First Day of Pre-K 2008

I did a brave thing this year. Well, brave for me. I let Seth pick out his backpack for school. I thought he made a spectacular choice.

Part of me was afraid he was going to pick something like Sponge Bob or Power Rangers, even though he has never seen either of those shows. We were at Kohls, and the selection was pretty big. He wandered through all of them, including the girls backpacks (small cringe inside hoping he didn't pick one that was pink with a princess on it). He did linger on a Spiderman backpack for a few seconds, but then chose this cute one from the Cars movie. I was actually willing him towards this one :-) It was my favorite of the bunch.

To be completely honest, I would have loved him to have a plain backpack, or maybe one in camo. But I decided that this year he was old enough to choose what he wanted, and I am having to let my dislike for "character" related items be laid to rest. I am being pro-individuality within boundaries, one might say.

Seth goes to school E-A-R-L-Y in the morning. We have to leave by 7:30am and he gets to school by 7:45am. So by the third picture, he was done smiling. Mom, it is too early for this.
We are praying for another great year!

Zion National Park

Steve returned from his camping trip to Zion with sore legs and lot's of beautiful photographs!

Check them all out HERE.

Here is just a little sneak peek of a few of my favorites.

Swim Little Fishy

Seth just finished two weeks of swimming lessons.  For the first three days, he didn't even want to put his face in the water.  He didn't want to get off the steps.  He pretty much protested as loudly as possible if anyone took him under water.  Let's just say Mommy was getting a little exasperated and thought about skipping out on swim lessons by the fourth day.  It just felt like I was TORTURING him and, in turn, he was TORTURING me by clawing me and screaming in my ear.

His teacher, Ms. Janet, has been teaching swimming for a long time.  So Seth's protesting came as no shock to her.  She told me to trust her and keep pushing him, and he would make it over the hump of his fear and enter into the land of water lovers.  Every day when the swim trunks came out of the drawer, he would get this panicked look on his face and say, "No Ms. Janet's!!!!" and run the other direction. I had my doubts, but we persevered.

And she was right!

Here he is JUMPING OFF THE DIVING BOARD and swimming all the way to the steps to my friend Leah.  I am a proud Mommy! You can hear Steve and I yelling from behind the camera. Thanks Ms. Janet - you rock.

Now, he won't stop asking to go to Ms. Janet's to go swimming! We took him swimming last weekend at a friend's pool, and he was like a little fish, constantly going under water and swimming back and forth between all of us.

Please pray for me...

Reinforcements have left the building. My husband is gone for 5 days and I have two boys...4 and 2. Need I say more?

Steve and Mike are driving Greg's truck from here to Phoenix (Greg and Julia recently moved from right down the street from us *sniff sniff* to Phoenix, AZ and were not able to take their truck with them on the moving trip). Greg is joining them to drive on another 7 hours to Zion National Park where they will camp for 3 days and nights. Then they will drive back to Phoenix on Tuesday in time to catch a flight back to Dallas, arriving home about 10pm that night. Lucky for me, Mike's girlfriend Janessa volunteered to pick them up at the airport, so I don't have to haul the boys over there late at night. Score.

To top all this off, Steve took the book with him that I am right in the middle of and was immensely enjoying! He WAS reading it first, I must admit, and he has been looking forward to having the time to finish it, but I was really into this book. Basically, I was neglecting most things that were not absolutely necessary in order to read this book for the past two days. Check it out. It just might do a number on you...I will say more about it in a later post after my husband gets back and I can finish it!

Trip to Austin

A trip to Austin would not be complete without a visit to Chuy's Hula Hut on Lake Austin.

Or a visit to Mozart's Coffee House, also right on Lake Austin.  We sat out on this beautiful wrap around deck with huge, lit Live Oaks above and sipped tasty coffee beverages and shared a piece of divine berry-topped cheesecake. There were lots of intense, philosophical conversations taking place around us, Austin being the college town that it is. We were just happy to sit and enjoy the serenity that is attainable when you have a healthy break from your four and two year old.

A Different Kind of Birthday Boy

We have two different boys on our hands.  Seth is all about the birthdays. Loves the parties, the birthday hat, the attention, the cake and the birthday song.  He is borderline obsessed with birthday presents, and this point is proven when he sees ANY wrapped present and presumes it must be for him.

Caleb....well, let's just say that his birthday anthem goes something more like this:

"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to."

MOMMY CONFESSION: Caleb is not a big crier. He is a protester, but not a crier. The only reason he cried is because I put that birthday hat on him to take a picture of him in it. Caleb hates all hats.  Seth and Caleb have worn that hat on every birthday, and I just change the number on it. So it has now made it through 6 birthdays between the two of them. After this birthday, it bit the dust. The string broke and *someone* pulled the green fuzzy ball off the top of it. At first I was sad, but then I was sort of relieved that a) I don't have to keep up with it anymore and b) I don't have to feel the pressure to put it on Caleb every year and take a picture of him freaking out in it!

Just to prove how much Caleb loves the hat, here he is on his first birthday...


I made the mistake of letting him nap right up until we were ready to start the party, and he didn't have much time to wake up and get used to the idea of a house full of people that were all ready for him to perform. He started out the party like this

He gradually progressed to this stance

I have said in previous birthday posts that I enjoy decorating cakes, and I was ecstatic to find out that a girl at our church who does cakes professionally is going to be teaching a class in the fine art of cake decorating. So as I look forward to that, I lament that I didn't have time to put much thought into Caleb's cake this year. He loves blocks, so I knew I was going to do something with that. But in retrospect, I would have done something with 3D blocks or letters, or had a better plan. I just sort of went for it and it came out ok, but it won't go down in my top 3 favorite or anything.



Big brother was HAPPY to help with blowing out the candle!

Eating Cake....a bit cleaner this year 
than last year

Here I am with Seth and my nephew Colton, who could definitely pass as a brother of Seth!

These were his present from his cousin Austin. They are shape sorters that can go in the bath tub, and each little turtle has a different shape in his shell. So cute!

Caleb loves to build and stack. So he combined these two gifts, which have nothing in common....a John Deere tractor from Nana and Papa and bath squirters in the shape of Thomas trains from us, into a tower.


At this point, Caleb was finally awake and ready to party! He would stack, and then we would all clap and cheer. He would then clap and do his proud dance in a circle (which consists of a lot of galloping and stomping) around his masterpiece.

The shirt he has on was given to him by Uncle Neal, Aunt Heather and Colton, and I think the slogan fits him well :-)

This is my favorite picture from the day. Finally, a Happy Birthday boy!

Caleb's not saying, but probably his favorite gift this year came from his Great Uncle Terry in Florida. Thanks Uncle Terry! (And Mom loves this toy because they all stack inside each other and store in a little container that is easy to take with us)

If you want to check out more toys like this made by Gowi, go here.