Eight Happy Years, Going on Nine

Well, yesterday was our anniversary! We marked our eight years by packing all morning and then sitting either in the airport or across the aisle of an airplane for nine and a half hours! Romantic, don't you think?

We were headed back from our trip to NH, which explains our weird anniversary "celebration" and which I'll comment on in a few days once I get unpacked, and actually, Eric and I spent our almost three-week long honey moon in Boston, NH and Maine and it was fun to be reminded of that, but for now I wanted to comment on what a great eight years it has been. Anniversaries deserve their own post right?

I can't even believe it's been that long. I feel like we haven't gotten any older (except when I look at our wedding pictures). It's just been a fun ride. When I look at Eric now I really appreciate what a great husband and father he is and how well we compliment each other. So, here's to eight great years and many more to come!

Well, where to start. (I feel like I start like that a lot, but I don't have time to go back and look right now, so if I start all my posts like that, I apologize for my lack of creativity) Anyhow, we've been a little crazy these past weeks. The kids and I arrived in NH last night for two weeks with "Grampy and Yia Yia". We've been trying to take advantage of the time before the baby comes to continue to finish our house decorating. Plus, I try to make sure my kids' schedule doesn't get too hectic, so we take time to go to the Children's Museum and Zoo as well as the pool. Combined with the work for the magazine, (I was hired just before the deadline for the summer issue, so it's been a busy, but fun time). Bless his heart, I left Eric with a whole list of things he could do while he was gone. I didn't want him to be bored or anything. :)
A few snapshots from our past weeks (Oh, and thank Eric for the photo editing... didn't he do a great job? He posted the pictures from TX so I could do the blog tonight)... I made Eric fruit braid... his favorite food as an early Father's Day surprise. Elia decided to eat the flour. We thought she'd just taste it, but she proceeded to eat what was left on the counter after we made the fruit braid.

One of our evening activities this past week was washing the car. Ethan decided that sitting in the soap bucket was more fun... Isn't he adorable (by the way, everytime Yia Yia says, "You're adorable." He says, "I not adorable." (Which, if you can't guess, is VERY adorable).


A zoo trip with the Staub girls... They have this cool tunnel through the water that the kids can crawl through.

The girls... Channing, Elia and Chloe...

... add a little boy.

Look, Eric even put a vingette on this picture! Way to go babe!

In other news, I took Eric and the kids to the OB's office. I felt it was probably good that he met the doctor before the day comes. What a change from Elia... I think Eric came to almost every appointment. Not that the appointments are exciting, but to be truthful, they seem like a waste of time, but when is life supposed to be convenient, right?

That's all I can think to write about now, so have a great week!

Smorgasbord

There is a reason why I shouldn't wait two weeks in between blog postings. Everything gets jumbled together and I really can't remember anything we've done! Plus, all those funny little kid moments that I want to remember as they happen get totally forgotten. I'm going to try and do better, because it really is a lot of fun around here and I want to remember those times and not just what we did. Nancy finished out her visit with a bang... and we're so grateful for her help. Among the things I was able to get done while she was here include organizing the attic and my craft closet, sewing curtains, and Eric and I organized the entire garage.

During her last weekend we went to the beach:

Also, if anyone has lost their head, we found an extra one... maybe I'll keep it to use when I loose mine... which, you might decide I already have when you read the end of this post!

Here is my maternity picture for all of you who have been wondering what my expanding belly looks like... thanks to Eric for the artistry and modestly placed shells. I wouldn't want to reveal too much :)

We visited some relatives along the way. Their bunnies were a big hit with the kids:

Ethan was so tired on the way home he fell asleep mid-carrot:

It's getting hotter and we've started swimming. It's so much fun to go with friends... It reminds me of AZ days.We celebrated Memorial Day with a small backyard BBQ with friends. Of course, we had to eat watermelon...
And wash off after... I also wanted to include these pictures that I completely forgot on the last post! I took them on Mother's Day and forgot to post them because of all the San Antonio activities!

A note about Elia's picture on the motorcycle. It is completely not posed... She had climbed on the motorcycle while I was finishing taking pictures of Ethan and was in this pose when I walked in the garage. I thought it was a pretty creative pose, called her name and took the picture. What a funny girl. Also, you may be wondering why Elia got a rose on Mother's Day too. Well, Eric wanted to make sure that Elia received her first red rose from him. (I'm a little worried about what he'll be like when she can actually leave the house by herself with a .... Boy; I picture a lengthy interview process.)

So, I saved some exciting news for all of you who made it to the end... Some of you know that I've been writing articles and doing photography for a quarterly magazine (http://www.sugarlandmagazine.com/sugarland%20news.html). I wrote one article for the current issue and just finished two others for the next issue. Well, the editor just had her first baby and decided to step down. I (insanely perhaps) thought I would apply for it. Everything seems to have just fallen into place and after a very involved application and interview process I found out Friday that I'll be taking over as the new editor! My mom is probably shaking her head right now (because she already thinks I do too much), but it's only 10-15 hours a week (which in August when we have #3 might seem like 40) and I get to work from home. I'll cut back on my photography but there will be some slow weeks in the production process that I'll still have time to do a little of that. I'm really excited because, as it happened when I worked for the newspaper, I'll get to know the community really well and be able to combine my writing and photography interests more. I am really excited. For all of my Sugar Land friends, the magazine is always interested in freelance writers, so let me know if you are interested!

In just two weeks we head off to New Hampshire to visit my dad.

Seeing the Sites... San Antonio and Sea World

Another whirlwind week (gotta love those)! It started with a wonderful Mother's Day last Sunday. Eric made his mom and I crepes with a choice of eggs, jam and powdered sugar or fruit with whipped cream (or any combination) for breakfast. He also bought three roses (one for Elia too) and a box of petit fours that the young women were selling as a fundraiser. I learned in church that the woman who fought to establish Mother's Day then fought against it because it had become so commercialized. I'd like it to never get that way for us. I did get a "Mother's Day present"... getting my sewing machine fixed, but I hope my kids in the future just do something nice for me... or better yet, just give me a day off. :) The longer I'm a mother the more I appreciate just taking a break! :) Here is a picture of our roses and breakfast...

So in around-the-house news, a friend came over last week and helped me sew some curtains for my windows downstairs. I was very excited to get them done. Eric and I will hopefully get the rods up tomorrow morning before he leaves for his trip to Atlanta. Eric's mom has been very helpful in helping with the kids while I get some of my "projects" done. She watched the kids, plus one when my friend came over to help sew. I'm hoping to put pictures up very soon.

Speaking of pictures, I was looking through the pictures of the week and came across 89 pictures that Elia had taken with our camera one day when we weren't watching her. She took pictures of the computer screen, her toys, the clothes in our closet, the playroom, etc. Actually, most of them are pretty in focused. I thought this one of Ethan was cute to post. It's of him getting ready to slide down the temporary "slide" (a cardboard box) in the playroom.

While Eric's mom has been here we've also been out to see our cousin Abby's horse riding lessons and visit the children's museum. Here's a picture I took of Elia as we were going to the museum.

The highlight of the week was definitely our trip to San Antonio. Eric took off work early on Thursday and we drove to San Antonio. Using the Marriott points Eric has built up from his work travel we were able to stay for free. We hung out at the pool on Thursday night. Ethan loves using the cooler lid as a "boat" even when we're at home, and finally he was able to really use it as a boat...

I know... frogs keep turning up in our blog. Here is Eric's recent find...

We went to Sea World all day Friday. Here are our picture highlights as well as video clips from some of the shows we saw. We wore ourselves out and had a great time, but still managed to not get sunburned! What a deal!

This walrus was HUGE! The picture doesn't do him justice...

We enjoyed the sites of San Antonio on Saturday including a boat ride along the River Walk... ...and the Alamo (which is the most visited site in Texas). It rained all day Saturday, so we didn't see as much as we might have, but it was a nice break from the jam packed Friday at Sea World.

I wasn't kidding when I said whirlwind! Part of the reason our life is always a whirlwind is this...

Yep, that's usually all we see of Elia! Have a great week!

Fun in the sun

After such a huge post two weeks ago, I guess I've finally recovered enough to do another post today. Two weekends ago, we went to Galveston to listen to a time-share presentation... in exchange for a short cruise. We talked the whole time to the kids about the beach and ocean and all Ethan did when he got there is try to get back into the car. I'm not sure what this face was, but I thought the expression combined with the beach hair was pretty fun.Elia on the other hand loved the ocean and ran through the waves. The water wasn't actually that cold and if the sun had been out the whole time, it would have been really nice.

Elia got particular joy from feeding our french fries to the seagulls. I honestly don't know why we even order french fries (and actually, we usually don't). They are only really good 15% of the time and most of the time we eat a couple each and then throw the rest away.

I've been trying to keep track of the funny things Elia and Ethan say and do. Here are a few that I can remember...
The other day, after biting off half of her pink marshmallow (one of her Easter basket treats), Elia stuck the other half to her eye and said, "Look mom, I have pink-eye." Now, I'm pretty sure she has no idea what pink eye really is, which made the whole thing funnier.
Some of our other funny Elia moments are:
Moment 1:
Elia in bathtub: "Papa I peed!"
Papa (from other room, kind of wondering why she's telling him): You're not supposed to pee in the tub.
Elia: Papa come here. I peed in a cup.
She had peed in a cup that the kids play with while they are taking a bath and wanted him to come dump it in the toilet.
Moment 2:
Elia: What are you doing?
Mama: Putting this empty vinegar bottle in the recycle bin.
Elia: The opossums gave Jesus vinegar to drink...
I then explained that it was the soldiers that gave him vinegar and the apostles were Jesus's friends. It made me wonder what else my children think is reality.

To close, I'm including a short video from our backyard pool. After trying to decide what to do one afternoon and thinking of our friend who practically has the beach as her backyard, we filled up the kiddy pool. The thing that is so funny about this is Ethan's screams. He is clearly enjoying the water, but if you were to just listen to the audio you would think he was in pain!

Post Birthday Party

Are you ready for a whopper of a post? I sometimes think about splitting up posts sometimes so they aren't so huge, but then it would require coming twice to the blog instead of once... so this one is just going to be big! I'll divide them into individual posts for you :)

BIRTHDAY PARTY AND THE ENSUING RECOVERY
I think we've finally recovered from the weekend festivities. Birthday parties are something I really look forward to, but am also glad when they are over and I don't have to think about them anymore.
We've been lucky in the past that we've never had a birthday party rained out before (though living in sunny AZ could have helped our "luck"). This year the streak was broken with a complete day of downpour! All in all, it rained almost 7 inches on Saturday! So, what was supposed to be a relaxing day at the park where there would have been lots of room for the kids to run and play turned into a small chaotic festival in our house. Don't get me wrong, we still had a great time, it was just a little cramped and crazy. Thanks everyone for your support!
We started off with Recycle Scategories where everyone had to list an alternative use for some specific recycled items such as a catsup bottle, a toilet paper roll, a plastic bag, etc. Then we did bowling with pins that were made of recycled juice bottles filled with rocks (Eric's been bringing them home from work for the past several weeks). For prizes we gave out those reusable grocery bags you can buy from the supermarket. I had thought of other games, but they were more conducive to the park scene, so we just bagged them.
Eric started the grill during a light rain part of the day only to find out five minutes later that the gas had run out. We resumed our "BBQ" in our already-full kitchen... just in time to beat the heavy downpour of rain that came.
Everyone was so great to bring "recycled" presents as we had requested. Ethan got a lot of fun stuff... everything from a Noah's Ark Little People set, to a bug box, electronic toys to puzzles to a baseball hat, to tractors, blocks and a mini piano. It was fun that everyone wrapped their gifts in recycled stuff too. It's nice to have a change in toy selection, but great too that people didn't spend a lot on the gifts.

Our pride and joy... the cake was eaten next. Eric knows that for the kids birthdays I go a little crazy about making a fun cake. I decided that next to making a cake with a recycle symbol (how boring would that be?), a tractor cake would be sort of along the theme of my party. It was green at least and sort of represents gardening. It was a team effort to make the cake on Friday and Saturday morning, but it turned out pretty great.

Kudos to Eric who even attempted the John Deere symbol in icing on top. I was ready to just forget it, but it turned out amazing!...

Of course it could have looked like a tractor heap and the kids would have still liked it... They sure liked sticking their fingers into the frosting.It tasted as good as it looked too. I did a half and half cream cheese and butter cream frosting... it was very hard to work with, but delicious! Having the party at the park would have also facilitated clean-up, but fortunately for me, my friend Paola stayed behind and helped me clean the kitchen while Eric played with our kids. It's amazing how much easier it is to clean when you are talking with someone and when you don't have kids running around! We finished cleaning, mopping and vacuuming later in the evening and were very proud of ourselves for going to bed with a clean house.

HIS AND HER PROJECTS

So this is the project I've been working on for the past month... a playmat for Ethan's Birthday. I have loved doing it, but am very glad it is done too... This is Eric's project:One night I'm in bed and Eric is downstairs getting some water. I ask him if he's coming and he says that he'll be just a minute because he has a surprise for me. About 45 minutes later (after I've fallen asleep and woken up again) he's still down there, so I go to investigate. It turns out he sort of ran into a small frog (above) when he was going to get water. He decided to catch said frog and it turned into a 2.5 hour surprise chase! The smart frog first hopped under the dishwasher. It was there I found my Honey trying to probe the frog out with a metal hanger. After contemplating removal of the dishwasher, Eric decided it would be better to go look outside for another frog. We turned out the lights in the kitchen and Eric wandered around outside our house for 20-30 minutes trying to find another frog. Coming up empty-handed, he came back into the house where we discovered the frog had emerged from under the dishwasher. Eric tried to catch it again, but this time he hopped under the oven. Brilliantly, while Eric was trying to coax it out from under the oven, I covered up the holes under the dishwasher with hotpads and a towel so he couldn't go under there again (I was really afraid that if he did go under there again, the dishwasher would end up sitting in the middle of our kitchen). The frog finally came out from under the oven (I think being poked by a metal rod had something to do with it) and tried to go under the dishwasher again. He landed in the towel and we finally caught him. So, we were supposed to go to bed at 9:30 and finally got in bed about 11:45. That was a surprise alright! After determining that our frog was a Spotted Chorus Frog and deciding that keeping a wild frog was not the best idea, we kept him until morning until we could show the kids. We then released him into the backyard. What an adventure! I bet he'll think twice before trying to come into our house again... We're still not sure how he got there, which issue is a little disturbing because if a one inch frog can come into our house, I wonder what else might try.

THE OTHER STUFF

Are you still with me? I'm almost done. Just a few quick pictures of Ethan's hobby... pouring water over his head, gasping for breath and then smiling and doing it all over. And, to finish, I've been bested by a novice shopper! We went to the grocery store for some frozen wings (because I wouldn't let Eric buy them at a restaurant). He found some on sale for $6.99 (they were regularly $8.99). They rang up $7.99 and we told the checker that they were listed for $6.99. I ran back and got the tag to show her. The manager walked by, looked at the tag and told the checker that the tag was three months old and just to give us the wings for free! Now, Eric, who has been "scolded" multiple times by me for not finding the cheapest item or for not checking prices as the items are scanned, is holding this one little incident over my head to prove he is the better shopper. Does that seem fair? :)