Playing Catch Up

I was going to post a little about thoughts on moving and a few pictures of the New Jersey house and area, but I realized I had some other photos I'd been wanting to put up for a while but never got around to. So I'll talk about the house later.


This is Grace and Ms. Cortes, her 1st grade teacher this year. We have been so lucky with all the teachers the kids have had, even back into preschool. I hate that we are leaving this one - she really likes Grace (who wouldn't?), and I hope we get one just as nice in New Jersey.


A favorite picture of mine taken on the playground earlier this school year. The remaining three of last year's four musketeers. I thought this one looked like a good album-cover shot.


Grace was once again chosen as "Super Stallion" for the first six weeks this year. Every six weeks each teacher selects two students from class to get the Super Stallion award. Usually given not just for academic achievement, but also for just being a well-rounded student. I actually teared up when we got the letter about it, because I was hoping Grace would be one of the first selected so she could get it again one more time before we moved.


This is why we refer year-round to the house on the corner across from the school as the "Frankenstein House." Alex especially loves it, and is always happy when we can get to school early enough for pick up that we can actually park in front of it (which doesn't happen very often).


And lastly I got to make my final pilgrimage to the State Fair of Texas. Mom and I went sans kids one morning. It was perfect - perfect weather, perfect food (corny dog, funnel cake and ice cream on a stick), perfect activities (Creative Arts building and Food & Fiber building are the best), perfect company.


Instead of the card stacking guy, this year they had a domino guy. He sets them up every day in a different pattern, and at 530pm knocks them down. Wish we could have stuck around to see that - I'm sure it sounded really cool.


The Hall of State building. I just love all the old Art Deco buildings out at Fair Park.


The butter sculpture this year celebrated the big King Tut exhibit in Dallas right now.


And my incredibly talented sister got another ribbon this year after creating the stocking that Joey actually designed when he got disappointed that he couldn't find any available stockings in patterns he liked.

Happy birthday, my little man

Whew - 4 years old! He's such a big boy now.

We are having a nice, low-key birthday day with the family. Some presents this morning, a trip to Target to get him a Spiderman toy, and a trip to Tom Thumb because he suddenly decided that he wanted an actual birthday cake today versus the brownies he originally wanted. And since he is the birthday boy, he gets to decide where we are going for dinner. Wanna guess? McDonalds, of course.

The boy

Since we're getting close to his upcoming birthday, I thought I'd post a few pics about what almost-4-year old boys are like (at least mine).

Upon getting his first Build-A-Bear animal, the two outfits he picks out are the Batman costume and the Spiderman costume for it (complete with fake muscles). The big dog has the little puppy in it's mouth in this shot.


He likes to draw scary faces on his new pumpkin (and make a scary face for the picture).


And show off the spooky things on the other side (ghosts, bat, spider) that Mama had to finish drawing when the Sharpie didn't cooperate on the pumpkin ridges (and make a "boo" face without actually saying "boo" for the picture).


He will still sweetly run across the Arboretum when he spots me.


He will zap the dog when he decides it's a day to dress up like Buzz Lightyear. Or web her when it is a Spiderman day.


"I want to make donuts when I grow up!"



And a sweet picture of Gracie just so she won't be slighted with so many Alex pictures posted.

Early Birthday Party

Since we weren't exactly sure when we would be moving to New Jersey, we decided to have Alex's birthday party early. Much more fun to have a birthday party with friends than with just your family in attendance!


Grace's requisite birthday sign on the door. I like how she added the "(in here)" in case the five people we invited weren't sure where to go.


What was awaiting Alex when he got home from school on Friday.


Alex's reaction to it.


Gracie being happy, despite the fact that Mama kept reminding her all day that "you and your friends can't tease your brother on his birthday party day."


Alex's new friend Jackson, younger brother of Grace's school friend. You have to find someone to be friends with when you are stuck waiting for your sister after school every day.


This is some game that evolved involving keeping the opposite sex out of the bounce house. Alex gets a pretty good grip on Elizabeth here.


Alex and Mike take a break from bouncing to pick up sticks in the back yard and put them in the wagon.


Kate joins in on the stick-gathering. Grandad realized he has a new game for the kids to play next time they spend the night, and he'll end up with a clean back yard to boot.


Donovan picking out his color sticker for the game. Alex was very happy Donovan came to the party. He no longer goes to school with Alex, but along with Kate and Mike has been his very best friend since they were 2 years old.


Grace was happy that Elizabeth could come along with Jackson, so she had an ally against all the 4 year olds.


Alex about to blow out the candles on his Power Ranger cake, just after he instructed everyone to clasp their hands together. I think he was equating singing "Happy Birthday" with singing "God Our Father."


The boy blowing out the candles. He did a good job getting them out all by himself this year, though it took at least one blow per candle to do the job.

I've told him that when his actual birthday hits that he gets to pick where we go for dinner, trying to steer him toward Cafe Madrid since he loves the calamari and flan, but of course I think McDonalds is going to win out.

Love this picture

Alex got his first Build-A-Bear animal today (he chose the black Lab dog so he could also get the matching puppy that magnetically sticks in its mouth). This shot is from when he was very seriously brushing the puppy after having it stuffed by the employee at the store. It just seemed to me to be a great shot showing how he's turning into such a big boy.

And still a sweet boy. As we were in bed reading tonight he had both the new dog and the little puppy in there with us. Build-A-Bear has you pick out a little satin heart that you kiss before you place it in your animal when it is about to be stuffed and sewn up. Alex told me that at the store they had already stuffed the little puppy (you just pick that accessory off the shelf) and that they had put a tiny little heart into it like the one he put in his big dog. And when I told him we could continue playing Superhero Family tomorrow morning (a whole other story), he said "No, I just want to play dogs."

(shudder)

Jim was in Buffalo last night, staying at the Best Western (which is apparently a pretty nice hotel). When he checked in he found out the hotel was full so they upgraded him to the jacuzzi room. The jacuzzi room that has a big whirlpool a couple feet from the king size bed, all surrounded with mirrors. He assured me he wouldn't step foot in that human crock pot. Ick.

A little kitchen tip

So I wanted to post this kitchen tip a while back, but Jim thought that was a weird thing to blog about. When I mentioned it to Kim, she thought it was an awesome idea, but I still never got around to it. But I used the technique the other night, I realized I wanted to share it even if it only helps one person out of the handful who read my blog.

In order to be as economical as possible at the grocery store, I frequently purchase "family packs" of meat when on sale (usually chicken breasts). I repackage it into handy one pound portions in freezer ziploc bags. And when you freeze meat (or anything, really), the more air you get out of the package the better. I'd read once about using short pieces of drinking straw and literally sucking the air out of the bag, but sucking up raw chicken air really grossed me out.

So I find this tip in a magazine (and unfortunately I can't remember exactly which one it was in) where you can zip your bag up, leaving about a one inch opening. Then you submerge your bag in a bowl of water up to the opened bit. The pressure of the water pushes the remaining air out of the bag. And so when you close it the rest of the way and pull the bag out of the water, it looks almost like you vacuum-packed the darn thing.

Just make sure and do your writing on your bag BEFORE putting it in the water.

So there's my tip. And may you never have to suck up raw chicken air again.

HA HA HA HA!!!!

NOTE: I've now reposted it from NBC since it was pulled down pretty quick off YouTube. Hopefully this will work.

Let's see how long this remains on YouTube before the network yanks it down.



Tina Fey rocks!

Another update

Everything is almost done on the house. New carpet was installed yesterday. The workers will be back tomorrow morning to get the last little things finished. So now I've just got cleaning and putting everything back in place on my agenda for the next couple days.

LOTS of cleaning.

And lots of laundry. I'm so happy to have my laundry room back again, even though it has only been a few days. I didn't realize how much I actually used it during the week.

Update

We almost have our downstairs back. Just need to finish up a few things here and there. The workers have now moved up to the office (halfway done) and the laundry room (just started) and the sleeping porch (also about halfway done). That plus two walls of the master bedroom should have them done either Friday or Saturday. The house is beginning to look amazing - just in time for someone else to enjoy it.

I'm ready to get that downstairs back. Poor Grace had to eat breakfast on the stairs this morning because of the slight rain outside. And I've had the kids in three rooms for the past couple days - most of the time being spent in my room since there is a TV in there.

On another note, this has got to be one of the most non-intentionally hilarious videos of the 80s. Poor Billy Squire - I bet he cringes when he sees it now.

Why hasn't Julie been posting?

Because my living room looks like this:



And my dining room looks like this:


And pretty soon it will spread to the other rooms in our house.

Our offer on the New Jersey house was accepted last weekend, so we have been freaking out about getting our house on the market. So much to be done to a 90+ year old house. It's amazing what we've put up with for the past 10 years or so. In order to get everything done as quickly as possible our contractor has had his crew coming over to our house to work after their day on the job they are currently working on. So around 5pm for the past three days I've had workers showing up and working until 8pm or so. And before all this started up this past week we had quite a time trying to pack up boxes and boxes of excess stuff and take it over to the storage building we've rented.

In addition to all the excitement with the move, I finally had this show up in my back yard:

The plumeria that started as about a six inch cutting from my friend Jaimie probably 8 years ago or so has FINALLY bloomed. I kept telling Jim to wait it out, that the plant that he hated would some day make it all worth while with amazing smelling blooms. And it finally did. Here's what my tiny plant has grown into:

Jim doesn't like it because when we bring it in for the winter it sheds all it's leaves and is just a great big stick poking up out of the pot. At least it grew a couple branches a year or two ago. Until then it actually was one great big stick over the winter in the house. I can't wait for the other three blooms next to that one to finally open up!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Well, here I sit in the Westfield, NJ, Best Western. For those of you not in the know, we are moving to New Jersey sometime in the near future. Details are still up in the air as to the actual move date - lots of stuff to do to the house in Dallas before we list it, need to find someplace here to live. But once we decided to NOT try to get it all done before the school year starts I started to feel a little better about things.

Jim was offered an awesome opportunity with his company in their New York office (apparently you can see the Empire State Building from the windows there) that just couldn't be passed up. And so my dear husband has endured countless tears from me in our decision to do this. Not hard to leave the 102 degree weather in Dallas, but VERY hard to leave all the friends and family. We're up here for a quick trip now to check out some houses in a few New Jersey towns (yes, living in Manhattan would be nice, but we'd be in a shoebox that we probably still wouldn't be able to afford).

On a side note, I had the best night of sleep last night than I'd had in a long time. Jim tried to attribute it to the New Jersey air, but I think it is due more to the fact that I didn't have two kids and a dog waking me up all night. And a nice big king size bed.

A little respite

Just got back from the second annual girls trip with some of my very best girlfriends ever. It was a wonderful weekend, though much too short. It allowed me for a couple of days to not think about the stresses going on around here lately with regard to the question of whether to move the family or not (if you haven't heard about that yet I'm sure I'll post something once we've made the final decision).

This year we headed out west to Lubbock. Now, before you say "Why in the world would you make a girls trip to Lubbock?", just know that two of the four of us went to school there, we had a free place to stay, and I could spend a weekend at a cheap motel on Lancaster Avenue with these women and still have a great time. We wandered the campus, toured around town, shopped a little, ate a lot, drank a little, cried just a TINY bit and laughed a LOT. Here's a few highlights:


The Texas Tech student union had great sculptures outside of it. This one is called "Read Reader" by Terry Allen, but I liked it because it looked like a robot (had to get a picture for Alex).


This is inside the student union. I don't know if it is considered art, but it certainly was cool. All these suspended metal pieces worked as very quiet windchimes with the breeze from the air conditioner.


Here's a detail of the previous picture.


My favorite statue was this one called "Tornado of Ideas" by Tom Otterness. It was a whirlwind of letters, books (actual titles) and little round people coming up out of a building. With just so much detail it was fascinating to look at.


Here's one of the little people found throughout the statue.


Saw this in a mug display at a Tech bookstore. We wondered if the "Doris" mug is a big seller.


While trying to find the Buddy Holly statue we inadvertently ran across Prairie Dog Town. There were probably at least 20 to 30 prairie dogs running around that we could see. Despite this being one of Dad's favorite places to take visitors when my parents lived in Lubbock, Jana and Audra had never been out there.


The Buddy Holly memorial, which we finally stumbled upon by accident. If you ever vacation in Lubbock and want to see it, just know it is DIRECTLY across the street from the Wal-Mart.


The four of us at dinner Saturday night. Another benefit of visiting a college town is that eating out can be very cheap, so this trip we didn't make any meals ourselves.

Two days wasn't near long enough with these dear friends. Jim asked if I was finally all talked out once I got home. I probably am, at least until we four get together again.

Last one to post Port A pics

Just a few out of our camera.


Three cousins walking to the beach.



Grace covered in sand.



This is the first year that Alex has really enjoyed the beach. Plus we didn't have to worry about diapers, which was nice for mommy.



Handsome boy.


Grace likes to pose for the camera these days. If you look closely at this one you can see the gap from that missing tooth.



Good one of cousin Joey.



Grace with the aquarium mascot. Of course Alex didn't even want to go near this, much less stand next to it for a picture.

Dang it

As you can tell I'm finding it very hard to squeeze the time in for posting while I have kids around more often.

Thoughts on beach vacations

1. There must be a HUGE industry cranking out beach-themed decor. Almost every rental condo/house/hotel in any beach community is stuffed full of the stuff.

2. When you do run across a place to stay that doesn't have an abundance of beachy crap, it is very disconcerting (black leather couches, black lacquer furniture, mirrored glass just don't seem to fit the mindset).

3. Is there REALLY that much of a saving to be had by making the showers so short? Would it add that much to have about 8 more inches of molded shower wall so the shower head could be moved up and not hit me in the nose? I know I'm a tall woman, but there are still many people in this country who are as tall or taller than me.

Already miss the beach (and my siblings and families) terribly. But it is good to be home.

Thanks Mom & Dad for the wonderful week.

Family Vacation

Off to Port Aransas tomorrow morning for the annual Cousin Camp (my parents, my whole family, both my siblings' families). A week at a beach with somebody else occupying my kids for much of it. What more could I ask for?

Happy Father's Day, Jim!

I couldn't ask for a better one for my kids.

Forgot to take the camera to the dance recital

So we had to get a shot outside on the porch swing. Grace was ready to give up dance classes by the time the recital rolled around, but once she saw the big girls dancing (at the very LONG recital - sorry Gramma, Grandad, Grandma Lu and Grandma!), she started to think she might want to continue them.

Her class danced to a song from Beauty and the Beast, and they all got to pick out their own princess costume. Hopefully this will still fit by Halloween and Grace can go as Queen Susan or Queen Lucy from Narnia.