The Best Brother in the World

The kids and I were driving to a class today and chit-chatting in the car.  Ainsley asked Ian if he loved himself, to which he answered, "Yes, I do love myself."  Then she asked him who he loved better, himself or her, to which he answered, "Ainsley I love you so much that if anything bad were to ever happen I would die for you."  At which time Mommy was glad to be wearing mirrored sunglasses and sitting in the front seat so neither of them could see me crying.  These two go after each other like cats and dogs sometimes and there have been times that Ian has said that he really wished he could knock the crap out of her, but he is without a doubt the most loving, patient and forgiving big brother any girl could ask for.  I really hope someday she realizes this and cherishes him for it.  Personally, I just can't even describe how proud I am of the beautiful, caring, giving soul he is and the amazing man that he is destined to be!

Ainsley's Egg

We visited a friend today that has the luxury of living in a non-HOA neighborhood where you're allowed to have chickens!  She has 5 lovely little hens that make the most awesome little chicken noises.  I would love to hear the cooing and clucking of chickens everyday!  Anyway, while there, she was showing us around and she decided to show Ainsley where the chickens lay their eggs.  As it turns out, she has a broody hen who was sitting on a couple of eggs.  She shooed said hen and retrieved the eggs, handing one to Ainsley.  Ainsley spent the next 1/2 hour walking all over her yard and house and playing with the other kids with this egg firmly in her grip!  I was so worried she was gonna crack the thing.  When it was time to go, my friend said that Ainsley could keep the egg for her breakfast tomorrow.  So when we got in the car I asked her to hand it over (there was no way I was gonna let her crack that egg in the car)!  I asked her how she wanted me to cook the egg tomorrow.  She immediately started to wail.  "NOOOOOOOO MOMMY, it's MY EGG!  You can't have it!  I want to put it with my rock collection!!!!!"  OK, I immediately started having flashbacks to when Ian was 3 or 4 and had fallen in love with a pumpkin!  Just like back then, I had to explain that you just can't keep a raw egg.  At the very least it could break and at the very worst it would ROT.  So after a great deal of waterworks, I have finally convinced her to let me cook the damn thing tomorrow.  I feel bad that she loves the egg so much, but what can I do?!?!  So I took a picture of her with her egg, so she can at least look at that whenever she misses it!

Ooooooh-possums!

I have a friend that volunteers for an wild animal rehabilitation organization.  She informed me last week that she had 3 baby opossums and of course I just couldn't resist taking the kids over for a visit.  They were SO unbelievably cute!  Of course we just got to look as safety protocols certainly don't allow for handling by anyone other than the re-habber, but it was fun just to see what baby opossums look like!  I have always seen adults.  These guys were smaller than guinea pigs, but bigger, well, plumper than an average rat.  Their tails were so amazingly prehensile.  The kids were absolutely mesmerized!  Here is one of the little boys...

 

She said that they are always looking for more people to volunteer, but seriously, my plate is so stinkin' full right now!  I can't even imagine having to get up and feed babies every 4 hours again!  Maybe when kids are off to college, I can start helping with animal re-hab, but for now, I have to live vicariously through my friend!

Lunchtime Table Discussions--Pumpkins

Today at our lunchtime table discussion, we determined that full, round pumpkins should be called "PLUMPkins".  Solving the world's problems one lunch at a time!  ;)

Eating me out of house and home!

Good grief!  The boy must be having yet another growth spurt!  I fed him pancakes for breakfast, which he ate ravenously.  He had a large helping of Chinese Spaghetti and Meatballs for lunch and now, 2 hours later for a snack, he is making himself a full-size ham sandwich.  Seriously?!?!  This kid eats bigger portions of food than I do.  And long gone are the days of the kid menu.  No, no, helpings are too small and let's face it, the boy has a more advanced palate than the average 9 year-old.  He cannot be bothered with chicken nuggets or mac 'n cheese, he wants baked salmon or enchiladas or sushi and tempura!  Whether we're eating at home or eating out, this kid is putting a serious dent in our pocketbook!  I'm just scared, if he eats like this at 9, how am I gonna feed him at 14?!?!  Yikes.

Ainsley-ism of the Night

On the way home from cleaning the offices, I was being silly and told the kids, "Hey look at me!  I'm magic!"  To which Ainsley promptly retorted, "Yeah right Mom!  You're not magic, SANTA CLAUS is!"

I guess she put me in my place!

Ainsley-ism of the Day: Hogwart's Edition

"Peter Pettigrew LOVES Voldemort, but Voldemort only loves towels.  Voldemort hates being stupid and he doesn't like penguins or pancakes!"

Hmmm.  That explains a lot!

The Three Leprechauns!

Last night we went down to Central Market for a St. Patty's Day ceili being put on by the Irish Dance School.  I wanted Ainsley to see the dancers as we are considering Irish dance for her activity.  She is, after all, becoming a big girl, and she's tired of always having to tag along while Ian has all the fun!  I can understand.  Anyway, Nana, Mia, Brady, Ian, Ainsley and I headed down to the craziness that is St. Patrick's Day in Austin, TX!!!  Central Market was VERY crowded but luckily they have a playground and there is a greenspace right behind the market with a cool, old tree and a pond full of turtles.  It didn't take long for the kids to get bored of the crowds and the dancing, so they headed down to the pond where I took a picture of the Three Little Leprechauns!

 

Surely I'm the luckiest lassie in the world to have two super cute kiddos and an awesome niece!  And please forgive the photo quality, my iPhone isn't quite up to snuff in that department!

Come as your favorite literary character!

One of Ian's best friends, Leo, had his 11th birthday party this week.  The theme was come as a character from your favorite book.  Ian chose to go as Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter series, not because Draco is a most favorite character, but because my skinny, blond boy looks more like Draco than Harry, AND we have managed to lose the HP glasses!

Ainsley chose to go as Alice from "Alice in Wonderland".  We decided that she would be adorable as "little Alice", so I stuffed her into one of my dresses to make her look especially small!  I, of course, got suckered into dressing up as the Mad Hatter, which I guess really isn't that far-fetched for me!

Here's me aka The Mad Hatter and Little Alice...

Notice she has the March Hare AND the Dormouse!  :)

And now, Draco and Little Alice!

It was a lovely party at a park on a beautiful spring day!  And instead of cake, we got Round Rock Donuts.  YUMMY!

To Ian on your birthday...

My Dearest Ian, you're NINE!!!!  I can hardly believe it!  And as you so aptly reminded me, you are half way to becoming a man!  Just do me a favor and don't remind Mommy of that too often!  It's hard on my heart!  You are getting so big and so tall, you are almost to my shoulder and you're not even in double digits yet!  You eat like a horse and are literally eating me out of house and home!  At least you have good taste in food!

You have accomplished SO much this past year.  You learned how to swim, you have continued with basketball, you conquered long division and prepositional phrases and have begun to understand that reading is the key to knowledge.  You have also become the Lego Master!  I don't think there is anything Lego that you can't build!  I would just say that your Daddy and I are so amazingly proud of you and all of your accomplishments!

You make me laugh every single day and I love that!  You crack me up because you can remember every single jingle and catch phrase from every commercial you've ever seen.  I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing, but it cracks me up!  And although you haven't opted to play an instrument, you love music, you love to dance around and you embrace it with your soul.  I have the best time head-banging to old 80's rock and roll with you and I'm so happy we share that special little connection!  Truth be told, for the most part (we'll not include "The Final Countdown") you have one of the most diverse music libraries of any kid I know and you absolutely don't let Disney or Nickelodeon dictate to you what's cool and I LOVE that!  So keep rockin' my son and I'll always stop and jam out to "Rainbow in the Dark" anytime you want!

You really are a kid that walks to the beat of your own drum and that's amazing.  You have a level of confidence that even at 40 I don't possess.  You can strike up a conversation with anyone, you are confident that you can do ANYTHING and when you decide you're going to do something you jump into it with both feet, no regrets.  That level of confidence and self-esteem will take you far, I hope you never lose it.  You are kind, and loving and open-minded.  You see injustices in the world and you want to help change them and I admire you for that.  And I promise to help you learn the satisfaction of helping others who can't help themselves.

All of this being said, I just can't even express in words how much I love you and admire you!  I see great things in your future and although every year it kills me to see you get another year older, I am filled with pride at the wonderful young man you are becoming!  I love you with all of my heart and I hope that 9 is the best year yet!

Love, Mom

Ian is NINE!

OK, he turned 9 about 2 weeks or so ago, but after we returned from the Big Dallas Weekend Spectacular, we had a Superbowl Party to prep for followed by a two week bout of illness.  Blech.  Needless to say, I hadn't taken care of my parental/photographical duties of taking his 9 year photos.  Therefore, I needed to remedy this!  This past weekend he was supposed to take basketball pics at the Y, but we opted out of those, they are TERRIBLE, and besides, why would I pay to have terrible photographers take terrible pics of my kid!  I mean if this were a team where he really gelled with his teammates and wanted team pics, that would be another thing, but he hasn't gelled and he didn't care about photos, SO, I took him to the basketball court over in Linda's neighborhood yesterday and shot a few of our own shots to commemorate his turning the Big 9.

 And now for a couple of action shots of my own SuperStar!

Takin' it down the court!

 And SHOOT!

 

Somewhere, somehow, my little boy got big!  And athletic!  How did that happen?

Sweets and Treats!

As you know, we are Valentine's Day Scrooges.  I refuse to play into the commercial idea that February 14th is a day of love and we all need to go and buy crappy little tokens to prove our love to our significant others.  I mean really, GAG.  But I do understand that the children enjoy the holiday, filled with little red hearts and a winged cherub with a bow and arrow, not to mention, chocolate runs rampant this time of year and how could I deny them that?  So our Valentine's tradition has become chocolate-dipped strawberries!  This year, the kids were in charge.  Ian unwrapped the chocolate and was in charge of melting it, then he and Ainsley dipped each berry.  We let them sit for awhile to set, then heated up some more chocolate for drizzling and decorating!  And here are my sweets with their super delicious treats!

Dallas Birthday Spectacular!

Ian turned the BIG 9 at the end of January!  This year, I managed to talk him out of a big party and into a BIG trip to Dallas.  Oh the fun to be had!  Our first big success was scoring an awesome hotel just 2 1/2 blocks from the American Airlines Center where Brady managed to swing us tickets to a Mavericks basketball game!  We tried Hotwire for the first time and scored a king suite with kitchen, office and living room for $58 a night!  Insane!  It was a nice little place to call home for 3 days!

Night one... DALLAS MAVERICKS GAME!!!!  OK, not only did Daddy score tickets, he scored a SUITE.  And an amazing suite at that!

This place was off the hook!  No burgers and relish dogs here, check out the cheese plate and the veggies!  There were panini sandwiches, antipasti, bruschetta, wine, beer, you name it!  Talk about seeing a game in style!  Here's the Monkey Bunch showing their team spirit!  (Even though technically, Ainsley and I are the Mavs fans, Brady and Ian like the Spurs!)  But hey, when in Rome...

 

You'll have to excuse the photo quality in some of these, they were taken with my phone camera and not my good one!  But we ate good food, enjoyed some amazing desserts from the dessert cart, had nice drinks and enjoyed one hell of a game!  The Mavericks won of course!

Truth be told though, the awesomeness wore off pretty quickly after dessert for one of us!

In case you were wondering, the answer is YES, I do have a photo of her at every single game or concert looking just like this!  This is the Ainsley m.o.!  Excitement + sugar = CRASH!

The next day we met up with my cousin Rob and his girlfriend at a trendy, little diner in Uptown for lunch.  As always, it was an awesome visit and left me feeling like I really need to make it up to Dallas more often!  Rob is such a great guy and I miss seeing his face!  And like an idiot, I didn't snap a picture of that handsome face while I was there!  Hello, my name is Trina and I'm a putz!

After lunch, we walked a couple of blocks to catch one of Dallas' historic trolleys!  I had no idea this was even an option until that morning when I just happened along the website and saw that the trolley goes right down to the Dallas Museum of Art!  How convenient!  I thought how fun for the kids, we get out of parking downtown AND it was FREE!!!  I mean really, could it have been a better situation?!?

Here are the kiddos, "patiently" waiting for the trolley!

 

Lo and behold... the Trolley!  Had to get a shot with our super sweet conductor!

The trolley's last stop is right across the street from our destination, the Dallas Museum of Art, or, if you're one of my kids, the Dallas Museum o' Fart (note the museum's website if you have any questions).

This place is HUGE!  It was hard to choose a starting place.  We ended up in the traveling exhibit of African Masks.  Sadly, no pics of this stuff as they are not too keen on photography in the galleries.  I did get a quick shot of the beautiful display of colorful glass in one of the windows above the snack area.

They had a large and wonderful collection of Central American art, not too mention a nice collection of Egyptian, Polynesian, Chinese and Japanese art.  We were a little let down by the Greek and Roman room, which kind of stunk since that was what Ian was most excited to see.  He did enjoy the Modern Art section though.  In fact, here he is in the sculpture garden cracking up about something while sitting on a piece of said art!

He thought this piece was weird!

Ainsley's favorite piece was this chair.  I can't imagine why?  And I would like to make museum curators aware of the fact that pieces like this, make it VERY hard to keep your children OFF the artwork!  Ainsley wanted to sit in this SO bad!  :)

Another area that Ainsley was fond of was the hands-on area.  They had a whole station set up for kids to create with aluminum foil!  She loved it! 

Here are some of the finished products.  What you aren't seeing is me getting scolded for forgetting to turn off my flash!  Jeesh, it's not like there were ancient artifacts or pieces of priceless art in this room!

After the museum, we rode the trolley back uptown and went back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner.  We took Ian to the Iron Cactus.  Yummy food, nice location, good atmosphere and most importantly... $170 in trade!  We have, over the past two months, done 2 photo shoots for Iron Cactus and have stocked up on some trade!  But you certainly can't complain when you're presented with this!

Oh the hardships we endured on this trip!  But what was even better than the good food?  Being able to wish my amazing son a Happy Birthday!  My silly boys!

The next morning we woke up, packed up and piled into the car.  But do you think our time in Dallas was done?!?!  Not quite!  We headed over to the West End per Ian's request to visit the Dallas World Aquarium.

It's been awhile since we've visited this place, so if you haven't seen a post on this, I just have to say, the DWA is one of the most amazing zoological parks I have ever visited with an open air jungle canopy where birds fly freely, monkeys jump around in the trees and giant fish and other things swim in the waters below! 

Here's Miss Poo checking out the scenery...

What does she see?

Now I have to say, this zoo is home to two of my FAVORITE critters!  One is the South American River Otter who is so quick and agile and feisty that it is impossible to get a photo of one that isn't blurry!  However, the other creature that melts my heart that resides here is one of the slowest animals on Earth and if you can't get a good picture of him, well, you're a doofus!  It is the 3-toed sloth!

This particular sloth is "Leno" and he is the ONLY 3-toed sloth that lives in the United States.  He is insanely beautiful.  I know, you're thinking beautiful???  But once you see the next pic and see the amazing markings he has, you will agree I'm sure!

Is he not just stunning??!?!  OK, I'm sorry, but I have to take a short detour from the main subject and point out that people really are stupid.  And, of course, this is a severe generalization, but seriously, can you all read that sign?  There was a HUGE class of children touring the zoo at the same time we were and one of the TEACHERS came up to the sloth, looked at him, surely saw the sign (which is damn near as big as the sloth) and proceeded to ask the sloth docent if the kids could touch the sloth!!!!!!!  What the hell is wrong with people?  Was she expecting the docent to say something like, "Oh sure!  You and your school kids are obviously WAY more special than the general public so PLEASE proceed to poke and prod this poor defenseless sloth all you want!"  OK, I'm done, stepping down from soap box, but really?  I think if you even ask that question, it should be mandatory that you stick your hand in the aquarium with the electric eel for some shock therapy!

Here we are, stopping for a quick photo op at the lower canopy level.

We got Daddy with his kiddos too!

Then it was down to the river level to admire yet another of my favorite creatures.  The noble and majestic manatee!

 

We just love these guys!  We had a hard time getting a decent pic as there was a diver in the water, doing some cleaning and maintenance and they were so interested in what he was doing!  But he finally finished and shooed them away and I managed to snap a quick shot!

And what more you ask?  You haven't seen it all until you've seen the tropical aquariums and the SHARK TUNNEL!  Here are the kids hanging out in the big fish eye displays.

I didn't manage to get any really great photos of the sharks, but I lucked out as one enormous stingray glided over the top of the tunnel, so cool!

I just can't even say how great this trip was!  The game was super fun, the museum was amazing and as always, the Dallas World Aquarium totally delivered!  It was an absolutely fantastic weekend with my 3 favorite people!  And most importantly, I think Mr. Ian was happy with his Big Birthday Spectacular!  So, how do we top this next year for the Big 10?

Big Girl-Big Wheel!

Miss Piggy is really taking to her new Big Wheel!  Too bad the weather has been totally awful the last couple of weeks and she hasn't been able to ride it, but spring is coming soon, I can just feel it!

Big Wheels are a little different from tricycles, so there was a bit of a learning curve.  She got some help from her Daddy...

Then she was off!  Wee-HAW!

Once she got the hang of it, she owned it!  That's my bad, little Big Wheel Mama!

I think she's gonna love this thing and get lots of use out of it!  Ian had so much fun with his Big Wheel! I just know she gets a BIG ol' smile on her face when she rides it and that's all that matters to me!

Another visit from the Tooth Fairy!

FINALLY.  After months of wiggling and discomfort, we were able to yank another tooth!  It had been sticking straight out for weeks and I think was becoming more stuck as the new tooth grew in.  We finally talked Ian into letting us give it a go.  Daddy tried a couple of times with no luck, but Mama (with the golden touch) popped that sucker out first try!  He was happy to finally be rid of it and of course the Tooth Fairy hooked him up!  Who knew teeth were such a hot commodity?

New Year's in New Mexico!

Linda was bound and determined to get one last hoorah in before her knee replacement surgery on Jan. 10th, so she invited me and the kids to tag along with her to Ruidoso for a week.  How could I refuse?  We made a little pit stop in Roswell to visit Grandma.  She's 94 now and I always make an effort to stop by when we're near.  It was so nice to see her and I was able to get some nice pics of her and the kids and Linda even snapped a couple of all of us!

 I really do love my Grandma!  She is one of the bravest, feistiest people I know and she has such a great outlook on things.  I can only hope to have half the spunk and attitude she has when I'm 94!

When we arrived at the cabin, Ian was the first one bundled up and out of the house!  He gave the snow 2-thumbs up!

I would like to call this next photo "White Dog White Snow"!  ;)

 Sadly, this was not the kind of snow to build snowmen or make snowballs with.  It was very icy and very cold and wouldn't stick together at all!  And although the kids were a little sad that snowmen and snowball fights weren't in their future, they were happy to know that sledding was!

Ainsley's face is PRICELESS!  We made a makeshift ramp in the front yard and it worked well for awhile.  That is until the run got a little icy and Ian zinged out into the road in front of a truck!  His Grammy and I damn near had a heart attack!  Luckily the truck was going slow and no one was injured, but we decided to move the fun into the neighbor's yard!  Now I know what you're saying, the neighbor's yard?  But no one was there, they had a nice hill and a long driveway to keep sledding kids out of the road.  It was great fun, I even tried a few runs!  Cuz you know, someone that was heavier needed to pave the way!  Haha!  Ian discovered pretty quickly that snow is slick!

But he got back up, retrieved his saucer and went after it!  He was a pro in no time!

 

Then it was the Piggy's turn.  She did great until she hit a tree stump and that pissed her off pretty bad, but she was able to shake it off and continue.  Her only problem was trekking back up the hill in those big ol' boots made her TIRED!

I'm sure you can tell she had absolutely NO fun at all!  :)

And of course, you can't call it a good snow day without snow angels!

The doggies enjoyed the warmth of the cabin,

and a new friend!

The kids absolutely adored Miss Daisy (who belongs to Linda's friend Deborah), so much so that Miss Daisy will probably be forever traumatized over her visit!  That little dog was kissed, hugged, snuggled, carried and pestered half to death!  She was a good little sport though!

The kids got take a trip in the "Way Back Machine" when the phone died and I hunted around the cabin and finally found a good ol' rotary phone!

The kids were mesmerized by this dinosaur of technology and had a hard time understanding its limitations!  They found out these important things:
1.  You have to DIAL using a rotary dial.  No push buttons here!
2.  You can't meander around the house when you're talking on one.  You are stuck in one spot for the ENTIRE conversation!
3.  Those buttons on the top WILL cause you to hang up on your Daddy!
They eventually got the hang of it, we hope everyone else that visits the cabin will get the hang of it too!

We had many cabin visitors!  There were deer on the deck daily!  We were especially taken by a couple of cute youngsters!  I mean really, you just can't get much cuter than these little guys!

But I was truly taken by surprise the morning I was doing dishes and looking out the back window.  I saw these massive boys just strolling up the mountain behind the house!

I went out, armed with nothing but a camera to try to get a couple of shots.  These guys were BIG!  Both had at least 12 points and they were just stunning!  I kept behind trees because I didn't want to startle them and have them race down the hill and eviscerate me, but they seemed fairly uninterested.  They definitely knew where I was at, but didn't seem threatened.  I spent about a half our out on the mountain taking pics and just watching them and sharing space with them, completely blown away by them.  I just felt lucky to be able to see these majestic animals in the wild.  It was a good morning!

Sadly, the last two days, we had a sickly girl, but all in all, the visit was great.  It was nice to spend time with Linda and for her to have a break before her surgery.  It was nice to visit with family and friends and it was nice to just hang out, play games, take naps, play in the snow and just chill.  As always, trips to the cabin RULE!