days. All total we got upwards of 15 inches of rain. That actually killed a couple of my plants, but the rest are now happy. My prickly pear bloomed out of season a week or so later. The basil that is normally fried and toast by this time of the year is huge, in fact I need to make something with it. My tomatoes and peppers are trying for a late surge as well. It's nice having pretty things growing.

Speaking of gardening/landscaping we finally put a path in the front yard. It was starting to wear from everyone walking through the yard, now it is officially a nice stone path.

And that is pretty much what's been going on. I'm working hard on halloween costumes. Hopefully I will have them done with time to spare although I'm not counting on it. Perhaps that is what I should be doing while the boys are vegetating!

School!

Alex is in preschool now. It was a big decision on my part to go this route, but now that we have, it was definitely without a doubt hands down the right decision. He is so happy and loves every minute of it. We found a great little preschool called Hope Children's Center not too far away. He goes Monday - Friday from 9 - 12. While I had not planned on a 5 day class for him, it has worked out well. He has a lovely teacher named Mrs. Tuttle. Hearing him talk reminds me very much of elementary school - line leaders, door holders, snack time, music class, etc.

It's a pretty cool little program he is in, he gets music twice a week, spanish and science each once a week. Lots of play time and TONS of art projects!

Anyway, he is a happy camper. Ben is enjoying some time to get to be Ben without having a big brother always after him. Sometimes Ben wants me to play with him, mostly he likes to spend those few hours by himself flipping through books. I offer to read the stories to him but he almost always tells me no, he wants to do it himself.

Anyway, school has been a smashing success for everyone.

Big Ben

And you thought this post was going to be about my Big Ben :-)

Actually, it is about my Ben, but I couldn't resist the picture. Plus it makes me yearn for a trip to London, such fond memories.

It seemed to be a weekend of firsts for Ben. All of it just makes me realize that he's not a baby anymore. I wonder when, or rather if, I will ever stop noticing all of the "first" things the boys do. Anyway, to make a long story longer...

At the farmer's market Saturday, the apple guy gave the boys some apples to munch on. It occured to me that was the first time that Ben ate an apple straight off the core, without mommy cutting it up. He was so happy!

More importantly, Ben is out of the crib and into the bottom bunk. We decided it was time to reclaim our room and he is definitely more than ready for a real bed.

Finally, NO MORE PACIFIERS! The one and only condition for sleeping in the "big boy" bed was he had to ditch the pacifiers. Like Alex we had a little withdraw for a couple of days but he is fine without them. I am happy to be rid of the plugs.

I should note that today is Oct. 7. I started this post nearly two months ago (Aug. 16 to be exact.) For an update, the sleeping arrangement is a big success. The only drawback is that Ben is now up early, sometimes earlier than Alex. But they have gotten into a routine and things seem to be working out just fine. It is staying darker a little longer in the mornings so they tend to sleep just a few minutes later. It's also been nice and cool at night, again perfect sleeping weather. We've got our new bedtime routine worked out and Mike and I really enjoy having our room back to ourselves.

Lessons

We are at the start of birthday party season. For some reason just about every child I know out here was born between August and November. We get invited to A LOT of birthday parties, I mean tons, as in just about every weekend, sometimes multiple parties in one weekend. I think I mentioned before that these parties are NOT my favorite things to do. But, I go to some, occasionally. This past weekend was one such occasion. It was for a little girl named Neve and it was her first birthday. The party was at a place called Music Together, it's one of those places where you can take your kid for mommy & me music classes. The party was actually really well done and very nice. The kids got a nice music class where they could sing and dance and play instruments, they also got to do an art project. Of course there was cake and lots of other food. The biggest draw however was the window washing. Smartly, the owners of this particular establishment are well aware that kids can't stay away from windows. Instead of dealing with the constant fingerprints on the glass they set up a little window washing station for the kids: spray bottles of water, little squeegies, towels, and a drying rack with clothespins for the towels. The lesson here was a big one for mommy - what a smart idea! And yes, Ben & Alex have been washing windows at home all week.

The bigger lesson from the party was not for me, but rather for Alex. He didn't actually get to go to the party. Weekends seem to be his favorite time for major catclysmic meltdowns. He was warned all day Saturday that if behavior didn't change, there would be no party. It didn't change, he didn't get to go. Mike stayed home with Alex and I took Ben to the party. Alex completely understood why he stayed home. He did make the best out of it and while he said that he missed going to the party he was glad to get to stay home with daddy by himself. Of course it didn't hurt that a goody bag was sent home for him. Interestingly, Ben was ridiculously shy at the party. He wouldn't let me put him down until the very end - and that kid is HEAVY! He would close his eyes whenever anyone looked at him, thus becoming invisible. The crazy part of all this was that there wasn't a single person there that he didn't know and hadn't spent lots of time with. He really does shadow Alex.

Which brings us up to the last bit of the day. Alex will start preschool in September. Yeah I know it's kind of a big shocker to some. But, after much agonizing thought this is the decision that Mike and Alex and I all came to together, and we are all very happy about it. Alex is definitely ready and excited beyond words for school and I am hoping that he will learn some much needed skills for kindergarten. I'm not concerned about academics - he's so smart, but socialization and listening to other adults, interacting with other kids, etc. I guess that's all I have to say about that for now. I'm sure there will be more to say after he starts.