Fiesta and Easter Activities

So, for all that are not native to San Antonio or have not lived a significant amount of time here you might not understand that craziness that is FIESTA! Every year San Antonion's party for 11 days in April. It was originally a parade started by the wealthy only for the wealthy as a way to commemorate heroes from the Battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto. Over the years it has evolved into a party for everyone. It's 11 days of parades, food, music, carnivals, and of course beer. It doesn't get crazy the way that Mardi Gras does but the entire city loves it. THe kids get out of school for part of it and people get our of work. They even had parties at Lillie and Samuel's schools. They made floats and then pulled them in a parade. The kids worked super hard on these things and were thrilled to pull them. Here they are:

Samuel with his Pirate Float

Lillie with her Zhu-Zhu Pet Float

Lillie with her 1st Grade teacher Mrs. Chasteen at her parade

Samuel with his pre-school class on the day of his parade

I'm not sure if you guys know what cascarones are... if you don't, they're hollowed out eggs shells filled with confetti, covered in tissue paper and decorated. The idea is to surprise someone by sneaking up behind them and cracking them over their head then they get confetti all over the place. Here are the kids with a bunch of them, but instead of surprising each other they were saying "crack your egg on MY head!" It was cute and they had a lot of fun.

Here is Samuel with all of his school friends after their annual egg hunt

The kids with the Zufelt's after our other annual egg hunt

L and S coloring eggs on Saturday with our friend Aydia

For Easter the kids each got a new hoodie towel and an electric toothbrush.

The kids this morning with all their loot. Those toothbrushes were well used today I might add!

The kids with their Aunt Allison and the bunny cake they all decorated with my mom. They were super proud to have done this all on their own!

And finally, the last egg hunt of the season. The kids understood that none of the candy would be new as we simply recycle our candy from each hunt. However the excitement never seems to wear off so here they are as crazy as ever!

Those were the Easter activities which were fun but rather overbearing I've decided. I think next year we're going to work on toning down all the secular stuff, ask the Easter Bunny to visit Saturday morning instead and try to create a truly special feeling for our family on Easter Sunday where we focus on on the true meaning of what our Savior has done for us. I am so grateful for His Atoning Sacrifice and Resurrection. I know that without this marvelous gift we would not be able to live eternally with our Father in Heaven and our families. I hope all of you had a blessed day!

Our Latest Projects

So, I haven't blogged in awhile, and here's why:

TABLE PROJECT

I have owned this table for almost 5 years now and have hated every minute of using it. It was broken down, busted up, and butt ugly. Finally cheap Audrey told cheap Tim that she would watch 2 children this school year and save some $ from it to buy a new table. Cheap Audrey saved all her pennies, went to the store to buy the table she wanted and thought "I don't want to give them all my $ yet. I'll take 100 of my dollars and try to refinish my old table. That will be a fun project!" Everyone said "haha, we'll see". Well you know what... it was fun! It took a super long time, but it was also great fun and I have discovered a new love. I plan to repaint my kitchen and paint the cabinets in the near future. Anyway, here's the project:

22 year old table in all it's glory

Once I got this thing sanded down to the bare wood I discovered something nice and new!

A month and a half later (more or less!) and here it is!

My friend Ashley helped me build this bench. It was my first time using any

kind of power saw. I was intimidated at first and then had a great time with it!

So, since now I had all sorts of cash-ola left over we decided to do other things around our house like:

PLANT A NEW GARDEN

and,

BUILD A PLAYROOM IN OUR GARAGE

This thing is totally awesome. It has opened up some much needed space in our quickly shrinking house and all of the toys and books have been cleared out of our regular living spaces!

and

RE-SOD OUR SIDE YARD

For some reason the grass in our side yard did not come back this year. I would like to blame it on our previously owned dog Maggie, but something tells me it's more likely to have died after 4 years of neglect. St. Augustine grass is amazingly resilient in the TX heat and has grown in lush and green each year with little to mostly no care on our part (In the side yard. We care for every other part of our lawn but this area is annoying to water it being so narrow). Anyway, we wanted to re-sod so Tim rented a roto-tiller and enjoyed a very bumpy morning digging up the lawn with our friend Kris.

Then my dad and Lillie helped Tim lay down new dirt

Here's Samuel with our beautiful pallet of new sod delivered early Monday morning. The boys thought this was awesome because an 18 wheeler delivered it right in front of our house then a fork lift actually drove onto our own personal lawn and dropped it off right at the gate! The boys were ecstatic to see such mighty truck action on our very own property!

Here's the lawn right before the sod was laid

And here's our gorgeous new lawn! This was taken just tonight, about a week after

the sod was actually laid. The roots must be taking because this is already

much greener than it was when we laid it.

So, yay for refinishing the table! Tomorrow we are rebuilding our front fence, installing 2 new ceiling fans and replacing our 2 hall light fixtures. Then my $ is all gone. Don't worry, we know where it went... Lowes

Happy Birthday Grant from G-Ma & G-Pa Doo'

Here's Grant all decked out in the Thomas gear that he got with his Birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa. Thanks guys!

Girl's Nite Out

Okay, it was a resolution of mine to blog more, but please everyone post some more stuff! I'm enjoying keeping good records but I'm getting a tad embarrassed that so many of the last posts are mine!

So, tonight Lillie and I went out for a date and we had a blast! We went to Jamba Juice then shopped at Ross while we drank our smoothies. Lillie helped me pick out a new toilet lid so Tim and I can replace the old 1980's wooden one we have. Then we went ice-skating. This was Lillie's first time and she was amazing. She was wobbly at first of course. She spent about 15 minutes hanging on to the wall then another hour holding my hand and then she just took off on her own! We're looking in to ice skating camp for the summer. It'd be nice to have a place to cool down while it's 100 degrees outside!

I love girl's nite and I had such a blast with ma girlie!

Grant Turns Two!

Grant had his great big number 2 birthday today and it was fantastic! He took a 4 hour nap this morning and spent the rest of the day doing all of his favorite things: First we went to Barnes and Noble where he played with the Thomas the Train Table and found one of the birthday presents that we'll get using G-ma and G-pa Doo's money they sent - an awesome Thomas the Train book with buttons for sounds and a little steering wheel to drive. We'll be picking that up tomorrow as he was super sad to leave it behind at the store today. Then we picked Lillie up from school and headed to Sonic for a Milkshake and french fries, 2 of Grant's favorite foods. After that we headed to Target for Lillie and Samuel to pick out presents for Grant from the dollar spot. We also perused the toy section as that is another one of G's favorite things to do. When he sees a Target he flips out and talks about how much he wants to go in. Last we headed home to get ready for the party.

Here's G with "his" train table"

Grant's special table cloth

I made this cake for G last night and I loved the way it turned out. G loved it too!

I think watching him look at it and point to it and babble and get

excited about it was the best part of the day for me!

Lillie bought a butterfly net for G. He puts all his trains in it.

We'll see if it can make it through the weekend.

G with his alphabet keyboard from Tim and I. I'm sure this will be a helpful alphabet learning tool in the future, but for now G is happy with anything that has buttons and lights.

G and his favorite wooded trains from Grammy and Grandad.

He's like, "wait, where's the candle, I know you put fire on my cake but I can't see it!"

Grant could not get the concept of blowing out the candle which is strange because I think he blew it out last year. But with the help of kids aging 4, 6, 7, and 9 we managed to blow it out.

"Mom, please give me a wipey" Grant does not like messy hands!

He had a really fun time at his party as did everyone else. I can't believe that 2 years has already passed since he came to our family! He is such a fun and wonderful little boy and I am so blessed that I am able to be his mom.

Grant at 2:

Favorites -

Books: "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", "Everywhere Babies", any Thomas books he can find

Food: GOLDFISH!!!!!, also chips, fries, broccoli, pasta, cheese but only shredded cheddar, anything sweet, and sloppy joes

Toys: Trains, his Spiderman and Go Diego Go ride-on cars, his push walker, and the trampoline (he especially loves it when Tim or I jump with him)

Movies: Despicable Me, any Toy Story, Thomas the Train, and anything Barney

Activities: looking at toys in Target, Barnes and Noble, swinging at the park and mom giving him underdoggies to go super duper high, tickle monster with dad, chasing Lillie and Samuel and "getting" them, cuddling Maggie the dog

Dislikes -

FRUIT! In his entire life Grant has eaten 1 strawberry and 3/4 of a banana. The only way I can get him to eat it is by fruit leather.

Going to bed

Not being able to throw things at Samuel

Getting in his car seat

Mommy telling him "no more goldfish"

Traveling

*** Special things about Grant:

He LOVES his daddy so much and runs straight for the door with his arms out when Tim comes home. Then he rides around in Tim's arms like they are his throne!

When you ask him to give you kisses he sucks in his cheeks and purses his lips like a fish... so stinkin' cute!

He worships Samuel and tries to do everything like him. If S gets a fake tattoo on his belly, you can bet that that's where Grant will want his tattoo also!

Every morning when he wakes up he crawls in to bed to cuddle with us before he starts his day... and I just love it!

He has the best dimples when he smiles and he smiles a lot!

He loves to entertain with funny faces and noises

He loves Thomas the Train. He has 3 Thomas shirts and 2 pair of Thomas pj's. After I do laundry I know that he will be wearing Thomas shirts for the next three days. After that I dress him in regular clothes which he stays in for approximately 2 minutes. The next thing I know he is dressed down to his diaper coming to me with Thomas pj's in hand. So for the next 2 days he wears pj's at his clothes. 5 days of Thomas and then he has to wait until the laundry's done again.

He absolutely loves animals and has a knack for spotting them everywhere. So far we have not had an encounter with an animal that Grant hasn't been able to charm. He especially loves our dog Maggie and whenever he sees her he calls her name, "Maa-mee, Maa-mee" over and over. One of the few words that he says.

He also says mom, ball, book, bowl (for goldfish), moon, and more. And tonight I could swear he said "more book" when I put the bedtime books away.

* This is my all-time favorite thing about Grant: while he sucks his thumb he reaches behind himself and reaches for either his waistband tag or his shirt collar tag and holds it for comfort. He started that when he was maybe ten months old. Yesterday he was wearing a shirt with no tag so while I was holding him I noticed that he was digging around at the back of my neck looking for a tag in my shirt! He loves any tag and if laundry is sitting on the couch while he's watching t.v. he'll find a tag to hold. It's funny because so many children find tags annoying and itchy and so they've begun to make most kid shirts tagless... poor Grant!

Mom's Table Project and Mom and Samuel's Date

So, the last two weeks have been filled with 2 things. DIY projects and a sick little Grant. I decided to re-finish my kitchen table. That's a project that's been looming over me for 5 years now! I saved all the $ for a new one then when I went to the store I thought, well, that's a nice table and I thought I liked it but it seems so boring to just have a brand new table. I'd rather just re-do one myself! It's been a lot of work already and I'm smack dab in the middle of it, but it will get done and it's already turning out rather nice. Unfortunately I picked the worst time of the year to do this. I got all excited about, bought some sandpaper and borrowed my friend Ashley's power sander. Then we got the worst cold spell in years and the temperatures plummeted to 18 degrees with a wind chill of 5. I was not to be deterred. While everyone else was inside reading and baking I spent 2 days out in my front yard becoming very good friends with the sander and my table. I was on a roll. Then poor Grant got sick and stayed that way for a week. Frankly I was tired of sanding and needed a break and it was too cold anyway to paint. The weather finally took a turn for the better and warmed up to the 60's yesterday and today so I finished the final sanding on Thursday and hauled my table over to Ashley's house on Friday. We spent the better part of the last 2 days with her paint sprayer and a bottle of mineral spirits. The table is looking good but we still have 2 more coats to go and then I need to stain the top. I'll be posting pics in a later family blog. Now for the chairs, those are a completely different issue. I plan to get them done soon but they are truly a thorn in my side. The legs on them are just so decorative and will be extremely difficult to sand and paint....So, we'll see.

Tonight I took Samuel out on a date to Chuck E Cheese and we had a blast! The coolest part was at the end. We had already been there for 2 1/2 hours and were ready to go but we had lost 2 tokens in a game and asked an employee if we could have them returned. He asked us which game and we steered him in the correct direction. Well, he opened the game up, reset it, and proceeded to started dropping balls into the largest tickets holes. The machine starts spitting out tickets and he tells Samuel that they are all for him! Samuel could not believe it, he was so excited! We go to put them in the ticket muncher and there are 756 tickets in all! That kid has never had more than maybe 80 in any visit and he was just beside himself. We got pics of the tickets and all of his loot, unfortunately they are all on my junkie cell phone and I have no idea how to get them off. I'll have to ask Tim in the morning and see what he can do. And then on the way home Samuel was telling me that he knew our address. Very seriously he said, "We live at 7714 Alver-Street Highway". Too cute!

5 Down, 15 To Go

Monumental News.... Lillie lost a tooth without losing it!!! As many of you know Lillie lost two teeth over Christmas break both of which were lost before she even got to hold them. The first was extremely loose and Maggie (the dog) bumped her mouth and knocked it out. It flew somewhere onto the carpet and we have never been able to find it. Maggie probably ate it as that creature will ingest anything. The second we think she accidentally swallowed when it came out with a piece of Harry's birthday cake she was eating. Well since then her other top middle tooth has been loose and she has been so nervously careful it's been almost humorous. For the last 3 days I've had to cut her sandwiches into bite-sized squares or she wouldn't eat. She never told me she wouldn't eat, she just kept coming home with a lunch box full of food. Anyway, she lost it this morning during breakfast and was able to keep a hold on this one! Woo Hoo! Here are some pics of our toothless wonder:

She is currently 5 down, 15 to go. She also wrote a letter to the tooth fairy tonight explaining the lost lost teeth so she is ca$hing in on 3 teeth tonight! Richie girl!