Halloween

What were the boys for Halloween this year, the same blood sucking zombies they have been for the past 4 years. I'm getting really good at doing their makeup quickly. We went out with some neighborhood kids, Veronic and Melisanda live up the street and go to the boys old school. Veronica is the blond witch. Emily, with the blue hair and raincoat goes to their old school too. Emily and her parents were our first friends when we moved in almost 5 years ago! The Ninja next to Jacob is his friend Cameron from swim team and he now goes to school with him. Here are our pumpkins before we carved them. Wow, did time get away from me this year. The boys carved theirs at grandpa's on Saturday and I did mine at 3:00 on Sunday with the help of the boys. We got some great shapes from the pumpkin patch and they were much easier to carve and clean than the one from the grocery store. The two littlest pumpkins did not get carved, one is for a pie and the other I didn't have time for.
Here is before...........

..........Here is after. My pumpkin is on the left, Jacob's is in the middle, and Jackson's is on the right. I love Jacob's, what a great shape. In case you can't make it out, his has a face on top, BOO on the neck and a witch on the belly and it's all topped off with a witched hat.

What's new in our world

Here are some highlights of what we've been up to lately.
Studying hard, writing papers, up late reading.

A trip to the pumpkin patch with Drew, Danielle, and Hayden.

A birthday party for Jackson with 5 of his friends: Alex, Veronica, Melisanda, Cody and Calina.
The boys stayed the night and were up very late until Old Man Chigbrow made them go to sleep.

Pizza Cookie

Cooking 101......student Jackson has a few things still to learn to bake cookies, like softened butter is different from melted butter. Taste A+ Consistency D-

Opening Night

Let me begin with a tale before I tell you about the performance. First know that the boys had rehearsal every day this week from 5-8. Yesterday, I told the boys to go get ready about 3:45. Jacob asked, "why?"
"really, you don't know why?"
"no"
"rehearsal"
"oh yeah"
I left the room and could hear the low voices of the boys back and forth, and then, "we have a performance TONIGHT?" followed by a thud.
I go into the kitchen and there is Jacob on the floor 'overacting' over the news that he is performing tonight. How did he not know this I think to myself! Really!
Here is Zsock zee lumberzack who gets tears in his eyez when zhe thinks of flapzackz with butter and zyrup. And the mountie John Candy Dandy. The boys did great with their lines, acting and dancing. Jacob actually put a lot into his performance. They both had a lot of fun and the performance was great, way better than B street. Jackson wants to do it agian next year while Jacob is unsure. We're so proud. Thanks Kathy and Chig for sending them.

Yin and Yang

Drew, Jackson and Jacob just after the revolutionary new hair style was created for Jackson, the reverse mohawk.

Swim Season 2010

Well, the swim season is well upon us. The boys have their 6 pack abs back and their flip turns down. It's great to be back with the "swim team family" at Del Norte, working out more regularly, Friday night margarita's spent catching up on the gossip, kids acting goofy, and lazy Saturdays under a pop up tent where my only worries are will my deodorant hold up and when is the next race. Here's a couple races the boys were in just so feel like you were there. The girl in Jacob's clip is Katie. They're sweet on each other. (Warning, I tend to cheer loudly at the end of the clips so turn down the volume.)

It's been a while.....

What can I say, we've been busy the last few months with school and with swim practice daily and now meets on Saturday, baseball practice and basketball practice with games on the weekend and Boy Scouts on Tuesdays. Here are some photos to catch you up to speed. (Plus some of my flowers from the garden.)

Meet Slow Poke Slimey

This past Sunday, the whole family went to William Pond Park. Shasta was in heaven. She got to fetch tennis balls out of the river until she finally couldn't keep up with the current and had to head back to shore and let the tennis ball float away. The boys got to catch and release tadpoles for several hours. Some parts of the water looked black with all the tiny tadpoles.

Aron discovered a shallow pond area where there were some that were 4 inches long. He showed off for the kids and I by catching one of them with his bare hands. All that practice catching turtles in Houston paid off. Now if we ever get lost he can catch our dinner for us. The kids named the giant beast of a tadpole "Slow Poke Slimey".

Here's what the boys caught.

Breaking News

It was a tough morning at our house....the boys were fighting. Jacob was sent to the kitchen and Jackson to his room until everyone was in a good mood. A little later......

Aron enters the boys room to find Jackson packing his suitecase.

"What are you doing?"
"Packing" (there's a grrr in his voice)
"What city are you going to?"
"I'm not going to a city, I'm going to a state."
" What state?"
" Portland"
" Uh, that's a city"
" No, it's not"
"Well, make sure you pack up everything. It all has to go with you....Hey, Jacob now you have your own room."

Mustang Basketball

This is Jacob's first year playing basketball. He's great at it, and I think he really enjoys it. He made two baskets last weekend. It's no longer a chore for him to go outside - he can go shoot some hoops which is a win-win for both of us. I just really enjoy seeing him out there trying so hard.

Day in the Snow

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Is he tanning?

Just another weekend gone by

Gobble, gobble, gobble. With all the rain and turkeys roaming around the neighborhood, I thought it was November.

Apparently, spring has not sprung at our house, turkeys in the front yard and snowmen pancakes for dinner. This was Jacob's idea, with some tweaking form mom, to make Aron a snowman pancake for dinner. The rest of us just got plain old pancakes with apples. Other than that things are the going as usual. We signed the boys up for swim team again this year. The kids are about to started baseball for Jackson and basketball for Jacob. Busy, busy.

Jackson's First "Girlfriend"

Meet Calina, Jackson's bestest friend in the whole world. They've been inseparable since last year and plan on getting married because they like the same games and books. Calina was just switched to another class so the two rarely see each other now except for sometimes at lunch. They were both heartbroken but have managed to continue on. She's really a sweet girl and the two together are funny. When I picked the kids up from school Friday, it was pouring rain and Jackson made sure he had his umbrella open to shield his woman and himself from the rain as they walked to the car. I'm not sure where he gets this from since Aron has never, well maybe, no definitely never done anything like that for me. I'm lucky if he opens doors for me (usually he just walks in ahead of me and I have scoot in quickly so the door doesn't hit me).

Busy at school with the kids

This year Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year were on the same day. I helped to organize a party in Jacob's class. They painted Chinese couplets, decorated cookies, learned about the legends of the Chinese New Year, ate Panda Express and made chocolate dipped fortune cookies. It was a lot of fun hanging out with the kids.

As a fundraiser this year, the school hosted a silent auction of art. Each class made a piece of art with the help of a professional artist. The turn out was of course low but the event was well done. I bid on both boys art work but was out bid at the last minute on Jacob's.

This is Jacob's class painting. Jacob was in the "yellow" group.

This is the winning art work from Jackson's class. I believe Jackson's piece is on the white matting in the lower left corner.

Science Fair Projects

This year, Jacob's project was about crystals. He disolved alum, a pickling spice, in water until it was a saturated solution. Then he poured it into a clean eggshell. As the water evaporated, crystals formed. Pretty cool.

Jackson's project was on volcano's, again!

Two Pyro's

These days the boys have discovered fire. They crumble, they toss, they poke to build the biggest fire. It sure keeps them occupied and quiet. I'm going to have to change the name of my blog to "Two Pyro's".

I can't complain, we actually had a lovely Friday night. The boys and I made movie munch cookies. These cookies got rave reviews and include chocolate covered raisins, Recess's Pieces, and peanut M&M's. Then we, including Aron, made home made pizza. I think we finally perfected our recipe. On recommendation from a friend, I went to Whole Foods for the the dough instead of TJ's. What a difference, it was easy to work with and cooked in the right amount of time. So with pizza and sauce from WF's and quattro formaggi, pepperoni, arugula, and prosciutto from TJ's we are good to go. On a whim, since I had left over prosciutto from Christmas's chicken saltimboca I used it topped with arugula. Wow, was it good.

I prefer to eat dinner without the TV, but sometimes rules are made for braking. So like in my childhood and for many other families for many years past, we ate pizza and enjoyed cookies while watching "Cloudy with a change of meatballs" in the "good" living room. (funny movie, really liked it)
And so went a simple evening that was good because of the people I spent it with. I know one day not too far off the boys will think it's lame to cook with me and will want to watch horror movies alone in their room. I also know that I wear myself out with the daily routine of "should's" and "must's" and take for granted that the boys will be their another day eager to hear me ask if they would like to play a game or have a story read to them. All I can do is continue to try to do better.

Something to remember

" Dad, I want grandma's Lexus."
"Why?"
"I want something to remember her by."
"Think smaller, much smaller if you want something to keep of grandma's"
...................(long pause)..............."okay, I'll take Pepper."

Playing Around

It's always great to see Dane, Kevin and Leslie. We had a great time visiting and babysitting Dane. The boys drew pictures and wrestled with Uncle Kevin. Dane's a sweet boy, good job mama and papa.