A Tasty Version of the Gettysburg Address

The girls are memorizing the Gettysburg Address for Classically Catholic Memory.  Isaac says to me one day, "I kind of want to learn the Spaghetti Burger Address too, Mom."

T-ball

Isaac started off the season with a game since he missed the first practices.   He was the biggest one.  I am still trying to figure out if that is because he's the oldest or not.  He was a hard hitter and had quite the throw, but his catching needed work.   After his dad played catch with him a few times,  he was catching grounders much better.   He's had two more games since and did better with catching.  

He's number 13.

A Tearful Prayer Before Meals

I don't even remember what had caused his world to come crashing down right at the time we were starting to pray before dinner.  I'm pretty sure it had something to do with my wonderful cooking.  I had to pick up my phone during prayers to snap this picture though.

Drew's First Soccer Practice and his Third Birthday

Drew had his very first soccer practice on The Friday after we got back.  He got to wear his Superman shirt and socks that Uncle David got him.  He looked like a real soccer player, not like the three year old that kept picking up the ball with his hands when his feet couldn't quite make it do what he wanted.  Out of bounds is also a concept he did not get.

Drew had a pretty cute fan watching him play in his Spider man baby legs.

He was pretty proud of himself, huh?  He got a soccer stamp at the end.

The next day was his actual birthday.   He turned 3, and we let him open most presents first thing in the morning before the other kids left for German school.   He got an Avengers camping chair, Batman sheets for his new big boy bed, a Wolverine mask, and a Captain America book.  I saved one gift for later because I ended up exchanging it really quick.   He found these superhero mash ups at Target that he went nuts over.  So I took back the transformer to get one of those.  It was a big hit!

After his birthday shower, he got to have his birthday dessert with me on the kitchen counter.  He helped me make Ritz crackers with melted Rolos in the middle.

We spent the evening and dinner in the culd-de-sac with friends.   Then he helped me make the Ritz cracker dessert.   His real birthday dinner out was the next night so we could capitalize on the free kids meals on Sunday again.  We met some friends we hadn't seen in over a month.

I love this boy!   He is full of cuteness and personality! 

Before we left Texas...

We did get a special visit from my uncle.  And even though I am much lazier these days about getting the camera out I managed to get two picture of him with the kids.

We threw Judah in this one!

The Rest of the Story

My sister has a pool in her back yard, something I've always dreamed about having!  It was so great to be able to go swim when the boys were napping and to walk out the back door anytime we wanted to swim.

Drew and me just chillin'.

Drew borrowed his cousins swim suit with a built in floaty.  He loved it, but it was a little tight and gave him a big wedgie.

The picture didn't come out like I hoped.  He called it the wedgie suit and it gave him a major rash after the first day of swimming.  (They swam a lot that first day!)  We switched to his regular suit with arm floaties after that.

Judah enjoyed the pool and took a couple of skinny dips too.  Rocking that mohawk  and the allergy rash again!

At my mom's house, the kids discovered the dress up box.

Drew loved the transformer outfit.

Hannah and Genna enjoyed the long blonde wig.

It was a wonderful visit!

The Bad News

The bad news is that the girls got sick.  Multiple times.   Both times were for 12-24 hours which was good, but there was much vomiting.  Unfortunately, a lot of it was on the carpet.  The first time was at my parent's, thankfully, not on the new carpet, but the carpet that is waiting to be replaced.  The second time was at my sister's new house.  We ate Mexican food that night and at 3am Hannah couldn't make it to the bathroom.  So I tried my darnedest to get it cleaned up, but it was not happening.  I gave up and went back to bed about 5am, only for my early Texas riser, Judah, to wake up fifteen minutes later.  I called a carpet cleaning company.   They came.  No more stain.  Two nights later Genna wakes up feeling sick and throws up all night IN the Toilet!  Praise God!  I must have thanked both Genna and God a million times that day that she made it to the toilet.  She missed the trip to the children's museum with the whole family.  Judah and I stayed home with her.   A couple other minor sniffles and sore throats and that's about it.

Sea World

And what vacation to San Antonio, Texas would be complete without a trip to Sea World?  My sister, brother, and their families went with my parents, all of my children and me to Sea World, and it was a great day.  I have always loved Sea World.  I love the dolphins and whales.  I wanted to be a dolphin trainer when I was a young animal lover.  These creatures still bring tears to my eyes.

Waiting for the dolphin pool to open first thing in the morning.

Genna wanted to jump in and swim with the dolpihns so badly.

My sister's family

This is where Genna turns to me and says, "I want to be a dolphin trainer when I grow up!"  I was waiting for it.  I could see it in her eyes.

Isaac, Drew and my sister went on this ride.  It was a loop with a couple of small hills.  Isaac was so excited to go on a "roller coaster" and was very proud of how he put his hands up the whole time.  It was cute.  That guy needs some confidence, so it was good for him.

I didn't get to ride any rides because I had Judah, but I'm not much of a ride person so that's okay.  My favorite parts are the shows.  We didn't get to go see the sea lion shows which was disappointing, but thanks to my planning (which I was a little teased for by a certain brother-in-law) we hit everything else on the list.  We split up into two groups in the afternoon so the little kids could go to the Sesame area and the big kids could go on a couple of the bigger rides.

This was Dylan and Drew watching Elmo.

This one was hot.  I kept putting handfuls of water on his head during the day to keep him cool.

Most of us

What a trooper this guy was!  He stayed in the Ergo nearly the entire day, only coming out to eat in the high chair or to ride in the stroller for a very brief time.  Mostly Drew was in the stroller.

We sat in the splash zone for every show, but never quite got splashed.  We were so hot!

The Azul show is by far the best one!

We ended the day with a Shamu show.

I lost two of my kids during the course of the day for about 3 minutes each time.  The question is can you guess which ones I lost?

The Alamo: Minus the littles!

We finished the school year with the Alamo and so we had to make time for the big kids to see the Alamo.  My mom stayed with the little guys, ages 1, 2,and 3, remember because she had my nephew too.  My dad came with us and totally got the better deal!

I wanted to take them to see the Alamo at the iMax too since that's what I remember about my trip to the Alamo as a kid.  We bought our tickets and got in our seats before it hit me.  This is a really violent and sad movie!  A little too late for that revelation, wouldn't you think?  I leaned over to the kids and said, "You guys are okay with a lot of killing and dying in this movie, right?  And it's okay if everyone in this movie dies, right?  Yeah, well, close your eyes if it's too much for you."  I am sure it is the most violent thing they have ever seen.  Hannah had to close her eyes twice she said.  Isaac asked if we could get this on DVD.  Genna didn't cry, and she had thought she might when she found out what it entailed.  So, I'd say it was a success.  It was a good review, that's for sure! 

My dad bought them sno-cones after the tour of the Alamo.  Hannah's favorite part of the Alamo was seeing Davy Crocket's wallet.  Everyone liked checking the names of people who died at the Alamo.  There were five Isaacs.

The wonderful thing about cousins is that cousins are a wonderful thing!

The title of this post hints at what kind of little guy my nephew is.  He totally reminds me of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh!  He never stops moving!  He is exactly in between Drew and Judah.  He just turned two.  I had a hard time catching my cute nephew on camera, in fact.  

This is what most of my photos of him looked like...blurry.

 As soon as he would see my phone or camera, he would jump up to come look at it.  He did not understand that he had to wait until I actually took a picture first before he could see it.  Then I found the solution!

A selfie!

Drew and Dylan in a selfie together.

Here we had to hold him down after many attempts where he took off running.

Somehow we got this one non-blurry picture of him, and he was smiling!