School egg hunt

Crash and Wingman had their egg hunts at Mother's Day out. They had so much fun and the weather turned out perfect for their parties.

Wingman found some eggs that had soccer and baseballs painted on them. Needless to say he was so excited. Those became prized eggs. Some other eggs had pictures of animals on them and he literally tossed them aside. They were not worthy to go in his basket.

He still hasn't realized that there is stuff in the eggs. He just keeps carrying the basket around with the intact eggs.

Here's a shot of his class. It was so cute watching all of them eat lunch at their little table. He is starting to talk about his little buddies in the class.

Then it was off to help with Crash's egg hunt. He was so excited I was there. I got lots of hugs and "Mama, I love you" when I arrived. I had only been gone 2 hours but it's nice to know that I was missed.

He is quite the egg hunter. He quickly found his dozen eggs and started helping the other kids to find theirs.

The day was finished off with a pizza party and iced sugar cookies- Crash's dream.

Now on to the elementary school egg hunt tomorrow. I will be a professional egg hider after this week.

It's that time of year again

The big boys have started soccer again.

I am not sure where this weird pose came from. I said "everyone look at the camera and smile." And this is what happened. I am sure it has something to do with soccer and Star Wars. Almost everything in life does these days.

The test pilot has moved up a league and is now playing 6 on 6 with a goalie. He has a very intense coach (she has assigned a minimum of 1 hr of soccer homework i.e. more practice in addition to regular practice.) They practice 1.5 hrs a week plus the home practice. He is responding well to her increased standards. She seems to know what she is doing. We smoked our first team 9-0.

Crash has enjoyed his little 3 on 3 team. He runs for awhile, waves at his parents, runs a little more, maybe kicks the ball, and then points out an airplane flying. It's pretty fun to watch.

It's nice having them playing at the same field instead of going to 2 places on game day. That is very nice on the parents. Both of them are excited about the beginning of soccer season.

We are taking Easter weekend off and then they are back at it. We will keep you posted.

The zoo at 50 degrees

Early in the week of Cousin Camp we decided to attempt the zoo. It turned out to be the perfect day.

As the day began it was a nippy 40-something degrees out, but it quickly warmed into the 50's. This apparently is optimum zoo animal weather.

I have never seen so many gorillas out at one time and doing stuff. Usually you see one monkey way in the back laying under a tree to nap. At one point there were 9 gorillas running around putting on quite a show including a rambunctious baby monkey. We all enjoyed that!

There were beautiful peacocks just wandering around the zoo. Everyone enjoyed them more after the kids stopped stalking them.

We saw lots of giraffes who were quite active, an entertaining display by the polar bears, and learned about cleaning out the hippo tank. The kids asked some good albeit gross questions. We don't need to go into that.

A trip to the zoo is never complete without a train ride.

Everybody did great except mommy forgot the sunscreen again. (Who needs sunscreen in 50 degree weather?) Apparently, my fair skinned red heads. They both got funny looking sunburns on their cheeks and noses. I went right out and bought some sunscreen. We are ready for next time.

Cousin Camp 2010

We just returned from Spring Break extravaganza we refer to as "Cousin Camp." My sister and her kids plus us drive up to mom's for spring break fun. We had lots of fun. It's much easier as the kids get older.

Here's the kids doing their dinosaur impressions at the Natural History Museum. This was a new place for us to visit with the kids. It was really awesome! We made it through a dynamax movie about the ocean. The exhibits were very kid friendly.

Here's the test pilot and cousin E by one of their huge dinosaur exhibits. These were very interesting because all were found in New Mexico.

The test pilot loves the planetarium. He has been talking about it non-stop. Crash and Wingman liked it but for different reasons- it was a great place to take a nap. We look forward to going back.

When the kids were at Nana's they loved building houses and star wars figures with the magnetix and these other things (that I can't remember the name of).

We spent a morning at the local bouncey house. It was pretty fun. Can I tell you that it hard to take a picture with 6 squirmy kids.

Then we had lots of book time. Nana has this landing on the stairs with bookshelves that Crash referred to as "the library." He would sit up there and read. Cousin A liked to play and read there too. They even built themselves a zoo consisting of every dog and bear animal in Nana's houses.

We had so much fun. The kids got to have a giant slumber party in my mom's room every night. I got to do some big city shopping. We got to eat real Mexican food and enjoy some other hometown food delights. Looking forward to going back.

My ball player

Wingman seems to have caught his mother's love of basketball. "I pay baketball!" We hear this about 100 times a day. Since it's been a little chilly the Captain brought the court into the porch room. (still don't really have a name or a purpose for that room)

The thing that blows me away is that he is really good. He already shoots with one hand - his left. Looks like he might be a lefty. And look at that follow through. He has good form! Coach Bustamante, my high school coach, would be so proud.

He will shoot will any kind of ball: soccer, basketball, marbles. He is not partial. I am trying to discourage the marbles. This boy just needs to throw balls.

The Captain taught him to say "airball", "2 points" , and "oh, man" whenever he misses. It's pretty cute!

When he is not practicing for the NBA, he moonlights as a a mechanic. He loves to replace batteries. He brings the screw driver to his toys and tries to dismantle them to put in new batteries.

He is a busy little boy!

My baby is 2!

My baby is 2! I am having a hard time adjusting to the fact that no one needs infant Tylenol. This is a major step in our house.

He weights 30lbs and is 35 inches tall. He's pretty much in the 50th percentile. His head circumference is still off the charts. He's a true Apple family member.

He talks a lot. I mean a lot. When we lay him down in the crib for the night he talks to himself at least 30 minutes before he falls asleep. He looked at me the other day and said, "I be right back." He tries to imitate the boys saying their AWANA verses.

He loves to eat red bell peppers, grapes (gapes), bananas (nanas), chips, chocolate cake, and pizza from Schlotzky's. That's a well balanced diet if I say so myself.

Love you sweet boy!

Bye, bye scrapbooking

I have never been a huge scrapbook person. I started when the Test pilot was born. I received as gifts, some scrapbooking supplies and felt obliged to make one. I didn't really enjoy the process but I did love the outcome.

I loved being able to look back and all the pictures and the memories I had written down.

This continued with pretty good success right up until January 2008. The third boy. Not one second of scrapbooking has happened since that boy was born. I no longer had any time or any available space to lay out all the needed many supplies.

I briefly did some digital scrapbooking. That eliminated my space issues but still required a lot of time.

Yes, there has been tremendous guilt and wondering if the Wingman will need therapy when he is 30 because there is no scrapbook of his younger years.

Then I started blogging. I discovered through other bloggers a website that I love!

www.blog2print.sharedbook.com

You go the website and basically tell it to print your blog. It was recommended to print by 6 months intervals depending how often you blog.

I have picked hard covers for ours, but they offer paperback covers too. It is a very reasonable price.

No it's not as fancy as a scrapbook. No fancy layouts or di-cut shapes. But it has what I truly want- lots of pictures and written memories.

It has renewed my interest in blogging. I want to continue sharing our family lives with our family and friends all over the U.S., but now I can make a permanent record too.

And hopefully, Wingman won't need therapy.

I can't believe he's 7!

He is getting so big! He's not my baby anymore!

He is now 52 inches tall and still off the growth chart for his height. I just can't keep him in pants. I think he is destined for high waters.

He weighs 60 lbs which makes him a tad skinny for his height. It's really hard to believe that considering what he eats. At Cracker Barrel, he ate 3 full-size pancakes, 3 pieces of bacon, and 2 biscuits. What else do you have he asks. We are going to go broke at this pace.

Legos have been a really good thing for him. Some testing at school revealed that his visual-spatial skills are off the charts for his age. His father is so proud!

He loves his friends. He has an amazing memory. He has a passion for memorizing scripture. He is a great big brother and a huge helper to his mama. He loves to read especially if it involves books about Star Wars or other "boy" topics. He really wants to go to Legoland in California.

Just a few things for me to treasure in my heart about my first born.

We actually had snow

I forgot to post these last week. Yes, we did actually get some snow in the south. I am sure by most people's standards this is nothing, but it's funny to watch the effects on our area. People were cancelling appointments. A few schools let out early.

My kids thought it was great.

We ran around in it. We took a walk. We didn't get enough to build anything.

About 2 days later it was in the 60's. Go figure!

His own legos

While the big brothers build with their legos, this is how Wingman amuses himself.

"I did it, I did it!" he squeals.

Super fun but no pictures

We spent a fabulous weekend at Family Camp with our church. It has to be a huge highlight of our family each year. We had so much fun I have no pictures.

There are no pictures of the children riding bikes for hours around the camp. There is no picture of Crash and the Captain canoeing. There is no picture of Wingman trying to ride a 7 year old's scooter. No pictures of the Test pilot building enormous sand castles with his buddies on the sand volleyball courts. No pictures of Crash taking part in every sack race that he could. No pictures of our family performing our ridiculous family cheer. (I hate those moments.)

We had lots of fun fellowshipping with other believers. We had some great teaching sessions on parenting. The kids had so much fun that it completely wore them out. I like that kind of fun.

We are looking forward to next year.