sneak peek...

This morning we went down to Grapevine Station. The boys especially liked watching the engineers move the trains, on the tracks and on the turn style, to prepare them for The North Pole Express. It was a rare treat as we've heard there usually isn't that much activity so early on a Saturday morning. We were really there to meet up with a photographer, who I hope managed to capture what will be out Christmas card photo for this year with our mostly distracted and wiggly children. In the meantime, here are a few that I took while we were there.



















FYI it was 70 degrees, overcast and very windy.

7th birthday dinner

Since we had two parties and a grill-out the night before, Sammy got to choose where we went out for dinner on his actual birthday. His main request was that he wanted to go to a place where they would sing to him. We drove by a Joe's Crab Shack on our way to another restaurant, and the kids noticed that they had an outdoor playground. There was plenty of room to eat outside next to the playground, pretty lights and no wait - our dinner location was chosen.

Here is the birthday boy while the waiters were singing:


And wearing the cowboy hat and taking the horse-on-a-stick (what are those called?!) to do his birthday lap around the restaurant (which he wouldn't do, btw, but his younger brother *happily* filled him for him. When did 7 become too cool to run around a restaurant shouting, "Yeehaw!" ???@!)


Freddie, excitedly taking the horse from our waitress.


The boys' favorite part (aside from the playground) was the beaker and shark that came in the special drinks they ordered called "Shark Nibbles." The beaker was inside a plastic shark floating in their cup and filled with grenadine, which was suppose to be blood. The kids poured it into their blue drink so it looked like blood in the ocean after a shark attack. Charming. They played with filling the beakers the rest of the night.


Happy Birthday, my sweet seven-year-old Sammy! There's nobody in the world like you and we love you to bits and pieces!

Happy 7th Birthday, Sammy!

Super seven-year-old
Originally uploaded by sweetietooth

We had Sammy's Mario kid party at our apartment's clubhouse party room and movie theater. Jacob set up the Wii in the theater and the kids played various Mario games, then watched some of the Super Mario Super Show. We had cake and ice cream in the party room and then went on a scavenger hunt because King Koopa hid Sammy's presents!

To see more pictures of the Mario party check out the Sammy's 7th Birthday set

Here are just a few...
the party room at our apartment complex, decked out in Mario


The character cupcakes and one-up (ish) cake balls I made:


I ordered a giant Mario so the kids could all take pictures with him. The kids loved it.

Mario is now residing in the big boys' room :)

We also celebrated with family (Grandma, Papa, Nana, Ba, Aunt Dominique and family, Cousin Andy and family) and friends in our apartment complex with a backyard grill out out by the pool and basketball court later that day. It was a really great time, and wonderful to have so much family present (11 family members, not including our little family of five!). Thanks everyone for coming to celebrate Sammy's birthday with us!

Happy Halloween!

We had a fun and warm Texas Halloween.

First, I took all of the kids Trunk or Treating at the Grapevine First Baptist Church. It was huge! The trunks were decorated in either Halloween or fun themes, the kids' favorite was the Mario car. I thought the Mad Scientist and the Cereal Killer trunks were pretty funny. Here we are at the Mario trunk:

Notice Jack's abandoned Toad hat, and Jack wandering off in a Zombie-like fashion. ;)

The sun was setting right on the trunk when we trick or treated there so it didn't make for the best pictures. But you get the point. Really cute.


Trunk or Treating had a great turn out. Loved seeing all the kids in costume. And quite unlike women who intensely dislike wearing the same thing as each other, my kids were elated when they saw other Marios and Luigis. They were instant friends and had to go say hi. It was very cute, if not a little tricky keeping track of my own children at all times since there would randomly run across the parking lot to greet other Marios.

Without the Toad hat Jack looks a little like a 70s porn star. I should have borrowed one of the kids' mustaches and put in on Jack. lol Here he is wandering off again.


Quick Trunk or Treating photo op!


We concluded the Trunk or Treating with a little hay ride around the square. It was very fun!

Jack was forced to wear Toad hat for one picture - for documentation - sadly you can't see his cute bare chest because I'm restraining him. Oh, and in case anyone was worried about a baby recovering from a week of stomach flu-followed by strep throat don't worry! It was like 80 degrees.

We ran home so I could put Jack to bed and the kids went around to a few apartment buildings with our neighbor friends. The boy, Jeremiah, is in Sammy's class.


Then we went trick or treating. I thought this might be a good way to test drive the neighborhoods and see where we want to live. Make sure they give out good candy, you know?


Please excuse my poor iPhone night time photography!


Most of the houses, much like the trucks, were decorated really well. I love holiday exuberance! Happy Halloween, y'all!

Texas State Fair, Take 2

The boys and Jacob returned to the Texas State Fair for a second time so that Jack and I could go. It was very large and also much more expensive than the Great Minnesota Get Together. The Auto Show at the TSF was incredible. The kids and I could probably have spent a good couple of hours there, looking at and getting into every car, truck and SUV. My favorite was the Texas addition Tahoe. LOVE it. Anywho, here are a few random pictures from our TSF outing. Enjoy!

giant tractor - Freddie is in the back wheel


little bears - my kids love taking pictures at these kind of things


fried beer - Jacob said it was good but awkward (?)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v709/sweetietooth/IMG_0827.jpg

only part of the Auto Show


Big Tex - for those non-Texan readers Big Tex greets you upon arrival at the fair


a view from the cable cars


And a couple cute ones that James took when he went to the fair with the boys opening weekend.

Freds in a low rider


And Farmer Sammy

Super Mario Bros. Super Show

COW

Jack has this little cow figure at the table. Sometimes it helps him stay calm as he is restrained in his booster seat. Sometimes he plays with it in his food. Other times he just plays with it. It's really adorable.

I caught him in the act. A rare quiet and content Jack moment.









And the food on the table? A mostly devoured fresh, made-in-store sugar and cinnamon tortilla from Kroger. *swoon*

Ba (aka Grandpa James)

One of Freddie's first preschool assignments was to create these paper dolls and decorate them to look like people who love Freddie. I did one of Jack (Jack adores his brothers and I thought he would be easy to identify) and Freddie told me I needed to make one to look like James, aka Ba, too.

So, here is my coloring of "Ba"


Pretty accurate, right? hehe

I have to send a giant thank you to my wonderful stepfather for loving my family so much. James, you are so great with the boys and they just love you to pieces. Thanks for coming down and go to the Texas State Fair with them last weekend. And a little belated, but a hardy thank you for building us a new garage door on our Minneapolis home! We love you!

Park times

Monday mornings are Freddie's free morning. This past Monday we still didn't really know anybody (stay-at-home mom-wise) so we went to a park thinking we'd run into some people. We were the only ones there! And it was a gorgeous day.

The kids had a good time, though.






And this coming Monday we have a play date planned with one of his new buddies from preschool, Max. Three cheers for finding a fantastic new preschool with nice kids (yay!), a carline (yay!) and other SAHMs (yay yay yay)! :D

sacked out

Having to wake up early every morning (before 7:00!) has been hard on the kids (and me, too!). Sadly, Jack has also become an early riser and can barely stay awake past 8:30am anymore.

This is what happens after we drop Freddie at preschool (at 9am)


I had to wake him up to go to Kroger.


But that afternoon he took a super duper nap from 12-3pm, so I guess the little 10 minute catnap didn't disturb his sleep cycle. That day.

Tot song

Sammy got out Freddie guitar after school and started strumming and singing a Tot song.

I can only remember the beginning:

"Tots are golden, tots have sauce,

Tots are yellow with little dots.

Jack loves tots.

Freddie wants to get dino tots every day,

but Mommy says no."

The messy still-moving in view from our bedroom.

The messy still-moving in side, originally uploaded by sweetietooth.

Do you remember the last time you moved? How long did it take for you to go through all the boxes and get everything organized?

Thankfully, we only have one box left in our room and it's hidden in the closet until there is time for a more thorough inspection. The garage, however, is another story...

First Days of School (again)

Sammy had his second first day of first grade yesterday.



We went in a little after classes started so I could enroll him, then walk him to class. He was such a big kid, going into a new classroom, with a new teacher and new kids, new nearly everything, and it nearly broke my heart to leave my little boy there all by himself. Somehow he (and I!) made it through the day and when I saw him get off the bus, running at me with this big smile and doing his happy dance I knew he was going to adjust just fine.

He met a boy that lives in the building next to us, and by the luck of it, this boy, Jeremiah, is in his same first grade class. Having a friend already helps, and he's already asked me if we can make his birthday party this year and boy-and-girl party because some of the girls in his class are cool, too. He can't remember any of their names yet, but he has a suggestion for his teacher that they should all wear name tags (lol, like he could read the names anyway!).

Sammy's class is small - maybe 18 kids? - big difference from his Minneapolis class last year at 30 and this year at 28. The teacher is young, originally from Minnetonka, MN (small world!), and loves to send emails. Plus she was sweet to my boy. I like her already :)

We loaded Sammy up onto the bus this morning at 7:06 (eeeek) and literally saw an armadillo cross the road right behind his bus. I'm going to assume that is a good omen here in Texas :)

Today (Tuesday) was Freddie's first day of preschool. I forgot to take a picture of him. I'll take one tomorrow. For now, here is a picture of him in the outfit he wore today. In his "Dude" shirt.

I walked him in this morning to make sure he got to his classroom okay, and to deliver paperwork to the office. He sat right down at one of the little tables and got to work on the play-doh. He just fell right into place. Like, "okay, this is preschool, I know what to do here." Then later he walked out to the car at the preschool's drive through pick-up (yeah, it's awesome and very well run!), sweaty, confident and happy as could be. He rattled off a bunch of stuff at once, lots of different topics - including several mentions of the fire drill they had and how they couldn't play on the monkey bars, and i would have never known this was a new school many miles away from home.

I can't get over my big boys. I thought they would cling to me and maybe even cry, nervous of all the change and newness. But I guess it's me who is heartbroken and unsure (for what we left behind and for how they will react to this life here), and they are the brave confident ones. I am constantly amazed by these little creatures in my life and so very grateful for them (even the moments when they are all such a handful!).

A tour around our new home

After Sammy returned home from school today the boys and I headed out on a walk (wagon ride for Jack) and to play. We stopped at the Clubhouse to see if we'd received any packages (we hadn't) and so Sammy could refill his water bottle. The boys love visiting the Clubhouse - it has two kitchens, a movie theater, a gym, two living spaces, and, their favorite, the office with the girls who work there. Taylor helped us lease our apartment and Sammy thinks of her as a friend. He and Freddie are constantly inviting her over to our apartment for the "Super Mario Bros. Super Show" in which they wear their Mario and Luigi Halloween costumes and jump around like Mario (or like total spazes) and sing inharmoniously.

After that we walked around to the mail boxes to check the mail. On the way back Freddie and I walked through a dip in a grassy area where the sprinklers must have been working overtime and we both ended up with soggy flip flops. He's wasn't too keen on wearing wet shoes.


We made it back to our building and it's backyard. Here is a shot of our building.

Our patios are the ones on the left, second floor. The big main patio we have decked out with chairs and drying towels; the other, which is covered by the tree leaves is smaller and leads off the boys' bedrooms. It's empty anyway and not very exciting.

Here is our new backyard.


Jack was crawling around, went to check out the pool, and got something stuck to his foot. He's showing me.


He's just precious (and I can remember that in these moments when he's not squealing...).


Why walk? Crawling is so much faster!


Here they are all piled into the wagon. There is no way I could pull this.

The big kids were very amused. Jack was not.

FYI I took a few pictures of Sammy but he was non-cooperative with the poses and I just couldn't post those pictures. He is such a silly BOY sometimes!! (love you, Sammy! obviously or I would have posted those super embarrassing weird-faced pictures of you!)