Happy 4th Birthday to Zachary!

Happy Birthday to Me!! I turned 4 on Easter Sunday. Since it was going to be a very special day we invited both sides of the family over. Mommy, Daddy, Adelyn, Granna, Pop2, Aunt Michelle, Uncle Matthew, Uncle Brian, Krystal, Uncle Kevin, Gramsie, Pa-pa, Paran, Aunt Kitty, and Grandma Marilyn were all there. I got the Disney Cars garage with a few of the car characters for my birthday! I LOVE the movie, Cars. I also got a Spider Man, spiral art, a baseball tee, baseballs, a Berenstain Bears book, and Lincoln logs!!

Me in my birthday chair.

Our family on my 4th birthday!

I had a very special dirt cake. Do you see my letter?

Adelyn enjoyed the dirt cake too!

My new Disney cars garage!

Almost Walking!

Adelyn is taking some steps. I really think she gets so excited that she goes way to fast for herself. Sometimes she just reaches for us with her arms and leans forward without taking any steps at all! Obviously that doesn't work! She's balancing so much better when she is just standing in one spot so that she doesn't always need support. In the meantime she's extremely cute when she crawls!

Doggie and Da da

Our sweet little girl is figuring out language again! When she sees or hear Sandy she says da da. And when she sees or hears Scott she says da da or da ta! I'll have to attempt at getting this on video. I love to see her become so sweet towards Scott. She's following Zachary to the garage door when they hear him come home. She reaches toward him a lot to go see him.

Dirty

Here is our dog, Sandy. Although this day he was not worthy of his name, Sandy. He didn't have his beautiful sandy color nor did he have sand pieces stuck to him as he sometimes does. He was obviously covered from head to tail in dirt. Wet dirt. So this day his name was Dirty.

Adelyn is 1

I'm 1 now! Mama finally published my pictures! Mama didn't you know I've been 1 for over a month now?

Here's my first birthday party. Mama and Dada said it was the fastest birthday party they've ever given.

Before

Trying it out

After

Forts

This house is becoming famous for having a standing fort 24/7. Not the same one all of the time of course. They randomly pop up here and there. In the living room and the game room have been the most popular. Boxes and sheets are great toys.

Leading the Choir at Church

The other day Zachary and I were playing house. We pretended it was Saturday and had breakfast, lunch, nap time, dinner, sea world, bath and bedtime. And then it was Sunday. So we had breakfast and then hauled the 8 animals and 7 babies to church.

The large penguin was our priest and wore a Super Why cape. The altar was a turned over drawer from the plastic drawer set for the kitchen toys. And we also had a potato on a plate and a shiny square box for the chalice.

Our little stuffed skunk sat on a box for the ambo and read out of a book. Zachary was the choir director. He sang, "Glory to God in the heartest and peace to his people on earth". And then he couldn't remember the other songs so he sang it again. At that point I suppose he knew he needed to sing something different so he belted out "Mercury! Venus! Earth!..."from the cd Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants. Which was still completely relevant I thought! After that he sang Happy Birthday, the ABCs, and one more popular selection.

What a great choir director!!! And the cutest one I've ever seen.

Language Development at almost 12 Months

Somehow I almost missed the fact that Adelyn's "ba" sound she's been making for a few months now, now means "book" or "ball". I put 2 and 2 together when I saw the ball near her when she was crawling around trying to get it. And then I also realized that she makes the sound when we do our story time or she happens to be near the books.

I think Zachary just said, "Da Da" for many months when he pointed out anything. Everything was a "Da Da". Sweet moments in watching them grow!

Trying on Hats

The other day I realized that Adelyn was examining all of the hats from our imagination basket. I saw her momentarily swing a hat onto her head. Who knew!! We don't know half of what they notice!!

"When I get Bigger"

This morning when we were getting up Zachary and Adelyn played in our bed for a while. Afterwards Zachary went to check out two drawers that we have in our dresser. One has my old brownies sash, gymnastics leotards, old class pictures and some other random things. Scott has a drawer too. It has old art projects, boyscout stuff, etc. Zachary likes to ask me things about us and today he had Scott in a conversation about a paper mache car Scott made in 95, and the classes he took. Scott was saying something like, "and one day you will go to school and take classes like art and science...".

Zachary replied, "yes and then when I get bigger I'll have a drawer with all of my old stuff".

Yeah, I guess that happens. Some of our treasured posessions or just old stuff get shoved in a drawer. I suppose we should make sure we are displaying things with honor that were special too us.

A Pilot or an Astronaut

Zachary has decided that he would like to be a pilot or an astronaut when he grows up. His goal is to be the pilot for the Thunderbirds in the air force. In addition to that he would like to play football. From what I understand, many mother's would say this would be their biggest nightmare. We have been listening to the Science CD of the group, They Might Be Giants. They have very educational songs on their that teach about different scientific concepts. I could see myself using this cd with music therapy clients.

Zachary tells me that Jupiter is his favorite planet. He observes our planets poster often in the game room.

I'm happy he's got big dreams. I can't wait to see what interests the kids pursue each year.

Growing Up Fast

Adults always say we grow up so fast. I guess we do because I'm already learning to drive!

Helping Out

Monday's are very busy days at our house. We go to the store, do laundry and sometimes do gardening outside. Zachary and I love to help!

Observations at our dirty clothes basket.

Helping out at the grocery store. We hold things for Mommy and sometimes I like to chew them a bit.

I love outside! And now it's becoming even more fun b/c I can move around on my own. They say once I start doing this thing called walking, I'll be able to do more things in the backyard. I guess I'll find out. Here I'm helping with the dirt! Yes, that is a sock in my mouth. They are so tasty, have you ever tried one?

Snow in San Antonio, TX!

We had snow in San Antonio, TX! It happened the night of February 3 and on February 4 we woke up to find snow! I had a music therapy client who once told me that San Antonio had not had snow since 1985. Houston didn't even get snow that night.

Zachary had been asking to see snow since last summer. We made plans to go to Amarillo in January thinking we had a chance of seeing snow. Well it was quite warm when we went. In fact the warmest day they had seen in winter. And then it snowed the day after we left. But who would have thought that we wouldn't have seen snow in Amarillo and that next week we would see snow in San Antonio! He got his dream.

New developments

Adelyn is doing so many new and cute things. I hope I haven't forgotten them all since it's been so long since I've written about them.

First, her hair is no longer only spikes. At the bottom it's now touching her neck and it's the same color as mine. She's not looking as much like a baby, but instead a tiny little tot. I like to look at her face when she is observing something or someone and watch those little eyes taking it all in.

Today I discovered that she knew to put some little balls into a train that takes them in and shoots them out. I have never seen her put anything in something like that. She also figured out to push the yellow button when I told her to. That one isn't mastered yet but she does it sometimes.

Last week I showed her how to play her little xylophone. She's got the concept of using the mallet! She bangs it on the xylophone, but usually it's the whole thing and not just the tip. So cute to see a young developing musician.

Something we've been doing for about a month or more is her story box. At night we always read them stories. She's always been everywhere when we've tried to read them but she has been learning about staying in one spot over these couple of months. The box helps a lot. We put a lot of her books in the box and sing the "Story Time" song. It's the same one we sing at the library story time. She knows that she gets to come over to the box, take books out and open them. She even has a favorite which she picks every time, The Itsy Bitsy Spider. This particular book has very colorful and large pictures.

It's hard to believe our sweet baby is almost a year old already and learning so fast. She's such a joy to have with us. Both of our children are. I love seeing them grow up and play together!

Swinging at North Shore Park

Here I am at Northshore Park in the Woodlands, TX.

I love to swing! Who doesn't?

I got to swing while my big brother played in the sand.

My New Favorite Toy that Appeared During Advent

I loved this new beautiful, green, and branchy thing in our house that appeared during advent. The word I've heard around it is "Christmas tree". The things with that tempting shiny paper underneath looked fun too, which I later found out had some new clothes and toys in them! I guess Mommy caught me exploring these new things here.

My mischief gave big brother a chance to do some chatting on the phone.

1st Gymnastics Recital

I had a gymnastics recital on December 4, 2010! We showed our parents the skills we have been working on in class with Coach Sam. She is a lot of fun and sometimes we get Popsicles at the end. I had my performance with my friends Aurelia and Taylor. There were other classes there too. Here are some pictures and videos!

The Beginning of the recital- The Hokey Pokey!

Balance Beam

I'm not in that front row, I'm way in the back doing my skills. Look for me.

Aurelia and I with our Medals

Audubon Zoo

Audubon Zoo- New Orleans

We went to a beautiful zoo during Thanksgiving break!! I sure loved it. The animals had a lot more space than other zoo's we've been too. There was more shade and great scenery for pictures. There was fun things for the kids too!

Climbing the big tree

Daddy trying to learn tricks from the elephant.

Gramsie and Adelyn

Saints Fans

I have always loved the priest Fr. Paul at Our Lady of Grace in La Coste, TX. He has a way with making people feel like he's speaking directly to them during homilies and he has an incredible sense of humor as well.

The next day after arriving home to San Antonio from Thanksgiving break, I decided to attend Mass at Our Lady of Grace. I had really enjoyed our trip to Louisiana. One special thing we did was watch the Cowboys/Saints game on Thanksgiving day at my Uncle's house. Most of us there were quite into it. Only Scott and my sister n law Kathryn were wearing cowboys shirts or cheering for them. The Saints won that game and it was close. Well, at Mass that Sunday Fr. Paul announced that there were no bulletins because after his favorite team, the Cowboys had lost on Thanksgiving he told the staff to go home on Friday and have the rest of the day off. Hehe.

Well this past weekend my parents and my brother and sister n law visited so we could celebrate an early Christmas. On Sunday we got up and went to the 10:30 AM Mass which is the more upbeat and lively one. Berch asked me if it was okay to wear his Saints shirt and if Ithought Fr. Paul would "approve" :) I told him I wasn't so sure about that. We meant to leave with enough time to get there a few minutes early and get seats. I like to sit close so Zachary can see. We left late though and arrived just after it had started. I figured there was no way we were getting seats together let alone up front. The usher, however, directed us all the way up to the front on the right side. There were two seats in front for Berch and Kathryn and enough room behind them for the rest of us.

We proceeded with the Mass. When we arrived at the homily we all sat down to listen. Now, Fr. likes to walk around while he talks and pass by each person in the front row on each side just so he can look at everyone in the church. He was discussing being accepting of all people and how it didn't matter what religion someone was. He said it isn't necessary to argue about who is right or better, but remember that all people are created equal. But then all of the sudden he stopped in front of Berch and exclaimed "but sometimes there are those who test our limits!". He then proceeded to take him by the hand and lead him up to the front of the church. The congregation began laughing as they looked up and saw my brother in his Saints shirt. But what really iced the cake was when Fr. Paul lifted up his purple vestment, unzipped the white one and revealed his Cowboys shirt. The congregation was roaring at this sight. I looked around and saw Mom, Dad, Scott and Kathryn laughing hysterically in their seats. I myself laughed so hard my cheeks hurt.

I love Fr. Paul. He has a way of making you feel as if he's speaking directly to you and he presents his homilies so that you can apply them directly to your own situations with ease. He is very sincere when he speaks to you so that you may feel he knows you personally. On top of all of that, he's hilarious. He has really impacted me and is a good model of how I want to be to people I am close to and also those I don't know well or at all.

That afternoon the Cowboys played and won. The Saints however, lost the game they played in. So I suppose Fr. Paul had the last laugh.

Zachary has been saying so many funny and clever things that I'm starting to forget all of them and I've got to wright them down.

Last week we went to my parent's house while Scott was gone on a trip for work. The first night we were there Zachary let my mom put him to bed. He was having a very serious conversation with her and asking her lots of questions.

"So why was Pa-pa's job in Dubai?" was one of them and they went into the elaborate conversation about why we moved there and us living there for some time.

Later when I had gone to kiss him goodnight he said, "Is Aunt Liz's house far away?"

I was a little surprised and wondered what had made him think of Aunt Liz. "Yes" I told him., "She lives in Louisiana close to Ma-ma and Pa-pa.

I found out later about this conversation he had which made the puzzle fit together. He looked at the large poster on the wall of different trains.

"Where did you get that, Gramsie?"

"I'm borrowing it from Aunt Liz".

"I don't like all of the trains on there. I just want a poster with one train".

"Oh okay well we can return it to Aunt Liz".

He started to close his eyes.

"You can borrow the Tahoe" he told her very seriously.

This morning he told me:

"I still want to be an astronaut"

"That's great" i told him. If that's what you want to do then you can do it"

"Well, I need to practice my floating" he said.

I smiled to myself.

"Okay".

"Why can't we change gravity?" he asked.

I was so proud of him for wondering that and I tried to explain it as simply as I could.

"It's part of the earth"

New Things in November and December

Adelyn has been crawling since the second week of November I think. She has been army crawling using both arms at the same time. Two days ago she started alternating her arms. Her hair is growing too! It looks spiky right now. She is still a very busy one!! She lost some weight when she had an ear infection a few weeks ago. She's been eating better since, but sometimes I think she'd just rather be doing something else than eating. Distracting her with her water bottle has gotten her to eat more after thinking that she was done. :)

Zachary has grown taller and I can tell his little mind is developing. I see him acting out events in life through his play. He packs up our entire toy area of the gameroom for his adventures or his moving day. I can tell he's thinking hard about how things work.

The other day our freezer broke and of course the fridge runs off of the freezer. So Scott spent some time working on it and I did the night time routine by myself. When he was going to bed I asked him to pick a song like we always do but he said, "our refridgerater broke". I said "yes it did, can you pick a song?" But he wasn't finished. "My refrigerator isn't broken". I said, "No it isn't. Can you pick a song now?" But then he said, "my refrigerator isn't broken, well, because, it's made of plastic". I laughed. "You are right" I told him. "That is very good thinking".

And he has moments when he makes me melt. I woke up one morning this week to Adelyn crying a little on the monitor. A few seconds later I heard, "It's okay Adelyn. You don't have to cry. I have bad dreams sometimes but they're not real. They are just pretend". And he went on for another minute. I could hear her crying cease and I listened to the sweet sounds she made while he talked to her.

There are so many great moments of parenting young children.