Fun at the Fair

This past Friday was elementary school day at the state fair for DISD. Grace was so excited to receive a free ticket - she couldn't stop telling people about it and showing them the actual ticket. We headed out there with Mom and Dad and had a fun time despite the fact that it probably got to 100 degrees that day (it's October for goodness sake). We did rent a scooter for me to move around in, which was a great idea. There was no way I would have been able to make it out there otherwise. Turned it into a weird trip though. I'm not used to seeing everything from that low of a vantage point, and it was slow-going through crowds. Maybe if I used one of those things all the time I'd be more aggressive with my driving, but as it was I ended up politely waiting while people milled about in front of me.

But it is really nice not having to walk the expanse of Fair Park. And we ended up having one kid in the stroller and one on my lap the entire time, so they lasted a lot longer out there too.

We ended up out there until about 3pm, when we were forced to finally come home due to running out of money. Man it is much more expensive to go there once the kids get old enough to realize there are rides to go on and games to play. But it was lots of fun and I can't wait to go again next year when I'll be (hopefully) standing upright again.


The kids playing on my sweet ride. You can just barely see my crutches bungeed to the back of the seat. I hoped that people would see those and not just think I was a lazy chick not wanting to walk at the fair.


We had pretty much this same shot last year. Jim and Grace on the ferris wheel.


And Alex and me on the other side.


Alex digs in to his Fletcher's corny dog.


Grace tries to de-stickify her cotton candy fingers. I think cotton candy is her favorite thing at the fair, topping any rides she may go on.


Alex examines his own stickiness.


Alex went on his first solo trip on a fair ride. This is a good one to start on. He pushed that bottom lip out a bit when the canoe when through the tiny tunnel portion where for a split-second he couldn't see Jim, but the little drop down the hill that followed was fun enough to put the smile right back on.


Jim decided that when you look at the cost of the State Fair rides, Six Flags ends up being a much better value (despite incredibly higher ticket price) since you don't have to pay for each ride once you are in. So he is ready to go to Six Flags next year on opening day like we did last year. Genet family, start saving your pennies so we can make it a family affair again.

Klutz?

Stepped off the back side of the front porch at 6am to turn on the sprinker. Foot hits an object on the ground. Entire body hits ground. Get back inside to find huge goose-egg swelling on my ankle. Now on crutches for two weeks.

Great.

Thankfully it is sprained but not broken.

May rent an electric cart to keep our family date at the State Fair on Friday.

Recalls

So I'm sick and tired of all the toy recalls. Used to be they never seemed to affect us - it was always stuff purchased at the dollar store, or some other discount store we never frequent. But now the mainstream companies are being affected more and more, and we have just been hit with our third recall affecting our family.

The first one we dealt with was the Thomas recall because two of the multitude of trains we inherited from my sister were included. Not too hard to work around. Once I got them out of sight, there were enough other trains (especially when combined with the cheap ones I got at Target - my kids aren't tied to having just Thomas ones), that they were quickly forgotten.

Next recall was the Polly Pocket one. Grace has one set involved in that, but was okay with sending it back when she realized she'd get a $22 voucher and would be able to get a new Polly.

But this latest one popped up today. I've hit the point where I realize many times it is simply easier for me to purchase two of something to keep the fighting ("I had that first!") to a minimum. But now I have to figure out how to explain to Alex that HIS David Kirk snail push broom and bug rake from Target can't be played with anymore, but his sister's are okay. And of course being almost October there is no chance of finding replacements. Damn.

Anyone know if the federal government is looking into the rash of China-oriented recalls? Or is free enterprise too much of a hands-off system to merit concern?

Another Alex word

Pokey pine - name used for both porcupines and pine cones. Pretty much works in both situations.

Also, probably about a year ago he started describing something he didn't want to hear or see (a song on the iPod or a movie that Grace picks out) as being "too wobbly and long." As in "Mommy, I don't want to watch Mulan again - it's too wobbly and long." Don't know where he came up with that one.

If you kids only knew what we gave up for you...

That's the phrase we think a lot when we actually go out on the town on a date. Especially when we go see a live music show. Every time I go to a show it hits me again just how fun it is to see a band play. Last night Jim and I went to the Lakewood Theater to see Richard Thompson. It was an amazing show. The last time we went to see him I was pregnant with Grace, it was standing room only in Deep Ellum, and we had to leave halfway through because Jim had a 7am flight the next morning. This time we had reserved seats (aahh), it was closer to home, but weirdly the average age at the show had to have been about 50 years old. We very much felt like the whippersnappers there. Other things that were strange is that it is ridiculous to get carded when you have as much gray hair as I do, and it is insane that anyplace in Texas that serves beer would NOT have Shiner Bock available, but the show was wonderful just the same. Richard Thompson himself is 58 years old, and he rocked out for at least 2 hours straight. He is such an amazing storyteller, and when he played "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" solo on an acoustic guitar I had goosebumps for the entire song.

By the way, that song is on the "Rumor and Sigh" album from 1991, which I highly recommend. That is the album that introduced me to Richard Thompson, and will probably always be my favorite.

The kids stayed with a babysitter for the first time since the grandparents weren't available for a sleepover. But that went great also - we had Grace's teacher Miss Andrea from last year babysit. Grace has been excited about it ever since we found out a month ago that Andrea was going to babysit. Alex was resistant to the idea, but I knew it would be a good night for everyone when he stopped the game they were playing to run over and tell me goodbye before we were even ready to leave for the evening.

2-year old fun

Funny Alex stuff:

New word for the lexicon from Alex. Attackle. What he says he does when he runs up on an unsuspecting creature (Jim, Lucy, etc.) and does a flying leap/tackle onto. Pretty accurate.

He gave me a "stamper" on my hand yesterday, which if you are a parent of a small child you know is an ink stamp. Later that day I noticed a telltale pink circle on Lucy's paw. "Alex, did you give Lucy a stamper today?" "Yes, Mama." "Don't give Lucy stampers anymore." "But Mama, she LIKES them."

In the bath last night we are playing with his Backyardigans pirate ship. I describe how Uniqua has an eyepatch and Pablo has a pegleg. "But Mama, Pablo isn't a pig. He's a penguin." "No Alex, not pig leg, PEG leg. See - made out of wood." "Mama, it looks like a pig leg." Said with the expression of "you idiot" written all over his face. Hmm...maybe you had to be there for that one.

All out of sorts

I've gotten so bad about posting. My only excuse right now is that I've had a houseful of sick kids for the past week or so, combined with constant sinus pressure the past couple days for me and just the overall trying to get back into the groove of things with the school year starting.

I did have a true "mom moment" when I had to write my first note for my child explaining why she missed two days of school last week.

Maybe I'd have more energy if I started exercising and I'd be able to get more done. But getting over that first hurdle of actually waking up early enough to exercise before I have to rouse my family is a hard one to get past.

Class of 2020

First day of school photo. I don't know if Grace's expression is from being nervous about starting kindergarten or if it is just the forced smile she ends up with a lot.


Showing off the big new backpack.



Alex likes the playground at Grace's new school. He finally stopped crying this morning when he spotted the bridge on it.


Alex was actually a pretty good sport today - there was lots of waiting around for Grace. Here is he making Superman fly while waiting for the kindergarteners to come out for pick up.


Grace and her new teacher Ms. Watkins.


This was from last Thursday night. As we were leaving the school from the kindergarten orientation (which Grace actually had a little overwhelmed breakdown in the middle of - just a few tears), we were taking her picture in front of the school. I told her to hold her arms out for the picture, and she belted out "I LOVE LAKEWOOD!"

Small victories

Alex did the first "on purpose" poop on the potty tonight. There was much rejoicing.

PostSecret

If you don't yet eagerly check the PostSecret blog updates every Sunday, maybe watching this video the creator made will intrigue you to start reading it. I actually tend to check late Saturday night because I can't wait to see the new secrets posted.

Close call

Jim took Lucy out yesterday morning for her morning potty break. He stepped in the door and not 3 seconds later a loud boom occurs and he looks out to see a huge tree branch on one of our pecans out back snapped off. Would have killed him if he'd been under it.

Jim surveys the damage.

Gives you an idea of the size of this branch.


It looks like the back door was covered, but there was actually a space of about 4 feet or so in front of it.


Snapped the porch umbrella in two.

Luckily the tree guys who are already scheduled to come out this Wednesday were able to come out that afternoon and cut the branch up. All we can figure is that it is a bumper crop of pecans this year, and the weight of them dragged the branch down. Alex was worried when he saw our two metal chairs underneath it, and cried when he saw the kids picnic bench that had been flipped over by the branch (undamaged, but flipped nonetheless). I wish I'd gotten a picture of the view out the back door - it was like looking into a dense forest.

Just some pics

Alex lately has been wanting to fall asleep downstairs for nap, versus going up to his bed (he doesn't want to miss out on the fun I guess). Here's how I found him sleeping the other day:



And here he is today on the couch in the front room:________________________________________________________________


Despite Alex's initial misgivings at us getting a female dog, he loves the little girl now. She gamely takes it all from him with no complaints.


Just about the only time she actually will bark is when the kids pull out their little push brooms. She goes nuts anytime she sees either one of them. And it's not just the snail on the end of Alex's broom - Grace's caterpillar features fell off hers long ago, but it still sets off the barking. Lucy doesn't bark at a regular broom though.

___________________________________________________________________

Both my kids are NUTS over the Power Rangers. We have a lot of mock PR fights at the house, accompanied by lots of "HYA! HYA! HYA!" sounds, which if you've ever watched an episode you'll know is the sound the Rangers make with every kung fu move they do. Alex has perfected the slo-mo collapse when you defeat him. Grace was showing off some PR moves to Jim today:



I'm not sure what the significance of the hula hoop was. Maybe just to prove her prowess at the killer moves.

Meet Lucy

Oh my lord we have a dog. We drove about 40 miles east yesterday and got ourselves this beautiful boxer puppy. Since Grace named her Lucy we let Alex pick her middle name. He wants to go with "Licky", since that's what puppies do. So here is Lucy Licky Hutchinson.

Two new links

Wow - two posts in one day!

I'd save this one but chances are I'd forget to post it for another week.

I want to showcase my two new links on the right. I'm replacing Elisa's K Stuff blog with her Elisalou one, mainly so I can more easily check it every day and to show off what neat stuff she puts on it.

And I'm welcoming Christi back to the blogging fold with Little House. We've missed you!

Frustrated

I'm going nuts with my email. Luckily we still have Jim's desktop Mac to use here at the house, so I now have no problem checking messages. However, if I don't pay attention when I send an original message (vs a reply to someone), the computer defaults to Jim's email address as the sender. And if someone replies to me through it I don't ever know, since Jim no longer uses his home email address - he's a Gmail man now. If I were to check his now-unused address, I'd probably end up downloading 1000+ spam messages, along with the select few directed to me. So I'm afraid people think I'm ignoring their reply to me, when I'm actually not getting the message at all.

I do have my own Gmail account now. I just want to sit down and enter in a few more email addresses so when I send a notice of my new address I'll hit most everyone at once. Then my husband will quit hounding me about switching over, and I can stop sending the "Oops, this was sent from Jim's address" follow-up messages to people.

So if you get an email from Jim at the 5504 address, know that you can forward your reply to my address and call me an idiot for sending it incorrectly.

Small blessings

I discovered this week that while thieves took off with the camcorder, they didn't get the tape with Grace's dance recital and Preschool graduation on it. We'd loaned the camera to friends about a month ago, and had taken the tape out then. Since we are so bad about actually videotaping the family, we'd not used it since then and the tape was still out. It was a nice thing to smile about.

One more headache

So I came to realize today that whoever took my laptop has accessed my email at least once. It's the only way to explain the recent emails people sent me that I never received. So if you sent me a message that I didn't reply to, chances are I may have not ever received it.

All is fixed now. And if anyone has any webhosting needs, I highly recommend WingSix, simply because they have been extremely nice people both times I've had to call them recently.

How incredibly boring must it be to read someone else's email. Once you wade past the spam I get, I can't imagine much of what I receive would interest anyone other than me.

Bastards.

Heartbroken

Well, I was all ready to post a couple new pictures of our caterpillars in their latest form, only to come home last Thursday to discover our house had been broken into. The fence had been hopped in the back, the unlocked window found, and they were able to get in and out without setting the alarm off. Not a lot of stuff was taken, but definitely things that add up. Both my and Jim's laptops, our nice digital camera, the Playstation 2 (doesn't get used much, so no big loss there), most of my and Jim's dvds, the digital camcorder and the entire contents of my jewelry box.

Strangely, I'm not upset by the fact someone was in my house going through my stuff. I'm more upset over the sentimental value of some of the things taken. Irritated at the inconvenience of the laptop and camera being gone, but sad because the tape in the camcorder had Grace's last dance recital and preschool graduation on it, and no telling what else.

I'm most heartbroken over the loss of the jewelry. In addition to my new diamond earrings I got for my birthday, I had things like both the necklaces I received from Jim to honor of each of my kid's birth and all the gifts Jim has given me throughout the years. All the rings and necklaces I got for birthdays growing up are gone too, plus stuff I got from my mom and grandmothers. I had amassed a nice collection of earrings and necklaces for every occasion made by my friend Maja that is now gone. And I get so sad when I think about how one of Grace's favorite things to do was get my jewelry box down and try everything on.

This was the first break in we've had that the kids are aware of. They got a little traumatized because when I realized what had happened I whisked them out of the house to wait until the police showed up. Grace was concerned they had taken her "soft bear", and once we came back inside with the officer she was relieved to be able to point out all the things of hers that weren't taken. Alex just wants to "mush those bad guys."

Oh, and please send me an email if you read this. I once again have to rebuild my address book.

Bugs 'n stuff

Oh, so much to catch up on. Sorry for not posting in an eternity, but June has turned out to be a busy month (where is my lazy, do-nothing summer month?).

I had a wonderful weekend in Fredericksburg with the girlfriends to celebrate turning 40. Then had a wonderful week vacation with ALL of the family (Cousin Camp '07) down at the beach.

But one REALLY exciting thing that has happened is that we returned from the beach trip to discover these groovy caterpillars eating my parsley:
There were seven of them creeping all over my plants. And yesterday I noticed a new one added to the bunch (very small one), but two others are now missing - I assume making a chrysalis somewhere. So after a little research I've discovered they are Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars. And it looks like we'll either end up with this (a Black Swallowtail):

Or this (an Anise Swallowtail):
Either of which I'd be happy to see. We had a swallowtail show up last year and it was the biggest and most beautiful butterfly I've ever seen. However they have almost munched through all the leaves of my parsley, so I'm thinking I might go buy a few more plants to put out there to keep them fed.

Another discovery we had is that "Mr. Snakey" has reappeared in our backyard. It's a small garter snake we found earlier this year living under one of my planters (actually the one with the caterpillars in it). But I think he made a new home once he got tired of little kids lifting the planter up to catch a look at him and/or pick him up. But maybe after a week of no prying eyes he must have figured the little ones had moved elsewhere, because when they checked the evening we got home he was back in his old spot.

Here's one thing I love about my kids. They love bugs, snakes and other creepy crawly things. Grace will run up to me holding that garter snake, usually freaking me out (yes, he's cute but I have to steel myself to reach out for him). She loves to touch the new caterpillars, and runs around picking up the hairy webworm caterpillars that are everywhere this year. And of course, like every child, they are all over pillbugs. So I find myself saying more often than I'd like "the bugs may NOT come into the house - they must stay outside."

Tired of the rain, but oh what a great yard

So it seems to have been raining nonstop this entire Spring. We've grumbled a lot being stuck inside the house so much with the kids (or them getting mud-covered feet when they head outside), but my flower beds are going gangbusters with all the watering. So I thought for a change I'd show off some photos of something other than my kids. We were enjoying the front porch yesterday after the storm that blew through in the morning cut the humidity, and I felt the need to document some of these beautiful plants.

The balloon flowers are popping open all over the place. Mine grow freakishly tall - at least 3 feet - probably because they are striving to get sunlight in the middle of this shady bed.


Not a really great shot of the lantana, but this is one of our biggest butterfly draws in the front yard. This particular one with the pink and yellow flowers gets enormous.


I didn't have any good daylilies to get a photo of, but of course at least four of these buds opened up today.


The wandering jew that comes back each year next to the porch. The little pink flowers on the ends look great, especially when there are water droplets on the plant. You can see one of our new pots in the background of the picture.


One of my two pots of marigolds. I like these with the blended orange and yellow colors.


Here's a better shot of the new pot (one of two). I just planted these this weekend, so they should fill out as the plants grow a little.


Our awesome front porch. Jim picked up these chairs this weekend and had just put them together. We still want to add a coffee table and maybe some more plants. Plus I'd like for us to add a ceiling fan at some point to help blow away the mosquitos. But it is a great spot to sit and watch the neighbors go by.


Our house in it's wonderfully green Spring setting. We really do like our 91-year old house, with all the problems (challenges?) that entails.


I tried to get a shot that showed all my flowers, but they don't really show up from this distance too well.


Ahhh...what was waiting for me once I finished taking all the photos. I sat on the other porch chair next to Jim and watched the kids play together in the yard. A little bit of heaven on a Sunday afternoon.

End of school year pics

Well, I'm stealing the blog posting idea from my sister and showing off first and last days of school for Grace (Alex is still too young to participate in this one - he gets too cranky at times for pictures on demand).

Here is sweet little Gracie with Miss Andrea and Miss Bettina on her first day of school.


And with apologies to her teachers for taking the picture after the class swim party, here she is showing off her forced "trying-too-hard" smile on the last day. I couldn't have asked for a better class for her to finish preschool with. The most kids they ever had in this class was 10, so they were able to do some really wonderful things with very individualized attention. And Bettina and Andrea were just amazing teachers; very creative and always thinking up great things for the class to do.


Now for some graduation pictures. Here's a great one of Grace with Andy.


Grace with Aidan and Andy - two of her favorite boys. Of course, by the end of the year - especially once the only other girl had moved up north and was attending maybe once a week - ALL the boys had become her favorites.


Grace and Brayden were very insistent I take their picture while they were making these faces. I'm not sure what they were aiming for. They looked a little like chipmunks.


Some very excited soon-to-be graduates.


The entire graduating class. All eight of them.


Me and Grace watching the after-ceremony slide show.


To try to give a little space to Alex, here are two of his favorite classmates this year: twins Kate and Mike. I actually came upon him a few times lying on the floor with Kate reading books looking so sweet.


Alex VERY excited to be standing next to his best friend Donovan. Every day was gauged as being "good" if it was a day he saw Donovan, or "not good" if he didn't. And I couldn't get Alex to take a picture this final day of school until I said "let's take one with Donovan", and as you can see he was all smiles after that.


Giving Donovan a big hug goodbye.