Things and such

At the library sitting on the Indian statue
After playing with the trains and puzzles


A storm knocked down half of our back fence last week.


My sunflowers are growing!


Baby girl is growing and we are thinking about names.
Maybe something that starts with K?
Austin got to hear baby sister's hearbeat at the dr.
My mom did, too.


Potty training is going really well - thank you Jesus!!

Hello Summer.

Our first day of summer was Thursday.  Austin's last day of school was Wednesday.  He brought cookies and hugs to share with his friends.  We celebrated our first day of summer by eating at Krispy Kreme, getting a watermelon at Walmart, riding in Uncle Wayne's big truck, and not taking a nap.

 

We've spent a lot of time together.  This is our normal and with this newness comes frustration.  Let's just face it - I am a pregnant single mom.  I am in charge.

My other half has left and thinks it's purely ok to see his son for two hours at a time.

Frustrated - yes!  But trying to focus on teaching and loving and mothering this sweet little boy everyday - yes!!

 

 Playing with the train at the library

Waiting for our pizza at Hungry Howie's

I also set up our trainset from IKEA,  put up black out drapes in A's room, & watched as a lady blew Austin a kiss from the motorcycle nearby.

 

 

Happy Friday

This is my 1201st post!

Since I've been at home with morning sickness most of the week I've been reading and finished this one in about a day.


You can find it here.  I've read the first 3 books in the series in TX and this is the 4th. 
Setting is in Africa...easy read...loved it.

In other news Zofran is working and making me feel better.  Here we are before bed last night without a stomach ache....yay!

Reading

I just got through reading The Fixer Upper by Mary Kay Andrews.
It was a long book!
412 pages



I liked it so I went and checked out another book by Mary Kay.

Here's a synopsis:
Stuck in a tiny town where everyone seems to know her business, Dempsey grits her teeth and rolls up her sleeves, and begins her journey back to the last place she ever expected: home.

You can find the book here.

Reading Lately

You can find it here
I just finished this book. 
I find time to read on the weekend and at night before bed. 
It was pretty interesting...set in Ireland.
I like the pretty cover.
It also had a gold bookmark attached.


I also read this one.
You can find it here.
It was good just like every other Nicholas Sparks book I've read :)

Library Day

 

 Black Swan for K...The rest for me.

 

2 for A - This one's really cute.

 

 

A is reading his Dad's Philosophy book.  Classic.

No entrada

Yesterday while A was at MMO

I thought I would go to the library.

But I didn't.

I decided to drop off the book instead.

See that dog?

Yeah. No bueno.

Tuesday

We are tired today.
K's air conditioning is not working in his building.
He is coughing and congested so it works that his classes are short today.
A & I played this morning.
We ran some errands:
       Recycling, clothes to thrift store, library
We went to PetSmart & Old Navy
I wanted to buy some shorts but I didn't.  Maybe tomorrow.
Now it's lunch & A's favorite movie Brer Rabbit.

The End.


These were my sunflowers I grew when we lived in TX.
We had to tie them to the wheel barrow because they were so top heavy.

Queen of Babble: In the Big City

You can find it here
I just finished it.
It's cute.  About a girl trying to make it in NYC.
Already checked out the next one.

Thursday a.m.

Our day so far:

clothes to thrift store

recycling bin

Library for reading log

free fries in reading log goody bag

color activity we haven't gotten to yet

Potluck

you can find it here
This was another cute book in the Potluck Club Series.
It has some great recipes in the back.
I'm on the waiting list for the next one.

Thursday

A & I tried to go to the $2 movie today, but Holy Moly at the people and kids.  How to Train Your Dragon was showing, we have already watched it with A, and he liked it.  We got there 10 minutes early and there were about 100 people waiting to get in.  We'll try again next week.

We drove to the library, A played happily with the train and we checked out two new board books.  That's more our style anyway.

When bigger kids (train hogs) got to the library we decided to leave and go see whats going on at the ROC.  They are having winshape camp there right now.  We watched from the top of the gym and it was sensory overload but A sat in my lap and watched for 30 minutes. They had 10 stations and everybody was going everywhere, playing all kinds of games, flashing lights, you name it.

We got home and had lunch - fixed a smoothie and chicken nuggets, but A didn't want the chicken.  He also had some pnut butter and milk.

Little Man went down for a nap and I have been looking at the Pioneer Woman cookbook from the library.  I think I might make chicken parmesean soon.

Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

Here's Little Man after his long nap!

The Potluck Club

I just finished this book.  You can find it here.
The Potluck Club by Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson
It's another book about a group of ladies meeting together.
There's a theme here in all these books I've been reading this summer.
Maybe I need to start a ladies club - I miss my group of friends.
Could that be my theme for this year?  Start every sentence with "I miss..."
Or "The year of frustration".  This too shall pass.  It will get better.
On to the book...
It was fun and funny and I loved reading it!

I went to the library this morning and got another one of her books!

I have a lot of things on my mind these days with applying for jobs, mostly about the future.  This is a great way to stop thinking about all of that by diving into a book.

Friday.

Last night A spent the night with his L & G.

K and I went to FireHouse Pizza, the library and got frozen yogurt that we didn't have to share with a little one. Ha.  We walked out of the library last night and K said, "I think this book may change my life."  A book about German Philosophy.  Ha.

K got up this morning and I made coffee for him.  He headed off to play his favorite game and I picked up Mr. A.  He woke up early and ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel with L & G.

We got home and he is taking an early nap.  He's always worn out when he goes to L & G's house.

Laundry is done, Dishes are clean but need to be put up, Towels are ready to be folded.

Packages to K's parents, grandparents, and Winnetka are ready to be mailed.

Tomorrow we plan on going to the museum's family day and the BBQ Festival.  For K's sake I hope someone has really good brisket and sausage.  This TX boy is in dire need of brisket.  Thank the Lord for fun things to do here.  They are few and far between.

Speaking of things to do: A has Spring Break next week so I will be on the lookout for new, fun things to do with him.

The Art Teacher Inside

This morning our little family went to the Art Museum's family day and made an artwork like Monet's.  It was fun. A got messy and wanted to run around most of the time.  I worked on most of the artwork and K chased Little Man.

During the school year when I was teaching art I found a project to do with my kids that would help their self-esteem.  In school there are lots of people who are going to talk about you and you have to be confident in who you are.  In my classroom we made a radial symmetry project that looked like a pie or a pizza.  In those triangles I had kids write words that described themselves.  At the end of the project my kids could say, "My name is Jose Perez.  I am eight, smart, funny, a good baseball player and a friend."  So that if anyone says anything negative about you, Jose, you can say..."That's not true because my name is Jose Perez. I am eight, smart, funny, a good baseball player and a friend." 

It looked something like this:


Picture  and tutorial here

We also went to the library and I got this book which is pretty inspiring and I'm only on the first pages.

Easter Egg Hunt #2 this afternoon!!

Small town stuff

This week I was overwhelmed with the fact there is not much to do here.

In Dallas I could drive north and go to IKEA or to a huge mall.

I could drive south and go to the zoo or botanical gardens or spend the day at their museums or go to Cowtown.

We've been here 9 months and we've pretty much done all there is to do here.  You drive north and there's farm land.  You drive south there's farm land.

So today A stayed in his pj's most of the day.  We dropped off 2 books at the library book drop then saw Lecee before nap time.  When K got home I picked up a Simple Simon's Calizone, we watched TX beat Chicago, and part of the Master's then took Welly and the A to the trail and walked all the way around.

The trail was fun to walk all the way around and I can say we've never done that before. :)

About us.

1. A slept over at his Lecee & G's house last night. 

2. This morning he had sick eyes.

3. We went to Sam's and PetSmart with Lecee this morning.

4. It wore A out and he took a nap in his Elmo PJ's.

5. A woke up and we took 2 boxes to the thrift store and bought A an Elmo chair which needs to be washed.

6. Camp ROC was not so good today.  There was a major meltdown meaning T had to go home.  Sheesh.

7. Dinner was great. We ate outside on our back deck for the first time - we lit candles, moved the high chair out & had spinach salad with tomatoes, avacados, and italian dressing & Annie's mac & cheese. 

8. A likes avacado and mac & cheese.

9. We went to the library after dinner and I got a Nicholas Sparks book & K got one about Judo. We saw pictures of the new libraries they will build soon. Yay!

10. Little Man was tired.  He had an oozing nose and eye so he got a shower, pj's and early bed with the humidifier going.  Dr. for him tomorrow.

Happy Tuesday!