Valentine's Day 2015

We had a wonderful Valentine's weekend.  On Friday, Collin had a school friendship party, and Maya and I had a play date with friends.  I left them in Collin's room Friday morning while I changed, and walked in on them reading together.  

Warms this book-nerd mommy's heart!

Snapped a few more iphone pictures at school drop off - 

Giving her brother a kiss - 

Then we met up with some friends on a gorgeous spring day in Texas.

Maya enjoyed playing with my friend Rachel's 8-month-old daughter, following her around saying "baby."  She lounged in the swing -

And serenaded everyone on the steps to the slide with her ABC-Twinkle, twinkle- Baa Baa Black Sheep rendition - 

After Maya's nap, I picked Collin up from school and headed to drop off the kids with Grammy and Brownie.  Then I turned around and drove back home to meet up with Cas and drive to dinner with our friends.  Before we had even started our whole 30 (30 days of just meat, veggies, fruit & nuts), we had planned a Feb 13th celebration dinner.  And we went to town - bread, wine, and an AMAZING cookie cake Lindsay made us.  We had such a fun time at a delicious restaurant that was new to almost all of us.

Despite having no kids on Saturday, I woke up at 5:30am coughing from this obnoxious head cold.  But I enjoyed a calm morning, and then Cas and I planned to see American Sniper.  The movie theater was so packed that after spending 20 minutes trying to find parking, we called it a day and decided to go to the driving range.  After hitting a bucket of balls, Cas suggested we play some holes.  He went in to the golf office to see if we could hit just a few holes, and the initial person was going to charge him the full (municipal course) rate of $37 per person.  He negotiated with the manager who ended up letting both of us play for $23.  This is hilariously wonderful to me - it was a situation where it never would have occurred to me to negotiate, though we definitely wouldn't have gotten our money's worth out of the full price cost.

So for the first time in my life, I played on a golf course.  I considered myself hugely successful in that my ball stayed on my hole the entire time, quite often I played my own ball, and of the six holes we played, I only lost one ball.  There was no one behind us - which was huge since our first hole took at least 25 minutes - and Cas could create a few drills to teach me how to get the ball out of the sand trap.  We had a great Valentine's date.

Meanwhile with my parents, Maya and Collin were enjoying the morning at the park -  

My parents' neighbor has a cute puppy named Dash.  Maya brings him up in conversation daily.  She asks about Grammy, Brownie, Dash - in that order - all of the time.  So of course as soon as my parents get them out of the car, they run to see if Dash is outside.  

Saturday evening, we had a fun, casual family dinner.  My Aunt Debbie stopped by and read with Maya while we got dinner unloaded from the take-out bags -

We ate some Cuban food, finished off with heart sugar cookies Collin and Grammy had made, and then burnt off that sugar in a foam sword fight -

 No mercy for Maya

Silly faces while swords are swinging -

Collin got a taste of his out-sized medicine -

The boys battle -

And wrapped up the night with a group shot or two -my grandmas, my parents, and my kids -

Sunday morning, Cas and I mistakenly changed clothes for church at the same time, leaving Maya in the living room for about 2 minutes unsupervised.  And in that short time, she found, tipped over, and then covered herself with unsweetened cocoa powder.  She tromped into my closet leaving chocolate dust and footprints in her wake.  Our sweet destroyer -  

Sledding in Texas

The only way to go sledding in Texas is to have ice machines create "snow."  At Winterfest with my mom, Collin bravely climbed to the top, jumped in his tube, and flew down the hill, screaming with delight the whole way down!

His tube spun in circles as he went -

But his smile never wavered -

Maya went down a mini-hill for toddlers, but didn't request "more" so instead we went to the carousel.

 Our last stop was a mother-son slide ride.  It was a huge slide, and as we were climbing up, there were two other boys who had decided at the top it wasn't for them, coming down the steps talking about how scary it was.  I expected them to change Collin's mind on the ride, but he was unfazed.  He rode on his own burlap sack, but we held hands on the way down -

On the last bump, even I caught some air -

Great adventures at a Texas winterfest!

Fall and Winter iphone download

We love our kids' school, and Collin's class does so many fun activities each week - from field trips to letter-of-the-week show-and-tell to book reports to science experiments - all with plenty of time to play and use their imagination.  This made me laugh when I saw the difference between the girl's house - complete with flowers and birds and Collin's house, which had barely recognizable stick figures "having a silly string fight."

Maya thinks goggles are necklaces and layers on any she'd find in the backyard.

Collin's "superman prayer" learned at school -

His decorated classroom for their (Halloween) fairy tale ball -

Our ninja by the castle -

Sorting out his Halloween loot in my IU shirt (which he has taken over since it's the softest shirt ever)!

On a rainy school day, Maya and I hit the play area in the mall -

Collin - who without giving me any context, asked me what made the "th" sound - and proceeded to write out "happy birthday" for a card for Cas in November.  I was shocked and proud!

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I was still recovering from a 12-hour stomach bug.  I sat on the curb and watched my dad, brother and uncle try to put my bike back on the rack.  Cas had it secured on the way up to New Braunsfels, but he left early to go to the Green Bay game with a client, so it was left up to these three on the return drive.  We had it tied up with a garbage bag for the drive to HEB, where Alex bought some bungee cords that kept it on back to Houston.   By the grace of God, my bike made it both ways without falling off and causing a wreck!  And of course, we didn't use the bike once in NB!

On Christmas break, after too many rainy, cold days indoors, we invited ourselves to Amber's house where she had minute-to-win-it games!

Trying to move the oreo from the forehead to the mouth without hands!

What are the silly boys doing, cookies are for eating!

The girls in the bucket!

Collin in a sweater my great-grandmother knit for my brother!

Selfie in the snow - on a business trip to Ohio

Enjoying the bubble machine we got for Collin's birthday -

And Cas and Collin inside "green top" - their outside playhouse.

Sweet morning snuggles and books -

We called to FaceTime with Uncle Alex and Aunt Coady on Coady's birthday (when Cas was out of town).  The kids didn't last long on the phone, and when I hung up with them a few minutes later . . . after a few minutes of ignoring the kids . . . they had emptied the dvd cabinet and Maya had the syrup bottle in her lap!

Two days after Collin's fifth birthday, Cas took him to the Rockets game.  It was a perfect game with a 4:30pm start time.  We were shocked that Collin lasted the whole game in the stands.  He came home still on cloud nine, so we had to make a video to send Uncle Alex and Aunt Coady since he watched them beat their Indiana team.

The downtown aquarium was buy one get one free on weekends in January, so we visited for the first time.

This huge white tiger scared Maya and pounced on the glass at Cas, which made everyone flinch!

But Collin was all grins next to the plastic one -

Collin requests the dogs every night, and Bruno's not complaining about his spot on the bed -

Late in January, Collin's new school had an open house.  We got to meet his kindergarten teachers and tour the brand new school.  I snapped one picture of the library, but the school, which just opened this semester, is gorgeous.  Collin shyly introduced himself to all the teachers, and Maya set about destroying the kindergarten class rooms, but impressively, was putting together some of their puzzles!

 At work last week, my boss re-gifted a cookie basket to me.  Which would have been great except I was day 21 into a 30-day clean-eating challenge.  So I had to stare at the cookies all day and try to pass them out to my co-workers.  Two are in my freezer to be eaten on day 31.  With four of my friends, we're doing whole30 - just meat, fruit, veggies and nuts for 30 days.  The only thing I miss is chocolate and wine!

Cooking for whole30 - which takes more planning since I can't throw sandwiches together for lunch or oatmeal for breakfast - has taken up a considerable amount of my Sunday afternoons.  That mixed with busy work and a lot of Cas' travel or nights studying for a finance work test, meant I hadn't blogged in weeks. I'll end whole 30 this week just in time - the next day I have lunch with my work mentor and the day after that, I fly up to Philly and back for a work dinner.

Maya takes babies everywhere (just like I did), and here's Jayla jumping on the trampoline -

Fun at Winterfest with Grammy -

After Winterfest, we headed to see Cas' cousin perform in her high school musical, Annie, where she had the lead role and did amazing!  Collin and Grandma Libia posed before the show.  Collin made it to intermission with minimal squirming, but we called it a night - which was a good decision since he crashed in the car only a few minutes in to our drive home.

Hopefully I'll have more time to catch my breath, take days off, and keep capturing all the fun moments!