Yes, I know. I've posted a picture of my old phone. Yes, unfortunately, this iphone 4 became "old."  I had it for 2 1/2 wonderful years, all the while refusing to download ios 7 b/c I had heard of how much slower it made a 4.  You may think, I just don't like change. I think it's more that I don't like un-necessary change!  And ios 6 was so beautiful! I loved the way it looked. Sure there's a few perks to upgrading to 7 or 8, but...sigh....I just loved it. I do like my new iphone 5. It's faster definitely.  It has some new cool features. I'm not in love with the new colors.  Bright neon texts with white writing are not my thing. So here is one last tribute to English's iPhone.  

Beginning of 2nd Grade!

Zachary has begun 2nd Grade! It's so amazing that we have a 7 yr old already.  It's even stranger because my mother has taught 2nd grade for years and to think that my son has reached the grade she taught is unbelievable! Trying to enjoy every moment! I love my little, growing buddy!

First day of 2nd grade

Walking to school

Met some friends along the way!

It's always fun to start the first day of school with friends. 

This is where we wait in the mornings. We get to read or practice math.

Pillar Paw Award: Caring!

Me and my principal!

Check Ups

Check Ups, from an Adelyn Perspective

Check Ups are not the most fun thing in the world to do.  When I was 3, I was NOT happy about getting check ups. I definitely did not like the dentist that year. That big chair thing looked very big and scary.  This year, however, I'm 4 and I was very brave.  I went to the doctor for my check up and got my shots and the next day I went to the dentist and was very compliant! Her office is cool because for our x-rays we get to sit in a horse saddle, while we wait for our turn we get to play with toys in the check up room, and THEN we get to watch TV ON THE CEILING!! Since I was so brave, I got ice cream after on BOTH days. 

Mommy also found some cool books called "Elf Help" books. It's stories about elves who have to handle many situations.  I have one called Feeling Bad, Getting Better and it helped me understand more about going to the doctor, getting checkups, and why it's important to go. We also love Berenstain Bears. 

This is me getting my hearing test! I hear VERY well.  

Zachary is having his turn at the dentist watching the Lego Movie

I'm waiting my turn here in the check up room!

My turn now. Zachary gets to play. This is not my favorite movie but it's still cool!

Cute Stories

Funny event while I was at work.
Today I observed a pre-school class and during their lunch, I witnessed a pre-school girl ask the boy she was sitting next to if he would marry her. Without even looking up at her he said, "I would have to stay in my room all day!" I'm pretty sure they are still friends...she was mad at first but 30 seconds later was singing happy tunes with him.


Funny Story on FB from my friend Erika.
So tonight during our nightly bedtime conversation Jaxson let me know that he and Adelyn are going to get married when they're 28, she's going to drive most of the time because he's scared too, but he will when she gets tired, and they're going to live in our house. Sweet, right?? I said, "Oh? So, we're all going to live together?" To which he replied, "No mom, you'll be dead." Well, alrighty then!

Both of the kids loved the Llama Llama books.  Adelyn still really enjoys them. They are sweet books with good lessons and a little bit of rhyming and rhythm. Not to mention, cute stories. The Magik Theatre here in San Antonio put on the play this spring.  Adelyn was really excited to go see it!! 

It's Worth It!

Here is a FB post from back in March.  

About 2 seconds prior, this guy was continuing on about how it was so late, he was so exhausted, and it was so past his bedtime. I guess this payoff was worth it! 

Sharing Hats

Scott before going to work one day in February: "I can't find my hat. And it's cold outside."

Adelyn: "Oh no problem Daddy, you can wear my doggie hat." 

Adelyn's First T-Ball

Adelyn is really loving t-ball!  She asked several times during the fall and winter to play and she was able to play this spring. There is so much sequencing required in t-ball/baseball but the kids have really come a long way in learning the routine and developing their muscle coordination.  Here's another friend on her team and also a video of her batting!

New Phrases...End of May 2014

I have done a terrible job updating in the past few months!!  The kids have continued to grow as well as say and do new things.

I'll just begin with a few cute things Adelyn has said. I really should remember to write more of them down...I would have had much longer page!

Every morning when I ask Adelyn to get dressed she says, "Okay Mom. Is it hot, cold, in the middle or soggy?"
Never mind that winter is over and there is not much chance that it's cold...although San Antonio does have a lot of cloud cover in the morning making it cooler which validates "in the middle."  Now soggy......she must either mean that it's wet, or she's intelligently combined rainy and foggy into one and is saving herself time by choosing one word. :)

Adelyn learned a few knock knock jokes such as the one with "boo who?  don't cry!"  She tried to make up a few of her own. She started making up a whole bunch. I guess by the last one she was actually getting tired of me saying my part of the joke...."Such n such who?"...even though she was the one asking.....So this time she said "Knock Knock", I said "Who's there?", she said, "Adelyn" and I said "Adelyn who?"  Realizing she was ready to move on to something else she just said, "Adelyn MYSELF!"  Okay....I'm more than happy to be done with knock knock jokes.  Let's move on.

Commonly used phrases by Adelyn:

That was terrific!  (one time specifically was while watching the pinewood derby)
This is fascinating me! (usually when riding her bike really fast)
Dad, I am officially done! (at the dinner table)

Finally Learned to French Braid

I finally learned a skill that I wore on my head as a kid several times a week and that I've watched everyone else around me do. Enter French Braid.  In some ways as a kid I was "girly" but when it came to fashion, I just had to be comfortable enough to run around on the field at recess.  My mother often enjoyed making French braids in my hair several times a week to my detriment because then I had to sit there with my tender head for the 5-10 minutes it took her to make it.  They always looked beautiful but when I hit about age 11 I said "no more".  It was too much effort in the morning and it was too "girly" for me at that time.  

As a mom, however, I do think it looks cool on my daughter's head and it helps her hair to not come undone which we do have problems with after making pony tails. After my neighbor made a simple one for her one day I decided maybe it was time I figured out how to make it. I could have opened up Youtube but I was too lazy to pull out my computer while doing her hair.  Instead I tried to remember back to childhood and what in the world Mom was doing back there while I sat on the stool reading.  She never started with much hair at all so I tried to add as I went on Adelyn.  Finished product is above. 

I Love Music and Art!

My name is Adelyn. I love a lot of things and music and art are two of them. 

 I found a song that is fun to dance to!  

I love to paint! I am always excited when Mommy makes that suggestion. 

My leaf project! I have been asking to do this for a long time!

I want to play guitar like Mommy!  

Adelyn's Gymnastics Beginnings

I love gymnastics!! Every Monday Mommy takes me to gymnastics play time.  I look forward to it all week long. We get to climb and tumble along an obstacle course, jump down the long trampoline, jump on the regular sized trampolines, hang on the rings, walk across the balance beam, play on the bars, hula-hoop, and launch ourselves into the pit!  After we are finished we get stamps on our feet.  Sometimes my friends Isabella and Vanna come too. There I am up on the bar!  Can you do this too?? Warning: This activity is A LOT of fun. 

How to Spell "Orange" - courtesy of Adelyn Sophia

Here's the song about how to spell "orange" which she learned in her Mom's Day Out class. Love hearing sweet little voices sing.

A Deathly Table and a Cooperative Desk

I have been wanting to know how to refinish furniture for quite a while.  Mom has done quite a bit. Scott did our kitchen table when I was pregnant for Adelyn.  I had to opt out for that reason.  So when we decided it was time to do the dining room table, passed down from my grandpa's sister, I was extremely excited. 

 I went off of Scott's knowledge of what he remembered from the last time.  We began during June. I had no activities going on and neither did the kids.  We got our stripping stuff, the scrubbing things, the sanding tools, wood staining brushes, and Pecan wood stain.  I knew nothing about stain so I assumed the color and brand was fine.  The stripping and sanding were very tiring and I had to take a few breaks. Doing the table legs was difficult with the amount of creases and cracks in them. When we got to the staining part, it went on super thick regardless of how hard we tried to put in on thin.  It was kind of a redish color as well. It looked nothing like wood stain and more like we had painted it. So we decided to try again. We had sanded before stripping which is backwards.  

Round 2

Stripped the table.  Sanded the table. Stained.  Still looked painted. Sigh. Called Mom.  Mom said she always used Minwax.  Thinking about redoing the thing again sounded exhausting.  I showed a few people who were also very confused.  My neighbor Brandie discovered that the color may be the problem.  So I went for it.

Round 3

I went out and got an Oak color from the Minwax brand.  Brandie also loaned us her electric sander which made a huge difference. I still had to do the table legs by hand with all of the creases.  We got it completely ready for staining. After wiping it with water/vinegar, I took a break.  When I went to apply the new can called Weathered Oak, I saw that it went on looking like wood and looked completely different! Yes!  My friend Kari, who was visiting, thought it looked much better as well! Brandie came over and confirmed our thoughts. So I took a couple of days putting on coats and letting it dry.  Mom and Dad came to visit and they helped me work on it AND start on a desk for the kids that needed to be refinished. Mom and I were putting finishing touches on it and noticed that the color looked more gray when put on than it did previously.  We couldn't figure it out, but we finally was ready to put the polyurethane on. Yes! I was ready.  After working on little details with sanding and staining I was ready. 

After Mom and I put a coat on though, it left gray dots on the table. Uhhh, why? We tried to fix it, but it smudged. Um, no. This was not happening. Seriously?  I tried to re-sand it the tiny spots and re-stain but the color did not look the same.  It had the really gray look.  I was fuming.  I was not about to re-do this table again. Dad tried to do a different color but sanding it even more made the wood look different.  Fail.

Round 4

So after Mom and Dad left I tried to re-do particular parts but that Weathered Oak did not look the same as it had the very first time.  The other color dad tried was not staining as dark as it should have.  I tried a 3rd color that also did not stain as dark as it should have. I went for it again, but this time just the top. There was no way I was doing the detailed legs again.  I re-sanded and made sure the wood all the same. I decided to get the darkest color I could find and went with Dark Walnut.  I put the first stroke on.  Much better!! I covered the table in a couple of Dark Walnut coats.  When it came to put the polyurethane, I was feeling a little paranoid.  If this table got messed up again, it possibly would have to go to the junk yard.  We had considered it a few times at this point. I polyurethaned with a foam brush. I wasn't and still am not particularly thrilled with the brush marks that I can still see but it was way better than what it had been before!!  

Here it is below.  Began in June of 2013 and brought back in the house in September.  After 4 rounds of sanding and staining. The top is ever so slightly darker than the legs and I can see a few brush strokes but at this point...I'm good.

Here is the desk Mom and I started while waiting for the stain to dry on the table during round 3.  It took 3 days. So much easier and so much more cooperative. No problems with polyurethane.

Darth Adelyn

The lines below were my post on Facebook back in August.  It made it to Fail Blog somehow.  Definitely made me laugh.  

http://cheezburger.com/7731731968

Funny Blips

So we have encountered a few funny lines from the kids since the last time I wrote and I've tried to write some off them down.  The first one begins with Zachary after a few Tiger Cub meetings.

Zachary came home with several patches to start off the uniform.  I have not used my sewing machine in a while.  I tried to pull it out and sew one on the sleeve. I ended up yelling at the machine, taking 15 minutes to wind and thread the bobbin, and then sewed both sides of the sleeve together in one spot. Sigh. So so Zachary tells me as we are leaving his school one day says, "I know you don't like sewing much but I am going to have a lot of patches to sew, so you need to start getting in the habit of it." Really? Well...Great, I'm just glad that you understand what habits are.  Good first step for life!

We have been fostering my "stepsister" Fiona while Mom makes a lot of trips to Louisiana and Dad is working his rotation.  Yes, she is the brown and white furry one who has a bad habit of dribbling water all over the floor after drinking and has a whole lot of energy that I wish she would share with me.   Fiona also has a habit of scoping out the kitchen counters when she comes in.  You know...just to make sure they are clean.  A few weeks ago she happened to be scoping out the sink.  When I finally noticed and barked at her about it, she hopped down.  Sweet Adelyn, however, took up for her and said, "Fiona was trying to wash her hands."

This halloween we are planning to all go as the Skywalker family.  I am like BEYOND excited.  Yes, they are some of my favorite childhood movies.  Zachary and Adelyn will be Luke and Leia.  Scott and I will be Anakin and Padme.  Works well! Sandy looks a lot like Yoda so one Saturday morning we discussed him pretending to be Yoda.  The question then came up about who Fiona would be.  Scott suggested Jabba the Hutt.  Zachary thought about it and said, "Yes, because she is kind of like a criminal anyway."  Scott laughed.  Umm, ok, well, just don't tell her parents.

My last neat memory of lines from the kids is from Zachary.  We have been discussing good germs vs bad germs and why we need to have some germs/bacteria in us.  As I was going through the bedtime routine with them, Zachary pipes up and says, "So I've got this theory."  Shock of silence from Mom. Really? 6 yr old Zachary has a theory?  "You do?" I say.  "Yes.  I think that bad germs are what causes pain when we are hurting."  Wow. Well, you may be on to something kid.  How many other theories have you not shared with us yet?

Captain America's Beverage

It was the end of the school year. There was lots of social activities needing to happen. One of them happened to be a going away lunch for Zachary's friend Tyler, his brother Cameron and mom. I knew Lisa like Pepsi so I got a few individual ones for the lunch. It had not dawned on me though that Zachary had never seen a Pepsi in his life. We always seem to get Coke. Nothing against Pepsi, just a habit. He does however know who Captain America is and what his red, white, and blue shield looks like. So when Zachary walked in the kitchen after returning home one day and saw the Pepsi's he said in a very excited voice, "Hey Mom, who are those Captain America Cokes for?" A very logical conclusion on why our cokes suddenly were red, white, and blue. 

New Favorites for Zachary as of March

Zachary has altered his "favorite things" a little over the past 2 months.  It all started when Scott convinced me it was okay for him to watch Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  One things led to another and...well...now we have a Star Wars junkie.  I can't imagine who he might have taken after here.

He was asking questions about the general plot of the story BEFORE he started watching it.  He moved onto asking basic questions that I knew the answers to such as " What planet does Luke come from?", " Why does Han owe Jabba money?" and "Why does Luke have to sell his speeder?"

He then moved on to the next question asking level with questions such as, "So Anakin was Darth Vador's name before he went to the dark side?", "How did Anakin start becoming bad?", "Did Luke become a Jedi when he went to see Master Yoda again or while he was fighting Darth Vador?" and  "Did Master Yoda fight in the Clone Wars?"

Now he's moved onto questions that I really have to think about like, "How did they build the death star?", "How did Leia become the princess", and "How did they make Anakin part of a machine?". 

I suppose we will need to check out the book series one day. Or maybe just send him to my brother n law Matthew.  Those two would have very interesting conversations.  I'd be delighted to hear them.

Anyhow, as a result of becoming a big time Star Wars fan we now have a new list of favorites.

Favorite Color: Blue
Favorite color light sabre: Blue
Favorite Movie: Star Wars
Favorite books: Star Wars Easy Readers
Favorite Music: Star Wars
Favorite Pretend Game: Star Wars
Favorite super hero: Luke Skywalker (I have to say...I definitely agree!)
Favorite form of transportation: X plane
Favorite Star Wars character: Luke Skywalker
Comforter on the bed: Star Wars
Night Light in room: Light Sabre night light
Birthday Theme Party: Star Wars

Good thing Star Wars has a great lesson: Don't let your emotions (specifically anger) take over your actions. 

May the force be with you!

Would You Like YOUR Name on a Towel?

My mom was giving Adelyn a bath last night here at our house. My mom asked her about her new towel which has Minnie Mouse and her name.

Gramsie: You have your name on your towel?
Adelyn (beaming): Uh huh!!
Gramsie: Wow I love it! Did Granna and Pop2 give it to you?
Adelyn nods yes with a smile and then says "Would you like YOUR name on a towel?
Gramsie: Oh I would love it.
Adelyn: When I get big I will get you a towel with your name on it.

Conversation about a Sports Jersey

Zachary and I had a conversation the other day as I was helping him get some clothes out of the closet.

Me: Do you want to wear the Astros jersey Gramsie and Pa-pa gave you?
Zachary: No, I don't want it. I don't like the Astros
Me: Why don't you like the Astros? They are from Houston.
Zachary: I like the 49ers.
Me: 49ers are football. Astros are baseball.
Zachary: Oh.  Well I like another team then.
Me: What team do you like?
Zachary: I don't know. Just not the Astros
Me: (Sigh) Well can I have it?
Zachary: Yes you can have it.

Another day
I walk into the room with my new jersey on.
Gramsie (my mom): That fits you well.
Me: Yes Zachary did not want it.  He does not like the Astros
Me: Parrain (Berch) likes the Yankees.
Zachary: I like the Yankees.
Me: Okay then.