2015 Year in Review

January:
 - We took the boys out to the River for a weekend, but ended up coming home early due to some less than desirable behavior.
 - We figured out that removing dairy from Travis's diet fixed his tummy troubles, and we deemed him lactose-intolerant.

February:
 - Jake gave Bo a haircut, but thankfully did not give his brother one too.

March:
 - Travis turned 3 years old!
 - We found out that we would be having another baby in the fall.
 - Blake was an assistant coach for Jake's baseball team.

April:
 - We picked strawberries at Sweetberry Farms
 - We had friends from out of town stay with us during the crazy hail storm.
 - We saw the amazing bluebonnet fields at Muleshoe Bend Park.
 - We told the boys and our families about the baby on the way.
 - We discovered Travis is very allergic to Oak pollen

May:
 - Jake graduated preschool
 - Lots of baseball
 - Lots of soccer
 - Lots of rain

June:
 - The boys took swimming lessons and became very proficient swimmers.
 - The next door neigbhor's house was struck by lightning and Jake saw the smoke and helped me make sure that they got out of the house.
 - We found out that baby number three would be another boy!!
 - We picked peaches at Sweetberry Farms
 - Still more rain

July:
 - It quit raining and all the grass died

August:
 - We took our first ever family trip (just the 4 1/2 of us) to Galveston for a long weekend.
 - Jake started Kindergarten
 - Jake started Soccer which Blake did not coach

September:
  - Travis started in the 3 year old class at preschool
 - Mama celebrated both boys being in school with a pedicure!!
 - Blake and Sarah celebrated 8 years of marriage (which finally put us married longer than we dated)
 - Lots of soccer

October:
 - Jake turned 6 years old!
 - We finally started working on putting together the nursery (poor 3rd child)
 - Mama and Mimi sat and passed out candy while Dad and Pops took the Pirates trick-or-treating

November:
 - Jake lost his first tooth
 - Dylan was born

December:
 - We somehow managed to decorate for Christmas.
 - Dylan lost too much weight and we got him evaluated for a tongue tie and got it clipped.

And that is the grand recap of what I mostly missed blogging about this year!  Happy New Years to all!!

Dylan has arrived

What can I say, between having a new baby and the holidays - things have been constantly busy around our house.

Dylan Cooper Hagler came into the world on November 16, 2015 at 8:14 am, weighing in at an impressive 9 lb. 13 oz. (just 1 oz. shy of matching his Daddy's birth weight - his Daddy who was 2 weeks late, as opposed to Dylan's 4 days early - geeze we grow them big!!), and measuring 21" in length.

It was a pretty typical C-Section birth.  We had him at the new hospital which is close to the new house - so it was an overall different experience, while still being pretty much the same as the last time in the routine procedure department.  I loved my Dr. - the anesthesiologist was a rock-star and kept me happier than I have been with an anesthesiologist EVER - my nurses were wonderful, there wasn't one single one which we weren't happy with (wish I could say that for the other births).  So yeah, great experience for Mama and Daddy.

Poor little guy though, being so big, he couldn't maintain his blood sugar levels very well, and so they would come in and prick his little heels every time that we would feed him in order to make sure that he had a level over "50".  Frequently he wasn't, and so we had to express milk and feed it to him through a dropper.  For about 2 weeks after we left, his little heels looked like over used pi-cushions.  Luckily at almost 4 weeks old, they have now healed up completely.

Both the older boys are absolutely enamored with Dylan.  Jake wants constantly to help out and hold the baby - and at this point is even carrying him around and getting him in and out of the swing.  Travis of course wants to do all of this too, but is limited to holding Dylan while sitting on a chair or on the sofa since he is not quite as, shall we say gentle and cautious with his baby brother.  Jake says Travis can carry Dylan around when he is 6 like he is... I told them that when Travis is 6, Dylan will just run away and not allow anyone to carry him.  I am not sure that they believe me that he will become big enough to run away from them.

   

Like last year, we hosted Thanksgiving at our house again this year.  Which meant that Mama didn't have very  much that I had to do at 10 days postpartum, because everyone brought all the food to us again!!  Speaking of bringing food to us, our amazing neighbors set up a Care-Calendar for us and have brought food to us 3 days a week since we came home.  It has been tremendously helpful, and it also gave good excuses to see people and introduce them to the baby.

At 2 weeks old, Dylan was down to 8 lb. 10oz. at his Dr. appointment, but our pediatrician said that it is nothing to worry about, that big babies lose more weight and take longer to return to their birth weight.  He still feels pretty light to me, but we will see where he weighs in at his next appointment on the 16th (one month, oh my goodness where has the time gone?). Dylan is sleeping pretty well, as long as he is being held... which has made things interesting.  During the day he is perfectly happy to sleep in the swing and allow me to get some things done around the house (like writing this post right now), but at night, he just will not let me put him in the swing or the bassinet unfortunately.  We are trying to reintroduce swaddling (which he abhorred for a while), and hoping that will help with the sleeping alone.  It is such a change from my other 2 babies who LOVED being swaddled, and once they were asleep would transfer to the bassinet.  Dylan = non-transferable. 

  

Giant cheeks at birth vs. at 3 weeks old much smaller cheeks

At this point, I am healed up enough to go up the stairs (yay!!), and do most of the normal daily things that I do - grocery store, target, cooking, cleaning, picking kids up from school... I would say that my life routine aside from nursing all the time, is almost back to normal - except for being able to go to the gym of course, pretty sure that will be a while longer.

Well, baby is waking up and will want to eat in about 5 seconds... so I must go!

T Minus 10 Days

  Well, it is officially 10 days (or less, but yeah right with my history) until we get to meet our new little guy.  I must say that this time I was way more laid back about getting everything ready, and did not have things completely done several months in advance like I did before we had Jake, or even a month in advance like I did before we had Travis.  Maybe it is a 3rd time around thing, maybe it was setting up a new nursery in a different house, maybe it was a lack of planning on some part, but in theory we will have the final pieces to our nursery by the 12th... so 4 days in advance of the baby - and that is assuming that things come in on time and not late.  And maybe I'll even finish painting by then?  (not likely)

  Realistically though, it isn't really a big deal if the nursery is all set up, if the furniture pieces arrive, or if the paint is dry (or even done) because I will not be able to go up the stairs to utilize any of the items which are up there.  So currently all of this baby's clothes are folded nicely in the pack-n-play in our room which will  pull double duty as a dresser and a changing table - definitely through Thanksgiving, likely through Christmas.  He has a bassinet which will be beside our bed, which is holding all the diapers and wipes on a convenient lower shelf.  So really who needs a nursery at all at the beginning.  This little guy will be sleeping within an arm's reach of me for the foreseeable future anyway (just like his brothers before him did).

  So how are we all doing?

  Well, I am sore, but not as bad as I was with either of the last two, and it has really only been in the last few weeks that I am starting to get the back aches, and leg pains.  My feet seem to only swell when the weather is yucky, warm and humid - so at least it isn't all the time - maybe pressure change related.  And with us finally maybe getting to keep cooler temperatures, maybe, just maybe my swelling is done.  (cross your fingers, toes, and anything else you can)  Also, I am ready - I think - for this baby to be here so that the reasons I am waking up at night are much cuter than they currently are.

  Blake is done with work related travel for the time being.  I think that he is ready for this to happen, but then again it rocks his world just as much, if not more than mine since he will go to be primary caregiver to the older children for a while while Mama recovers.  He'll take over getting them up and dressed in the morning, packing lunches, showers, teeth brushing, story time and bedtime at night, as well as school drop offs and pick ups for a little while.  Hopefully Mama won't be out of commission for too long and we all get a new routine established quickly.

  Jake seems to be excited about being a big brother again.  He of course wants to help out with everything, and wants to be allowed to carry the baby and comfort him (such a sweet big brother).  We'll clearly have to work on how to properly hold the baby, but I think that he will be able to do it - he is much older than he was when we got Travis, and he does a lot to help me out already so I am sure that he will want to do these new things as well.  And, as much as he loves school, he is really looking forward to getting  a week off for Thanksgiving so that he will have more time to spend with the baby.

(Blake holding Jake holding a very new Travis - wonder if we can repeat this with 4 of them??)

  Travis - oh Travis - he thinks that he is excited and ready for all of this, but I am pretty sure that his little world is going to be rocked more than anyone else's.  He is convinced that he will be allowed to feed the baby things like applesauce and peanut butter (his favorites) upon us being released from the hospital.  He doesn't seem to believe me that it will take a while before the baby will be ready for those particular foods.  He also thinks he'll get to carry the baby around, play planes with him, and push him on a swing.  All things he'll probably eventually do, but I don't know that he is thinking long term, I think he thinks all these things can be done immediately.  So we'll just have to wait and see how he actually reacts to having this new tiny screaming person in his life (have I told you how noise sensitive Travis is??  Yeah, should be interesting).

  The baby seems to be happy staying right where he is.  No real surprise there, neither of his brothers were in much of a rush to leave Mama's tummy either.  Jake, by the miracle of a scheduled induction, did manage to come on his due date - Travis however, due to not being allowed to induce again after having a C-Section with Jake, managed to wait us out 9 days past his due date and end up as a C-Section as well.  So for this new little bug we are cheating the game slightly, and have a C-Section scheduled for him 4 days before he is technically due to arrive!  Ha - can't be late little dude, not that it will keep you small since as of 3 days ago you were already measuring 2 weeks larger than you ought to be.

  And that is the current state of things in the Hagler household.  Plugging along for the next 10 days until we get to meet our newest (and final) baby boy.

November is upon us

Well, we have entered the month in which we will have this final baby!!!  I did still do my meal planning for the month (accounting for the current date which we anticipate having the baby), but a lot of the month is a cop-out due to the fact that I am totally not cooking for a couple weeks after this little one makes his appearance.  So, here is the menu plan for the month of November.

Now I know that there are a few things on here that are direct copies of last month... Travis got sick though, and I missed a grocery store trip and about 3 days of planned food because of it.  So instead we are doing those planned meals this month, because they still sound yummy!!

And since we are about to have this new little one, just for fun, here is a look at each of our boys when they were still in my tummy, at about 29 weeks along each.  (Blake thinks he looks like Travis, I kind of think he looks like a happy medium between the two, but we shall see - not having their faces oriented the same in the pictures doesn't help much).

Choosing Our Words Wisely

So today I am 34 weeks pregnant with baby #3 - and believe me, I know that I look 34 weeks (if not more) pregnant.  Part of it is my small frame which allows baby no where to go but out, another part of it is that this is baby #3, the last part is I'm 34 weeks along and it is definitely noticeable when I am wearing yoga pants and a fitted t-shirt that I am pregnant.  

Some words of advice when you unexpectedly come upon a very pregnant lady - probably the best thing to say ranges along the lines of: "you look great", "congratulations", or a simple "have a nice day".

What you probably ought not to actually say out-loud (even if you were thinking it) is: "Wow", followed by a 2 -3 second pause, and then "Are you okay?"  (asked in a totally serious, or at least serious sounding, concerned tone)

I followed the somewhat strange to me question with "yes I am doing great thank you", and politely walked away (she was walking the other direction from me anyway, and I don't know her, so it felt like that was all that needed saying).  I kind of hope she walked away kicking herself for the awkwardness of that particular exchange, because seriously.

Granted I have now been analyzing this exchange for the better part of the last hour.  If I could go back, and we weren't just passing each other going into/out of Panera,  I might have said: "I am doing great thank you, I just finished an hour long yoga class at the gym, (which is why my hair looks a bit out of place) at which I was able to complete all the moves except the ones you have to lay on your belly for (because yeah, that would piss this kid off something awesome), and I rocked it with my balance poses much to the amazement of the others taking the class." (or at least I like to think it amazes people that I can still balance with a 27# bowling ball strapped to my belly).

I know she was looking at the door when I was walking up from the parking lot (because I saw her doing it, so I guess I saw her long before she saw me), and I also guess I took her by surprise.  I was coming from yoga class, so I had on no makeup, my hair was in a messy bun, and I had on typical yoga clothes (granted fitted pregnancy t-shirt as opposed to a cute strappy shirt which shows off my awesome abs, because let's face it, those are long gone now).  I know that I put my hand on the railing as I was coming up to the door, but I don't think that I made any noise about it - much less gasped loudly or groaned.  Pretty sure also that I was not stooped over, or even waddling really (I can normally feel when I am walking like I am hugely pregnant).  I'm just not sure that I displayed anything warranting her concern for me, a total stranger.

So here is my zero makeup, messy bun, just finished yoga picture:

Yes, hair and makeup would help the look a ton - but I just don't think that I look that bad here.  Maybe I am wrong - and if I am, oh well.

Anyway, there is your awkward exchange for the day - have a great weekend, I know I will!!

October Menu Planning

Since September's menu planning post was such a smashing success, I am doing it again for October.  Please forgive me for being a few days into October already - we were out of town this past weekend, and I am just now getting back into the swing of daily life.  Something about flying when 33 weeks pregnant seems to make your feet swell up like very sad and ugly balloons, and that makes you not desire to do much of anything at all.  On the bright side, I am on the mend and actually maintained distinguishable ankles all day long today, despite getting things actually done - so hopefully my elephant feet will not return!!

Maybe I will be more on top of things come November.  And one day in the far distant future, maybe I will even post the next month's menus before the month begins (gasp).

This month, I am even going to include links to recipes so that those who actually want to, can try to duplicate the food.  These are the recipes which I found online and saved to my Pinterest Boards, and have actually previously made and found successful!!

Sweet & Sour Crispy Chicken

http://www.life-in-the-lofthouse.com/2010/09/baked-sweet-and-sour-chicken-with-fried.html (and the friend rice recipe in here is good too!!)

Chicken & Cream Cheese Taquitos

http://mommyimhungry.blogspot.com/2011/03/chicken-bacon-and-cream-cheese-mini.html (yeah I don't miniaturize these)

Oven Fried Parmesan Chicken

http://www.recipe.com/oven-fried-parmesan-chicken/  (I lied, I haven't tried this one, but it looks good)

Spicy Chicken Romano Pasta

Well craptastic - I would give you this recipe, but my Pinterest link disappeared it, and it doesn't seem to work from the main page of that blog either any more.  So I guess I will have to just do my best at attempting to make it (Its only been like 2 years...).  I know there was Bowtie Pasta, Mushrooms, Sausage, Chicken, Artichokes, and a Spicy Cheesy Cream Sauce.  That's about all I have to go on though, so we'll see how it turns out...

And if you're lucky, maybe I'll eventually write out recipes for some of the others.  (Recommend not holding your breath for this).

September - by request

Most people are aware by now of how overly prepared and organized I like to be.  This extends into all aspects of my life - and one of the larger areas of concern is dinner plans in our house.  This all started many years ago, yes I have all the back calendars, no I have not gone all the way back to check them all, so I am not sure how many years exactly we are talking about - but it has been longer than we have lived in this house... and started before we got pregnant with Travis.  Anyway, the premise behind all the planning originally was to stop the back and forth every night about what we should eat for dinner, which normally ended in picking something up because no one could make up their mind about it, or in eating the same 3 things all the time.  Also we wanted to make sure that the food which was purchased actually got eaten instead of thrown away.  It is amazing what we used to buy at the grocery store and then never get around to using.

Anyway - since moving to this house I have hosted several neighborhood happy hours, and while here, the ladies have noticed my planning tendencies, and a few of them have asked that I share my menu plans for assistance in them trying to plan their own family meals.  So, that is what I am doing today.  This is the month of September:

I assume everyone can read it - if not, I suppose I could type it out if asked nicely (and bribed with ice cream)

Now, we do not always strictly stick to what is written out on each day - and you can see that there are many days which have a protein but no veggies listed (mostly because I didn't want to keep repeating exactly the same things we have been eating veggie wise, but I had no ideas at the time, so hopefully I'll come up with something later).  Some days I know that we intend to see family, so I block it in, but I am not necessarily sure which day it will be - hence this weekend when I think we are doing Mom and Dad's on Sunday (not Saturday which I originally put) and not sure if Saturday or Monday will be when we see Blake's parents.  However, either way, we plan to spend part of the weekend at each location, so I tried to plan.

Anyway with doing this, it allows me to easily make my grocery list at the beginning of the week and then try to only hit up the store on Mondays to get us through the week and either Thursdays or Fridays to round out the weekend.  Having a set plan makes it easier to only buy what is needed food-wise that week, which cuts down greatly on food wasted because it looked good at the time but then got forgotten about in the back of the refrigerator.  It may not be for everyone, but it sure helps us with variety and knowing what is coming up.

So, if I am staying on top of things, I will try to remember to post October's meals at the end of September or beginning of October.

First day of School - 3yo class - Travis

Travis had his first day of school yesterday - I know, bad Mama; not the first child, about to become the middle child, blah, blah, blah - really I just didn't get on the computer except to find a muffin recipe yesterday to make with the kids after school.  (See - I was being a good Mom and interacting with the kids instead of being on the computer - or so I will tell myself, never mind that muffins resulted in time-outs...).  Anyway this is about the first day of school for Travis, not muffins, or time-outs.

Since Travis doesn't have to get up earlier than normal for his school, he had no problem getting up - and was in fact sitting on the sofa with Blake, eating breakfast when I got back from dropping Jake off at school.  He got to watch some Curious George (just like most mornings), while he finished his breakfast and got clothes on for school.  Mama packed his lunch, and got spare clothes and checks together to drop off at school.  And then it was time to leave.  I did manage to get a picture before we left though.

Yep, that's my goofy soon to be middle child.

Travis has the teacher for the 3yo class that Jake had 2 years ago - so when we walked into the room, he put his stuff in his cubby and then immediately ran to the back of the room to begin playing with the kitchen stuff.

Yeah I know, this kid doesn't care one bit that Mama is still here, he is Sooooooooo ready for school.  Eventually I got him pried away from the kitchen stuff and convinced him to take a picture with his teacher so that we would be able to show it to Jake.

(note the french fries in his hand)

And then he ran back to the kitchen play area and I had to once again pry him away so that I could get a hug!  On the bright side - this kid loves school, was ready to go back and play with his friends, and he didn't cry one single bit.  Which of course meant that with my first full day of freedom I was able to thoroughly enjoy every minute of it!! 

I was supposed to go pick up a friend and get pedicures with her, but she was due to have a baby 2 days before - and her water broke about an hour before I went to pick her up.  So, I was a little more on my own than planned, but very happy that things were starting to happen for her!  Apparently just planning a pedicure was enough to get her into labor - psha, even getting one while over-due never did it for me!  I did get my pedicure, and had lunch in a very quiet house, and got a little shopping done in the middle.  All in all, a successful first morning for Mama with 2 kids in school!

When I went to pick Travis up, his class was reading books - and all the kids were actually sitting there listening (at least so far as I could tell they were).  So when I walked in, naturally Travis wanted to read a book to me.  And he flipped through a book showing me all of the pictures.  Then he told me - "Mom, I ate everything in my lunch!".  And he was so proud of himself.

And actually I am proud of him too.  My kid who for lunch most of his life has only wanted a cup of peanut butter or a "Jammy Sammy" (which is a baby version of a peanut butter sandwich), is in the "nut-free" class this year - and so he is not able to have the lunch of his personal choice.  (Of course - don't try to give him an actual peanut butter sandwich, the kid does not like bread - because secretly he must have been switched at the hospital, I mean who doesn't like bread!)  Luckily, because this Mama is mean, I have been working on branching him out from his standard peanut butter, and we have been attempting (with varied success) to do lunch-meats for lunch for a good 4 months now!!  So for lunch I sent with him - 2 rolled up turkey slices, some leftover whole wheat pasta, cucumber slices, banana chips, and veggie sticks.  And the kid ate it all, and was still hungry!!  Which I guess means mama needs to pack him a little more food than he typically actually manages to eat at home.

Anyway - that was Travis's first day of school - I think that it is shaping up to be a good year for both boys at our house.

Kindergarten - First day, afternoon soccer

Jake was all smiles at pickup from school - and talked the entire way home about everything that he did all day.  So I think that things are going to be okay!!

This was the after-school photo that we sent to the grandparents to re-assure them that his day did in fact improve dramatically from the morning.

He talked about fun plumbing issues that the school had which caused the bathrooms to flood (exciting first day), books that they read at school, a hula-hoop tag game which they played in gym, and the fact that he got to go to the playground 2 times, and that they were too busy during the day to do "nap time".  He also remembered the name of one of the little girls in his class - which he is my ladies man, so this makes perfect sense to me!

Of course, due to the wonderful LTYA scheduling peeps - our first day of soccer practice coincided with our first day of school, so a brief 45 minutes after arriving home, we were out the door again for soccer.  (Really glad he is not a bus rider, as the bus was only just about to drop off the elementary kiddos as we were pulling out of the neighborhood).  By the way, we are doing Soccer this fall instead of Baseball - thought we would change things up a bit.

It was a bit of confusion trying to figure out what was going on when we first got to the field, because although we had a practice scheduled, there was also some clinic thing which was "maybe" supposed to be happening = lots of confused parents wandering around.  But we found where to go, and they got into practice quickly.

I am amazed at our coach's name skills.  Pretty sure he looked at the list one time, and then he knew all 9 players names!!  And we are SUPER LUCKY in that we have not just 1, but 2 friends on our team this fall.  Jake did amazing at soccer practice - which after our experience in the spring with soccer shots and our SUPER competitive little guy, we figured things would be better in an actual league for him than just a skills class.

Jake is the one in the white shirt, grey shorts, and the red shades.

Games for soccer start this coming Saturday - hopefully our uniforms come in before then!

Drop off this morning at school was 1000% better than yesterday.  Granted, beyond the first day you are not allowed to walk your child to class anymore, so that may have helped.  We drove through the drop off line, and he popped out of the car and was off to be walked to class by a helpful 5th grader.  Not that I would have heard otherwise, but I am assuming that everything went wonderfully from there (and I will continue to do so unless I am told otherwise!)

Kindergarten - Day 1 morning review

Today marks the first day of Kindergarten for my very first baby.  It is hard to believe that Jake is old enough to be going to school every day for the length of time that he is actually away from me!  I was really ready for this to happen (like really ready).  The arguing between the boys all summer has been epic, and Mama was ready for a break from the constant disciplining.

Leading up to the first day was great - we picked out his backpack and lunchbox a month ago, and that started getting him excited.  Then we got some new shorts, shirts and shoes for him.  And went and got new water bottles and Lunch Blox (tupperware type stuff).  He seemed ready - he seemed excited!

Last week we started waking him up a little earlier to ease the adjustment just a little bit.  Not going to say it was an overwhelming success, but it also wasn't a failure - so I guess that works.  I can say that when he is the only one up with me in the morning, I get some AWESOME big boy snuggles!

I got all the things in his backpack the day before, got his backpack, water bottle, lunchbox, and all the things going into his lunchbox labeled with his name on them.  I even made his lunch the night before and stuck it in the refrigerator so that I wouldn't be too rushed in the morning and forget to do something that I wanted to make sure was done.

This morning I went in and woke him at 6:40, and the kid was OUT.  He rolled over and snuggled into my side, and it was about then I decided that I wanted to do that all day instead - but reality quickly hit and I told Jake that I would give him a few minutes to wake up before I actually made him get up.  Then I went into Travis's room to get him up - because on the first day obviously the whole family has to come to school drop-off.

Everyone was dressed, ready, and had pictures taken right on time to be walking out the door - and so we did.

We parked across the street from the school, because on the first day you are allowed to walk your baby child in when they are in Kindergarten.  And the 4 of us walked across the street and in to Jake's new class.  His name had been corrected from last week on his desk and cubby (curse Mama for giving him a different first name and making him go by his middle name - we'll have to go through this every year now).  His teacher was so sweet and took a family picture for us in his classroom, and then we took a picture of him with her as well.  His awesome smile from the morning had disappeared a bit - my overly cautious child does not enjoy new situations.

Miss Browne (his teacher) showed Jake where to put his lunch box, and where to put his snack - and he did an excellent job following the directions that she gave.  Then we had him sit down at his table where his name tag was for another picture (and almost got a smile back out of him).

And then it was time to say goodbye.  Unfortunately, this did not go nearly as well as the rest of the time leading up to this moment had gone.  He gave mama a hug, and sniffled and started to cry.  I am sure that he knew that we had to leave, but I think that the new situation just got too overwhelming for him all at once, and the poor little guy just couldn't take it.  So I gave him big hugs, lots of hugs, long hugs - and then passed him along to Daddy for hugs too.  And more tears fell for my big kid.  Blake told me and Travis to wait out in the hall for him and he would get Jake settled.  At which point, sweet Travis said to Jake "I'll miss you while you are at Kindergarten".  I'm not certain that Jake heard it, but all I could think was - shush kiddo, he's having a hard enough time as it is (I know, not so motherly).

We then walked out and waited in the hall while the rest of the kiddos came into the class.  And unfortunately, it took quite a while for Blake to be able to escape.  The only thing keeping me from running back in there, scooping up my baby, and taking him back home with me (besides the fact that I wouldn't be allowed to, and would just have to do it all again tomorrow anyway) - was that I couldn't hear him crying from the hallway, so I knew it was still just tears and sniffles and not turning into an all out meltdown.

Blake did eventually make it out of there, and said that he had calmed down a bit but was still crying when he left.  Cue Mama guilt!

We went to breakfast as a family of 3 - which felt really wrong and weird, and even though they had been fighting with each other all summer, I just wanted my babies to be able to be together with me!  (They hadn't really been fighting all summer, mostly they had been getting into trouble together because they were having too much fun, or trying to be sneaky - those boys are best friends).

About 2 hours after leaving I finally decided that I had to know, so I emailed his teacher.  I figured she was busy and I might not hear back, but I couldn't sit around doing absolutely nothing.  She got back to me within 30 minutes (liking her a lot about now!!).  She said he did cry for a little while, but by 10 minutes after we left, he was just fine - that he was at art class at that time and had already worked on 2 activities, had a snack and was adjusting well.  This made my Mama heart much happier, and helped to relieve some of the guilt.

So at this point all I can do is hope that the rest of his day is going well, and I know very soon I will be back up at the school, waiting on him to get out of class and tell me how his day went.  And either way - good day or bad day - I will wrap him up in a huge hug and be so very happy to have my boy back with me.

Leaving him for kindergarten for some reason was harder for me than leaving him for that first day of school when I had to return to work part-time.  (Probably because 1. he wasn't asleep, 2. he knew what was going on, 3. I know him so much more now than I did back when he was that little 9 week old baby, and 4. I actually had somewhere that I had to go and things that I had to do that weren't able to be pushed off another day back then.)  So here is a throw-back to his first day of school ever (on Longhorn Championship game day).

I'll let you know how the rest of the day went tomorrow - I'm hoping for the best!

Addicted

For Valentines Day, Blake took Jake to Whole Foods with him to select items for me.  They did a fabulous job, and came home with beautiful flowers, chocolates, and bath soaps.

Beautiful Flowers

In the span of Sunday thru Wednesday though, I ate all the chocolates - yep, all of them.  Okay, not all of them, I left the Malt Balls for Blake because really those he got for him - but the Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels - yep, all gone.  And I may or may not have gone to Whole Foods Thursday morning and bought more - nothing else, just more Chocolates...

Mmmmm deliciousness.

So yeah I probably have a problem - "Hello, my name is Sarah and I am addicted to Whole Foods Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels - and I am NOT ashamed!!!".  So I guess if you ever need a go-to gift idea for me - this is a good one.  ;)

Happy Friday everyone (I will probably have to go back to Whole Foods again by Sunday - Geeze)

The Haircut

If you are wondering about the title - yes this is about a hair cut.  The boys got haircuts at the beginning of the month, so it isn't about them - and yeah I like my hair long, so it isn't about me either.  This is a post about the dog.  The dog that Jake gave a haircut to... let me repeat that - The DOG that JAKE gave a HAIRCUT to!!!

So Jake and Travis were well behaved yesterday (or so I thought!), and played upstairs for quite a while quietly and happily.  At one point, Jake decided that he wanted to vacuum the playroom, so I said "Sure, let me get the vacuum for you", and I put it at the top of the stairs.  Jake vacuumed, they both played, everyone was happy.  Fast-forward a few hours...

I am sitting in a chair in the living room and Bo is laying on the floor in front of me, and my eyes get wide, and I look again and tell Blake - someone gave this dog a haircut!  Then I call for Jake and make him come downstairs and tell him to look at the dog, and ask if he took scissors to the dog.  And he of course bashfully denies it, repeatedly, until Blake tells him that things will go better for him if he doesn't lie.  Then he very quietly says yes that he did it with the scissors that were in Travis's bathroom drawer (no idea where those came from but you can bet they aren't there anymore).

I send Jake to his room to "think about what he did", and Blake says that maybe next time that Jake asks to vacuum, I should go look at what he is vacuuming up...  Yep you better believe I will!

 

Bo's haircut (notice the lighter patches)

This one shows it a little better

Of course I am thinking great, our dog looks like he did when he was a puppy and had the year long bout  of puppy mange, but looking back at those photos - he really doesn't look that bad with the haircut, just a little ridiculous.  

Poor Bo as a puppy with no hair on his legs - looking utterly ridiculous

And with no hair on his head.

So, while the dog decidedly doesn't look as silly as he did as a mangy puppy, now all scissors in our house will be under lock and key for the foreseeable future lest one of the small people decides that his brother needs a haircut!

post from my phone

Well, it only took 8 months after getting this new "smart phone", and having to invite myself to be an author on my own blog - but I have finally figured out how to post on the blog from my phone.  Yea!!!  I know, welcome to modern technology to me.  Unfortunately I still have yet to learn how to add photos from the phone - gives me some message about low memory or something.  So we will see if this will really work in the long run or not.

What has been going on

Ugh, I know, I have gotten really bad at this recently.  We have been busy - and not busy at the same time.  We had Thanksgiving, and Blake's 30th Birthday, and Christmas, and New Years, and all the parties which go along with all of those events.  So here is the brief overview of all of those items:

Thanksgiving:

 - We again had everyone over to our house for the holidays.  I really think this is the best way to go - invite everyone to your house and call it a potluck holiday so everyone brings the sides...  We prepared the Turkey (well Blake did that - one fried and one smoked), and I made the rolls - Rhodes defrosted all the way.  Other than that all I had to do was clean the house, which let's face it I would have done anyways.  Everyone else brought all the additional Thanksgiving items to eat.  Our new table which I refinished (twice) this summer, easily sat all 10 of us.

Travis was the official Welcomer and Door Holder.

My lovely table set for 10

Travis loving on Pops

Jake loving on Grandad

Blake's 30th Birthday:

 - I planned a surprise party for Blake's 30th - which amazingly, actually surprised him (or so he claims).  Mimi and Pops picked up the kiddos for a slumber party around 4, and Blake and I got ready to go to "dinner with another couple".  We headed over to their house at 6, and then they drove us on from there.  We went to Chinatown, and surprise - Blake's closest friends from High School were there to join in dinner with us, along with our families.  It was a wonderful dinner, and the company couldn't have been better.  After dinner we had another surprise, and went bowling - I think this is the first time we have been bowling together (aside from the Wii), since College - so that was fun.

Christmas:

- As in years past, we had 3 Christmases all on Christmas day.  The boys actually slept til the respectable and normal hour of 7:30, so we did Christmas morning at our house at about 8am.  By 10, we had driven to Driftwood to do Christmas at Mom and Dad's, and by 4 we were in Westlake to do Christmas with Blake's parents.  It was a long, exhausting, but fun day.

Not from Christmas but from one of the Christmasy things that we went to do.

Also not from Christmas

Boys Decorating the tree at beginning of December

New Years:

- My parents requested that the boys spend the night at their house for New Years, thus giving us a date night!!  So, we went to the Movie House Eatery, and watched the last Hobbit Movie.  This place is awesome - not only do they serve wine (YAY), but the seats are full blown recliners - so comfy.  Pretty sure we will only go there for movies from now on.  The entire evening was pretty laid back, and although we didn't watch the ball-drop ceremonies for the first time, I think we were still awake at midnight.  And we got to sleep-in in the morning thanks to the lack of little people waking us up!  On actual New Years day, we went back to my parents and joined some extended family in a New Years day Lunch and football watching party.

So, that is about it - all that has been missed summed up for ya.

A lovely Sunday

A beautiful, warm Sunday in January where you can walk around outside in short sleeves is something that you can only find in Texas.  And is one of the many reasons that we are happy to live here!!

Sunday started out pretty basic and ordinary, with rolling out of bed after the kids made enough noise scrounging for their breakfast in the kitchen, and had coffee and some breakfast ourselves.  Then, somewhat out of the ordinary, we all got dressed and left!

We headed to Home Depot with the goal of finding some wire to re-hang the existing kitchen light fixture so that it would be actually over the top of the table instead of over the side where I bonk my head on it with some limited frequency.  We ended up looking at new fixtures though and found one that I liked a bit.  But being the ever cautious shoppers that we are, we figured we had better compare to Lowes inventory before purchasing.  So we headed to Lowes.  Unfortunately, there I did not find one that I liked at all, so we left.

And... we went all the way to the Farmer's Market in the Lowes parking lot.  While there, the boys walked around holding on to each other, and we watched them with amused smiles.  We left with a bag of Kettle Corn, and a bag of Dad's Granola - almost left with eggs, but wanted chicken eggs and all they had was duck - oh well, we do have some yummy snacks!

After our farmer's market adventure we decided we were hungry, and headed over to Zingers for lunch on their patio.  And may I just say again what an amazingly beautiful day it was to spend on the patio outside for lunch.  We had a delicious lunch, the boys enjoyed the fire-pit, and the patio dog, and when we were all done we headed back to Home Depot to pick up my lovely light.

The afternoon was spent with us hanging the light in the breakfast room, which of course involved me standing on the table - which was interesting.  The boys played in the backyard - creating some interesting towers of toys which they attached to the fence (missed getting a picture of that though).

Did we still have our downs - of course, Travis threw a couple fits, and Jake hit a couple times, but the overall mood all day long by everyone was a happy mood - so I am going with remembering it as being a great Sunday, because I remember sitting there on the patio at lunch thinking that everything was just perfect!