Jim Weiss

On Tuesday this week, we had the great priviledge of attending a performance by the storyteller Jim Weiss. He was absolutely fabulous. Despite his amazing storytelling abilities, Rhys was less than impressed. He spent the entire 2 1/2 hours with his hands over his ears and whining at me. It was too loud for him. Avery and I loved it though, and she spent the entire time finger knitting with a group of girls while they listened. She has a 15 foot knit chain to show for it!

Sick, sick, and more sickness

Will winter ever end?!! I'm so tired of sickness. The kids have had one illness after another for the past couple of months. Last weekend we got to make our third trip to Urgent Care in a month. Avery had a fever and what turned out to be a UTI. (Thank goodness -- an illness that isn't contageous!) Unfortunately, Rhys followed her UTI with a nasty stomach bug. Blech. Poor little guy, he's been just miserable! He seemed to have perked up a little tonight, and managed to hold down a couple of crackers, so hopefully things are improving....They need to, since we're leaving for our vacation on Wednesday morning!

Haircut

At her request (ok, demand), Avery got her hair cut on Thursday. She had a lot cut off, but it turned out very cute! The stylist blow dried her hair straight, so now she wants me to do that every day. Yeah, sure, I'll get right on that! ;-P I can barely get my own hair dried! She'll have to live with her adorable ringlets!

Happy birthday to meeeee!!

Today I turned 29! I had a great day. This morning, I took Avery to get her hair cut (so cute!! I'll take some pictures tomorrow), then we all went to the mall. We spent the afternoon shopping, took Avery to gymnastics, then had lasagna for dinner. Yummmmmm!!!

Loverboy!

On Thursday, we took Rhys to the first meeting of a 3-5 year old group. The kids played at the park, listed to some stories, and made some Valentines crafts. (Rhys *actually* did some art!!) Anyway, he and his little friend Mia were so cute playing together! He kept trying to hold her hand and hug her, and he even stood at the bottom of the slide and waited for her to slide so he could help her down. What a gentleman! ;-)

Ack!

It seems that Avery thinks she 17 -- not 7! She has been talking recently about getting her hair cut short, and I've been dragging my feet. Yesterday I was telling her that I don't really want her to cut her hair because I love her long curls, and she looked at me, and said, "MOM! It's MY hair and MY life!" Unfortunately, she's right! So I made an appointment for her to get her hair cut next week. Pictures to come....

Valentine's Party

On Friday, we had our co-op Valentine's party. The kids exchanged Valentines, and lots of yummy snacks, and did some fun crafts. The highlight for Avery was playing musical chairs, which she had been bugging me about playing for the past week. It was her first time to play, and she was thrilled to win!

RUFF! RUFF!

We dog-sat for Annie, Dad's Cocker Spaniel, this weekend while they went skiing. While she was here, Griffin learned his second "word"! He now barks, "Ruff! Ruff!" whenever we see a 4-legged creature! He's been barking his head off at Jasper and the cats, and he was just beside himself when we saw a pair of Italian Greyhounds at the park.

Curious George

On Monday we went to a friend's house for a Curious George party in anticipation of the movie. The kids had a great time playing and eating lots of goodies, like banana smoothies, banana bread, banana popsicles, and homemade pizza. We're all so excited to go see the movie, but after my experience with taking Griffin with us to see Nanny McPhee, I think I'll wait until Bill stay home with the little troublemaker.

Sweet sister

Last weekend, Griffin was feeling a little sick. He was really crabby, so Avery picked him up and walked him around the living room until he feel asleep! I was so impressed! She now has a new job. ;-)

Week in review

A little update....

After the excitement of Rhys's fall and ER trip, the rest of the week seemed relatively tame. Avery did her normal gymnastics classes, but Rhys had to miss his because of his head. We went to French day with our World Explorers group. Avery gave a short speech about Monet and showed a few of his paintings. We all ate lots of yummy French food - croissants, bread, cheese, crepes, quiche, etc. On Friday we went to a homeschool park day which was fun for all of us. Homeschooling is going well. Avery has been studying about Ben Franklin, who I find incredibly fascinating. We're immersing ourselves as much as possible in colonial history to prepare us for our trip to Virginia and Washington DC next month!

Definitely worth noting: I managed to escape kid-free twice this week! On Wednesday, Mamar watched the kids while Bill and I went to dinner, and on Tuesday, I got to go to a Stitch 'n' Bitch knitting session on Tuesday at a friend's house. My knitting is coming along well. It's not only addicting, but very calming. I find it a great way to wind down after the day. I'm almost finished with a purse that I knitted for Avery, and I've started on a tote bag that will be knitted and felted. I have so many projects I want to do...just too little time to do them! Maybe I can get a nanny to keep the kids so I can craft? ;-)

Our ER trip

Last Sunday, we got to make our first trip to the ER since we've been parents. Rhys fell off the picnic table in our backyard, and hit his head on a concrete block. It was absolutely terrifying, but after a few hours and some Durabond (glue), he's as good as new. Although he tells me he has to sleep on his ear, so the glue doesn't hurt him on his pillow.

Avery was quite traumatized by the whole thing. She was so worried about her brother. She wrote this in her journal while we were at the hospital:

To: Myself
1.One

Tears tears and more. i am so woried. My brother had to prablably get stichies! ther is noooo qwistseon. he has to have got some. it must hert. he was wailing sooooo loud.

I cry soooo tearfuly.

Griffin, 9 months

Wow, I can't believe that Griffin is 9 months old! Actually, he's almost 10 months! He's a busy little bee...cruising and crawling and getting into everything. He's even started to let go and stand on his own for a couple of seconds at a time -- until he realizes that he's let go and squats down. He also learned to clap this week, which is too cute. He claps for himself all the time. He's quite the adventurous little guy -- actually Danger Boy may be a more appropriate name for him. His goal in life is to unplug things, lick the plug, then stick it back in the outlet. :-/ Oh, and he had an incident a few months ago where he ate a piece of glass. Soooo...needless to say, we have to keep a very close eye on him. Dangerous antics aside, he's such a sweet boy. He's very cuddly and he adores his sister and brother.

Gymnastics update

At the beginning of January, Avery moved up to the Show Team at gymnastics. It's the group that performs for parades, store openings, nursing homes, etc. She's still learning the routine so I'm not sure when her first performance will be, but I'll be sure to post about it. So far, she loves it. We love it a little less. We like how much she enjoys it, but we hate the fact that we practically live at the gym. She's there three evenings a week, for three hours each session. You'd think she'd be sick of it. But no! Every time she gets in the car and I ask how it was, she says enthusiastically, "GREAT!"

We also switched Rhys's gymnastics to a different day, so that we could consolidate our trips to the gym. Now he's goes on one of the days that Avery is there. He loves gymnastics, but he hesitated to change. He really liked being in his old class with his friend Trevor. The only way I could get him to switch was to to put him in Miss Sharon's class. He looooooves Miss Sharon. She was his very first gymnastics teacher, and he thinks she hung the moon. He started her class last week and did great -- until the last 15 minutes. He started sobbing totally out of the blue! Miss Sharon asked what was wrong, and he sobbed, "I'm the only boy!!!!!" Some hugs from Daddy (who was in the lobby) made it all better, but I was so surprised that he cared at all about being the only boy! Miss Sharon was very nice about it, and she told Rhys she'd work on recruiting some more boys for his class. This week he made it through the gymnastics class with no incident, despite the fact that he's still the only boy.

Shiny, happy living room

Last night, after we cleaned up the living room, I asked Rhys to go check and see if it was all clean. He ran in there, and yelled to me, "Yeah, mom! The floor is all shiny now!" I guess carpet shines right up without a truckload of toys spread on it!

Waco Zoo

Last week we went to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco. We just decided to go in the middle of the day on a whim, which is our favorite way to travel. :-) It's really a pretty good zoo. It was practically empty; I think we only saw a handful of people the whole time we were there. The best part was this slide they have that goes through the river otter habitat. It's clear, so you feel like you're going through the water (yes, both Bill and I did it too!). It was so cool!

Only in Texas...

...can you wear your bathing suit to fish from a playscape in January.

Spelling Bee

Inspired by the National Spelling Bee marathon that we watched on ESPN, the kids have been putting on their own spelling bees all week. They made numbers for the front of their shirts that state their names and ages. Avery is doing pretty well now with spelling, and Rhys is trying hard. Most of Rhys's words seem to include "R2D2". For example, "Rhys, spell cat." Rhys will say, "Cat. KLMDR2D2. Cat." In fact told his sister, "Avery, you need to use more numbers!"

December

December just went by in a blur! We took the entire month off from schoolwork to focus on the festivities surrounding Christmas, and of course, Avery's birthday. We had a great month, and now we're slowly but surely getting back to work.

New Year's Eve

We went to Austin's first First Night celebration. The highlight of the night was the parade at dusk. It was a really fun, but really bizarre parade -- perfect for weirdo Austin.