Rat Terrier vs. Rat

As my dear, sweet friend Heather pointed out, it's March and i guess I haven't posted in a while so here's one for everyone to enjoy.


This past Sunday morning while I was getting dressed, Jensen ran into the bathroom and yelled, "Mom, Bella is fighting with a rat!" I said, "No, it must be something else" but went to look out the window anyway. That tail is unmistakable. It was definitely a rat. And Bella had it cornered in the shrubbery. After a few minutes of her going after the rat, she grabbed it and actually flung it into our pool! The rat was still alive at this point and furiously paddling around my pool. Bleeding into it by the way. I didn't know what to do so called Jim who wasn't home at the time. He, wisely, told me to "call someone." By the time I got off the phone with him, the rat had clearly expired. Still bleeding into my pool though. I called my lovely neighbor, Richard, who I knew had experience fishing rats out of pools (it's actually a pretty common occurance in our little corner of paradise). He came down the street with his pool skimmer and fished it out for me, bagged it up, and hauled it to the dumpster. Thanks, Richard!

Rat Terrier 1
Rat 0

My American Girls

As part of Jensen's 5th birthday celebration, the girls and I planned a pilgrimmage to the new American Girl store in Dallas. I have a friend from Colorado who lives there now and we've talked since she moved there about getting together since she's so close now, but we never had. This was the time!

Jordan, Jensen and I along with 3 dolls left Kingwood on a Friday afternoon for the 5 hour drive to Kim's house north of Dallas. We got there safe and sound and had a nice evening just hanging out and the kids getting acquainted. They have a daughter, Megan, who is just 2 days younger than Jordan. They were best friends when we lived in Colorado. They really didn't remember each other, but re-connected just like that! They got along great and have already planned to spend their next birthdays doing something together.


On Saturday, all the girls headed to the Galleria Mall where the American Girl store is. We spent about an hour and a half looking at all the dolls and doll stuff and picking out things for Jensen to spend her birthday money on.


We were able to get a reservation for lunch in the little restaurant where they have seats and menus for the dolls!




After lunch, Jensen made her final selections (and didn't have a meltdown like some other girls in the store when she found out she couldn't buy everything that she wanted...I was proud of her because that place is very overwhelming and difficult to get out of without spending an absolute fortune).


Saturday night we had a great dinner back at the Allens. The kids made s'mores on the fire pit in the backyard and got in the hot tub. Us adults had a relaxing evening just talking and catching up.


Sunday when it was time to leave, neither girl wanted to go...I was dragging them back to Kingwood kicking and screaming. That's the sign of a good trip!

25 Dates

Most of you who read this blog already know the story, but I'll recount it here for posterity. Jim's New Year's resolution for this year was for us to go on 25 dates (it started out at 30, but quickly went down to 25). I'm not sure why he made this resolution (although I have my theories) but I decided to take it as a very nice gesture and to just go with it.

It's mid February and we've been on four dates so far. I thought it'd be fun to document them in pictures and here on my blog. I missed getting a photo of the first one. It was Jan. 3rd while we were in Michigan. We went out for a bite to eat and to see a movie (Juno).

Our next date was back here in Houston on Jan. 26th. Jim had wanted to go see the broadway musical, The Jersey Boys, but I rolled my eyes at that. Instead he got tickets for us to see Love, Janis, a musical about Janis Joplin. We really should have seen The Jersey Boys. Live and learn. He already told me that if we were going to get 25 dates in I would have to stop being so picky about what we did.



Date number 3 was actually with another couple. We had a long discussion about whether it counted as a date if we were with other people. I was definitely voting for it counting. Jim relented once he realized that if we didn't count evenings out with other people we would never get the 25 dates accomplished. And our monthly babysitting tab would equal our mortgage payment. We ended up with one criteria for a date. We have to actually leave our neighborhood.

Date number 4 was Feb. 15th to celebrate Valentine's Day. We went to dinner at the Melting Pot. This was my pick but didn't end up to be one of our favorites. You'd think I'd realize this by now, but I don't actually enjoy going out to dinner and cooking my own food. It's sort of the same concept with salad bars. I really don't want to get up and go make my own salad when I'm out for dinner. I know this about myself, yet I insisted we go to a fondue place where we have to prepare all of our own food. One of these days I'll learn to listen to Jim. One of these days...

Happy Valentine's Day!

50 store bought valentine's (for Jordan and Jackson's class mates), 18 homemade valentines (for Jensen's classmates), 7 homemade teacher gifts (for all the kids' teachers) filled with pretzel hugs, chocolate hearts, and starbucks gift cards = one happy valentine's day.


Topped off with class parties, little gifts, and dinner together, it was a LOVE-ly day!

Middle School Already?

How did that happen? I can so clearly remember Jordan's first day of 3 year old preschool when we moved here to Kingwood. Can she really be headed to Middle School already? I better embrace it because it's coming whether I want it to or not.

Last week, we had parent orientation night at Riverwood Middle School. I have to say that I was extremely impressed with everything about the place. The band, the orchestra and the choir each did two songs and the orchestra, in particular, was really good. At the orientation, the principal told us that the orchestra director was named "Best String Educator" in the Houston area which is pretty impressive. Jordan has decided that she wants to take orchestra as her elective and to give the violin a try. She's even asked to start taking violin lessons this summer...how do you say no to that?

As for the classes, we're in a bit of a dilemma. We have the choice of taking the 4 major courses either "on level" or "honors." I'm sure she'll qualify for honors for all 4 but I've heard some parents say that the homework level is pretty crazy...4 hours per night...for a 6th grader! She's already said she definitely wants to take honors math and science and I think she should take honors reading/language arts. That leaves social studies as perhaps an on level class. I'm worried she won't have time for any sports (gymnastics or otherwise) if she takes all 4 honors classes. I guess we'll see. We still have a little time to decide. Any way you look at it, it's pretty exciting...especially for her. I'm nervous, but excited for her at the same time. It's really a great school and she's going to have the opportunity to explore a lot of different things before she gets to high school. And if she stays on the honors track she'll even have a few high school classes out of the way before she even gets there.

I just keep wondering...where did the time go?

Another January Highlight

One of our big events in January, other than Jensen's birthday, is the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. Jim and Jackson worked hard on Jackson's car.



It turned out great and was a big style improvement over last year. Last year was their first year and they really didn't know what they were doing. Plus we were living in the apartment and they had to sit on the balcony for work space and had virtually no tools to work with.

This year however, they researched cars on the internet, downloaded plans for the car Jackson picked out, used fancy tools to cut the shape out of a block of wood, weren't used to the tools and had to go buy another block of wood, finally got it all sanded, weighted, painted and varnished and ready for the big race. The main goal was for the car to stay on the track since last year's did not. They succeeded and the car came in about 6th place out of 12 in the Bear dens. Jim and Jackson both studied the cars that did well in the race so I'm sure next year there will be big design improvements. I can't wait!


2008 Model Year

2007 Model Year

Jensen's Birthday Week Recap

I think all in all Jensen had a good 5th birthday...the celebrating lasted 3 days so I hope she had a good time. Her actual birthday was a Thursday and we started a tradition a few years ago that we let the kids pick somewhere to have dinner on the night of their birthday. All week leading up to Thursday she had said she was going to pick Chik-fil-A. Fine. On Thursday morning she suddenly changed her mind and said she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. Ugh. I actually thought Chuck E. Cheese might not be open for dinner during the week. After all, I'd only ever been there a few times for lunch during the week or for parties on the weekend. I mean who goes to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner? Well, apparently quite a few people. The place was just as packed and loud as ever. There was even a birthday party going on. At least our local Chuck E. Cheese was recently remodeled so it was a tad cleaner than it used to be.



After dinner we came home for cake and family gifts.



One thing Jensen has been asking for for a while now is to get her ears pierced. I've been all for it but it took us a while to convince Jim that 5 wasn't too young for earrings. He finally relented and I took Jensen in to get her ears pierced on Saturday. She was such a trooper! She did not shed one tear. Her eyes welled up when it was over but no tears spilled out. Luckily we went to a place where they pierce both ears at the same time so it was over very quickly. She picked out a cute pair of pink CZs on 14k gold posts. She looked so adorable with them!




Everything went just a little too smoothly so I should have known something would happen. That night Jim and I were out and the kids were with a babysitter. We got a call from the sitter that one of Jensen's earrings had fallen out and she didn't want the sitter to try to put it back in. We were downtown in the middle of a play and couldn't get back home right then. Once we got home I tried to put the earring back in while Jensen was asleep but the hole had already started to close up and I couldn't get it through the back. I took her back to the store the next day, but they said we'd have to wait a week or two for the ear to completely heal closed and then have it pierced again. Poor Jensen. I don't know if she'll be quite as brave the next time now that she knows what to expect.

And, finally, on Sunday we had her birthday bash. We had it at The Little Gym where Jensen is taking gymnastics and dance classes. There were almost 20 kids there running around like crazy and having a good time. You can view all the pictures here if you're so inclined. Here's a few highlights.

Thank You Nintendo!

The kids got a Wii earlier in the year, May, for doing so great in school last year. For Christmas they got several new games that they were dying for...mainly Guitar Hero. On Christmas day our Wii decided it didn't want to play Guitar Hero, or any other games, and died. Jackson just about died along with it. We sent it off to Nintendo for repair and it finally came back home today! Jackson could not get that thing hooked up and the game inserted fast enough. Luckily he's been practicing on all the neighbor kids' Wiis since Christmas. And as the machine said, Jackson, "You Rock!"




Long hair? Check. No shirt? Check. Skinny arms? Check. Rock star? Check.

Happy Birthday Jenny 'Rie

FIVE!! You are turning 5 today! I just can't believe it. In honor of this momentous occasion here are five things I love about you.

1. I love how eager you are to be able to do things. You taught yourself to roller skate and you practiced and practiced until you were able to do it. You really go at it with no fear and lots of determination. You make me cringe every time you take off down the driveway, but each time you fall you just get back up and keep on going. You want to be able to skateboard and ride your bike without training wheels next.

2. I love the way you say some words. compuga = computer; cause = pause (as in "Can you cause the movie?"); wis = with. I think these words are so cute that I never correct you. You'll figure that out on your own soon enough.

3. I love that you enjoy spending so much time coloring, drawing, painting and all things crafty!

4. I love how you run down the hall to greet me when I pick you up after school. This always just makes my day!

5. I love your smile and your sassy attitude. You learned to snap your fingers recently and you do an awesome "Oh no you didn't." It makes me smile every time.

In short, I love you, little one and can't wait to see what the year of being 5 brings you.

Love,
Mom

From Christmas to Today: Part 1

That posting everyday in December business really took a lot out of me. And I didn't even make it through the whole month. But I made it to Christmas, which was really the point anyway.

Since Christmas, we've actually done quite a bit so here's the round-up of what's been going on since then.

On December 28th, I had to take Jordan to the orthopedic doctor to look at her foot. She was playing tackle football with kids on the street, with no shoes on, and someone stepped on her foot. This actually happened on Dec. 23rd. Her foot turned pretty black and blue, but we figured it would go back to normal after a couple of days. By the day after Christmas her whole foot was bruised and it was still pretty painful so I made an appointment to take her in but couldn't get her in until Friday. It turns out she had three hairline factures. Her first broken bone(s). They gave her a boot to wear instead of a cast, which is great because she can take it off for showers etc. They said it would take about 4-6 weeks to heal. When we got home, Jim wanted to know if the doctor asked why we waited so long to bring her in. I was definitely feeling a little like a bad parent at that moment!



We took her in for a follow-up after about three weeks and the doc said to wear the boot for two more weeks and come back in. It hasn't really slowed her down much except in gymnastics where she really can't do much of anything except her conditioning. She's only been going to the gym for about an hour each time instead of the usual two hours.

On December 29th, which was mine and Jim's 17th anniversary, we left for a week in Michigan. We had a great visit and the kids got to see tons of snow which they loved and I don't mind if it's only for one week per year! The picture that is in the header of my blog was taken in Jim's mom's backyard. Beautiful.

We had our Christmas get-together with Jim's family on the 30th which was a great time. All but one niece was there...about 18 people in all. My niece, Kaity, gave me an awesome gift. My whole blog up to that point printed out in a book...with photos and everything! She had it done at blurb.com. It's so awesome and I'm going to do this every year with my blog. Thank you Kaity!!

During the rest of our visit we got together with two of Jim’s friends and their families and all went bowling; saw my mother…she’s apparently going to be moving to Phoenix at the end of February. None of us left in Michigan and she’s ready for warmer weather I guess; I took Jordan and my niece Kaity to Somerset Mall one day for a girls’ day of shopping; we took the kids to see National Treasure 2 one evening; we spent a nice New year’s eve with Jean and Jim’s brother Tom’s family. We all played games and watched the ball drop then Jean made us go to bed at 12:05 so she could get some sleep! Jim and I even got out for one night alone and went to dinner and a movie. We saw Juno which was okay as far as the writing and acting went but I was a little disturbed by the story…a 16 year old girl gets pregnant and everything goes so easily and smoothly for her. Wouldn’t want my teenage daughter to see that movie. Our flights to and from Detroit were uneventful which is always good and we even got 2 first class upgrades on the way home. I put a few photos from the trip below and you can see the rest of the pictures here.





This brings us up to about January 6th. :-)

Daily December: Day Twenty Five

Christmas Day and I didn't take one picture!! I've read so many people say, "I actually liked that I didn't take any photos and just lived in the moment." Not me. I really don't like the fact that I don't have any photos from the day. I feel something is missing. I think the reason I didn't take any is because I was just so out of it. The kids woke up at 5:30. A.M. After Jim and I had just gone to bed a mear 4 hours earlier. When Jackson came into our room and woke us up I was in a very deep sleep...the kind where you don't just jump out of bed. I was in a fog the whole morning.

From what I can remember (without photographic evidence) the kids seemed to enjoy all their gifts from Santa--especially their Nintendo DSs and the basketball goal out in the driveway. Jensen's favorite was her new American Girl doll and the enormous doll house she got.

I got some great things as well. Jim took the kids out one day to pick out charms for my pandora charm bracelet. Jordan picked out a present, Jackson picked out a Christmas tree, and Jensen picked out a bible! They also all picked out some new things for my Christmas village. Jackson picked out the biggest, tallest building there is...the Flatiron building.



And the girls picked out some items that belong to the dockside scene...a lobster stand and a dock worker. They reminded me of Boston which is where we lived when I started my village collection.

Thanks to the early start, we were finished opening gifts, finished with breakfast and on our way to church by about 11:00. After church, we spent the rest of the day laying around and getting ready for dinner. We had cornish hens for our holiday meal along with the requisite mashed potatoes and green beans.

The next couple of days will be spent cleaning up the chaos and getting ready for our trip to Michigan.

I have really enjoyed documenting each day on the road to Christmas. I didn't get every post published on the correct day, however it made me take note of things and to get out my camera more than I would have. Next year, I just have to remember to get that camera ready for Christmas morning!

Daily December: Day Twenty Four

Christmas Eve!! We spent part of the day finishing up our cookies for Santa. We had baked them a day or so ago but still had the decorating to do.





The kids' advent treat for the day was to open one special gift. I had always given them pjs on Christmas eve and they usually got an ornament in their stocking. This year, I put the pjs and the ornament together and gave each child a Christmas book. I realized that after the fire we no longer had very many Christmas-themed books so I think I'll do this for the next few years. Before you know it we'll have a nice library of Christmas books that the kids can take with them along with their ornaments.



After opening the gifts and putting on the pjs we had make-your-own pizzas for dinner. It was a fun, easy dinner and the pizzas turned out pretty good.




After dinner we watched the movie A Christmas Story and about 9:30 it was off to bed for the kids to wait for Santa.

Daily December: Day Twenty Three

Last night amidst all the girly gift exchanging, Jackson lost a tooth. I wasn't sure if the tooth fairy was working this close to Christmas, but apparently she was. She left Jackson $3.00 and he has this beautiful new smile.

Daily December: Day Twenty Two

Yesterday, the kids' advent calendar treat was to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We picked Jordan up from her gymnastics team party at 7:00 and headed to a neighborhood in Atascocita that Heather had told us had good light displays. She did not steer us wrong. We saw some awesome displays and had a great time.

We then headed over to Heather and Brent's to see them and the kids one last time before the holidays and exchange gifts. They gave us this beautiful James Avery Christmas Dove ornament.



Heather told me that the dove represents peace and that that is what she wishes for our family. I'm so blessed to have her for a friend.

Tonight, I got together with two other good friends, Jennifer and Nancy, to exchange gifts. We had cocktails, laughs, and presents. It doesn't get much better than that. I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have so many people in my life that mean so much to me.

Daily December: Day Twenty One

Friday. The last day of school for Jackson and Jordan before a two week + break. The day Jackson has been waiting for for weeks. Here at last. :-)

Jensen and I went to the kids' class parties at Shadow Forest. So much fun.

Daily December: Day Twenty

Today is Jensen's last day of school before the winter break (and hence, my last shopping day).

I put together an album for each of her two teachers using this great template I downloaded from Jessica Sprague.




It really was pretty easy to do and turned out to be a gift that the teachers really enjoyed. I gave each kid in the class one page for each teacher. All they had to do was stick a picture of themselves on and handwrite their names directly on the page. There were two questions on the page that I asked the parents to ask the kids then write their answers word-for-word on the page. The questions were "I hope Mrs. Snyder gets _________________ for Christmas" and "Mrs. Snyder is a good teacher because _____________________." There were a lot of cute answers. Lots of wishes for the teachers to get bikes, puppies, etc. One girl hopes the teacher gets a new car! Jensen thinks Mrs. Snyder is a good teacher because "she lets us do crafts." That's my girl!

Once I got all the pages back from the kids I put a few simple embellishments on each page, created a title page, then stuck them in an album. Simple.