Genna's Latin Cake

The girls' school as an annual carnival called Fiestaval.  There was a cake decorating contest to get people to make cakes for the cake walk.  Genevieve had a cool idea to include birds and Latin into one great idea.

It means "One among Many."  This is the first cake for her to do from start to finish by herself.  I only advised and did a little trouble-shooting.  She learned some invaluable lessons, like when she turned the mixer onto high right away when she had a bowl full of seriously liquid cake ingredients.  Needless to say, it went everywhere!

She didn't win, but I thought it was the best.  Not biased at all!

The carnival was not my favorite thing, but it's because Brian was out of town (we actually left right after this to go meet him in Aggieland) and I had no one to talk to.  I just had to follow the little two boys around while they played games and jumped on bouncy things.  The big kids all deserted me the whole time for their friends.

Judah jumping across on these giant blown up bags.

Mariachi Band

The cake table

Drew trying out the dunk tank

It actually was my first rodeo.

Brian took Isaac and Drew camping with Troops of St. George one weekend and I took the rest of the kids to the Tejas Rodeo on Saturday night.  I was a little wary of this because my nephew has had me read picture books about the rodeo to him and I just didn't know how I felt about this whole idea.  In the middle of one book,  I turned to him and said, "This sounds kinda awful."  He assured me it was awesome.  I figured he's the kind of person who keeps this kind of thing going.  

I mean who thinks it's fun to repeatedly fall off a bucking bronco and who puts their kids on a goat to only to surely fall off, it's just a matter of time.  Well, apparently, a lot of people.  Judah's friend from co-op was there and entered the mutton bustin' contest and actually won.

And it wasn't terrible; in fact, it was even enjoyable.  It was a late night, but the little ones made it!  Bob was a little bit slap happy though.  We were all smokey and exhausted when we got home.

And now we can say proudly, "It's not our first rodeo."

It isn't true!

My sweet Judah loves to read and learn, but he really hates to write.  His writing, even just math answers, takes forever.  I am not setting the standards too high either.  His daily assignment has been reduced to one page of math, copying one sentence in handwriting, and at least one page in his phonics book.    He was chugging along until he got to lowercase letters, and now he's dragging his feet and I reduced his daily requirements to the aforementioned.

Here's the happy guy after drawing a self-portrait on the dry erase board.

One day when he was in tears, in exasperation I asked him to read the title of the book...

He read aloud, "Handwriting Without Tears," and then yelled, "It isn't true!" as he threw his head down into his arms and cried some more.  You don't say?

Ah, the struggle!

Long Time No See

After nearly seven years, we finally got to see Brian's step-sister and her family again.  They stopped over for the weekend on the way to visit her parents.  Saturday was spent at Fiesta Texas (only Brian, Isaac, and Genevieve went with them because the rest of us are scaredy cats.)  Genevieve is the same age as her daughter and they hit it off just like no time had passed since last time we saw them in Tenessee when Drew was a wee baby.

The Mexican Market

On Sunday, we all went to the Mexican Market, the Alamo, and the River Walk.  It was really good to see the again!

The Alamo

My toy soldier

Snow cones after a warm day

A Real Spring Break

This is our first real spring break with the kids since we could take our breaks whenever we wanted to in the past (while homeschooling).  Now we are beholden to the school's calendar.  Brian is not a fan.  Nonetheless, we decided to go visit our dear friends who we hadn't seen in a year and a half.  In Germany, we traveled with them often and this is the longest we'd gone without seeing each other in all seven years we've known each other.  

The older set (minus Hannah) hanging out at the fire pit in their backyard

We had a two-fold reason for driving all the way to Jacksonville, Florida.  We had initially discussed meeting somewhere in between, but we determined it would be best to drive there and also see our friend in St. Augustine who had brain cancer.  Unfortunately, a little over a month before our trip he passed away.  We went instead to visit his widow who is also our dear friend.

Also, in St. Augustine, we visited an Alligator Farm.  Most of the kids thought this was amazing.  

Albino Alligators

Watching the Alligator Show

My godson sandwiched between my youngest sons

Getting ready for a show about snakes

Waking up after a needed nap

Twice we went to the beach together.  Hannah and Brian are not big beach people, so they just sat in the shade.  The water was freezing, but some of the kids didn't care.  The rest of them played in the sand. 

See what I mean?  Not beach people!  Hannah doesn't like the outdoors and Brian would choose mountains and rivers or lakes over the ocean.  

Drew and his buddy

We had a wonderful time with our friends.  Hannah started her bullet journal that week which kept her busy when she needed a break from people.  The kids had a blast playing glow in the dark capture the flag on a couple evenings.  The dads took some of the kids to Top Golf one morning and to play sports at a park another day.  The moms sneaked away for pedicures one evening.  It was a full week, but with enough time to just visit too.

The Alamo

Before spring break, we had a field trip planned and it just happened to fall on the coldest day in San Antonio this winter.  Although I felt silly bundling up and bringing our "warm gear" bag, I hate to be cold and thought it worth it.  Turns out I wasn't over-reacting, and my bag came in handy when all the native San Antonians were freezing their tushies off.  I was able to share my extra hats and gloves and scarves.  I was also glad I threw in hand warmers.

The boys and I had a fun adventure, and we learned a lot too.

Drew's holding a canon ball.

Crafting for Sanity

I like to keep my hands busy.  I like to create pretty things, at least pretty to me.  I''ve been busy making gifts lately and starting a bullet journal.  How did I not know about this new thing?!!!  It's apparently been around for a good while and I am very late to the game.  When it came across my Pinterest, I knew two things.  1.  I'd be totally into this, but didn't have much time to be such, and 2.  Hannah would fall in love with this pretty organizing fad.  Hannah's not really been into much beside reading lately, and so I showed her what a BuJo is and opened up a whole new world.  She was all in, as she fiercely attacked this project and knocked out half her notebook in less than a month.  Mine is slow going as is my blog posting these days.

Hannah's is her own private thoughts and plans.  I can't put those on here, but I can put a couple of my pages here.  I have more done now, but just need to take pictures of them.

Opening title page, inspired by a card I got from my dear friend

Part of my "Quotes and Prayers" page

We are getting all ready for child number four to receive his First Communion here which means it's time for a new baby clothes quilt.  Drew's baby room was sailboat theme based off of Paul Signac's paintings of boats.  So I decided to continue the theme in his quilt, particularly because he had so many clothes items and blankets that had nautical themes.  His favorite color is red and so I tried to make it as red as possible without losing the navy that I love.  I designed and pieced the quilt, but decided to let my good friend top stitch it for me with her fancy machine like she did with Isaac's.  I made this one much bigger than Isaac's because I felt like I made Isaac's too small for how big he's going to be so very soon.  I didn't want to make the same mistake twice.  

Finished top of quilt all pieced together

Backing of quilt, not put together yet

I'm still loving hand-lettering, so I made this for a friend's birthday...

I have made a few baby gifts lately, but this is the only one I remembered to take a picture of.  I made this super soft baby blanket by crocheting with a new pattern.  I chose the colors of the nursery, and, thanks to a crazy long drive to and from Florida for spring break, I was able to finish it in just under two weeks.