Letter Z

After rhyming away to 'Ziggity, Zaggity, Zotch, the Zebra wore a watch..." for a couple of days, we were ready to head off to the ZOO! My preschool had a fun day at the Houston Zoo to celebrate letter Z. I have a lot of fun with these 6 GREAT kidos.

They were quite the cute little scientist walking around with their clipboards.

If anyone is looking for a preschool in Pearland, TX for next year, let me know!

New Phase: dinner conversations

Today it really hit, me. Children really do grow up. Not only do I not have a baby any more, I don't even have a toddler. Just a wonderful, full fledged boy! I played "pretend" with Cal for the first time today. He thought it was the coolest game. And all it entailed was some horses and rhino's eating grass and drinking milk.

Then tonight, we had this high quality dinner conversation at the table:

Cal: Eww.
Me: It's not yucky, it's soy chicken.
Cal: Eww. Chicken poo poo.

With a little bit of encouragement (and a lot of cool whip-and-strawberries-for-dessert-bribing, Cal ate all of his green beans and most of his chicken poo poo!)



P.S. We have "fixed" the climbing out of the crib problem by turning the crib into a big boy bed!! All I have left is potty training and then my job is done...right!?

Longing for Grammie!

I promised my mom on the phone yesterday that I would tell Callin that she loved and missed him. After he woke up from his nap, I took him over to her picture and gave him the message. Several minutes later I came back into the room and he had not moved and was still studying the picture. This is a little proof for my mom that the love is mutual! (And I have to add he really loves Papa too!)


(Not to mention that he LOVES his blankie and lion a LOT which are both from his Grammie.)

PARABÉNS MAMÃE! We hope you have a lovely birthday!

Shake-a shake-a shake

In Callin's nursery class, his teacher brings plastic eggs filled w/ beans each week to jam to during music time. Naturally, this is the only thing Callin thinks eggs are for. He has been in heaven this week with all the plastic eggs floating around! (And they have to have something in them or he brings it to me and says, "Shake-a-shake?") I have sung every children's song I know to the beat, or usually off beat, of the egg shaker.

Other than making music, we enjoyed a picnic at the park with some friends (with a little Bocce ball), finding eggs in the backyard (Cal insisted on carrying the eggs, not putting them in his basket), and finding our Easter Baskets. (Shout out to the Easter Bunny for putting the Twilight movie in my basket!) :)

Annie the Nanny

Cal and I had a fun 10 days in El Dorado Hills, CA. My sis & her hubby went off to Australia and I somehow managed to hold down the fort with out any MAJOR incident. (Many smalls ones include: discovering on day 5 that Jonas has a unbuckling problem and the 2 car seats have been unbuckled for who knows how long, being too busy that at 10pm I realize that I have forgotten to eat dinner, trying to take 4 boys swimming, forgetting to make lunches until we are all in the car, forgetting to pick up Silas from school, and getting threatened to have CPS called on me by a 'friendly' neighbor who saw the kids out riding bikes without helmets...)

Cal LOVED pretending he had 3 older brothers.

It was worth the trip getting to hear Jojo talk about his favorite 'Bounceopolis.'

The blankie boys. Cal learned the art of blanket attachment from Jojo. His blankie turned from sky blue to dirt brown in days.

He also learned a little bit more how to be a boy.

The big haircut!

The new Do

General Conference entertainment

It was fun to be with my cute nephews! (But I do have a new appreciation for my beautiful sister Ali! I really earned my sleep each night!) I also LOVED my day visit w/ my old roomie Kat who drove the 2 hour drive from San Fransisco to visit us with her 2 darling kids. I'm bummed I forgot to get pictures of them!

Spring Break...

always turns out to be a lame excuse for cleaning, tackling those long awaited projects, and some quality yard work, at least in our family. There were some fun moments though to reward us (and by us, we all know who I am talking about) for our (my) hard work! Alright, I will give The Douger a little credit for building me a wonderful garden box!!

Meet the new garden: (we are still holding our breath that something will grow...I am praying for lots of homegrown tomatoes! Anyone thinking John Denver?...)

before:

after, after: This picture records the beauty that can come only after the 2nd time around. (The Douger disproved of the 1st new mulch 'Midnight Black.')

before:

after: (yeah, I know!...not much better, but once we get some texture, paint, bead board, install the new toilet, & new tile, we'll be in open for business!)
and for the fun:
(not as good when they are behind 3 fences, but it will have to do since we have no African Safari's on the current horizon.)