May's adventures

So, two Thursdays ago (May 1st) Samantha's pre-school class took their final field trip together. Having a Mommy-panic-'cause-my-baby's-growing-up moment, I decided to give up one of the few Tuesday/Thursday Mommy times I have in May and go with her to the Aquarium.

We saw some pretty cool aquatic life. This octopus was really into showing off for us! All over the glass the whole time we were in the room. We also got to see a Moray Eel and a Large Mouthed Bass which are in Veggie Tale Music that we listen to constantly in the van. Now she has a good visual of what those animals are!

This "deep sea diver" suit was in a room where we got to touch tiger sharks (if you were fast enough) and sting rays. Isn't she a cutie!?

I am sooo glad that I went, because as much as I want her to grow up and be successful and brave and strong and confident, it was heart warming and reassuring that she still does need her mommy. The first request for Mommy, came on the train that takes you through the "property." There is a mechanical shark that "jumps" out of the water at you. Apparently he's supposed to be frightening, but mainly (and Samantha agreed) he's just annoying.

We got to ride the carousel TWICE! Wow! That was a big hit!
The MOST fun of the day was right before lunch: sprinkler time. They all got to play for about 30 minutes in a fountain area. As you can see by this smile she approved!

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My other cutie-patootie, reading before breakfast last week.

A quick potty update...he's pooped on the potty at least once each of the last three days!! Yeah, Jackie boy! I'm pretty sure he's doing some of his business, but not nearly "cleaning the pipes." That's ok though because we used to celebrate the three tinkles he'd do and now he's blowing out the porcelin...just like his daddy! :)

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Our ugly new additions.

Today I was on the phone and the person I was chatting with had asked me earlier if we had baby birds, yet. I said no and continued on with our conversation, walking around outside, doing my typical Mommy multi-tasking. So, I peep my head over the nest just to see the eggs and up pop these three yellow mouths! I screamed bloody murder! Scared me to death as I was totally expecting eggs still. After the inital shock, we hip-hip-hoorayed. The kids had to have at least three turns looking at them, blah, blah. My one lasting impression: Dude, baby birds are nasty looking!!! Eeew!

Houston additions...

Last year my dad put this old basket in our tree in hopes that we would get some feathered visitors. We mostly forgot about it although it was in plain view. On Saturday we were playing in the backyard and much to our suprise there was a nest in our little basket! We couldn't have been more happy! And then on Tuesday we got an even BIGGER suprise. Eggs! We'll be watching and let you know how this turns out. Anybody know how long mockingbird eggs incubate??



Another fun addition to our family: an official reader. Samantha is quite the reader. She concentrates very hard and this is the result:



As she reading the page, she's absent mindedly curling the right page's corner. We can always tell whether she's been to that page or not! :)

I got to go to the Aquarium today with her class...I'll post pics of that this evening!

Samantha's latest feat...

It's actually related to her feet: she tied both of her shoes today all by herself!! I was getting ready in my room this morning and she comes flying in with both shoes double knotted and as proud of herself as she can be!! I can't vouch for the perfectness of her knot, but I will say that they stayed tied through the entire outing (a birthday party) so that gives her an A in my book!

We called Michael at work so she could tell him and I heard her say, "It makes me feel all grown up!" What a big day for her! Mommy was as proud as she was!!

The birthday boy's mommy took a picture of her when we got there and I am hoping she'll send it to me so I can post it here!

Houston happenings...

Sorry it's been such a long time since my last post (Uncle Bob!), but things have been a bit crazy.

I've been to Portland, OR to meet my brother's first baby girl. She's absolutely adorable and has the funniest, busiest legs you've ever seen on a baby! This was my first "Mommy by herself" trip that I've ever taken. It didn't start out so well (lost my keys...which I still haven't found, misplaced my purse, cried when I left the kids, etc, etc) but it improved very quickly once I got on the plane. Craig and Renata are hopelessly in love and are spoiling her rotten which is to be expected and encouraged!

The following weekend the kids and I left Daddy at home to travel to Michael's nephew's birthday party in Springdale, AR. We had a really fast but great trip. The kids were like angels on the drive, and endured beautifully not being able to watch videos. The video players we'd previously purchased weren't the highest quality and have pretty much pooped out, despite PawPaw's best efforts.

I am not sure how Adam's birthday has become such a to-do, but Matt and AJ are SPECTACULAR hosts and we had an enormously fun time connecting with Michael's extended family. This maybe our last time to be able to make this trip as Miss Samantha starts Kindergarten this fall.

I am pretty sure Samantha's favorite part of this trip was Great calling her "Catfish" and finding her under the coffee table. And Jack's favorite was Adam's Thomas Tunnel. That kid just couldn't get enough!

After visiting a gymnastics facility for Adam's party, Samantha put on the full court press for taking classes at the Little Gym. No longer able to put her off, especially since we drive past it at least three times a week when we go to the YMCA, I called and signed them up for classes. They are BOTH loving it more than I thought possible. And it's a skill set and body work that we haven't done with them so it's good for them to be exposed to something new.

And don't you worry; we haven't given up swimming twice a week. They're both doing really well. Samantha's working pretty hard on the breast-stroke which takes a TON of coordination. And Jackie-boy has just passed his float tests. I wasn't totally sure that he was ready, but his teacher seemed to think it was fine, and she was right. He did AWESOME! I was a bit nervous the first two times but did manage to remember the camera for test #2 and #3. They are the videos you see below.






For those that don't remember or don't know the float test is laid out like this: they do it three times with progressively heavier clothing, to mimic summer clothes, fall clothing and winter clothing. They can pass by either floating to the side of the pool or floating for 5 minutes.

[\end Mommy's bragging]

Tomorrow is cowboy day at school so there will be biscuits and gravy for breakfast, a small petting zoo, a horse/pony/donkey/some pack animal to ride, and tons of Texas cowboy crafts. It should be lots of fun and hopefully we'll get lots of good pics for me to share before Samantha turns six! :)

"Mommy, it's snow much fun!"

Jackie quotes Toy Story

Getting myself outta trouble...

Several people have requested that I get a new post so here you go. Hopefully the first of many in the new year. :)

Mostly I am going to go with pictures until I get you all caught up.

This is when we took the kids and my mom and dad to Galveston for the Festival of Lights at Moody Gardens.

Samantha's Birthday

A "member morning" in December at our awesome zoo:

Samantha's ears are plugged because the elephants were trumpeting in protest of the construction equipement that is building the extention on their exhibit.

Breakfast with Santa at school:

The only reason why Jack even considered sitting was the lollipop. Thankfully, it was enough!

These are just some random pics.

This is Christmas with my mom and dad before we all left for the far corners of the earth.

Samantha had the "frow ups" and was VERY weak, so she layed around and opened gifts. By the end, Daddy had to carry her back to our house and she was in bed before Jack and I even got there. Poor baby.

This is the funnest part of Christmas: Playing in the snow at RoRo and PawPaw's house:

Christmas morning chaos:

I think Samantha's favorite was her "Baby Sarah" doll, and Jack adored his scooter AND Adam's bouncing ball.

I'm going to call these last two, "You know you had a good Christmas when..."

Look alike meter...

My SIL did this on her blog and I thought it would be fun to do it here too. Everyone one says, "Samantha looks sooo much like Jamie" and this agrees, but it's only by 4%. That's not nearly the % I hear when people say that.



And Jack...



Whatever! Michael and I have decided it's random. Fun, but random! :)

Merry Christmas, Everyone!!

My favorite Christmas song

Well Michael and AJ have posted Christmas related songs on their blogs so I thought I would add my favorite song.

Here ya go: Mary, did you know?

Swimming

Thought some of you might like to see this...

Our little artist

It's been a hoot watching Samantha's artistic ability change and mature. These are portraits of her RoRo and PawPaw. I know that you will immediately recognize them if you meet them on the street!


Notice the short boy hair and facial hair on PawPaw, and one boob on RoRo! She must have gotten distracted before she finished RoRo. Or maybe it's the necklace that RoRo wears and has promised Samantha when she dies? Really, who can read the mind of a five year old? :)

A singing montage

Play list (in case you can't translate two year old singing)

• The ants go marching


• Did you ever see a lassie


• Down by the station


• The B-I-B-L-E (with sign language at the end)


• Roll the gospel chariot, devil verse


• Days of the week (tune of The Adams Family, including snapping of the fingers)

A trip to the farm

Thursday I had the pleasure of joining Samantha's pre-school class at the Dewberry Farm out west of Houston. It was a cool, sunny, breezy day and we had a really great time. Here are the pics from our day.

hay bale climbing (this was weird to me...it was just hay arrange around a pole and it was sooo fun? Samantha decided it wasn't sooo fun after she got a foot to the cheek. I had to ask one of the other moms, "How do you know if you've broken your face?" Luckily, none of her answer transpired for Samantha.)

a train pulled by a tractor

a hay ride to the pumpkin patch, where you could pick (up, not actually pick it off the plant) a tee-tiny pumpkin to take home

two different play ground areas (one was called Fort DooHickey...only in Texas)

the "other" playground

a tee-tiny barn with chickens, turkeys, rabbits and goats you could feed

a funny slide that was made of capped PVC pipes...quite bumpy on the booty, fun for the kids, NO fun for the mommies as another mom could atest

It was such a fun day that I considered taking Jack, and my good friend and her kids back on Monday but at $10/person, I decided that might be a bit much. So we are praying for good zoo weather tomorrow. :)

School worries

Well, the Vanguard Magnet Program process has just begun and I am WAY stressing about it. I toured a school today that we are really excited about (hopefully Michael will tour on Thursday) and it was pretty impressive and emotional (for me, I am sure Michael won't have tears in his eyes as he tours :)).

The impressive part

• the curriculum and academic work that they displayed
• every teacher there is certified to teach the "gifted and talented" children
• they have a language immersion program where they teach children to read, write and speak fluently in English and Spanish by the third grade (3 children from this program got up and read a speech that they wrote for themselves in one language and then translated it into the other...in front of us. AMAZING)
• they have "student competitions" that they encourage everyone to participate in, but by third grade you have to pick at least one to join. The choices range from spelling bee to science fair, to math minders (or some such thing), etc, etc.
• they have a cool garden mostly managed by the kiddos; they encourage teachers to build it into their curriculum whether it's measure the height of the flower, to watching paper decompose.
• the HISD bond fund just passed and this school is slotted to be re-built within the next five years and maybe next year.

The emotional part

• I really could see Samantha as a Kindergartener today. I was overflowing with pride for her because of what a good girl she is and just how far she's had to come since I first met her...not that all kindergarteners haven't come that far, but never my first born.
• I am really anxious about the whole school thing though because as a child I NEVER operated from a place of strength in school. I feel like I had to work HARD to scrape out every B I got. When I tried to attend 1st grade, the school really wanted me to re-do Kindergarten but Mom and Dad pitched a big enough fit that they let me proceed. So, I guess I am a little jittery about the testing that will have to occur for her to get into this program.
• Pretty soon I am going to have to send my precious little one into the big, bad world where I have little control...and that scares me a LOT.

I recently finished reading ScreamFree Parenting and what I learned is that to produce self-directed, confident, successful children I need to settle myself down and grow up. For Jack and Samantha to be what I want them to be they need me to operate out of my highest principles rather than my deepest fear. So, if you see me nonchalantly talking to Samantha about all of this, just know that I am crying desperately inside as I don't feel equipped make such hard and life altering decisions for her. Know that I struggle every day to find the right amount of grip to keep on her close to me and protected and still allow her to flourish and grow as God intends for her.

Parenting is HARD work and can be totally exhausting, but I thank God for Samantha and Jack and the things that I learn from them everyday.

Later taters!

It's my potty...

and we certainly gave it our best shot, but I am thinking he isn't physically ready. His pee pee just trickles out constantly. I probably have at least 12 pairs of his new, cool underwear being washed right now...and that's just from this morning. I wash and dried 4 pairs last night.

We did have some success at getting it in the potty but we definitely had MORE accidents than we had success. We'll see how much stamina I have after nap to see if we continue this craziness.

He was pretty proud after he pottied in the right spot and his reward for getting it in there was a sucker. So, at one point today he had a sucker in his mouth, a jacket with hood in place, underwear (only, no pants), and his green crocs. It was pretty cute!

Days like today are the exact reason I don't keep chocolate around!

I'm off to chill out and relax while the kids are down.

The sweetest babies you have ever seen

We had the kids pictures made at school a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I would share them here.

Samantha: beautiful as always!

Mr. Jack: not so happy :(

Now, I have already had to buy the prints that I wanted, so the point is probably moot. But still my question remains: what is the standard for buying and sharing picts where one kid is beautiful and the other is a dud?

I have more pics on my camera, but I am just not as dedicated as AJ is, so you'll just have to wait. :)

Later taters!

It's official...

Amber is the winner! Yeah Amber! Your points are not in the mail, so just go on with your life like you never won anything. :)

Round two:
Moow, meanie, meanie
Every dog, every dog, boo

I'll give you a hint...we went to see the singers in concert. Really, if you get this you get a million meaningless points. Good luck!

The Wilsons play our own version of

Singing Bee and we wanted to see if you could name that tune based on Jack's version of the song. Here goes:

If you like to smarck with a tatoes,
up and down the pro-juice isle
got a show fa you.

1000 meaningless points to the first correct guess.

My sweet sister-in-law...

tagged me for a dissertation on "My Man." I couldn't be any more proud to tell you about the man I married! Here we go!

1. Who is your man? Michael

2. How long have you been together? We met the fall of 1995 and have been together since November-ish 1995...you figure it out. :)

3. How long did you date? a little over 3 years

4. How old is your man? 31...have I mentioned that he's older than me! :)

5. Who eats more? In general, Michael. But if we are talking about specific foods (like dessert), I have NO problem holding my own...unfortunately!

6. Who said "I love you" first? Not a clue, but I would guess me.

7. Who is taller? Michael: he's 6' 3" ish and I'm 5' 6" on a good day.

8. Who sings better? Michael. There's nothing more romantic or utterly heart-melting than to hear a man sing to his children.

9. Who is smarter? Michael, in almost every aspect of life, except for fixing things, and then he'd be clueless if it weren't for the internet! :)

10. Whose temper is worse? We are equally bad at this. Although, I will say that we are both making great strides in calming ourselves.

11. Who does the laundry? Me. I think he stopped helping when I mentioned that some clothes needed to be pre-treated prior to washing and drying them. He's pretty good at helping me get them put away though, and that's a big help.

12. Who takes out the garbage? This really is a family project. Either Michael or I get the kitchen bag gathered up and removed, Samantha gets and opens the new bag, places it in and Jack puts the top back on! Michael is as good at taking it out as he is at packing it down so that it will last another day. :)

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? When laying in bed, I'm on the right. But when in a hotel, Michael sleeps between me and the door...whatever side that happens to be.

14. Who pays the bills? Another shared task. 98% of our bills are paid online...the bigger ones like our CC payments he kind of manages and the smaller, dinky ones, I pay.

15. Who is better with the computer? I would say me, just because I had enough hours in college to be a CS minor. Also, part of my job before kids was managing the network/computer/technical side of our business.

16. Who mows the lawn? Michael mows and I weed-eat. Although, I will say I believe I noticed (but didn't say thanks, sorry, Honey) that Michael mowed the entire lawn and weedeated/edged the front yard! Thanks, I noticed!!

17. Who cooks dinner? Mostly me. But on the days that I can tell spending 1-on-1 time with the kids for a prolonged period isn't going to go well, I let Michael cook. I almost always have the supplies and idea ready for him to implement.

18. Who drives when you are together? Michael.

19. Who pays when you go out? The one left at the table.

20. Who is most stubborn? Wow, now that's a hard one, probably me.

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Michael. We have a "make it right" policy at our house, where we try to avoid saying "I'm sorry." In making it right, you have to ask for forgiveness which can either be granted or denied. It's MUCH easier to forgive and move on when you have previously had grace extended to you!

22. Whose parents do you see the most? Mine...they live 3 doors down from us.

23. Who kissed who first? Michael, and I was dying for him to do it! :)

24. Who asked who out? Michael was sold on the first hello...I on the other hand took a few months longer. We went out on several double dates with our roommates who were pitiful. Somehow, Michael ended paying for all those dates as well! Thank goodness for donating plasma (they paid us money that we blew immediately on our meal)!

25. Who proposed? Michael did. It was quite a surprise to me and unfortunately I had slathered on baby oil or something prior to laying out, which is where he found me.

26. Who is more sensitive? Me

27. Who has more friends? I probably have more friends that I physically see everyday, but we both have about the same amount of virtual friends.

28. Who has more siblings? We each have on brother...mine older, his younger.

29. Who wears the pants in the family? On day to day stuff, me. On larger stuff, I try very hard to leave that to him...I don't want all the responsibility of ruining our lives! haha!

Here are some of my favorite pics of Michael...








This post drives it home again how nice it would be to have a professional family photo!!