Playing Hooky

It is officially summer time in Houston. School is out and it is HOT outside. Summer time also means the optional 9/80 schedule at work where employees can work an extra hour every day to get every other Friday off. I typically work longer hours anyway, so I try to take advantage of the Friday off when I can. I convinced Doug to play hooky from work today to spend some quality time with me and the boys. I planned a fun-filled family day starting with picking blueberries.

Andrew loves berries and he had so much fun at the blackberry farm. He did a great job of just picking the ripe berries. Doug and Tyler had fun too, but I sent them off to the shade after a bit because it was super hot outside and Tyler was sweating and getting really dirty trying to pick up all of the berries he saw on the ground.





2.5 pounds of blueberries(a half gallon) and $9.00 later we drove to Brenham, TX to visit the Bluebell factory. We took a tour and then we each got the biggest scoop of ice cream you can imagine. Strawberry (for Andrew), Pralienes and Cream (for Doug), Mint Chocolate Chip (for Anne) and Cookies and Cream (for Tyler -- that he ate with his hands). As we walked through the factory we passed the kitchen/break area and Doug noticed an ice cream freezer. They truly do "eat all they can and sell the rest" just like their ad says. I highly suggest that you finish reading my blog, close your internet browser and drive to the store to get your very own pint of your favorite flavor of Blue Bell icecream.

Did you know that Blue Bell was named after the flower of the same name that naturally grows near the factory? They make 50 flavors, 19 flavors are available year round and the remaining flavors are special editions. Homemade vanilla is the most popular flavor. Blue Bell uses milk from dairy farms within a 200 mile radius of Brenham to make its icecream and it takes milk from 50,000+ cows every single day to keep up with their production. Blue Bell is sold in 17 states, as far west as Arizona and as far East as North Carolina (sorry, Allie!).

After our tour and ice cream tasting we started the trek back to Houston, via Hempstead, where we stopped for lunch and a trip to the Farmer's Market. No good finds at the market, but I did find an awesome field of flowers that I took the opportunity to photograph. On the drive home I turned around to find both of my boys passed out in their car seats, sleeping in the exact same position with their mouths open. It was too sweet!









It was a wonderful family day and the best part is that we still have the whole weekend ahead of us!

Gobbles

Andrew is fascinated by goggles, aka, gobbles and he wants to wear them all the time. Against my better judgement I let him ride his bike to the pool on Monday with his gobbles on. He now knows that gobbles are for the pool and bath tub only and he insists on wearing them in the tub. Tonight during his bath he declared that Tyler needed a pair of gobbles too. What a sweet brother!

Andrew loves going to the pool, but he lacks the confidence he had after his swim lessons so we are going to sign him back up for a refreshed course to get him acclimated to the pool again.

How cute is this? Andrew biked nearly .5 mile to get to the pool all by himself with his helmet and gobbles on ... and his rings on his handlebars!






One of Tyler just for fun ... I was playing with the depth of field

Outtakes

It seems nearly impossible these days to get photos of the boys together -- or even harder -- to get photos of one or both of us with the boys!

Just one example:



And just because I like these:

Homework

Andrew, hard at work tracing his name:

Kisses Please

Tyler will give kisses on demand ...

Happy Birthday, Indy!

Since we adopted Indy from a shelter we do not know her exact birthday, but we do know that she was born around the end of May. Since she was named after the Indianapolis 500 we thought it would be fitting to celebrate her birthday every year on the running of the Indy 500. Happy Birthday, Indy Girl!

Andrew

What can I say - I think this big boy is handsome!

This one is my new favorite:

Good news, bad news

The good news is that Tyler's hearing does not appear to have been affected by the repeated ear infections. The bad news is that the doctor pretty much said that we have two choices -- continued infections treated with antibiotics or ear tubes.

Tyler has surgery scheduled for June 16th -- the first day they could fit us in. Poor little guy!

All of the mommies I know who have children that have tubes say that it makes a huge difference and that it is totally worth it, so we are hoping to see the same results!

Yet another ear infection ...

Poor Tyler can't seem to catch a break. On Monday the 12th he got a clean bill of health from his doctor only to develop yet another ear infection by Friday. ENT specialist here we come ...

In other news, Andrew did the coolest thing this afternoon - he drew a photo of our family and it actually looked like little stick people with eyes, arms, hands and clothes! It was still very Picasso-esque, but it is a major development milestone. He has also been practicing tracing his name and is getting quite good at it. Just more signs that my big boy is quickly approaching his 4th birthday!

Week 4 of chasing the dream

Monday marks 4 full weeks of training AND the 20 week countdown to the big race in October. I have made some good headway on the run and the bike and had my first swim lesson last week. The good news is that my coach said that I actually have pretty good form, the bad news is that it is by far my weakest event and it is going to take a lot of practice to get the breathing down. My long runs are up to nearly 8 miles and my long rides are up to 26 miles or so. Now, I just need to do it all in the same day! :)

Happy Mother's Day

One year ago this weekend I was enjoying my first mother's day as the mother of 2 wonderful and amazing little boys and preparing to head back to work after 3 months off. This has been the fastest year of my life - period. I can't believe that I have been back at work for a year already, it seems like it was just a couple of months ago.

I am not sure if the speed with which the year seems to have passed is a function of age or having children, or both, but from what I hear the years continue to pass faster and faster.

This mother's day I am so thankful for my beautiful, healthy boys, my amazing family and of course the wonderful mothers in my life. I am so blessed to be surrounded by such incredible mentors (the other moms I know) who are always so supportive. Thank you Mom and Mama Kate for all that you do - and thanks to all of my other mommy friends too!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, to the moms to be and the moms that aren't moms yet but will be someday (hopefully soon) -- you know who all are!

Silly Boys

When did my boys get so "grown up"?

Andrew

I am so proud of my big boy that my cheeks hurt from smiling so much!

Just when I start to ask myself, "I wonder if Andrew is developing on track?" he goes through a major developmental spurt and he proves my worries wrong. Andrew has just recently started coloring more "inside the lines" and he is getting much better about tracing letters, numbers. He has known how to spell his name for a quite a while, but he was pretty resistant when you asked him how to spell it -- until recently. This week after dinner one night he proudly spelled his name, Tyler's name, recited his days of the week and months of the year. On top of all of that, Andrew's vocabulary seems to have really expanded recently and his sentences are becoming longer and more complicated. He never ceases to amaze me!

He is also really starting to understand actions and consequences. In particular, he learned this lesson after he drew on the bathroom wallpaper and stamped all over the room with his Spiderman stamp. Yes, that is right - he STAMPED and WROTE on the wallpaper in the bathroom! His punishment? No movies or fruit snacks in the car for a week. That's right, we grounded him for the very first time. Turns out that no movie on the car ride home is more a punishment for me, but we are still sticking to the punishment. Needless to say, we will be removing the wallpaper and painting the bathroom soon! It was something we wanted to do anyway, but the timing has been accelerated a bit.


Tyler

Where do I start? This little boy is growing like a weed and is hitting major milestones left and right!

Tyler finally got his 1 year old shots this week (that's the good news), and we learned that he STILL has a double ear infection (that's the bad news). Tyler is on yet another antibiotic for the next 10 days. If this round of antibiotics doesn't work we are going to an ENT to talk about ear tubes. I have several friends whose children have ear tubes and they all rave about them, so we will see.

In more exciting news, Tyler has learned his first word (other than mama and dada). He says "dog" consistently whenever he sees a dog and of course he points at Major and Indy and says "dog". Clearly, he is a genius!

He also does something that will make your heart melt -- he gives kisses! He will even pucker up his lips for a kiss. Say it with me, awwww!

Doug

I can't forget the other two boys in my life. Doug and Major, of course! Last night we went to Pei Wei for dinner in the Burb and Andrew asked him to play Raffi (Raffi is a children's artist and he asked for music because he knows he is grounded from the movies in the car). It was too cute to hear my boys sing together. I swear I fell in love with Doug all over again right then and there!

Major

The other Moore boy is on another eating strike. He gained 10.5 pounds last month but he hasn't eaten in the last 4 days now. Ugghh. This cycle is so frustrating!

What can I say, I am so lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful, silly boys!

Jury Duty

I did my civic duty last week and went downtown for jury duty. I figured that if I was going to do my civic duty that I should really commit to the process. After being sworn in, I was in the third group of jurors that were escorted to the criminal court house. I was pretty excited that I had a chance to hear a criminal case and I thought it would be really interesting to hear what sort of questions the attorneys had. The bailiff lined us up outside of Courtroom 1 and put us in juror number order to make sure that no one got lost on the short walk to the courthouse.

After the bailiff verified that he had all of his jurors he dismissed us for one hour to come back for the voir dire (the attorneys were not ready for us). We were waiting for the elevator to go downstairs to the cafeteria when the bailiff called us back. He said we got lucky -- which I thought meant that the lawyers were ready to pick the panel early, but what the bailiff really meant was that the case was settled and we were dismissed. I was back at my desk at work before 10:30 a.m. It was nice to be able to get back to work, but I honestly, I was a bit disappointed that I was not able to really perform my civic duty. My last jury summons before this was over 6 years ago when I was still in school (and thus did not have to serve) ... so if it takes them 6 more years to call me again, I won't be doing my civic duty any time soon. At least there was good people watching ...