Out of Town Visitors

We have been so busy once again, and my blogging has fallen behind.  We had out of town guests here for 10 days straight, and my work load is just mind boggling right now, with the storm surge model being released in just a few short months.  So I am in over my head in just about every way.  But we've had some really great times with a serious of old friends and family members who have traveled to see us.

We kicked off the fun with a visit from my best friend from college, who was here on business from San Francisco.  Although she had met Hayden when he was very young, she had never met Pierce, so it was great introducing them all and showing her a little glimpse of our life here in Dallas.  After the boys went to bed we got to catch up and laugh a lot.  I miss her, but was glad for the brief visit!  

That very same day, my grandparents arrived for a week long visit from Wisconsin.  Hayden and Pierce are both obsessed with Gigi and Grandpa, and were beyond thrilled with their presence here, as was I!  I love having my family around.  It makes me feel so loved and protected and happy.  Although I had a busy work week, we still managed to fit in several fun outings, including a girl's day spent entirely shopping!  I haven't done that in so long, and although my pregnant body paid the price for walking all day, it was still well worth it, and we knocked out a lot of our Christmas shopping.  It was also fortuitous that the Cowboys happened to play our home team, the Packers, while they were visiting, so we all dressed in our green and gold and celebrated a Packers victory (although that's not saying much considering how the Cowboys have played this year!).

   

Finally, one of my best friends from my childhood and teenage years came to visit with her two little boys, who are the same ages as mine.  The older boys had met as young babies, and again in September when we went to Wisconsin, and we very much looking forward to seeing each other.  After what sounded like a bit of a harrowing flight alone with two boys, Nicole arrived, and the fun began.  Let me tell you, a house full of little boys is CHAOTIC!  A small house at that!  But our two older boys are both such kind souls, and so sweet to each other.  We only had really one tense moment, where some of the Thomas Trains had to go to "time-out", but otherwise their sharing skills were admirable, and you could tell they were extremely fond of each other.  We kept a busy pace all weekend, with trips to Going Bonkers, the park, the Gaylord to look at trains, the Stockyards, a blastball game, AND we co-hosted a baby shower for our mutual friend Lindsey, who is expecting her first little boy in a month!  Whew, it makes me tired just remembering it all haha.  But Nicole is such a great mother, and it was a pleasure to hang out with her sweet, darling little boys, and to catch up and talk late into the night with an old friend who knows me so well, and who I have so much in common with.  And it was also incredibly exciting to celebrate the fact that Lindsey is going to welcome her little boy into the world soon, after such a long journey trying to conceive him.  We are all very blessed with our children and our lasting friendships.

Here are some photos of the boys from the Stockyards in Fort Worth.  Like all decent Texan 3 year olds, these two chose Long Horn shaped sling shots at the souvenir shop, which made my husband ever so happy when they got home and showed them off!  Nate thinks I take all the fun out of boyhood by depriving my children of bb guns and the like, so this was a step in the right direction in his opinion haha.

They all piled on a western wagon ride for the perfect photo op, although Piercey was a little under the weather and would not crack a smile that day!  He sure does look cute in his Cowboy hat though!

  

   

Last year Hayden would have run crying in the other direction at the sight of both a herd of longhorns coming at him, and even more terrifying, a mechanical bull with scary light-up eyes.  But nope!  Not three year old Hayden.  I was even reluctant to let him on this moving bull, but he insisted, and loved the experience!  Who knew that all those fears from last summer would just suddenly disappear, and this confident little man would emerge?

   

Here are some photos of my two friends from high school.  We've been friends for about 18 years now, which is hard to imagine, but life just holds us all together!  I love my friendships with these two, who know the real "me".  Lindsey is expecting her baby boy in just 3 weeks!  And here I am at about 26 weeks pregnant with baby girl.  They are already betrothed haha.

   

And finally, some sweet ones of the boys.  Hayden took Henry to his blastball game and apparently he is quite the little outfielder!  They looked super cute in their ad-hoc uniforms and were so excited to go off and play baseball together.  And Lindsey is like the favorite auntie who spoils them with books and attention and fun new toys, so they are totally smitten, and we snapped this cute shot of them below.

   

Finally, the "best buddies" as they called themselves, Hayden and Henry.  I've rarely seen Hayden get along quite so well with a friend his own age for such a long period of time, but I think it's a credit to Henry's super easy-going nature and overall happy attitude.  When he left Hayden to go home at the airport he said, "Hayden I love you so much" while giving him a big hug, and Hayden answered back, "I love you too Henry", and I think they meant it!  It's hard not knowing when we might see them again....but the visit was great.

Stories from Preschool

It constantly amazes me that my son spends two days a week experiencing things that I have nothing to do with.  I'm talking about preschool of course.  When I picked him up last week, there was an adorable laminated photo of him from a hayride they had taken at school, and he was beaming and holding a pumpkin, and I just got all teary-eyed, imagining this sweet boy growing up, and starting to live his own little life.  I didn't even know he had taken a hayride, and here I am presented with this photo.  It hasn't been often in his life that he has done things that I haven't planned or been a part of, so this is taking some adjustment!

But I love love love all the wonderful things he is learning at preschool.  Yesterday he was helping me decorate sugar cookies, and all of a sudden he started counting them, IN SPANISH!  He counted confidently up to diez just like it was no problem!  Again, not that amazing of a feat for a 3 year old in general, but it just blew my mind that this is evidence of all that he is learning, without me teaching him.  And I LOVE it!  

On Tuesday, I had a funny encounter with the music director of the school.  As I was picking Hayden up, she said to me, "I didn't know you were pregnant until today!", and I thought wow, I must be looking pretty big today haha.  Turns out, they started learning songs that day for their Christmas program.  The director asked all of the children, "who knows what happens at Christmas", and Hayden rose his hand (which by the way already makes me so proud and happy), and said, "That's when the baby comes!".  The music director said she was impressed, and commented, "Yes Hayden, Baby Jesus comes at Christmastime".  Well of course we all know which baby Hayden was talking about haha.  He quickly corrected her, "No no no, MY baby, baby Ruthie comes after Christmas!".  Well when I first found out I was pregnant, Hayden was really anxious to meet the baby, and confused about the concept of "9 months", so my mom tried to give him a reference point that he could understand, which was "Baby Ruthie will come in the winter, after Christmas".  So in his head, there is a very clear connection between the two events, which he decided to share with his whole school haha!  Unfortunately, he is going to be in for a rude awakening when Christmas passes and we still have 7 weeks until we meet this little one!!

And finally, I think we may have a little casanova on our hands!  Ever since the first day of school, there has only been one boy name that he mentions frequently as being a friend.  However, the list of his "girlfriends" continues to grow daily.  When I picked him up today, he pointed out the window of our car and said, "Mommy that's Lilah!".  I said, "Oh is she your friend?", and he replied, "Yes mommy, and Tatum and Grace too.  They are all so beautiful", lol.  I almost died.  So there you have it, he's already falling for the girls.

Unfortunately I have no new photos today!  Good bye for now.

Halloween Weekend

Hi everyone.  Halloween this year has been SO much fun with my two little monkeys.  

Hayden has been especially excited to celebrate, and picked out his "Super Why" character costume very early in October.  "Super Why" is a television character on a show, who has super reading powers.  Of all the super heroes he could have picked, with their big muscles and exciting traits, he chose a little boy who can spell haha.  And he was so incredibly proud of his costume.  I imagined that no one would know who he was with his cape and mask, but wherever he wore his costume, kids would be calling out "Hi Super Why!", which just thrilled Hayden and made him feel so special.  I can't say that Pierce was quite as thrilled about his Brobee costume (a character from Yo Gabba Gabba), but I think he still had a fun time through-out the Halloween festivities, mainly eating chocolate!

The celebration started early, on Thursday, when Hayden got to wear his costume to pre-school for a fall festival.  He arrived and was all puffed up with pride in his costume, showing the pre-school director and his teachers and classmates his "Super Why" pose with a HUGE grin, and posing for a shot with his good buddy, who was a dragon.  After partying all day, we headed over to our local grocery store, where they had some fun games set-up, and a bounce house.  Although Pierce was officially Brobee this year, my friend had loaned us her absolutely adorable zebra costume, which had to be worn for a photo op, so my little Pierce went as the cutest zebra ever to Kroger.  Seeing your child wandering the aisles of a grocery store with a balloon, in a zebra costume, is pretty priceless 

   

The festivities continued on Friday, when our good friends Colin and Chalna invited us over to carve pumpkins.  Well, you can imagine my confidence level at carving pumpkins with a big group of 1-3 year olds, but shockingly, the kids did great!  Hayden was thrilled to help scoop out the pumpkin seeds, and Pierce was practically falling into the pumpkin, trying to get a better look.  Very very cute.  We haven't actually put a candle in and lit it up yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing the boys' reaction tonight when we celebrate.  And amazingly we got ALL of the kids to line up against the fence with their pumpkins, and no one was screaming or crying or being held in place for the photos!  So cute.

   

On Friday night, Nate and I went to an adult Halloween costume party with all of our best friends, and WOW, I've never laughed so hard.  We had a simply fabulous time, and all of our friends really pulled out the stops with their amazing costumes.  It was a night to remember, and Nate and I creative with our own costumes, going as a pumpkin, and Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater.  I guess I have to include this photo, since it's Ruthie's first costume haha - painted as a pumpkin!  And my good friend Lindsey has her little boy, Nolan, dressed up as a basketball!

Finally, we had our official neighborhood Monster Mile on Saturday night, which as usual, was a total blast.  Hayden has been leary in years past, because there are a lot of life-size characters handing out candy along the street, but this year he was thrilled to pose for photos with all of his favorite TV friends.  His favorites were probably Diego and Clifford - wow - how thrilling!  Pierce was decidedly less than enthusiastic about putting on his HOT Brobee outfit on a warm evening, and that, coupled with a very short nap, made him rather cranky.  So we didn't push the costume issue, and instead just let him ride along in the wagon, while he stuffed his cute face with chocolate!  Sounds like my kind of evening 

   

      

   

I'll wrap up with a montage of my cuties on Halloweens from years past.  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2006 - our little Hayden was conceived haha

2007 - Winne the Pooh - 3 mos   2008 - Spider - 15 mos

   

2009 - Pierce the spider 6 mos                  Hayden the dinosaur - 2 years

   

2010 - Brobee 18 mos, Super Why 3 years, Ruthie 24 weeks!

   

Broken Bow, OK

Back in January, we took a family trip to an area of Oklahoma called Broken Bow, with a group of friends.  Even though it rained and was cold all weekend, we still had a blast, and we decided to get even more adventurous, and invite seven families along this time!  This works out to 14 adults, 6 pre-schoolers, and 7 toddlers.  Wow.  

We arrived on Friday afternoon, after a surprisingly enjoyable 3 1/2 hour drive in our new mini-van!  I was nervous as we pulled up, because I had kind of organized the trip and found the lodging, and I was really hoping that it would be as good as it had seemed online.  I didn't want 7 families looking at me like, WHAT, we drove this far with little kids for these crappy cabins?  But thank goodness, the 3 cabins were super cute, the land was covered with beautiful big trees that were starting to change colors, there was a perfect little toddler playground, and a large fire-pit.  What more can you ask for?

So I'm not going to lie, the weekend was filled with chaos, crying, whining, falling, tantrums, etc...all the usual things that go with having small children, but increased tenfold because we literally had an entire TEAM of children.  But it was SO FUN!!  The older boys all got along so well, and were happy to just play with each other, and run around the property exploring and laughing and smiling.  The dads also took them on their first fishing excursion, and from what I heard, they caught some whoppers (ok they may not have been huge fish, but the effort put forth was huge!). The babies were thrilled to have a slide and a swing and STAIRS to climb up and down constantly, requiring us parents to always be on the look-out, naturally.  But really, for having 13 children on this vacation, it all went remarkably smoothly.  And honestly there could not be a sweeter, cuter group than this one.

  

  

  

My boys have gotten so used to travel that bedtimes are a cinch, and sure enough, by 8 pm my crew was bathed, jammied, and happily in bed (if not totally asleep), and everyone else seemed to be right there with us.  And then some much needed adult time took place as we enjoyed grilling dinner over the fire, having some cocktails (except preggo me of course), and just laughing and telling stories.  GREAT TIMES!  I swear sometimes when I'm with this group my cheeks start to hurt from smiling and laughing so much.  We really are blessed to have found such amazing friends here in Texas.

We talk about making this an annual trip, but I don't want to wait another year!