Kate Eva

Christmas 2015

2015-02-03T13:17:00.000-06:00

Christmas was really nice this year! On Christmas Eve, we went out to dinner at a delicious Tuscan restaurant called Brio. We had a really nice time. Afterwards, we went home, lit a fire in the fireplace, baked cookies, opened one present each and watched It's a Wonderful Life. Before bedtime, we read the Christmas story as a family. On Christmas day, the girls woke up early (although they are beginning to wake up later on Christmas these days!) and we immediately opened up all the presents. After cleanup, we had breakfast and then we got ready to ride our bikes to the movie theater. We saw Annie and loved it. Afterwards, we were super hungry and so we went through Jack in The Box, which was the only open place in town. The line was super long. Glad we weren't the only weirdos eating fast food for Christmas dinner! So, it was a great couple of days full of family togetherness, fun and lots and lots of love.

Christmas Eve dinner

My pretty Mia on Christmas Eve

Christmas Cookies! These are peppernuts, a German cookie

Christmas Eve baking for Santa

Relaxing by the fire, playing with toys and watching Christmas movies

Christmas morning!!

Rudolph pancakes! This has become a little tradition on Christmas morning.

The tree(our first live one!) before it was ransacked

Riding our bikes to the movies.

South Padre Island and Thanksgiving

2014-12-04T11:18:00.000-06:00

For Thanksgiving this year, our little family loaded up in the minivan and made the long 12 hour drive down to the very tip of Texas, South Padre Island. It is such a pretty little island. Lots of large sandy beaches, clear water, palm trees and even in November, sunshine. We rented a little condo right on the beach. It was fantastic. We didn't really go down with an agenda. We had surf lessons scheduled for the girls, but other than that, we just played on the beach a lot, ate lots of food, saw a movie, drove to Brownsville just to see the Texas/Mexico border, saw a Battlefield from the Mexican - American War, learned about sea turtles at a conservation facility and had a little modified Thanksgiving dinner at our condo.

South Padre Island, TX

El Cristo de los Pescadores (Christ of the Fisherman)

The girls and I at the border fence. I don't know if it's supposed to be a tourist attraction or not, but we totally took pictures there.

Brownsville TX, right after the border checkpoint. This is a bad picture because I should have done a better job at getting the flags that fly over the sign. I thought it was cool that this sign flies the Texas, American and Mexican flags next to each other.

Driving over the causeway to South Padre Island

The girls enjoyed the pool at our condo. Being November, it wast super hot out, but the pool was heated so getting them out of here was a challenge!

Weird art in South Padre Island

Christmastime on the Gulf of Mexico

Selfies at the seashore

Beautiful Texas

I took this at the Palo Alto Battlefield which was used during the Mexican American war. The Mexican flag in the distance indicates that this particular area was where the Mexican army stood.

Amelia at the Palo Alto Battlefield

Weekend Snapshots

2014-10-20T13:55:00.000-05:00

This weekend we drove up to a little town in far North Texas called Muenster. It is such a cute little town. It was settled by Germans in the 1800s and they still celebrate their German heritage there. We had such a fun time there at their Oktoberfest! There was a lot of German food - strudel, sauerkraut, potato salad, bavarian pretzels, beer, sausages, potato pancakes with apple sauce.... all kinds of stuff. We danced to the great bands they had and shopped at the booths. It was such a fun time!

I took this in Ft. Worth on our way home. I love that city.

We ate at our favorite Tex Mex restaurant, Joe T Garcia's. It's like an oasis on their patio. I wish these photos did it justice.

Buddy had to stay at a puppy hotel while we were gone and we missed him so we got lots of Buddy time in when we picked him up.

Weekend Snapshots

2014-10-14T14:00:00.000-05:00

I had a nice long weekend. I used some of my vacation time from work to take a four day weekend. The girls were off on Monday too so we had a nice relaxing extra day together. It was so nice!

Aria had two soccer games this weekend. She did great.

Rob was all jazzed about the Giants playing so we spent Saturday night at a pub watching the game and eating food.

Aria and Buddy unwinding together after Aria's game

Mia said she was drawing a pretty pony and a baby deer. She's so cute!

I took the girls to the dentist. No cavities - yay!

2014-10-06T17:20:00.001-05:00

I'm really, really out of the habit of blogging. I still value it and hope that I can get back into the swing of things. There is always such a time crunch around here. It seems like everything the kids are involved in is "mandatory" and so we run to six soccer practices a week plus soccer games and the occasional tournament. It's just so much, but we love it and we love them and so we make it work.

Aria is still playing for the same team she has always played for. She's had the same coach for years and she's settled. She recently tried out for another program called The Olympic Development Program. They invited her to be in the pool of players in her age group and she just started, but it's been fun for her. It's basically a bunch of girls who practice together all year and at the end of the year, they invite the top girls to go to a week long camp somewhere in the U.S. and compete. It's her first year in the pool so we'll see what happens. If nothing else, she'll get a lot of extra play time and some valuable coaching. Plus, now that she's in, she'll get to come back as an incumbent next year and continue to practice with the girls and coaches.

Aria got a little foot injury during a tournament a couple of months ago. That's the part about this sport I don't like. It's physical.

She always has the best attitude though!

Amelia started her first year of select soccer this year. She's doing well and seems to really like the work. She goes to an extra skills session with her coach on Friday nights and always comes away jazzed about what they did. She's so cute. They are a pretty good team and win most of the time. They are first in their league right now.

It feels like we are a good way into the school year already, but since I haven't mentioned it before, Aria started 7th grade and Amelia started 5th grade. Mia is absolutely thriving. She has great teachers who reward her for being good. She's going out to pizza this Friday as a reward for her respectfulness. So cute, right? She spends all day once a week in a gifted and talented class like she has since kindergarten and loves all the projects that they do. I'm so proud of that little one.
I can't believe that Aria is in jr. high. She's doing really well academically. She's a smart one and has all A's and B's. She's taking pre AP English and I thought it would be a challenge for her, but she's doing a great job. She made a lot of new friends right away, but jr high girls aren't the most stable bunch. I really don't know who's friends with who anymore. I try to keep up, but their minds change about each other for the oddest things. Apparently you have to have the exact same opinions as each other otherwise you are NOT A SUPPORTIVE FRIEND (They actually type in all caps to each other). Haha, they'll learn. In the mean time, it's kind of comical.

Belated first day of school pictures.

Lucy

2014-07-03T14:37:00.000-05:00

This week has been hellish for our family. Things can change in an instant.

6 years ago, I was taking a a night class. While I was there, Rob texted me a picture of our girls at the time, ages 4 and 5 years old, with a small puppy. I thought it was someone else's dog and he was messing with me. We hadn't really seriously talked about getting a dog. He had never had one before and wasn't sure he wanted one and although I'm a huge dog lover, I'm mildly allergic so we would have to take some sort of action for me if we were to get a dog. I didn't think the discussion was even really on the table. But sure enough when I got home, there was this tiny golden puppy in my house. Rob and the girls had spontaneously picked her up from a neighbors house on one of their walks. She was adorable. We named her Lucy and immediately integrated her into our home. She was a true companion dog. She wanted to be as close to her people as she could be. She was always on one of our laps or situated right up next to us on the couch. She was on my heels every morning when I got up and would stand in the hallway as I tied things up for the night and stare sleepily at me in the evening refusing to go to bed unless I did. She greeted us exuberantly every single time any of us walked in the front door and stuck her little head out of the window blinds and watched us when we were in the front yard. She was bonded to us in a serious way. We knew all her habits and what she liked and disliked. We could predict everything she would do. She was our baby. The one thing about Lucy though is that she was always trying to run. She wanted to squeeze or dig out of every barrier and break free from her leash. She was never that dog that would stay by your side and walk with you when we were out in the open. She was such a hyper little thing! I'll never forget the panic she gave us when we left her in the care of a relative in Oklahoma while we went to see a movie. Soon after we left, we got a call that she had run off. We searched high and low for her, called animal control and did everything we could think of. We searched until dark and sadly went back to our hotel without her. At 5 am, we got a call that she had come back. We raced over to the house and when I scooped her up, she immediately fell asleep in my arms. I cradled and cuddled her little exhausted body with such relief. It was the same way I had cradled her so many times in the middle of the night during thunder storms and the same way I cradled her broken little body on the way to the hospital last Sunday afternoon. She somehow found her way into our neighbor's backyard and slipped through their side gate and out into the front. I went after her, but when I rounded the corner, I saw her there. Laying on her side in the middle of the road. She had been hit by a car and was wounded. I scooped her up and ran home. We brought her into the animal hospital and they made her as comfortable as they could. The X-rays were devastating. The look on the doctor's face was sympathetic and we knew we had to let her go. The girls screams and cries could be heard throughout the hospital. I could barely see through my own tears and think through my own grief to comfort them. All four of us had the opportunity to say goodbye and to tell her we loved her. We all gave her a kiss on her little silky head. Lord, I miss that little dog so much. I miss the jingle of her collar and her growling at bunnies in the yard. I miss her running as fast as she could the kitchen every time the fridge opens as if it was for her benefit. I miss watching her catch bugs on the deck on summer nights. I miss her little face popping out from under her blankie in the morning. I miss watching her try and cover her food with that same blankie as if it was going to get taken. I miss watching her drink from her doggy water cooler and back up every couple of seconds for fear that the water cooler would release more water and gurgle. I feel resentful of the quiet when the mail man knocked on the door this afternoon. Where was the chaos of hilarious protective small dog barks? We had all really personified our little pet. She was the star of her own instagram account and in our family photos and on our family vacations. We should have had her for many more years and my sadness of all the cuteness and snuggles that we'll miss from her is so overwhelming right now. As a Christian person, I believe that our pets are beloved and valued creatures and that they do have a soul. I believe there is scripture to support that. So I hope that Lucy knows how much we miss her and how much we loved her and always will. Goodbye my little sweetheart. We'll see you again.

Galveston Island 2014

2014-06-19T15:25:00.000-05:00

We made our annual trip to Galveston Island last week as soon as the kids got done with school. It was the best of times as always. The weather was warm and overcast and breezy and the island was it's charming self. I just love it there. This time we stayed in a really nice and really old hotel. According to sources, it's haunted. So much so that they were walking a ghost hunting tour group through the lobby and encouraging them to take photographs of empty chairs and corners in the hopes of capturing orbs in their pictures. I hear an old Civil War soldier hangs out in the bar downstairs. Anyways, it is called The Tremont House and it is gorgeous and I want to stay there again.

During our (way too short) time on the island, we went dolphin watching. We've done that the last three years and it has never disappointed. The gulf has so many dolphins and they follow behind the shrimp boats in order to get some easy food. They seem to get curious about all the boats though and will come really close to the tour boat and leap around. We all get really excited! We even saw some babies this year. They were so cute!

We also played on the beach. The girls love to bring their boogie boards down and play in the shallow, tame and warm surf that Galveston offers. They build sandcastles and kick their soccer ball around. There are all kinds of vendors around so we can pitch our canopy, set up our chairs and then get some elotes, cupcakes, snow cones, cold drinks or whatever we feel like when we're hanging out for the day. It's always such a sweet time.

The Pleasure Pier is crazy. Aria loves to go. It's a replication of a historic pier amusement park on Galveston Island. It used to be there from the 40s - the 60s until hurricane Carla blew it down. It's so cute and like walking into an old timey carnival. All of the rides are either right next to the water or swing you out over the water. It's so adorable, but in my advancing age, I just cannot stomach spinning and swinging rides anymore. My head feels all pressurized and my stomach feels upside down. I have to take a 30 minute break in between each ride, but having a very energetic, ride loving 11 year old doesn't afford me to do that. I feel pretty pitiful the whole time! But Aria loves it. Mia loves some of it, but Aria loves every crazy part of it. So we end up taking them and spending a few hours there. Their smiles are worth my nausea for sure!

The rest of our time in Galveston consisted of driving around and enjoying the coast, finding good food to eat and popping in all the cute shops. We did have to make an emergency stop into an orthodontist because Mia's palatal expander slipped on one side, but that was the only hiccup in the trip. That reminds me that I need to go on yelp and write a nice review for that orthodontist. They were so kind, saw her immediately and did everything they could to hold her over until we got home and didn't charge us a thing for their time.

I can't wait to go back. I'm really hoping that we make it back this year again, but if not, we'll be back next year for sure.

Galveston has the biggest Mardi Gras celebration West of the Mississippi !

Ready for a day out on the boat!

Galveston has such pretty Victorian architecture.

Aria pouring her breakfast tea

The tall ship Elyssa is spectacular. I kind of like nautical things though. Volunteers keep this ship literally in ship shape and it goes out to sea once a year. It was built in Scotland in the 1800s as a merchant ship and now lives in Galveston at the seaport museum there. We've gone on board and it's pretty neat. I just love how it looks in the harbor there!

This is Aria forcing down her salad. Rob said he'd take her to the Pleasure Pier if she ate it. Like we weren't going to take her anyways haha!

How cute is Mia with her braces?!

Our hotel doors had an interesting lock and Rob had the girls convinced that it was a retina scanner. So whoever opened the door had to put their eye up to it first. I think they caught on, but they continued to play along.

Last Day of School

2014-06-06T14:32:00.002-05:00

It's the last day of school here today. It's the last day of 4th grade and also the last day of sixth grade. It's the last day that Aria will ever attend elementary school and the last day that Aria and Mia will go to the same school until Aria is a senior and Mia is a sophomore. Isn't that weird? They've been dropped off and picked up together for the last five years. Aria is moving on to jr. high next year. It's hard to get used to that idea. She'll have a full schedule of classes and go to a whole new school with tons of new kids. I'm excited for her, but nervous. We all know how interesting middle school can be. Last night she asked me when she can start dating. What? Not any time soon, my dear. I'm really glad that I still have one in elementary school for a couple more years, but as for Aria, she ended elementary school on a super high note. She has excelled at her flute, she was chosen to read one of her short stories in front of sixth grade, she was the Vice President of the 4H club, worked on BNN (the morning news announcement team) as an anchor and with their audio visuals, she auditioned for and made the Allen ISD honor choir, and maintained straight As. A pretty amazing year to end elementary school on!

Yesterday, there was a little ceremony at the school for the graduating sixth graders. Here's some pictures!

This is her with her sixth grade teacher. He was great. A great teacher to end elementary school with.

Shaking hands with the assistant principal

High fiving the principal!

What a kid!

Pictures

2014-05-09T11:12:00.003-05:00

These are just some pictures of things we've been up to lately.

Mia's gifted and talented class at school has been studying inventors and inventions. For weeks, they've been working on coming up with their own invention, a prototype and a marketing plan for that invention. Last Sunday, all of the fourth grade AIM students got to present their inventions. It was so neat to see what all those little minds came up with! Mia came up with a Speed Wash. It washes and dries clothes in 7 minutes. I gotta get myself one of those!

Aria had a band concert last week. She loves her flute and is doing so well with it. I'm amazed at how good she is now that her first band year is coming to an end. I'm very proud of her!

On one of the rare afternoons that we didn't have to rush off to soccer practice, Mia went to read her beloved Harry Potter outside. She looked so sweet that I had to take a picture of her (-:

Mia has turned into a soccer monster. Aria's team has been laying low and just practicing, but Mia's team is playing in two leagues plus three times a week practice. That's a lot of soccer every week. This weekend, Aria's team is coming out of hibernation for a tournament though. It's going to be a very full soccer weekend!

The Sunday after Aria's Confirmation, our church hosted Youth Sunday where the service was entirely lead by kids. Aria read a prayer and helped with the offering. It's a pretty cool way to make the kids feel like an important part of church.

Here's Mia at an FC Dallas game. Good times!

Birthday Post

2014-04-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

Oh hey, I had a birthday recently. My family is always so very sweet to make it special. Life sort of pre planned that day for me, but we managed to squeeze some fun things in!

My birthday cake (-:

This is us waiting for our In n Out

My birthday was actually on Palm Sunday so we were at church. Mia sang in the choir and Aria carried in the new Christ candle.

Mia had a soccer game on my birthday so I got to cheer her on!

Rob at my birthday dinner with his beer sampler

Confirmation Sunday

2014-04-29T19:17:00.000-05:00

For the last several months, Aria has been studying with a small group of kids at church in order to go through Confirmation. Confirmation is when the kids have the opportunity to decide to officially join the church. They study together, tour lots of different churches- including those of different religions, ask lots of questions, do service projects, etc. It was a really neat time for her. So last Sunday was Confirmation Sunday. The kids were presented with a stole, a cross with the date on it and a hymnal which was signed by everyone who was at church on Sunday. It was a pretty neat little day for our family!

Miss Aria on her Confirmation Day

Amelia served as an Acolyte

The Confirmation Class

Waiting in the reception line

Aria chatting with church members who came by to sign her hymnal

Aria and a friend who went through Confirmation with her

Amelia looking at Aria's cross necklace

The girls together after church

Little Spring Break Trip

2014-03-29T23:11:00.001-05:00

Last week the girls had their spring break from school. I had originally had the whole week scheduled off from work, but some things came up and I ended up working for the first half of the week. Even though that happened, we were able to squeeze in some fun at the end of the week. We went to Glen Rose, TX, which is a very small very charming town here in the great state. We rented a little prairie house right on the Paluxy River. There were tree swings hidden everywhere, tether ball poles in various places, volley ball, a see saw, a petting zoo with brushes and animal feed that the kids could use and plenty of room to roam. We were so charmed by the property, but the house was equally as charming. There were vases provided for wildflower picking, jars for firefly catching, lots of unique books to browse through and a fire pit in the front yard that we used for s'more making.

While in Glen Rose, we visited Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. It's a huge property that you can drive slowly through with a bag of animal food and feed all kinds of animals that you would never normally get close to. It was so cool that I think it ruined zoos for us forever. There were deer, rams, giraffes, emus, antelope and more. We had so much fun!

The next day we made our way over to the Dinosaur State Park. They have actual fossilized dinosaur tracks there! Some are roped off and some are out in the open. It's kind of amazing to try and wrap your brain around the fact that Texas was home to dinosaurs! While we were there, we spent time playing in the river and hiking. Texas can be so pretty.

We finished our short little trip with a stop at a miniature horse show. Mia is so horse crazy and so we did it for her. Lucky little girl got to spend some time with some horses that were out of their pen for grooming. The owner was so nice to let the girls love on the ponies for a while!

Corpus Christi and Padre Island

2013-11-22T14:16:00.000-06:00

Last month, my sweet Rob had a birthday. We celebrated a little bit on that day by going out to our favorite pizza place and going back to the house for cake and ice cream, but what we really had planned was to take a trip. We like doing trips for birthdays instead of gifts. It makes memories and helps keep our minimalism dreams (hard to actually live out when you have kids) of a clutter free lifestyle alive. This time, we decided we'd drive a little farther down south than we normally do and go to Corpus Christi. We had never been down there and we are so glad we went! We stayed in a hotel on the pristine marina and had a gorgeous view of the boats and blue water and palm trees. I know Texas isn't famous for this kind of stuff, but it's here and it's awesome. Going down mid week and off season was great because there were no beach crowds and our hotel wasn't crowded either. We took walks on the water front, rode horses on the beach and just relaxed with the gorgeous weather. On the way down we stopped in Goliad, a town famous in for it's role in the Texas Revolution. We toured a pretty mission where we learned a bit about the Spanish colonial era of Texas and then we visited The Presidio La Bahia, where many prisoners of war were kept during the Revolution.

The Presidio La Bahia Displaying the Nine Flags That Have Flown Over Goliad, TX

On to the coast....

Galveston Island

2013-07-07T21:12:00.003-05:00

I love Galveston Island, that little island just off the coast of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. I miss it when I'm not there. Heck, I miss it when I'm there simply because I know I'll have to head back up north soon. Last summer I failed to put up any pictures of our trip on this blog, but we loaded up all five of us (Lucy, the Chiweenie being the fifth) and spent a week on a 12th floor condo right across the street from the ocean. In the evenings we'd watch fishermen wade out and fish and in the mornings dolphins would be leaping what seemed just a few feet away from us. Rob and I had bikes and the kids rode their scooters around the sea wall. We went dolphin watching in the bay and rode horses on the beach. The kids went to a penguin day camp at the aquarium one day so Rob and I had all day to ourselves to tour a couple of museums and grab a beer on the porch of Murdoch's. Some of our best times as a little family have been spent on that unpretentious island.

This year, we went for only a couple of nights, but we packed as much into those days as we could. It happened that Aria had a soccer tournament that flowed over into the day we were to go down and so we had a bit of a late start, but we still made great time. Maybe it was Aria's never ending supply of corny jokes that made Rob drive a little faster haha. Anyways, that evening, we made a grocery store run and stocked our little kitchen with drinks and snacks and some meal items and settled into our condo. It was tiny and had one room, a sleeper couch and bunk beds recessed into the wall. The girls of course really wanted to sleep in the bunk beds!

The next day, we set out for the harbor to catch a boat. The girls really wanted to see some dolphins again.

After dolphin watching we went back to the condo for some lunch and then headed out to a fishing pier that was right across the street. We rented some poles and bought some live bait and set out to the end of the pier. It was actually a blast. We caught a bunch of fish including two baby hammer head sharks! It was funny because Mia was the first one to catch it and I reeled it in. When she saw it, she got freaked out and took off. We were laughing at her, but we didn't know what to do! Then a nice local came over and helped us get it off the hook and showed us how to hold it. He tried to hand it to Mia "so yer mama ken take a pitchure" but she wasn't having any of that. I took a picture of Rob with the little shark and then we sent it back out to sea. We had a pretty fun and relaxing time out there with the music going and the sound of the waves. The girls even got Otter Pops from the pier workers for catching some fish!

After we went fishing, we went back to the condo for dinner and then did a little shopping at Murdoch's, a giant gift shop built in the waves and bought the girls new body boards for the next day.

Then we headed over to the Pleasure Pier. This is Aria's favorite thing on the island! It's an amusement park with all sorts of rides and lights and music. It's so cute and pretty and fun!

The next day we woke up and hit the beach first thing in the morning. The weather was perfect. It wasn't overwhelmingly hot or humid like it can be here in Texas. It was mild and warm and the waves were pretty choppy which made the kids happy. They got in some great body boarding time!

After some time at the beach it was time to head home to Dallas. We packed a lot into those couple of days and had so much fun. We're hoping to make it down there at least one more time this year!

Little Family Update!

2013-06-14T14:14:00.004-05:00

When Aria told me she wanted to sing Charlie Boy by the Lumineers for her school talent show, I have to admit, I didn't take her all that seriously. She sings in her school district's honor choir and has a pretty voice so singing is a good idea for her, but I never thought she'd follow through with it because most of the kids would likely be lip synching to Disney music or whatever. I was right, in that there was some stuff like that, but I was wrong in that there was a great cooking demonstration, a bow staff routine, a near perfect reenactment of the cup song from Pitch Perfect, and a kid who could actually pull out some sweet hip hop moves. I was also wrong about the fact that Aria actually got up on stage, put on her grandfather's Vietnam War Army coat bearing her own last name on it, talked about it to the audience for a moment and then sang a haunting song about the Vietnam War. One mom said it made her tear up. I was really proud of her!

Little Amelia turned nine! How is it that the baby of the family is almost to the double digits?! She's still just a little munchkin in dresses and giant bows in her hair! On her birthday, we went to see Oz The Great and Powerful and ordered in pizza. It was a really fun family night!

The weekend after her birthday, we took her and her little friend, Sam to The Magic Time Machine. That's a restaurant in Dallas where the servers are all dressed up in costume (our waiter was Peter Pan) and the booths all have a theme. Charlie Brown, carousel, maps, library, etc. No rhyme or reason to these themes at all. The salad bar is in a car, which is why it's called the salad car. It's just crazy and fun and weird and all the kids drinks bubble like potion and they get autograph books to go around and get character's autographs with. The girls had a blast!

The Mad Hatter was such a great character. He poured drinks from way up high and threw things. He was just so silly! Apparently, a lot of the staff are actual actors who do this on the side.

I think I mentioned before that Amelia's also playing in a coed soccer league with a little FC Dallas team right now. It's fun to see her play against boys. She's doing a great job. She's leaving the Liverpool club team she's been playing with and going to a rec team though. She got so much better through their program, but in the end, she just wants to play soccer and really isn't into the intense competition of club soccer. Some of her friends play for the team she's going to join so I think she'll have a lot of fun! Here's a video of her being in the right place at the right time recently.

We've had some pretty great thunderstorms recently. I love them, I just wish my dogs did too. Lucy goes ballistic and can't be calmed down and Buddy comes over to my side of the bed and taps me with his paw so that I'll lift him into the bed with us. We're always extra tired whenever these storms roll through at night. They sure are pretty when we get to drive through them though!

This is Aria the morning after a slumber party. My mommy martial law decrees that she is now banned indefinitely from sleep overs due to the fact that she is always miserable the next day. I love her so dearly and she really is the best kid, but rumor has it that she was doing cartwheels at 5:30am. Next Day Kid with no energy or coping skills gets seriously in the way of all the stuff we have and want to do around here. I think Buddy was pretty happy with the situation though!

And this is just a little picture of Mia entertaining herself while Aria practices soccer. She was having so much fun with that kite!

The girls are officially on summer break and so happy! My work schedule was changed from afternoons to early mornings so I'm loving being able to be home all day with them. Can't wait to share all of our summer shenanigans!

Some Things We've Done

2013-05-17T12:04:00.001-05:00

A couple Saturday nights ago, the girls spent the night with their friends and Rob and I headed out to see Jimmy Buffett and Jackson Brown in concert. We had lots of fun. It was our second time seeing Jimmy in concert and it's such a giant party. A great way to just cut loose and have a fun night!

Glow in the dark shark fins!

Us!

Mia (in blue and red) joined an FC Dallas indoor youth team, It's coed and she really likes it. I think playing against boys brings out a lot more aggression in her. Aria always has fouls called on her, but Mia never did until this league haha.

Victory taco!

Aria played in a soccer tournament this weekend. They played 5 games total and some required veerrry early wake up calls. They shut out the first four teams that they played and had a great chance of winning first place, but in the last game they gave up a couple of goals. They went home with silver though! It was a very full, tiring and very exciting weekend!

Aria has another tournament this weekend so we're going to rest up tonight so that she can hit the ground running tomorrow morning. Today is actually our little Mia's 9th birthday too! So when the girls get home from school we'll do a little shopping and then quietly celebrate with pizza, a movie and a cake that Rob picked up for her last night. He's such a good daddy. He woke up really early this morning and went to get a bouquet of balloons so that the house would be festive before school. We'll do the "big" celebration with a few friends next weekend!

Granbury Weekend

2013-05-05T21:59:00.002-05:00

Last year, Rob and I found ourselves in need of a weekend away from all the obligations of our busy little family life to relax and reconnect. We didn't really care where we went, but saw that there was a wine walk going on in Granbury, Tx. So we booked a hotel on the lake, walked around the streets sipping wine, sampling chocolate, cheese, local honeys and infused vinegars and fell in love with the town. Last year we left the kids with my sister, but this year we took them with us. The weather was perfect and the town was as charming as we remembered it. We stayed in the same hotel with the boardwalk that leads right into the little downtown and has the same view of the lake where we can watch the boats from our window. I don't know if this will be a yearly trip for us or not, but I do know that we really enjoy our time out of the fast paced, hectic environment that we find fun, but sometimes a bit overwhelming. We really have to fight for down time these days and Granbury in the spring is a pretty good place to go once we've decided to quiet things for a couple of days.

Breakfast at this little place.

I'd LOVE to see an opera at this opera house which was established when the town was still part of the American frontier.

There's history here too. I think you can stay in this hotel and I love this building, but it seems a little creepy?

There's pretty art all over this town.

Sunday morning after breakfast, we went for a walk in the park.

Aria saw me pointing the camera at her and played the goofball card.

We stopped by the Ft. Worth Stockyards on our way home for pony rides

and lunch.

So that was our mini getaway last weekend. Hope we make it back again next year!

homemade granola bars

2013-04-09T11:04:00.001-05:00

Like lots of people, we are trying really hard to eat healthful and to know the ingredients that are going into our bodies. We've stopped hanging around so many restaurants and are getting innovative at home instead. I really want to sell baked goods for a living someday, but that's another topic for another time. Did I ever mention the lady that sells cupcakes by the Texas sea shore out of a pink van and wears a Bob Dylan t shirt while doing it? Well I met her and I have a theory that she may have been Future Kate showing me that my dream can be lived. Anyways, until I find a way, I'll work on being a home baker. Here's a recipe for granola bars that I made this weekend. I think they are tasty and a great way to get some good stuff in the body!

ingredients...
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup or 3oz quinoa
1/3 cup or 3oz flax seed
1/3 cup or 3oz chopped almonds
1/3 cup or 3oz chopped pecans
1/2 oz butter, vegan butter or cooking spray
1 3/4 oz brown sugar
1/3 cup agave nectar
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
prep...
1. Preheat oven to 350. Coat 9” x 13” baking pan with cooking spray or butter.
2. Combine dry ingredients (oats, flax, quinoa, almonds, pecans). Spread on a baking sheet and toast for 15 minutes. Reduce oven to 300 when removed.
3. Combine wet ingredients and salt in large saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly until brown sugar is just dissolved. Remove from heat.
4. Add toasted grains and nuts to sugar mixture and mix well. Press into coated baking pan and press flat.
5. Bake at 300 for 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Allow to cool almost completely before cutting.

It only took a little time to have something great for the kids' lunch boxes and snacktime!

Just some things....

2013-04-08T18:29:00.001-05:00

We had a pretty sweet little Easter. Rob and the girls were home for a three day weekend. I worked Friday and Saturday, but we managed to sneak in lots of fun time together!

Here are the girls on Easter morning before church. They had already hunted around the house for eggs and eaten some candy! Our church service was so beautiful and at the end, the kids had a massive indoor (it had poured earlier in the morning so it was muddy outside) egg hunt.

Some random bits....

Buddy getting some love before Aria heads off to school.

My two obnoxious dogs letting our neighbor know that they are not cool with him mowing his lawn.

I have to remind Mia to wear her unicorn helmet when she's riding her bike, but she's nondiscriminatory with it otherwise. Here she is going to her dad's office.

Weekend Snapshots

2013-03-25T09:59:00.001-05:00

This weekend was great! I often work Saturdays now and I had this one off. I've grown to cherish two day weekends since they seem so long! On Saturday morning we headed out to Aria's soccer game only to get notified on the way there that it was rained out so we detoured to Starbucks and grabbed some drinks and then ran some errands. We recently dropped all of our old HI-8 tapes off at a conversion store so that all of our family home videos would be on dvd instead of little outdated cassettes. We've been meaning to do that forever and it's such a relief to know our older home videos are a little safer. So we picked those up and then stopped by this amazing doll house store that the girls have been wanting to go into. They had everything you could possibly want to put in a doll house. They had from little persian rugs to Christmas decorations. You can imagine an eight year old a ten year old little girl's reaction to a place like that. After seeing it, they are full of plans haha. After that, we stopped by Whole Foods to pick up some stuff for dinner.

Here's Aria sampling some Dutch truffle cheese. There's this one restaurant we always go to where they have truffle fries and they're a family favorite so the taste of truffles wasn't weird to Aria. The cheese was so good!

We were lucky to have this very helpful unicorn with us as well. She's a great grocery buddy!

Later that afternoon, we went to Mia's soccer game. She is starting to like her team. We were pretty sure this was going to be a one season adventure, but now she's starting to be really positive about it. I still have questions about the influence of some of the parents. One almost got into a fist fight with the opposing parents this weekend and the ref said he'd shut down the game if she tried that again. It's such embarrassing behavior. Ugh. But the coach is great and the girls are all really sweet and Mia is really improving and gaining confidence. That's hard to beat so we'll see if she wants to continue.

After Mia's game, we were so chilled to the bone from being outside, that we went home and made soup. We made some delicious tomato bisque. I've never been much of a soup maker and I'm just starting to venture into it. We're finding that it's easy, fun and healthy!

Sunday was Palm Sunday and the girls participated in a drama and a palm procession at church. They also sang with the children's choir that they rehearse with every Sunday afternoon. It was so beautiful!

After church we went to one of our very favorite places to eat in Dallas. It's called Kalachandji's and it's a vegetarian Indian restaurant inside of a temple. It's so beautiful and the food is fresh and delicious and made right there. We all get so excited whenever we eat there.

Just some little things....

2013-03-25T09:08:00.001-05:00

This post is a bit late since it's been in process for about a week. I just keep forgettting to come back and finish it. I'm putting up another one right after this, but I did want to get these pictures up even though they aren't as recent.

The girls had their Spring break a couple of weeks ago. Rob took the week off to hang out with the kids and do some projects around the house while I went to work most days. Even though we didn't turn spring break into a trip, the girls still managed to have fun with their dad and lots of play time. They each had a friend for a sleepover one night too. It was exhausting since they of course wouldn't go to sleep, but they had tons of fun giving each other makeovers, eating snacks and watching movies!

Playing games.....

Eating pancakes the next morning....

For St. Patricks day, we made four leaf clovers out of sliced bell peppers and filled them with risotto.

This is a different meal, but I just love how exasperated Mia looks by not getting to leave the table until her green beans are gone. It can be tough being a kid!

Yet another meal time... The girls have been having fun getting in the kitchen with Rob and I and helping. It's fun to see them excited about cooking and learning!

More food! Aria and Mia busted out our donut maker to make donuts for a giant garage sale we had. The donuts were great, but I was way more excited about selling two couches, two tables, and a bunch of other space taking items. We're clearing out all the non essentials so we can (hopefully) move soon. Yay!

This is just a random picture, but I love it. Mia usually crashes in Aria's room(the reason we're making them share a room in our next place) and I found her on Aria's futon as snuggled up as she possibly could be. So sweet!

Aria Scores Some Goals

2013-03-18T11:13:00.000-05:00

As I talk about quite a bit, Aria plays competitive soccer. This means professional coach, training twice a week plus games on the weekends in competitive leagues and tournaments. She loves it, but she also loves that because a couple of her friends play on a rec team, when they need an extra player on the field, they will call her, hand her a jersey and let her play with them. It's so fun for her because the pressure is lower and she can really just have fun. She played with them recently and scored a couple of goals. I got them on iPhone video through the glass of an indoor arena so they aren't the best captures, but still fun to watch!

Questions

2013-03-06T21:29:00.000-06:00

Why is Queen Elizabeth's husband a prince and not a king?

Does he have royal blood?

Was he very handsome when he was younger?

How many years until William is king?

What's more likely to happen: a solar eclipse or a lunar eclipse?

I read that there's ice on Mercury even though it's closest to the sun and really hot. Some people think comets bring it. Do you think comets bring ice to Mercury?

How do you read roman numerals?

What are you and daddy going to do when Aria and I are grown up?

Can I recite a poem to you? It's about spaghetti.

Do you think that when I grow up I can be a nurse who does chemical science and also train dolphins and ponies?

Want me to read you a strange but true story about a dog who drives?

These are just a few of the questions I was asked within the past hour by my wonderful little 8 year old. Sometimes she says, "Mama?" and waits for me to say, "Yes?" and then I can see her thinking up something to ask in the moment. It's so funny and so incredibly sweet.

Weekend Snapshots

2013-03-06T09:26:00.001-06:00

Just a few little things....

The girls both played soccer on Saturday. Aria's team won making them undefeated this season and Mia's team tied which is progress for them!

After the regular Saturday soccer games, we met some friends for dinner. It was at this great healthy buffet where everything is fresh and labeled. It was delicious and we had such great company! Speaking of healthy and delicious, we made another pizza this weekend. This time we made jerk tofu, mushroom, sun dried tomato and artichoke heart pizza on an herb crust. Tasty! Like I said before, we are really trying to make the effort to eat healthy, creatively and deliciously at home.

I'll admit though, we did get hungry on our errands and stopped for a lemon sugar crepe because, of course.

The three of us girls took Rob suit shopping over the weekend. Aria can be seen here overseeing this process. Rob is just doomed to a lifetime of female opinions. He handles it well!

Aria caught this little moment between Mia and I. She was feeling a little worn out from all the stuff we were trying to get done.

Aria on the other hand is never worn out! She loves being out and about. I love her little smile!

That's about it for my little family update!

little things happening

2013-02-28T09:32:00.001-06:00

We've been eating at home a lot. This probably doesn't seem like a big deal to most people, but to us it is. Having a busy family with work, school and extra curriculars, many times we just aren't home at meal times and we find ourselves taking the easy route and eating wherever we can. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't necessarily mean fast food(although Taco Bueno has been known to win). Sometimes we're near Whole Foods and eat lunch there and sometimes it's sandwiches somewhere. We're not greasy burger people, but still. We've made a conscious decision to make our own food whenever we possibly can. And you know, it really can be done even if you eat later or earlier or have to drive 30 minutes home from wherever you are in the DFW metroplex. Trader Joe's has pizza dough for a dollar something. It has no preservatives and is really good! We've started keeping those in our fridge and making all sorts of creative pizzas. We really look forward to it!
This one above is a pesto, artichoke heart, asparagus, lemon pizza on an herb crust. Unique pizzas have been a great way to get the kids to be different in their eating too since they already have it in their minds that pizza is inherently delicious.

My girls decided to get creative in the kitchen. I walked in on them making peanut butter and honey balls rolled in crushed Chex cereal. They were pretty proud of themselves!

Spring is coming and even though we're still getting some pretty cold temps here in North Texas, we decided to go ahead and scatter some flower seeds in our little flower bed to see what pops up in the next several weeks.

I love watching these two play the game they love!

Speaking of games they love, they are obsessive about their Indiana Jones Wii game. We've now watched every Indiana Jones movie so that they can understand the levels. Mia hums the Indiana Jones music all the time. She says it motivates her hahaha.

Oh and look at this handsome boy! Our little Maltipoo, Buddy got groomed yesterday. We love him dearly, but he really is a magnet. He goes outside and comes in with grass, leaves and sticks stuck in his white curls. It's funny, but gross. So off the the groomers he has to go. They did a great job!

Those are just a few of the highlights around these parts!