Peter Piper Pizza Party Time!

We celebrated Allyson's 4th birthday today at Peter Piper Pizza (PPP). Hard to believe that today is her last day as a 3 year old. Where in the world did the last 4 years go?!? {sniff, sniff} Within the past 3-4 months I have really noticed how big she has gotten, she's no baby for sure. Ally is old enough to where she and Jase can play games together and I enjoy playing with them and watching.

Back to PPP. So, this was our first birthday party away from the house {aside from a birthday at a park 2 years ago}. If I am being completely honest, I was going through a bit of withdrawal not being able to party plan and set things up. I was interested to see how the party would play out there and compare it to being at home.

Early this morning I happened to look at my calendar on my phone and it said Ally's party from 12:30 - 2:00 pm. Hmmm...Really?!? The invite I made had 12:00 - 1:30 pm on it. Yikes! Sure enough, I called to confirm and it was 12:30 - 2:00. I have NO idea how I did that! I had planned on showing up at 11:30 and setting the tables up and making it a little more of our own, but then realized I couldn't be there an hour early and just camp out with my kiddos. Already off to a crazy start before the party started!

Then I got there and saw this sign...

Really?!? I've never, ever seen this spelling of Allyson. Now I do realize we spell it differently when compared to Allison/Alison/Alyson, but Alicen. C'mon people. I told them it was incorrect and was hoping they would change it, but it stayed "Alicen's party". I had bigger fish to fry so I let it go.

The cake was beautiful, as always! As soon as it came out of the box, the party next to us "ooohhh'd and aahhh'd" over it! Great job, Michelle!

I think the kids enjoyed the games at PPP. Now the token count here is much higher than at CEC, but the game selection is fresh and new. And according to my husband they had some cool adult games! 

So, Alex hit 1,000 tickets TWICE on a game! Curazy!! And then he gave the tickets to Ally! Such a sweetheart! 

Cake time. Moments before we called the kids over, I realized I did not bring a candle!!! How do you sing "Happy Birthday" and not have a candle to blow out!? Geez! Fail. I asked a couple of family members for a lighter and they did not have one on them. Of course. Then I start wondering if there was an app I could download that would let her blow out a candle on my phone...ahhh, no time for that. I asked PPP if they have any extra, anything...nope! At this point, I've stalled enough and I think a couple of people had started singing "Happy Birthday", but luckily others did not join in. Last resort: the party table right next to us! Borrowed their candle and lighter! {Don't worry, they had just used it, so I was not using it before them!} The other mom said "we're all in this together" and I laughed and thought "true story." As I'm putting the borrowed "6" candle on the cake I can see confusion on Ally's face. Then Jase chimes in with "why is there a 6 on her cake?" No time to explain..."Happy birthday to you..." At the end of the song I bent down and told her that she would get 2 extra wishes this year!! She got so excited when I said that! 

My father-in-law caught it on video!! While the quality isn't excellent, you can see her reaction! Priceless.

She received so many gifts and she loved them ALL! What a blessing to have so many friends and family join us to help celebrate.

And nothing special, but here are the party favors we {me and the hubs!} put together. I couldn't do Tinkerbell for the boys, so I went with Toy Story.

And here is Allyson's BIG prize from cashing in all her tickets! She was proud of this bowling set!

Our group right before exiting to door.

Whew...I survived! Now don't get me wrong, I loved the no clean-up factor, but it's no secret I like to be in control. Haha! And at PPP I felt like I had zero control. Definitely out of my comfort zone, but all-in-all I would say it was a success. Happy birthday sweet girl!

Gymnastics!

As if yesterday wasn't busy enough with Ally's first day of school and Jase's baseball practice, we decided to throw one more thing into the mix: Gymnastics!! I called the gym earlier this week to check on how things worked and decided to set-up a trial class for them. Of course, Ally was a little nervous when I told her about it, but Jase was pumped and told us he wanted to learn how to do a flip!! In addition to great exercise, we thought this would be a great strength building class for Jase.

Ally was a little timid going onto the big gymnastics floor with all the other classes going on. After 6-8 minutes, she finally calmed down and was all smiles after that! Shawn brought Jase straight over after baseball practice for his class and he was excited. He is in an all boys class and they worked on handstands against the wall, the pommel horse, trampoline exercises, and running and jumping up on mats.

Here is some video of Jase on the trampoline in the back of the gym. He is in a white shirt.

Both kids totally loved it and can't wait to go back next week! Jase even practiced tonight when we got home! I love that he is excited about it! Olympics 2024...here we come! Hahaha!!

9 Years!

Yesterday Shawn and I celebrated 9 wonderful years of marriage together. I can still remember our wedding day, so it is hard to believe that it has been 9 years already. And we've been together for a total of 17 years, so we've been together more of my life than we've been apart. Now that's crazy to think about! I'm so thankful for him. I thoroughly enjoy being around him and he has always been able to put a smile on my face. Some of my favorite past times with him are simply taking road trips and just talking. Talking about our family plans, dreams, jobs, children, The Lord. I love how we are almost always on the same page in life. If one of us is thinking it, then usually the other one says it.

Shawn has been wanting to participate in a cooking class, but it just hadn't worked out for us yet. Then he found Well Done Cooking Classes online and they were offering a Low Glycemic class, which is right up our alley. And what do you know, it was on our anniversary, so we signed up! The class is in a townhouse in the Heights and the set-up is pretty neat. Instead of having a dining and living room area, they installed a huge U-shaped kitchen bar that seats 16 people. The chefs cut and measure out all of your ingredients beforehand and you do all of the cooking. Oh and they do all the dishes...major bonus!!{I found out last night that this company started receiving more business after they were on an episode of TLC's The Little Couple.}

We ended up making 2 meals, which I did not expect at all. The first one was Grilled Miso Chicken with Roasted Brussels Sprouts. One of my favorite parts of this meal was the creamy onion sauce we added to the top of the chicken. This is definitely something I could replicate at home and it added so much flavor to the meal!

Our next meal was Nut Encrusted Salmon on a bed of wilted greens with Quinoa Pilaf. It was tasty as well, but I was already full from all the water I had drank, oh and not to mention the first meal! 

Me and my babe below!! Thanks for a wonderful night! And my Christmas gift that I wore last night too. It symbolizes our family! I just love it!

I thought my name tag was very fitting!! :-)

My Preschooler

Exciting week for my little girl! She had ""Meet the Teacher" on Tuesday for her 4 year old preschool class! As we were walking in, she hid herself behind me and got beyond scared. This the norm for her lately with new places and faces {especially men}. We have really been working on her being "brave" and praying about doing better with new experiences.

Once she was in Ms. Tracy's classroom she was more relaxed and had already made her teacher laugh! After a few minutes, she asked me if it was time to go and I said yes, and we headed home.

After we got home I was busy cleaning out my suburban because we were picking up my mom and aunt from the airport, so I wanted to pick up a bit and take out the stroller so they would have enough room for their luggage. The kids were inside playing and Finn was in and outside. After I finished I walked into the playroom and saw Ally sitting in the corner in an Elmo chair. I asked her what was wrong and she said that her throat hurt. I asked her to come here and I bent down and gave her a hug. Next thing I knew she was throwing up . . . everywhere! Poor thing. I just let her finish what she started and then off in the bathtub she went. Trying not to go into panic mode because I had a HUGE mess to clean up and Finn was right there! I gated him and Jase upstairs {which Finn did NOT like} and tended to the mess.

While I was bathing Allyson she had already started perking up and getting back to her old self. I asked about her throat and if it still hurt and she told me no it didn't. I inquired a few more times throughout the day about it and no throat issues, no fever, no nothing. I have come to conclusion that it was her nerves that made her sick to her stomach!! I'll just say that the apples doesn't fall very far from the tree!!  Haha!

Later that afternoon we worked on her art assignment from school! Every year her school has a theme that is carried out throughout the school year and it is really cute. The two years Jase attended they themes were "rock star" and "wild about learning". This year it is "Dive into Learning" so she had to decorate a fish.

I asked her what all the different colors stood for and she told me: blue for Cinderella, pink for Ariel {when she wore the pink dress} and yellow for Belle! I love my little Princess! So, I couldn't resist helping her with this!! Haha! I know, I'm terrible! She was happy with the finished product!

Today was her first day at school. After Tuesday's incident with her nerves, I had already made a decision on NOT serving her milk this morning! Water it was! She was very excited when I woke her up and I did my best to excite her as well. I got all the kids up, fed, dressed and out the door on time! Can I get a hallelujah?!?! 

It was so hard for her not to fill her backpack full of junk stuff before we left. She wanted to bring books and toys! I actually had to have her unpack 10 books she put in there this morning! We prayed in the car and afterwards she told me she was going to be brave! We called Daddy on the way to school and Ally was giddy on the phone with him. Me and the boys walked her into class and she was such a BIG girl! She didn't even cry or whimper or anything; just took off her backpack and started unloading it! The Lord definitely calmed her nerves and I am so thankful for that. While I will miss having her at home everyday, I know this will be good for her on coming out of her shell a bit.

Blurry pictures below {I'm sure my hand was shaking!}, but this was her this morning. So big!

Me and the boys headed back home. Finn played and Jase and I got started on school. We took a break around 11:30 and ran through the CFA drive-thru for some lunch. I laid Finn down around noon and we wrapped up our reading just before 1:00 and school is out for us until tomorrow! Speaking of school, here is a clip from this morning of Jase and I saying the date at the table together! Fun times with my boy!

Plugged In

I took the kids to the library yesterday afternoon to check out some books. So I put Finn down and the first thing he looks for is outlets!! This kiddo is insane when it comes to cords, outlets, remotes, cell phones...anything electronic, he is drawn to and has to have it! I'm hoping this phase will pass soon, as he is sure keeping me on my toes at home and out in public! How fitting would it be for him to end up an electric engineer?! I'm hoping to steer his electricity passion into something productive!

Cousins

Shawn's older brother, John, recently moved back this way. His two youngest sons are with him and his oldest son is now a freshman at Blinn in College Station. We are excited to be able to start spending more time with them. I think when Shawn and I started dating back in 1996 they either had just moved out west of town or were about to. And when Shawn and I were at UTSA in 2000, his brother's family lived about an hour from us and we were able to spend some quality time with them then. Since then we have only seen them over holidays or summertime. So now that they are back in town, we are pumped!

Yesterday we went to support Alexander {John's middle son} at his first football game at his new school. He made some good plays and almost intercepted the ball a couple of times. We had a car full of cousins while watching the game! 

School is underway

What a busy week we had. Jase has his first week of 1st grade homeschool under his belt and baseball is in full swing. Even though it was a busy one, it was definitely productive and I feel great going into the new school year. 

As far as homeschool goes, I occasionally {like 1-2 times a month these days!} read a couple of homeschooling blogs and that's about it. I am not really tapped into any support groups or social media groups at all. I have a girlfriend I converse with, but other than that it's me, the kiddos and the Lord! Lots of praying going on over here!! This year I think I will start branching out to see what all is out there, because I know there is a ton. Now, we did go to a meeting over the summer for a Classical Conversations program, but at the time we did not feel led to pursue that any further. It was a great program and those kids have a wealth of knowledge, but the commitment expected wasn't something I wanted to sign up for just yet.

Last year I piecemealed my curriculum together and it worked for us. There was no suggested lesson planning or pacing, I just set our own pace and decided each day how much work we would do. There are definitely pros and cons to this methodology, but coming into this year I was looking for less planning on my part and wanted more of a full package curriculum. Well, my girlfriend told me about a company she had found and after researching it I was definitely on board. The teacher's manual is like GOLD! Everyday is planned out for you and the lessons/books/activities thus far have been great! Heart of Dakota the name of the curriculum and I would recommend it to a homeschooling family in a heartbeat. It is Christ-centered in which it emphasizes God's plan throughout history, specifically American History from the 1565-1860's {for Jase's age range}. Jase has loved all of the stories we are reading and the history we are learning about each day.

The first day we had a geography activity. We were to use rope or tape and outline the earth and give your student note cards with the continents on them and have them plot them on the earth. This is right up Jase's alley...he loves geography! Well I wouldn't call my earth a complete fail, but it could have been better! I used masking tape and some of us must have got twisted, because about every 5-10 seconds {not kidding} someone was tangled up in it!! See below for proof!!

We read about the first pioneers to come to America and it was pretty neat! I am relearning history with him! Then we looked at a map to see the path they took from Spain to Florida and using a Little People boat Jase sailed the same path on his earth. Then we back tracked a little and discussed Christopher Columbus and his 3 ships and paths he took.

All week long we've been talking about trusting in the Lord at all times, especially during tough times and we brought it full circle by discussing the pioneers and the trust they had to have. Both kiddos memorized our memory verse:

"I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8 

I am trying to drive home the importance of not just remembering the words, but to let the meaning sink into your heart.

And today our art project was to make a homemade shield in relation to Psalm 18:2:

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Both kids enjoyed decorating their shields. Jase drew a lion, rock, warriors and a fort on his shield. Allyson, of course, made a princess shield!

It was a great week for school and I am excited to see what this year holds!

As if school wasn't enough, Jase had 2 baseball practices this week for fall ball. Tee ball is no longer...we are now in coach pitch! He really likes baseball and I'm glad! :-) This kid is a sports fanatic let me tell you! In the evenings after dinner he will ask to turn sports on: baseball, football, you name it he loves it! Oh and we are the LSU Tigers!! Geaux Tigers!! Even though we are Texas Longhorn fans, we have family in Louisiana and they are HUGE LSU fans, so we spread the love around and support them as well.

A Day with Daddy

Today Jase went to work with Shawn for "Take your child to work day". He was really excited about it. Shawn sent me pictures throughout the day to keep me posted and I was surprised at how much his company had set-up for them to do. 

They started off the day by building a boat and testing it in the water in the courtyard to see how long it would float. Shawn said that his team's boat stayed afloat the longest.

They also got to watch a team with older kids test out their robot they assembled.

Each child received a "Think Like a Scientist" kit, which was really cool. It contains all sorts of experiments to complete at home. It will be fun to incorporate some of these activities when we start school back up. The kids also worked with open and closed circuits.

Here is a short clip of Jase's team's closed circuit.

Like father, like son! Below Jase was trying Daddy's job on for size! Haha! 

Here Jase was working the robot.

I'm so used to having him home, so it definitely felt different with him not being here. In the afternoon me and the two kids got out to run an errand and I ran through Sonic since it was happy hour. Allyson told me she wanted a strawberry slush and to get Jase a blue coconut slush. I told her I wasn't buying Jase one because he was with Daddy. She really started crying when they handed me the drink order and only gave us 2 drinks instead of 3!!

And as if all that wasn't a full day, the boys went golfing after work and didn't home until 9:30 or so. Below is some footage of Jase ripping a shot! He was beat when he got home and I envisioning him sleeping in late in the morning. :)

I nearly forgot. Wednesday night we were getting ready for bed and I saw him writing on a note card. I tucked Ally into bed then came down stairs. Shawn finished devotions with Jase shortly and then he came down and showed me this.

Jase wanted to take this to his Daddy's work and show people. Completely melted our heart to see him want to tell people about Jesus. And the bible verse he hi-lighted is Ephesians 6:1 "Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right." I guess he had planned on preaching to them!! Haha!! My older two have this one memorized! 

Better late than never

Before I delivered Finn I was on the hunt for a diaper bag. I looked at several, both new and used. I finally came across a Vera Bradley on Craigslist that was less than 1/2 the price. It was a print that was retired, but I felt it was boyish enough for Shawn to carry, yet stylish enough for me. Win-Win! {Truth be told, he would have loved a backpack, but that didn't quite work out . . . maybe baby 4! Haha!} Anyhow, I ended up buying a matching tech case {which is basically big enough to put your iPhone in, some money and cards} because I wouldn't be carrying a purse for some time. And while I was searching for items in this print, I came across some matching fabric! I was pumped!

My plan was to cover a wipe case and everything would be matchy-matchy. :-) Fast forward over 1 year later . . . I never did it! Geez! My sister even offered to do it for me, but of course I told her I would do it.  I was going through a drawer this past weekend and came across the long lost fabric! So, I was feeling a little crafty this afternoon and decided to give it a go.

First, I estimated the length of the diaper case and cut out two rectangles. Next, I glued them onto some thicker white material with Liquid Stitch. Normally when we cover a case we use minky, which is thicker and doe need to be backed with any other fabric. But since the Vera material was really thin, it needed another layer behind it. 

I then glued both sides down to the wipe with a hot glue gun. I used a mini glue gun and it took about 3 sticks of glue. Next, I got some trim from Hobby Lobby and hot glued it around both edges to finish off the edges. 

Voila! Only a year late, but I have a matching wipe case. And since he is no longer taking bottles or drinking formula I'm sure we'll be down sizing bags soon! Oh well, I just made it more marketable for the resale! 

Lunch Time

As we were finishing lunch today, I was talking to Allyson about eating lunch when she goes to preschool. She is not a big eater, so I was telling her to make sure she eats when she is at school.

She is my peanut butter and jelly queen, but today I made her a ham sandwich and she ate it! Huge deal over here! I told her that some days I will be packing her meat and bread and other days will be PB&J. She was fine with that and then looked at me and said "make sure you pack my colored bracelets and the flower one too!" I just love her to bits! No doubt she is a princess!

Full House

This weekend was a busy one. A couple of weeks ago we planned to visit Palm Beach one last time before they closed for the summer. Thursday evening we had two cousins {one from Shawn's side of the family and one from mine} stay the night. They started off with a little Wii Baseball Tournament.

 

Since my nephew, Ethan, had never fished before, Uncle Shawn took him out in the front yard for a little practice on casting. After a little practice he was comfortable and ready to go. Jase and Coby ended up having their turn as well and all 3 enjoyed it!

All the kiddos had baths and I went into Finn's room to lay him down. I walked out into the living room and saw this: Shawn leading a devotion with the kids. Melted my heart. This is part of our nightly routine with the kids, so he was just picking up where he and Jase had left off the night before. Blessed to be able to share the gospel with our family.

The next more morning the boys headed out early to Bolivar to catch some fish. And they had success! All the boys caught their share, which was the goal! Ethan caught his first fish ever and Jase caught his first speckled trout. Shawn said they all had a great time and did not want to leave the beach.

They arrived at Moody Gardens' Palm Beach at 1:00 and joined the rest of us with some water park fun. We all had a great time playing in the water and sand. It was a long day and we didn't end up getting home until a little before 7:00.  Allyson actually fell asleep in the car and was out for the night and didn't wake up until the next morning!

Jase's fish was the only one they kept. After everything was cleaned up, Shawn schooled Jase on how to clean it. He was very intrigued and enjoyed cleaning it. {First of many to come!} 

Saturday morning I picked up donuts and kolaches for the kiddos and it was smiles all around. I can't remember the last time I have bought donuts, so this was a treat for all!

We enjoyed having the boys over this weekend. Time to start gearing up for 1st grade! I've ordered new curriculum and can't wait until it arrives this week. The plan is to move Finn upstairs and move the homeschool room downstairs. I am excited about this move and I think it will help the school day flow smoother, having everything downstairs.