more updates - random assortment

Hot Air Balloon Dress at the Hot Air Balloon Fest:
On Saturday August 20th, we went to the Hot Air Balloon fest and I had the perfect dress for Alexis to wear...my sister and I both wore it as kids as well.

We met some friends there and Alexis enjoyed trying to take pictures of all of us with my phone.  It was a toasty night and we were so close we could feel the heat as the balloons lit up for the glow,  but it was a good night out.  Andrew even had fun although he wasn't sure whether to be scared or enthralled because the noise to make the glow...so he'd look then cling to my neck then look then cling to my neck. Of the below pics...the top two were taken by me and the bottom 2 by Alexis...all others were EXTREME close ups or didn't turn out for one reason or another.

Alexis also recently had her last night of gymnastics...here's her class:

And below are some more pics of general fun:

And new diaper craft:

I made two diaper wreaths...

girl: 16 diapers + bib

baseball boy: 16 diapers, 1 bib, 4 pair infant socks, 1 pacifier, 1 car seat toy, 1 whistle

Oscar Bam Bam

A good bit of today, the tune in my head was "oh I love trash, anything dirty or dingy or dusty. hahaha" (name that toy)
Today, Andrew tried to climb in two trash cans, use one of said trash cans as a drum and stuck his hands in a toilet.  It was a very busy day.  Thank goodness for hand sanitizer.

Most days he bangs things...into the wall, throws on the floor or hits his high chair tray.

So today, I was remembering my childhood TV days as I had my Oscar Bam Bam running through the house.

No time for pictures of those specific moments, but here are a few of the less gross moments and a few from the past few days:

diaper surfing

peek a boo!

Hey Jake, here's my barn.

See just like a concet pianist, I don't look at the keys or the music.

I can make these bang really loud when I pull them out and push them back in.

Stop it Andrew!

Andrew is into climbing and eating and chasing.

Climbing onto the couch...not so bad if he stopped there, but the backs and arms of the couch have also got his attention and he doesn't understand that he can fall off once he's on.

Climbing (or stepping on) the dog. We're lucky that Sadie doesn't mind. She might get up and walk away to lay down somewhere else or she may lay there and take it. So when she moves and his climbing apparatus doesn't stay still it's quite frustrating.

Climbing the baby gate...which subsequently leads to it falling over...this is only the gate at the bottom of the stairs and he's fine with stairs now, so it's not terrible, more just annoying to have to set it up again...debating about getting a more permanent fixture with a little door like we have upstairs.

Climbing up us...literally he tries by grabbing the folds of our pants...he learned this from another little person in our house, but usually when she's climbing it's on purpose and we are preparing to give her a piggy back ride or carry her to bed.

Climbing the recliner (and then jumping like a crazy ape)

Climbing on top of clothes bins...

Eating...
The NON-FOOD items that I caught him trying to eat in just one evening were: dice, toy cars, carpet fuzz, tissue (sadly he did swallow a piece of that), a bouncy ball.  This is why I shove a paci in his mouth, because if that is in at least he won't try to put quite as many other items in his mouth.
Other items he has tried to eat: dog food, necklaces, crayons, balloons, boxes of toy food from the play kitchen, magnets, game controllers, wooden blocks and I'm sure there is more.

Regular food: we may have turned a corner with trying regular milk.  We are working on a 2nd attempt to get him off of formula since he was going through ear infections and other issues last time and it wasn't pretty.  He eats most things we do.  He generally only gets different food if it's more convenient for us (due to timing or splitting food between the kids) or easier to chew.  He's eaten everything from cereal to steak I think. 

Chasing: Alexis chases Andrew and Andrew chases Alexis.  Alexis only likes it when it's on her terms and he doesn't actually get close enough to tag her because Andrew's version of tagging is to grab and pull her hair...we're working on this.

Throwing: throwing things out of the crib, throwing his cup/paci/toy down wherever he is once he's distracted by something else, throwing food from the high chair so that Sadie will run to it (a new favorite), throwing balls, throwing other toys, throwing cell phones (yay for Daddy's otter box), throwing fits...

And through it all he's still so darn cute!

We're Ba-ack! ok, this post was written about 3 weeks ago

Still trying to get in the swing of things.  I'm not going to lie, the week I got back was a whirlwind and I don't know if I even remember all of it.  But we made an attempt at our normal schedule even though I travelled one day in the middle of the week (what's a quick flight down to San Antonio, drive over to Seguin and back again?) and then Andrew got ear tubes on Friday.

face paint day

waiting for surgery at a very early hour

done, calmed down, and chillin' with daddy

I think Andrew already has better balance so now we're hoping for a year of no ear infections.  He hated, no let's make that more accurate, HATED!!!!!!!!!! his ear drops.

A week after getting back was our anniversary.  I had all these thoughts while I was gone of the neat activities/places to go that I was going to plan or places to eat or things to get as little gifts, but with as quickly as everything happened and as tired as I was, I only accomplished one of them and barely did that, but we did have cute cookies from Cookies in Bloom in the "wedding assortment" and "bucket of smiles".  Yes, they are over-priced but I had purchased a 50% off JITC deal so I figured this was as good a time as any to use it.  Grant, on the other hand, remembered that I usually like to pick something that somehow fits into the traditional gifts by how many years you've been married and found a linen outfit for me.  It's the first year that I skipped this tradition, but who knows I technically have all year to find something for him or I can make up for it one of those years that doesn't have a gift category assigned.  It's just a fun thing to do and I wish that I'd kept a list or pictures of each of the items of the last 8 years.

And since our babysitters were all out of town last weekend, we're going to a movie this weekend.  So it was disjointed but kind of nice to spread out our celebrating rather than for it to be over after one day.

Yucatan Part 4 - The Ruins & Coming Home!!!

Saturday (July 16) we were up early to leave our donations on a table and pack the bus.  We headed out to see Chichen-Itza (pronounced: Chee chin eat za, or to some :-) chicken pizza)

We were on our way to see one of the 7 wonders of the world. Chichen-itza 7 wonders

Some of us pitched in and bought a tour guide and it was well worth it.  He was full of information to debunk several of the myths of the Mayan world and calendar.  And he had pictures of the sights that occur on certain days of the year at the ruins and just overall helped to give more meaning to the sites we were seeing.

Once he was done we took a closer look at some of the structures.  I toured most of the time with Patina, Ally, Mia & Gabby as you can see from some of the pics.

After seeing the ruins we piled back in the bus and headed to Merida.  Once there we unloaded at the hotel, got our room assignments and some of us went to walk the city and look for the market.  It was overly crowded due to it being Saturday and the free Shakira concert later that night which made it hard to see anything, so we headed back, purchased the last few bottled drinks and snacks that we would need and went back to wait on pizza.  During this time we were pleasantly surprised to discover that not only did we have a working AC unit in our room (we were in the "good" hall) even if we couldn't adjust it, it was a welcome change, we also had a shower with pressure and warm water!  We still had to brush our teeth with bottled water and still felt better getting ready with bug spray but this was quite a step from our previous 8 nights.  We also had a tv and after flipping around we settled on watching Finding Nemo in Spanish. ...our pizza arrived on Mexican time (an hour and a half late).

So after a few short hours of sleep (kind of) we piled on the bus to go to the airport.  The plane was late to depart and our connection in Houston was tight considering we had to make it through customs, re-check our bags, go back through security, but luckily we all made it...but not all of our luggage did.  We arrived in Dallas with 8 bags missing.  Mine took the 4 p.m. flight from Houston (I was at my house before 2) and it was at my door around 10:30 that night. 

After I got home, Grant decided not to stay the extra night in Panhandle and he piled the tired kiddos in the car to begin their trek home.  He survived despite a screaming Andrew that after so many hours logged in his carseat was protesting.

It was great to be home!

Yucatan Part 3 - VBS & the bulk

Approx 150 kids, an industrial size bag of Animalitos, and Big Apple Adventure in Spanish...VBS in Mexico!

As previously posted, our schedule changed and VBS was re-worked on the bus between the airport and Tekax so that it could be started the morning after our arrival.
As the week went on our attendance for the church VBS grew in leaps and bounds.

Day 2 The first full day (Saturday 7/9) the whole group heard the Bible story together thanks to Juan Martinez since most of our Spanish speaking mission trippers had not arrived yet.  They kind of stared at us like we were crazy since we couldn't speak Spanish to them but we were trying to sing the VBS songs in Spanish.  Craft time and Recreation times were the biggest hits it seemed.  We only lost one of the craft frisbees on top of the roof of the church which was good since they kept trying their hardest to throw them as far and hard as they could.  Our (Patina's and my) group was the 5th-6th graders.  We had mostly boys the whole week, but they were a fun group.

Later in the day we took a trip over to Casa Kim just to meet the kids.

We cheered for the Coca Cola truck that drove by.
We had our first rain storm and then church in the evening.  The sermon was on Hebrews 11:1-40

Day 3 (Sunday 7/10)
similar to day 1
Today was the day for the "American" meal which meant we were having hot dogs.  A few people in our group when to the store to buy Peanut Butter.
The Lambarrias arrived
Day 4 (Monday 7/11)
This is when things start to blur together
VBS at church
VBS & projects at Casa Kim
We also had the Cinnamon Bread...this and the boiled chicken stew on Saturday were my favorite things to eat.
Sassers arriver shortly before park ministry. With the Lambarrias and Sassers there we now had lots more of our translators.  For Park ministry we piled (remember, we're in Mexico) into a pickup truck and a van to head over there. Mia and I rode in the cab of ther truck. and to think they originally thought the van would have to make two trips...ha!

Day 5 (Tuesday 7/12)
My hardest homesick morning.  I was actually missing Alexis' morning grouchiness and wanting that in favor of the whining dog.

VBS at church started late due to a fesitval at the school but several kids brought some new friends.  This was the day of our biggest increase.  We had between 90 and 100 kids on this day.
We had fresh avacadoes with our lunch on this day, so I made a personal serving of guacamole with stewed tomatoes and lime to eat with some tortillas.
VBS & projects at Casa Kim
Park ministry was rained out so a group of us went shopping...more like scouting the stores for some of the shopping that needed to be done for the orphanage (school uniform material, shoes, and a few otehr items).  This was also the night that we saw the tarantula and the monster cockroach per the previous post.

Day 6 (Wednesday 7/13)
Last Day of church VBS
VBS & projects at Casa Kim

crazy moment

While waiting for the van (didn't have the truck this time for park) got to speak with the grandparents of one of the little girls that was always with our group.  She played with Daniela constantly even though they spoke different languages.  Anyway, her grandfather wanted to work on his English and he spoke a mix of Mayan and Spanish, but I learned that they were married for 43 years and unfortunately I forget how many now but we also talked about how many kids they had and of those how many were girls or boys.

Day 7 (Thursday 7/14)
Lots of painting at Casa Kim.
This is the day that we had a couple of different options for what to do in the evening.  Several people went back to the park ministry, others went to a home church and Joseph Rickets and I went with Juan Lambarria to the mission church a few blocks away from the park in Oux Kuzcab (pronounce oshe coosh cab).  The way it was situated since we were meeting outside, we saw the most beautiful sky as the full moon rose up over the trees. Joseph and I were both asked to speak briefly.  The verse I referred to was Romans 8:25 and spoke about Christ being our reason for Hope.

 

Day 8 (Friday 7/15)
(cinnamon bread for breakfast!)
Party at the Orphanage

And a few random items:
SLUG BUGS - I took the first on because we saw this one all the time as it was right down the street from us...really there were several bugs in our area.  And the second picture was just a coincidence as I was taking a picture of the main church from the town square/garden area. (not the same church that we were working with)

Saturday and Sunday (9 & 10) will be in the next (and last) Yucatan installment post.

Yucatan - Part 2 - Most things are bigger in Texas but the critters are bigger in Mexico

Tarantula by the bathroom window:

This picture does not do the size of the tarantula and baby egg sac (yuck!) justice

Moth the size of a bat

look at it in relation to the other moths in the pic (thanks, Gaby I stole it from your FB album)

Cockroach! Didn't get a picture of this one

Gecko eating a bug

Affectionately known as "lizard-bug" - again thanks for sharing pics on FB

Iguanas were sunning themselves everywhere.  The geckos in Texas are tiny, the ones in Mexico helped us from totally being eaten by the bugs.  One day I had to wait to continue down the street because I was waiting for turkeys and chickens to cross the road after they flew over the stone partial wall.  We woke up to the combo of a rooster, whining dog and duck.

Really there was not a day where animals were not part of our discussion, but hey it was all part of the experience.  The only bugs that we really really got sick of were the regular flies.  They came in swarms.

Yucatan - Part 1 Flexibility is the name of the game

The blue shirts met to head to Tekax.  During our 5 hour layover in Houston we had some pretty great people watching.  Seriously entertaining and just so you know, regardless of how you pronounce it..."we're from Texas, it's 'you ka tan'". :-)

Sans hubbies in Mexico

Upon arrival and Customs clearance in Mexico, we learned that we would be back in town to head out the same day as the Shakira concert and we were lucky to have hotel rooms. We got the first news of our schedule adjustment...
Original plan:
Saturday and Sunday: settle in, purchase any supplies needed, visit orphanage, church services
Mon - Fri: 3 VBS/day and other activities
Saturday: free day/travel to Merida
Sunday Fly home

Revised Plan: Start VBS in the morning due to confusion with the Mexican school calendar...BTW, I'm still confused about the whole school calendar issue.  Kind of seemed like school was optional.

So we rolled into town sometime between 2 and 3 in the morning, unloaded at our respective sleeping quarters and crashed as best we could...more on our accomodations later.

Mine's the orange one in the middle.

We were prepared for the structure of previous trips and for things to be the way we had discussed in meetings and we threw most of that out the window.  We did learn that our over prep made it easier for us to adjust our plans to accomodate the lacsidaisical attitude of the city.

30

Yep, I have joined the 30 club.  First of all thanks to everyone that helped me celebrate my birthday!  It was perfect!  It was exactly what I wanted and I enjoyed every minute.

We realized after most had been eaten that we didn't take a picture of the cake, so I'll just say, it was beautiful and from Candy Haven in Denton and was yummy and the cupcakes were the Key Lime cupcakes from Sprinkles!  Great fellowship and fun and I appreciated everyone taking time out of their weekends to celebrate with me.

So looking back, while I haven't reached every goal that I thought I would by now and I haven't seen every place that I thought I would have seen, I have had a great and blessed 30 years so far and am looking forward to more and tacking on more goals every minute.

I have a great husband and two fabulous kiddos that amaze me every day.  They are crazy and hyper and loving and beautiful and fun.

Here's a picture from Birthday shopping with my sis...aren't the shoes awesome?!?  We thought Alexis would love them as they are purple and sparkly...I decided that they just weren't practical enough for a 30 year old.  Besides, I wouldn't know what to do looking like I was walking on stilts! (ok, so I'm having issues with adding these pictures for some reason. - on my computer they are rotated correctly but sizing was the issue.)

Here's a picture of the cake...yes it really is the only picture that we have of the cake.  Sorry!  Just imagine a beautiful beach scene and it saying happy birthday with a few candles and take a snap shot in your head.

And me by my age banner

On a side note, yes I am aware that I have missed the rest of July blogging.  I will finish the trip posts etc when I get around to it.