The note

This is what life is all about.

Austin came home from school yesterday and asked for a piece of paper. 20 minutes later this is what he produced:





That little six year old totally melts my heart.




James says the metal detecting totally melts his heart.

BOC on the way!

I am super duper excited. It is on the way.

I don't know if y'all are familiar with a website called Woot. I had no idea what it was a month ago. Basically they sell something cheap every day - it could be anything. I've been waiting for a portable DVD player to show up and I've missed it twice now. A couple of times a year they have something called a "Woot-Off." The good folks at Woot will keep selling products throughout the day, and they will not move to something else until the product is sold out.

So what everybody waits for is the coveted BOC (box of crap). It's a mystery. You pay $3 for the box and $5 shipping. It could be anything. People have gotten plasma TV's, Ipods, and real crap like Mr. T action figures (sorry A-Team fans) and ice buckets.

Apparently it is impossible to get. I think they had 1,400 BOCs and they sold out in seconds. And guess who got one??

James will take credit for it, but that's so not the case. It was a team effort. I was glued to my computer all last Thursday until I HAD to leave to take Austin to soccer practice. As soon as I got in the car, I called James at work and told him an item was close to ending so he needed to look it up... and the BOC came right then. The rest is history.

So yeah, maybe I need to get a life. It should be here any day now. James thinks I am going to wait for him, but I'm thinking I might just open it (there is no way I can wait) and then repackage it. Kinda like when you're a kid with the Christmas presents under the tree - wait did nobody else do that?

On another note, here are my silly little girls at the park this morning

Bike ride with the girls

Since the weather has been so beautiful lately, I’ve been taking the girls around the lake on their “bicycles.” They are really just Disney tricycles they got from Santa over a year ago, and FINALLY just started being able to pedal them. Here is sweet little Emily on her bike. She loves it and is so proud of herself.



Where is Abby you ask? Well my darling little Abby threw a fit about half way through and guess who got to carry her bike the rest of the way home? Yep, you guessed it folks. AND, she still thought she was going to get a treat when she got home.

Come on, I know you bribe your kids with sugar sometimes too...

Rest in Peace Ants

One of Austin's Christmas presents was an ant farm. It did not come included with ants. We had to mail a $10.50 check to Mr. Milton. The ants came in the mail about a week ago (almost 2 months after sending the check in). Mr. Milton did not discuss in detail on how to get the ants in the farm, so after spilling half of them in our game room (mental note: perform task outside next time) and having to pick them up with a syringe - they all finally arrived in their new home. We fed them. We watered them. We loved those ants. Especially James. He loved to watch them build their tunnels - it really was quite fascinating. Even Abby got into it. Now all that's left are piles and piles of carnage. Do I feel jipped? Yes.

In happier times:




Not very interested, but she sure is cute:



Goodbye ants. We will miss you.

My Sweet Girl

Emily: "Mom, you know why I talking so much?"
Me: "No, why Em?"
Emily: "Because I wike you mom."

Thanks, Em. I like you too.

Grouping

I love this kid.

So my little kindergartener is into "grouping" these days, specifically with his NFL helmets. Some days he will group them into AFC/NFC, sometimes into the good/bad teams (you know the Texans are REALLY good, and the Lions are REALLY bad), and sometimes in alphabetical order (A-G, H-N, O-Z). Then he will write down how he is grouping them. This is one of the things he likes to do... I like to categorize it as educational.



Oh, and Aunt Katie, I don't think you have done an adequate job of teaching Austin about the football in your fine city.... "Foukins." Wasn't it bad enough he had to teach you what a safety, false start, and 2 point conversion was?? :)

Vacation

I’m just finalizing our Colorado trip in June. I am SO excited! This will be our first real road trip with the whole family… it seems most people think we are crazy to go on a road trip for 14 days, but I can’t wait! Here is what we have planned so far:

Day 1: Drive to Carlsbad, NM
Day 2: Check out Carlsbad Caverns, drive to Santa Fe
Day 3: Take a 6 HOUR (yeah, wondering how that will go) train ride
Day 4: Great Sandunes National Park
Day 5: Buckskin Joe Frontier Town and Railroad / Royal Gorge
Day 6: Garden of the Gods, Estes Park
Day 7: Estes Park / Estes Park Ariel Tramway
Day 8: Estes Park / Cowpoke Corner Corral
Day 9: Drive to Aspen, Independence Ghost Town
Day 10: Black Canyon of the Gunnison Natl. Park
Day 11: 2 ½ hour stagecoach ride (like in the wild west days)
Day 12: Mesa Verde Natl. and Four Corners
Day 13: Drive to Lubbock
Day 14: Visit the best university (ha) in Texas - get your guns up… then drive back home

Now I’m trying to think of some games to play on the road, things to take, so if you have any ideas.. Please let me know!! It will definitely be a bonding experience :)

Here is a picture of the train ride. I can already smell the fresh, non-polluted air.

My First Post

So I’m finally doing it - creating my own blog. I am not new to the blogging world… I have several that I read frequently. It seems like a great way to keep up with friends and family, and as a bonus I am finally creating a sort of scrapbook in essence. If you know me, you know I am not good at scrapbooking, baby books, photo albums, etc. So I’m thinking I can just print these suckers out for my kiddos. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, if she hasn’t printed out any of her digital pictures in the past 3 years, what makes her think she will be able to keep up with this? Hmmm… valid point…

As I write this, I just remembered I forgot to put Austin’s library book in his backpack today for their weekly trip to the library. Bad mom. Now we are stuck reading “Grumpy Bird” again all week (which is much better than his random “Trucks“ book he got last week). The girls had “Go Texan” day today at preschool… I don’t own anything cowgirl so they went dressed in their normal pink and red pants. Of course when I dropped them off, the other parents had their children in western gear. Oh well. What can I say?