Spring Break part 2

Part 2 of our Spring Break - sorry, time escaped me somewhat, what can I say - we were having fun!

Wednesday - down to Town Lake (aka Ladybird Lake for those who haven't lived here very long) to walk the hike and bike trail with friends.  We started by Austin High, and ended up going 4.52 miles, and playing at the splash pad at Butler Park.

The boys in the double jogger borrowed from Vanessa - Thanks Vanessa!

Travis sharing Cheerios with his new girlfriend!

Travis venturing off to discover the water shooting out of the ground.

Jake showing Travis how to bend over the water and touch it.

Jake thinking "ha ha ha, tricked him" while Travis puts his face in the water.

Travis after playing in the water - soaked.

Jake running through the water - no happier kid than this one!

The boys sharing a goldfish snack before nap time after playing in the water.

 

 

Thursday - really we mostly ran errands, went to Lowes, then the grocery store, then unfortunately back to Lowes because the water filter we bought for the refrigerator had been used, and was leaking water.  Seriously who puts a used water filter back into the box and returns it!  Then it was on to Yogurt Planet at the Hill Country Galleria after dinner for Fro Yo before bed.

Jake liked it!

 

 

Friday - Picked up Mimi and went to play at Bee Cave Park.  We took our bikes and had a blast.  After the park we went back to Mimi's to play until nap time.

Jake and Travis on their bikes navigating the trails.

Travis playing with Mimi on the big-kids part of the play scape.

Jake and Travis playing in the mulch.

Having a picnic lunch in Mimi's living room - Jake loved this.

Travis eating a HUGE cookie after his picnic lunch - okay, Mama ate most of it.

 

Jake and Travis driving their truck down the road - love how cool they look.

 

 

Saturday was a day of chores, and the front door was off the house most of the day being stained, so we had to stay home and "supervise" - nothing interesting at all.

 

 

Sunday - Jake was invited to be the "plus one" for his girlfriend Bristol's little brother's birthday party.  So Jake and I went to "Jump Wild" in Dripping Springs and I must say that he had absolutely the best time running around with Bristol in a setting other than school.

Jake and Bristol on the slides.

Jake and Bristol in the Trampoline Room - I must say that I had as much fun in this room as Jake did - thinking I need to go back and play in there some more without the tiny one under foot...

 

 

Monday - not really Spring Break still, but Jake didn't go back to school until Tuesday, we didn't do much, but Jake set up a cute impromptu picnic snack in the kitchen for him and Travis while I was making dinner.  I have the best kids!

Picnic snack!

 

So that was our spring break - I must say lots of fun!

Spring Break 2013 - Part 1

Part 1 of Spring Break:

Saturday - Out to the River to hang our bird houses.  I didn't get any photos of the hanging, but I did get photos of us playing - so that will have to do.

Boys giving each other love

Dad, Mom and Aunt Janet - all happy!

Mama with the boys - and Whelan cousins too!

Daddy drop-kicking Jake - I mean throwing rocks in the River.  :)

 

 

 

Monday - Trip to Zilker Park to have a picnic and ride the Zephyr!

 



Jake and Mimi at the picnic portion of the afternoon

Travis and Grandma at the picnic

Grandma pushing the boys on the swings - they loved it!

Mimi and Jake feeding the "ducks" - there were no ducks at all - pooh.

All ready to ride the train - except we were really ready for it to start moving, and not happy to be sitting still - if you can't tell!

Travis is much happier now that the train is moving!

Travis and Grandma enjoying the train ride.

Mimi and Jake having fun on the train.

 

 

Tuesday - well, we headed to San Antonio with the plan of going to the zoo.  We had been planning this for weeks!  We got there, and the place looked like this:

 

 

Every lot was full, there was an hour or longer wait for tickets, and no one was directing to a location where there would actually be parking - so we scrapped that idea and went to get lunch and regroup to figure out a plan now that we were in a different city, and needed to entertain the children with something that would not take an hour and a half or more just to get into!  Thinking we try again someday not over Spring Break.

Travis and Grandma at Mi Tierra for lunch (YUM!)

Grandad, Mimi and Jake eating at Mi Tierra

Jake riding a mechanical bull in "The Marketplace" - he is happier than he looks.

The boys at Hemisfair Park by the fountains - not a great photo of the boys, but it was such a pretty area.

Travis sitting under a tree at the playground.

I just liked this one.

Packing up the boys to go get treats!

Travis's first experience with Dip-N-Dots - he isn't sure yet...

But now that Jake is feeding him the ice cream, he is good!

And he wants it all!!!!!!

Mmmmmmmm

And everyone is ready to pack it up and get home by 2:30.

 

 

And that is it so far - stay tuned for part 2, and maybe 3 depending on how much more we do - Mama is tired!

Every time - without fail - it rains

It seems that without fail I always decide it is time to steam clean the carpets the day before it starts raining. It hasn't rained in months, but of course now that steaming is occurring...

We have WAY too much carpet in this house, so it takes about a week to complete since I have 2 small children to watch all day long, and steaming only occurs during nap time really.  So I start yesterday, and this morning, it is raining, and is going to on Sunday as well.  So during the time when it is really nice to have the dogs outside, and not in the house messing with my fresh clean carpets, they are instead in the house - and of course tracking in mud everytime I let them out.

So far I have been able to block them from walking on the clean parts of my carpets, we'll see how long that lasts though.  I guess I could skip areas, and leave a walkway between our bedroom and the back door until after the rain is through, and I can then go back to that area (probably is what I will do to keep things as clean as possible).

Ugh, oh well - carpets have to be cleaned since we are having a birthday party in 2 weeks - ahh, can't believe Travis is about to be one!

For the Birds

As part of the way to get our tax-free exemption (or something like that) on the property on the Pedernales, all of the great-grandchildren are making bird-houses which will be put up around the property for nesting.  The party to install them is this weekend, and so Jake, Travis, and I made our birdhouse contributions today!

These were pre-cut, pre-drilled, pre-labeled, and everything except screwed together, so I put screws in the little holes and put them half-way through, and then had the boys finish screwing to the other piece of wood.  (No, I didn't let Travis have a screwdriver, he is too little, but he touched it while Jake or I was holding it, so he contributed!).

Here are our pictures from the experience, and yes, today is pajama day at our house for the boys.

 

 

Travis wasn't terribly impressed by the experience, but Jake sure had a good time!



He walks!

And as of this evening, we have a full walking baby!

Workout progress

Well, I am already noticing a difference from the working out which I have been doing now for 3 weeks.  I have more energy during the day, and am more tired at night - may partially be due to the fact that I am not joining in the afternoon nap time with the boys too often anymore.

Small detour occurred shortly after starting my new workout routine though, and I got Mastitis which sidelined me for 3 days while I took serious pain medication, nursed, pumped, and slept.  No fun at all for those few days.  I ended up going and seeing lots of Doctors, and even getting an ultrasound done to make sure that there wasn't an abscess since I was not at all able to drain the infected duct.  Turns out no abscess this time though, just lots of infection, which is now, luckily, cleared up.

Since I had to stop my working out just a couple days into the 8 week workout calendar which I have, I decided to just start over last week, and recount it as week one - which means that I am now into week 2 of my 8 week crazy workout plan!!  Hopefully by the time that I am done, my post-baby belly will be back to looking more like my pre-baby belly did, and I will reach my goal of being happy with how I look before I turn 30.


Jake continues to refuse to nap, so we have instead instituted quiet time, and we give him his Kindle, which he can have in his room, with the lights out during what would be the nap time 1 1/2 hour duration in the afternoon.  We are having WAY less issues with quiet time than we had been with nap time, and bedtime is easier too since he doesn't tend to fall asleep during quiet time (although sometimes he does).  So yeah to a solution which still allows Mama time to myself in the afternoon to actually get things done (like workout and clean).


Travis is still not really walking, but he will take a few steps from one toy to another - 5 or 6 tops at this point, but he seems to be growing in his confidence, we are pretty sure any day now he will just take off running, and we'll never catch him again!

Catch-up

Well, either I have not been in the blogging mood recently, or I have been too busy to think about it - maybe a little bit of both.  To catch you all up on what has been going on recently...

Jake:
 - Has been back in school since the 8th, he's having a little harder time letting me leave in the mornings when I drop him off, but otherwise, is doing fantastic as always - still has the same girlfriends, so at least he can commit!
 - Has really made tremendous headway in the potty-training since Christmas, he has been almost always dry through the day, and is now going without diapers at night as well - and we haven't yet had to wash the sheets!
 - Unfortunately he has been having a more difficult time with accepting that he needs to sleep when we tell him to - ie: nap time and bedtime, and has been coming out of his room during both for about the first 45 minutes to 1 hour, 5 and 6 times during that amount of time.  This is really very frustrating for us because we don't know what to do to keep him in his room.  So willing to accept any advice veteran parents can offer!

Taking the recycling to the curb for Pops!

Travis:
 - Crawls at speeds as fast and sometimes faster than I can walk - yikes!
 - Now has 7 teeth
 - Got his first hair-cut (on the 16th), and now doesn't look like a baby anymore (tear)
 - Took his first step a week ago (on the 17th), we kind of felt initially like we pushed him into it since we stood him up at the sofa and backed away, but a couple days later he took 5 steps over to a toy, so I guess he is ready.  He isn't actually walking yet, but he is attempting at times to take a few steps.  Once we can actually get this on video, we will share.  He is so excited about walking, that once he takes a few steps, he is too excited to do it again and waves his arms about in the air which causes him to loose balance and sit down.  Oh well.

Before the haircut

                      After the haircut





Sarah:
 - Trying to cut some of the sweets out of my diet - I have a serious sweet tooth, which I know is not contributing to me getting rid of the remnants of baby weight, so I am just going to cut them out entirely for a time, and see if that helps.  This is really hard though, and I miss chocolate - so everyone out there, eat a chocolate for me!
 - In additional effort to remove baby weight remnants, I have started a crazy fitness routine (Moms into Fitness Fierce program, with running mixed in for the days that I just can't do the training videos - Immediate goal is to do 60 days of workouts everyday) with the end goal of being happy with how I look and feel by the time I turn 30 - so I have 5 months (minus a couple days) - wish me luck.  I am NOT going to post photos of this progress, but maybe an end result one if I am actually happy with it.
 - Working on early spring cleaning and de-cluttering around the house, wanting to get things into an organized, and seriously purged mode to start off the year happy.

Other goings on:
 - Blake and I went to Houston overnight without the boys at the beginning of the month to attend a gender reveal party for some of our really good friends who are having a baby this spring.  Travis has only spent one other night away from us since he was born, and that was less than 24 hours.  This was nearing 36 hours, and may I say it was very difficult for me, but I think I did very well.  The boys of course both had a blast, and slept like champs for their Mimi and Pops!  They did not however continue the champion sleeping upon coming back home to us.  Pooh.
 - Mom and Dad took me, Jake and Travis to see the Architects of Air Extopolis exhibit yesterday.  I must say, that it was very fun.  Dad bought tickets while Travis was napping, and we met him over there with lunch, and had a picnic before going in.  No line!!  A little warm with all that filtered sunlight and no air conditioning, but it was so cool to walk through the giant blow up tent with all that colored sunlight playing with your emotions.  Jake of course wanted to run through the whole thing, and after an initial fear of walking into a colored space, Travis was happy and oohing at everything he saw.

So that is most of what has been going on recently.  It has been unseasonably warm this last week, which has afforded us more significant outdoor time than we normally get this time of year, and I think it is doing wonderful things for the boys.