Pictures to Share

Well I have been wanting to share lots of pictures, but things have been so crazy lately I haven't done much blogging at all. I am still trying to unpack our house and am now sick for the THIRD time since coming to Hawaii. Uggh...what is wrong with me? Either there are strange germs on the island that I have no immunity to or, with this move, I am overworking and overstressing and not sleeping enough and have forced my body into shutdown mode.

Anyway, I'm just going to post a few random pictures from before the move all at once because otherwise they might not get shared at all.

Child Thing #1 at our big birthday bash. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of Child Thing #2 with the cake because he was not the least bit interested. He didn't even really want to eat any. Just put that boy in the pool!

What he did enjoy, however, was the cookie cake we got to celebrate his sister's real birthday (since the party wasn't on her birthday).

She was THRILLED when she realized she got an American Girl doll for her birthday!

Now for our dance recital pictures. This is her tap costume. She danced to Yellow Submarine. Tee hee!

Here she is after the recital in her ballet costume with Grandma, cousin Julie and Aunt Robyn. By this point she was rather tired and cranky, but you might have already guessed that by her facial expression.

Here we are with Grandmommy and brother. We coaxed a little smile out of her!

And then I tried to get a picture with the little ballerina and the impending meltdown happened.

Brainwashing by Bluebonnets

Our kids were born in Kansas and Georgia, but this year, by George, they are living in Texas! And since Scott and I are both natives (and proud of it!), we are making an effort to brainwash the children into becoming Texans. It is our dream for them that someday, they will plaster a bumper sticker reading, "I might not have been born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could!" on the back of their beat-up pick-up trucks.

So of course, as part of the brainwashing process, I had to do like every good Texan does and take pictures of my kids in the bluebonnets this year. Child Thing #1 has had her picture made in the bluebonnets before. This was during a visit to Texas a few years ago.

Look at those plump little cheeks! Look at those rubber band wrists! There are no more chubby babies around here. She's just tall and thin and so grown up these days! Sniff, sniff.

 This year, we took a day trip with my family (in-law) to Brenham, Texas to find some bluebonnets, and naturally we visited the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory while we were in town. The bluebonnets are not spectacular this year. We found a couple of decent patches, but even those just weren't as thick or vibrant blue as they could be.

Lucky for me, everyone else in the party had a camera and was willing to share pictures, as my poor camera made it to Brenham without its memory card. Nevertheless, the child things had a great time playing with their cousin in the flowers and eating ice cream. I enjoyed myself, as well, and I got to check something off of my spring bucket list (taking pictures of the kids in the bluebonnets). And while we're on the topic, I must brag that I have accomplished other goals off of that list, as well.

When we went to the zoo, the kids rolled down the big hill. They loved it as much as I did when I was little!

One of my other goals was to learn a little about cake decorating in preparation for someone's birthday. So, I bought a couple of beginning cake decorating books. I practised making marshmallow fondant for a cake for my sister, so I can definitely check this off the list, too. The little something that I learned is that I'm going to outsource! Making a fancy cake and trying to throw a party and keeping two kids alive is just too much to handle, so, yes, I learned something. I learned that I'm not going to make her cake.

So, 3 of 5 items from the Spring Bucket List are taken care of. But the next ones are the hard ones. Now I have to tackle a quilt and swimming lessons!

Ten Pounds of Strawberries

Busy, busy! Things around here have been busy. My sister, brother-in-law and niece visited from Italy! Then after that, one of my college roommates came to town to stay with us for a few days. It was wonderful having their company! Wonderful!

While my old roommate was here, we loaded up the kids and took them to a pick-your-own strawberry farm near our house. Everybody had lots of fun, and we came home with 10 pounds of beautiful, red, juicy strawberries. TEN POUNDS! That's a lot of strawberries! The kids just kept on picking till their buckets were overflowing. And the grownups kept spotting berries that looked too good to pass up, so we contributed to the excess, I must admit.

The strawberries taste as good as they look. We gave away quite a few of them, so I can't say for sure that none of the 10 lbs went to waste, but we definitely enjoyed the ones we kept, and we ate them all!

If you live to the south of Houston, you should definitely go to Froberg's Farm to pick your own strawberries. The child things loved everything about it. Besides the strawberry picking, there was also a picnic area, swings, smokehouse, and fruit and veggie stand. Great place! Hmmm...maybe we should turn our acreage into a strawberry farm!

Spring!

Spring has arrived in Texas! And isn't it beautiful! I must admit, I kinda missed Hawaii during the winter months, when I actually had to wear closed-toe shoes, but I am loving Texas' Spring so far. I'm going to follow my friend Amber's lead and come up with a list of things I'd like to do this spring. I'm much more likely to accomplish my goals if I record them...especially if I record them publicly so that people can chastise me if I fail.
1. Finish Child Thing #2's baby quilt. He's a year and a half old! What's taking me so long?
2. Take pictures of my kids in the beautiful Texas bluebonnets.
3. Drive the kids into Houston so that they can roll down the GIANT hill at Herman Park (have awesome memories of doing that myself).
4. Learn a little bit about cake decorating (in preparation for a certain birthday that's coming up in a few months).
5. Teach Child Thing #1 to swim. That's for later in the spring when it's a tad bit warmer.

Out of those five items, I'd say #1 is the least likely to get done. I have been setting deadlines for myself for two years to finish that quilt, and it hasn't happened yet. I am getting closer, though. There is hope! I'll let you know when/if I check anything off of my "spring bucket list."

Turmoil

This evening Child Thing #1 (shown here loving on her aunt--with underwear on her head) and I talked about moving back to Hawaii. We've always known our stay in Texas would be temporary...just while Daddy was deployed, and she has been looking forward to returning to our tropical island home.

"I'm so hot! When are we going back to Hawaii?"

or

"It's too cold! When are we going back to Hawaii?"

Plus she misses friends there, and most importantly, it was her home.

But after our conversation tonight, I realized that she no longer consideres Hawaii her home. She considers Texas her home, and she doesn't want to leave her home.

So now I'm wondering again if I made the right decision when I chose to move home for the deployment. Before we moved, I debated it for months, and my #1 reason against moving was this: as a military family, we already have so much turmoil in our lives, and I don't want to unnecessarily create any additional turmoil.

But I made the decision to move anyway, and I have to admit, it has been great getting to spend time with all our family here. It's great that the kids have gotten to know their relatives. It's also great that I get to enjoy some fantastic Mexican food every now and then (no salsa made from ketchup! hooray!).

Anyway, as I have said before, the child thing handles the upheaval really well. But even though she doesn't lash out, that doesn't mean that the change is easy for her or that it doesn't have an impact on her. And it really breaks my heart to see her suffering (albeit quietly) from it.

Now that she has completely adjusted and views Texas as her home, it's almost time to move back to Hawaii and start the whole process over.

And I feel guilty.

Something My Kids Will Never Do (I Hope)

Mutton Busting. I don't think this was invented by a mother.

Mothers worry too much. True. You've got to let them be kids. Yes. But this? It's just that they're sooo little! Look at this little girl. Is she even in kindergarten?

To be fair, I have never been to a rodeo where I saw a child injured after falling off a sheep. I don't know if I have ever even seen one cry. They are tough. They are brave. They cowboyed up or something.

And I admit that I would hate to deny my child the opportunity to explore his or her interests. Because you don't want to squash their passions, you know. Maybe this little girl will grow up to be the first female professional bull rider. Probably not, as females seem to be too smart to participate in that sport. *ahem* But you never know...maybe that's her chance to make history.

I just hope that my kids are not passionate about mutton busting. Because if watching other kids tumble off the back of a sprinting sheep makes my heart stop, I can only imagine what watching my own kids would do to me.

This Ain't My First Rodeo...

...but it is their first rodeo! This week I joined forces with the grandparents to take the kiddos to their first rodeo. Definitely something you have to do while in Texas! By the way, it's not really cold here. That night was actually a perfectly pleasant evening, and then they turned on these HUGE fans in the arena, which must have decreased the temperature by 20 degrees. That's why we're wearing jackets.



Growing up, I visited that arena over and over, and I don't remember those fans, so they must be new. I figure someone recently spent millions of dollars on them, and they insisted on turning them on, even if it made the spectators less comfortable. "Dang it! We've got perfect weather tonight! Well, let's get our money's worth. We're using the fans anyway!"



Ok, back on track. I have fond memories of childhood rodeos, so I had high expectations for this one--the kids' first!



This little girl was mildly entertained by the rodeo events (and thrilled at the rodeo queens' entrance), but what she liked the best was this giant slide and the cotton candy.

Oh, look, you can see the giant fans in this picture. They could fight global warming with those things.

On to what I really wanted to say about this picture: the baby occasionally saw something in the arena that caught his eye, but mostly just wanted to climb around on the bleachers. And the fair was a complete flop for him. Every ride his sister got on, he pointed and reached and said: uhh uhh uhh uhh. Translation: Mommy, I'd like to go on that ride, please. Or something along those lines.

But every carnie denied him...too small.

It was a fun night, nevertheless. We only stayed halfway through the rodeo, though, because we were quickly approaching the point where it would not have been fun for us or anyone around us. Boredom, bedtime, too much sugar...who can blame them?

These Boots

Are these boots awesome, or what? The child thing's aunt welcomed her to Texas with a pair of cowgirl boots. Silvery, sparkly cowgirl boots, no less. And we have worn them EVERYWHERE! And we get compliments on them everywhere, too. Some adults have even asked if the store carries them in grown up sizes! Advice for anyone looking for a gift for a pre-school aged girl: get the silvery, sparkly cowgirl boots! :)

The Child Things are in...

the Lone Star State! After months of considering it, I decided to move out of our place in Hawaii so that we could be closer to family during the deployment. I'm still not sure if it was the right decision. As with anything, there are upsides and downsides, but we are here, and we plan on enjoying our time in Texas. We are going to eat all the Mexican food and BBQ we can get, take pictures of the bluebonnets in the spring, and spend lots of time with the Texans we love.

There are a few things I am already NOT enjoying, however. For instance, I had forgotten how nasty it feels to have your jeans stuck to your legs because you are drenched in sweat from walking to your car. I will certainly miss the absolutely perfect weather and awesome scenery of Hawaii (oh, and the shave ice), but we'll be back there in a year. So I guess we've got the best of both worlds this way. :)

Christmas in Texas

What a wonderful Christmas we had this year! We got to take child thing #2 to Texas for the first time (and yes, we have begun the brainwashing process to turn him into a Texan, even if he can never claim to be a native). No matter where we go, Texas is always home, and it is always good to go back. The best part, of course, is spending time with our family and old friends, and saying goodbye to the people we love always makes me a bit heavy-hearted. But when this is waiting for me at the other side, it certainly makes it easier to leave that beloved Texas soil behind.