Daily December: Days Seven and Eight (and nine, ten, eleven)

Well, what can I say? I tried. I tried to post everyday in December to get myself back on track with this blog. It lasted six days and then wham! life got in the way.

I'm going to try to get caught up by doing a few days together.

Friday, December 7th
Not much happened this day except we were consumed with finding a mouth guard for Jackson for his first flag football game on Saturday. We had success and he's ready to play!




Saturday, December 8th
Flag football at 11:00. Look at all those boys in shorts. It was so hot! About 80 degrees while we were cheering the team on. Jackson's good friend, Austin, was on the opposing team for this first game. I'm glad the game ended in a tie. Jackson really enjoys football. I think we've found a sport that he might actually want to do instead of us forcing him. Of course, this probably means he's going to want to play tackle football next year. I don't know if I'm ready for that.





After the game, we drove down to the Kemah Boardwalk. It a great waterfront destination with an amusement park, restaurants, etc. We like to take the kids down at least once a year. In the past we've gone in October around halloween time, but this year we didn't make it then so we decided to go this day for their Christmas boat parade. We've never seen it before but had heard it was great. Well, it was great! While we were watching I thought, "this is just not something you see everywhere." I'm glad we went and will probably add it to our holiday to-do list in the future.










For Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I got nothin'!

Daily December: Day Six

Today the kids' Advent Calendar treat was "Breakfast for Dinner," so that's what we did. French toast, bacon and eggs. Yum.



I know this picture looks cute and idyllic. But don't be fooled. Minutes after taking this photo Jackson knocked over the powdered sugar shaker thing and powdered sugar went all over the table, floor, my chair, etc. Typical chaos.

We've lived here six years and I'm still not used to it. Kids playing outside in shorts on December 5th. There's something just not right about it.

Daily December: Day Five

Two sick kids tonight. Jackson stayed home from school today and it looks like Jordan might stay home tomorrow. 24 hour vomiting bug. Yuck. Not very Christmasy but that was my day. I hope I don't get it next.

Here's a more Christmasy story. Jensen came home from school the other day with a candy cane. She thought it was cute that it looked like a "J" when you turned it upside down. I thought it was cute that she called it a Candy Can instead of Cane.

Daily December: Day Four

Four days into Advent and I finally finished the Advent calendar! I started it last week at a fun craft night with the girls. I promised the kids I would have it done by today so I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. last night and got it done! I think it turned out great and the kids really seemed to like it.





I love how they're standing oldest to youngest, tallest to smallest.

Oh yeah, and we had a frost last night. The first one of the winter. Jackson looked outside and said, "It snowed!" Well, not quite, but it did feel a little more seasonal.

Daily December: Day Three

Let the countdown begin! We use this plate and dry erase markers to count down every holiday, birthday, visitor from out of town, vacation, etc. You name it, we count it down here!



And Bella in her sparkly red holiday collar.

Daily December: Day Two

These are our Christmas decorating colors this year



Apple green, turquoise, and brown. Not very traditional, but I love it!

We started our decorating this weekend. Yesterday we got the lights up on the outside. I still have wreaths to put in all the windows. It was raining today so I'll do that tomorrow. Today we got the tree down from the attic and assembled, got the village pieces out and mostly put together. The kids' tree upstairs is up and decorated. I still need to decorate the tree downstairs, put the garland up the stairs and finish the mantle. My goal is to have it all done by Wednesday.

Today I saw a few cars driving around town with Christmas trees tied to the top. That always makes me smile although it's fairly rare around here. Most people I know have fake trees. We were staunch live tree people before moving to Houston but you just can't get a decent live tree here. It's too darn hot. We finally got a fake tree after living here two years and I haven't looked back since! I love it! No needles dropping, no watering, and best of all...lights already strung! And, I found a great tree scented candle that I burn all through the season...

Happy decorating everyone!

Thanksgiving Memory

This will not be my "Daily December" post (hope to write another one later today), but I wanted to get this written down.

We celebrated Thanksgiving here in our own home...our first one at home since our fire. We spent the day with our good friends on our street, the Enochses and the Kimberlins. We had a mini progressive...appetizers at Jen's, main dinner at our house, and dessert at Nancy's. It was a fun day. The kids all played and ran together all day long. It's a wonderful feeling to be part of a neighborhood like ours especially on holidays where you have no family near to celebrate with.



Before dinner at our house, Jim pulled out an article from the newspaper and said he wanted to read something to all of us.

On Thanksgiving, families gather together and express gratitude for the bounty in their lives.

But what is family these days? Of course, it's parents, children and siblings--blood realtives. but with American families becoming so mobile, so scattered and so displaced, many people form close family-like attachments to friends, making them siblings by choice, brothers and sisters of life.

Perhaps this year, the prosperity we celebrate at Thanksgiving should not only be for the material riches of our lives but also for the human ones. After all, the bounty of living may not just be the abundance of goods spilling out of the cornucopia of life, but the richness of the relationships we have cultivated and harvested in our lifetime.

When we sit down to our feast of Thanksgiving this year, we should give thanks for that other family, that chosen family--our human harvest of enduring friendships. And they're easy to name, too. They're the ones who made a difference. "No love, no friendhsip," wrote Nobel Prize winner Francois Mauriac, "can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever."

I didn't know Jim was going to read this so I was caught off guard and it brought tears to my eyes. I am so thankful for all my family and friends.

So many things...

There have been so many things lately that I want to record. But I am such a bad journaler. Always have been as evidenced by this blog that has not been updated in almost (gasp!) 3 months. I so desparately want to remember day to day things that happen yet they are so easily forgotten. I know I need to write them down but how to find the time to do it?? I've really got to figure that out. In that vain, I'm going to do a post every day in December...called Daily December. Hopefully with a photo attached. I have no photo for today, but I'll post one for tomorrow.

Anyway, the most recent thing I never want to forget happened last night. We were having dinner with neighbors. A few of us were still sitting around after dinner chatting and Jordan and her friend Madison were talking in the background. All of a sudden I hear these words come out of Jordan's mouth: "Santa isn't real." Now, Jordan is 10 and at an age where she is certainly questioning the likelyhood of Santa. But Madison is only 8, same age as Jackson, and most likely still believes in Santa. And my daughter just told her that he is not real. I turned and gave her a look that would freeze you-know-where over. I took her outside and marched her straight home to her room. All the while she was sobbing and saying she was sorry. Jim and I took her up to her room all the while saying we just couldn't believe that she didn't think santa was real and how could she tell Madison such a thing and on and on. We walked out of her room and she was just crying and crying. Jim and I stopped and looked at each other. We really didn't know what to do. Here we were making her feel so bad about something that she was actually right about. We walked back into her room and point blank asked her, "Do you believe in Santa? If you don't, it's okay, but we just want to know." She said, "No, I really don't. I stopped believing last year." As Jim and I were trying to explain the whole thing about Santa, she looked at us and asked, "Why did you guys lie to me?" Jim and I both lost it at that point. How do you answer that question? At that precise moment, I understood those parents who say, "I've told my child from the very beginning there's no santa. I don't want to lie to them." I always thought those people were crazy and depriving their kids of great holiday magic. But at that moment I understood.

Anyway, she's 10 and no longer believes in Santa. Life is going by too fast. And that's my post for December 1st.

9/11 again

Another year has gone by. Still the same feelings of uneasiness about our safety. Six years later and Osama Bin Laden is still sending videos, his organization is getting stronger, and our "war" is just a joke to most of the world.

Today is also my friend Dorothy's 40th birthday. How would you like to have 9/11 as your birthday? It reminds me of the fact that one of our neighbors' birthday is July 2nd...the anniversary of our fire. She often talks about how that day people were calling her to wish her happy birthday and she had to tell them about what had happened to one of her neighbors. Not that I'm comparing my situation to 9/11 but there are some similar elements.

All in all just not good rememberances of this day.

Her First Day

Tuesday, September 4th was Jensen's first day of school. She had been ready for at least a week. I loved dropping her off with someone who is not only her teacher but a family friend that I know to be creative and loving. I'm so excited for Jensen's last year of preschool. It's going to be awesome!

The First Day

New backpacks, lunch boxes, and tennis shoes x 3 = about $300



A peaceful house and some alone time with Jensen...priceless.

The kids started school last Monday...at least Jordan and Jackson did. Jordan is in 5th grade...the top of the elementary school heap. She seems happy with everything so far. She changes classes three times during the day but only has two different teachers...Mrs. Meskill and Mrs. Johnson. This is to give them a little taste of middle school. Jordan is also on safety patrol and her team had the first shift of the year so she's had to be at school by 7:30 every day this week. It's been hard getting her up in the morning, but she does love saftey patrol!

Jackson is in 3rd grade and is seeming to have a little better start to the year than last year. When we went to the meet the teacher night and he looked at his class list that was posted he said, "I know all of these kids!" One of the benefits of staying in the same school since kindergarten. His teacher seems nice and on the ball. She used to teach 5th grade so I would think she knows what to prepare them for. I've spoken to her on the phone already and she's very much about positive reinforcement which is what Jackson responds to best. We'll keep our fingers crossed for a good year.

Jensen starts back to school next Tuesday. She really wanted to start last week when the other kids went back. She's definitely ready. The house will really be quiet then.

Happy Birthday, Jim!!

Last Sunday was Jim's 43rd birthday. He's now officially older than me again. For the 4 months between my birthday in April and his birthday in August he tries to pretend that we're the same age. :-)

The End of Summer

Summer is almost over...school starts Monday (woo hoo!). The past two weeks has been spent trying to cram in all the summer activities that we hadn't gotten to in the past two and a half months. Here's a sample:

For the past few years we've gone out to Lake Conroe at least once during the summer and rented a pontoon boat for the day. This year, the lake was quite a bit rougher than it's been in the past. No one seemed to mind except me...






We went to see an Astros game courtesy of the Kimberlins. They gave us tickets as a thank you for watching their dog, Molly, while they went to Italy. It was a great game up until the 7th inning when everything fell apart and the Astros ended up losing to Milwaukee. I don't think we've ever been to a game when they've won. I'd like to see them win just once. Then I can be done paying out the nose for food and drinks and the requisite "souvenirs." Jim actually bought Jackson a $60 Astros jersey this time! I don't know which is worse...a useless foam finger for the bargain price of $15 or a shirt for my 8 year old son that cost more than almost every piece of clothing in my closet. All in the name of family fun.






We also try to squeeze in at least one day trip to the beach in Galveston each summer. This year, I took the kids one day with my friend Dorothy and her two boys. We met Heather and Brandy and all the kids down there. We spent a few hours on the beach (which this year wasn't as gross as it's been in the past so that was a bonus)and then Dorothy and I took our kids to Rainforest Cafe for lunch. A fun way to spend one of the last few days of summer.





And last weekend, we took one last trip...to San Antonio and SeaWorld. We went with the Kellers and the Cumberlands and had a great time. We stayed at an awesome hotel--the Hyatt Hill Country Resort. It has an amazing pool complex and lazy river and is extremely family friendly. We really could have spent the whole time just hanging out there. But we had purchased season passes to SeaWorld when we were there for spring break and wanted to get our money's worth. We went to SeaWorld two days and did it all including Jordan's first roller coaster ride!





We did all this in about two weeks, and that doesn't include bowling, the movies, and splashtown where we didn't take pictures. We definitely ended summer with a bang!

12 on the 12th

I started doing the 12 on the 12th project last August thanks to my friend Heather. It's been a year now and I've really enjoyed the excuse or means to capture slices of our everyday life. But, since I've completed a year (well, most of the year...I missed November, March, and May) I think I need a new project for the next year...what do you think? Anyone got any good ideas?

Anyway, since it is August 12th, I thought I better get the compilations I've completed for the past 3 months posted starting with April.



1. Jensen and her babies strewn all over the place.

2. A moving box because we were getting ready to move out of one temporary apartment into another. We had given 30 days notice, but unfortunately, our house would not be ready in time. Meanwhile, they rented the apartment we were in necessitating a move into another apartment. Ugh.

3. Jensen and her babies later in the day.

4. Jordan trying not to be captured in a photo.

5. Gotcha!

6. Me at the house trying to get some of the painting finished upstairs. We needed to have the house re-painted and to save a little money we decided to do the upstairs rooms ourselves.

7. & 8. Jackson and his Heelys. These are tennis shoes that have a removable wheel in the heel of each shoe. You can sort of skate along in them or remove the wheel and use them like regular shoes.

9., 10., 11., & 12. Some of the things I like about our house: the light fixtures, the microwave down at counter level so the kids can reach it, our wood stairs, and our front door.

I skipped May, mainly because we had just moved into our house on May 11th. So on the 12th I'm sure I was surrounded by boxes trying to make some order of our home. I actually wish I had remembered to take pictures on the 12th. I would have liked to have a record of that happy time!

June



1. Jackson's crazy bed head hair. He had been growing his hair out since the beginning of the year. I hated the growing out process but love the end result! Over the summer it has gotten so blonde he looks like a little surfer dude. Unfortunately, he's been talking about getting it all cut off again. I'm dragging my feet on taking him to get it cut hoping he changes his mind.

2. Jordan eating breakfast at the counter. The kids eat almost all meals except "family dinners" sitting on the barstools at the counter.

3. During the summer, the first laundry load of the day usually consists of pool towels from the day before. I wash a lot of towels.

4. One of the "joys" of summer...grocery shopping with all three kids.

5. Heelys make grocery shopping bearable for Jackson.

6. & 7. Jensen had been taking a gymnastics class once a week this summer at the Little Gym. This is a new place that opened up very close to our house. It's soooo convenient and she really loves it.

8. The Gameboy makes watching Jensen's gymnastics class bearable for Jackson.

9. & 10. Jordan competed in the Summer Champs swim meet that was June 11-13. It was her first year competing in this meet. You have to make certain qualifying times in order to compete. It's a competition between all the area suumer league swim teams. There were 18 teams competing and our team alone had over 100 swimmers entered. The Gators won the overall trophy. Jordan swam freestyle, backstroke and butterfly plus two relays...100 medley and 100 free. Her Medley team took 6th place and her free team took 3rd place overall. So awesome! The meet was held at Atascocita High School in the evenings. Teams set up in the high school parking lot and man, was it hot!

11. Our house as it looked this day...the day before our landscaping was set to begin. What a mess!

And, finally, July




1. Looking for activities to fill the time after swim season, I signed Jackson and Jordan up for a week-long tennis camp at the Kingwood Athletic Club. They've both been wanting to learn to play tennis and we had gotten them raquets last summer. The camp was only an hour a day each day of the week, but the kids got a taste of tennis and really seemed to like it.

2. & 3. After tennis, it was off to Sam's Club. Madison Enochs had done the tennis camp too so we picked her up and brought her along. We were going to Sam's to stock up on stuff to take on our beach vacation.

4. & 5. Filled up the Suburban with gas while at Sam's. Gas was around $2.90 per gallon that week.

6. Lunch was also at Sam's Club. There's no better bargain around! A giant slice of pizza that two kids share, plus a giant drink that two kids also share for under $2.00. You can't beat that!

7. Next stop, the dollar store. Typically, not one of my favorite places but I told the kids they could pick out some activities and treats for the 10 hour car ride to the beach next week. I had read about a car activity that I was going to try. I made a copy of the map of our route for each kid. I circled a few cities/towns along the way. When we reached each place, the kids would get a little bag with some goodies in it. The kids enjoyed this activity and I would try it again on a long car ride.

8. After all our errands the girls decided to go swimming, while the boys...

9. decided to play on the computer. Typical. This is Jackson and his friend Austin. They are two blonde peas in a pod.

10. Starting to set aside the groceries to take to the beach. Most of my time this week was spent packing and planning for our beach trip. We leave on Sunday, July 15th to Gulf Shores (Ft. Morgan), Alabama for a week long stay in a condo at The Beach Club.

11. Our house with our landscaping finally done!

12. With all the landscaping we did, front and back, these pots of ferns on the front porch are actually my favorite thing. I bought the urns at...your guessed it...Sam's Club!

So that wraps up my 12 on the 12th project for 2006-2007. I'm on the hunt for a new project to start in January so if you have any ideas, let me know!

Blog-iversary

I realized the other day that I've been keeping my blog for a year now. My first post was Aug. 1, 2006. I loved looking back at my posts over the past year...last night I sat and read all 67 of them. Sometimes I'm hard on myself about going a few weeks without blogging (I actually missed two whole months!) but 67 posts is pretty good...more than one per week. I've never been much of a journal keeper so I'm so happy that i've stuck with this. So many little things I've written about, I had already forgotten! And it's not the events that I write about that are so interesting me a year later, but the way I was feeling about the things right at the time. If I were to sit down now and try to write about our trip to Michigan last August, I would never recall my feelings and the details the way I could then.

So, happy anniversary to "R and 4 Js." I think I'll keep you around.

You know you're raising a southern girl when...

...one July morning in southeast Texas said girl goes outside at about 9:00 a.m. and says "Mom, it's cold outside." I burst out laughing and looked up the current temperature online. It was a frigid 85 degrees. At 9:00 a.m.

Just a little story I've been meaning to blog about.

What we've been doing...

Petsitting! Molly belongs to our neighbors, the Kimberlins. They went to Italy for two weeks (lucky dogs) and Molly is a little too neurotic to spend two weeks in a kennel so we offered to take her in. Well, Jensen offered to take her in and we were kind of put on the spot...:-) In the past we've been the ones that have needed pet sitters but it has been more than a year now since we've had a dog in the house. Cosmo, I know you're up there saying "I don't know what that is, but it's not a dog." Actually, it's Jim that says that but if you were here I don't know if you'd be able to tolerate Molly either. Most of us around here have a love/hate relationship with her. For some it's a hate/hate relationship.







And for some, it's all love. Molly definitely has her quirks but Jensen has just been soooo happy to have her here that it makes it all worth it. That girl loves all critters no matter how irritating they may be. We really gotta get her a dog. Anyone have any suggestions of small, shed-free, non-yappy dogs out there?

And there has been one bonus...yesterday Molly killed a snake in our backyard. It was just a garden snake, but a snake nonetheless so at least she's good for one thing. We have her for 5 more days...I'll be starting the countdown.

Summer Doldrums

Wow, 2 weeks goes by fast! When I last updated we were getting ready to go on vacation. Now we are back and the summer doldrums are setting in. We had a great vacation but often when we get back from a trip I feel a little let down...I've got no other trips to look forward to and we face 30 more days of hot summer before school starts. I've got about a million things I should be doing around here, but just don't feel motivated to do any of them. This past week we've been home more than we're used to and when I'm home I tend to eat. I've gained 4 pounds in the past 2 weeks. Gotta put the brakes on that. Hopefully I can snap myself out of this next week but in the meantime. let's relive our beach vacation!

We left Kingwood on Sunday, July 15th at about 5:45 a.m. Crazy early, I know, but we were caravanning with friends and they wanted to get there early. I'm pretty proud of myself that we actually left somewhat on time.

We drove about 9 or 10 hours through a lot of pouring down rain through Louisiana, Mississippi and on to Alabama. We made a stop in Lake Charles, LA at a cajun meat market to pick up some sausage, stuffed pork chops, stuffed chicken, etc. for the grill. Cajun meat markets are the best! We even sampled cracklins (not sure what this is...near as I can tell it's fried pork fat). It was pretty disgusting and I won't be trying that again.

We arrived at our destination--the Beach Club in Fort Morgan, AL--at about 3:00 p.m. Got the car unpacked in the rain then went down to the beach. It was still sprinkling but we didn't really care. It was nice to be on the beach.



The next day the rain had gone and we spent the day on the beach. The only problem we encountered were the jelly fish. That put a little damper on the ocean for the kids since everytime we were down at the beach at least one of the kids got stung. Luckily there were 5 different pools, tennis courts, and a playground to also keep them occupied.














To take a break from the beach we went to a nearby waterpark one day. On another afternoon Jim took the kids to see a movie while the moms went shopping at the outlet mall.

All too soon it was time to pack up and head out. Our drive home was in much better weather and was pretty uneventful...just the way I like it. Even though we had a great time I don't think I'd stay at this particular condo complex again. Fort Morgan seems way too out of the way for me. I prefer to be closer to stores, restaurants, etc. Plus they only had two community grills to use for the entire complex! When we go on vacation we like to grill. Our group ended up going out to buy our own grill to use. All in all, though, it was another fun year at the beach. Now...what are we going to do for the rest of the summer...

On Our Way

It's been a few days since I've written but I've been busy getting things ready for our vacation. We leave tomorrow for a week at the beach...gulf shores, AL. Believe it or not, the Alabama gulf coast has beautiful beaches and the drive is shorter than going to Florida. I'm all for shorter drives.



Our car is packed and we'll be leaving at about 5:30 a.m. caravaning with our friends, the Enochses.

Last night Jim and I went to see The Fray in concert. We saw them at an outdoor venue called Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion (for you Michigan people it's exactly like Pine Knob). It was about 98 degrees here last night and not exactly perfect weather for an outdoor concert. This was the first time I've been to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion and I don't think I'll ever see another concert there in the summer. The music was awesome but i was too hot and sweaty to enjoy it. Except for when they did the cover of Shakira's Hips Don't Lie. It was awesome! I tried to find a clip from our concert on youtube. It wasn't there but this one was. It seemed so spontaneous at our concert...like they'd never done it before...one search of youtube and I discovered I was very wrong. Doesn't matter. I enjoyed it all the same.

Talk to you from the beach.

An Unexpected Good Day

When Heather asked me to go to Ikea today with her with all 5 of our kids in tow I thought..."well, that doesn't sound very fun." But I knew she wanted to purchase the same cabinets I have up in our playroom and I have a big car that can haul them home so I said okay. It turned out to be a great day. Another friend of ours, Brandy, met us at Ikea with her son Dylan. Most of the kids went into the play room area they have at the store (how awesome is that?) except for the very small (Dylan and Megan) and the very tall (Jordan). As it turns out. Jordan had a blast with Dylan who really seemed to like her. Now all Jordan can talk about is "babysitting" Dylan even though she's only a "baby" herself.

We got our shopping done...I managed to find a few random items like a wine decanter that one of the sommeliers in a tasting room in Sonoma recommended to bulletin and magnetic boards for Jordan's room...and Heather got her cabinets. We loaded it all in the car and took the troops to Jillians for lunch (aka Dave and Busters) which is a restaurant slash arcade. We ate. We spilled. We played. We went home tired and happy.

Sometimes the "lazy, nothing to do" aspect of the summer gets to me so it's nice to have a day filled with activity with friends.

I hate that I don't have a pic from today so I'll try to do better tomorrow.