Riley is now registered for Kindergarten!

This week I registered Riley for Kindergarten at my school! This is so bittersweet. I will enjoy being able to see him throughout the day, peeking in to see if he is behaving, but it also means that I will have a child with me 24-7. No more free moments before or after school! He is growing so fast. He absolutely is loving preschool this year and learning so much. In fact the other day he told me that it was Texas Independence Day. This made me feel kind of bad, because as a teacher of Texas History, I should have known that. But I was too busy paying attention to the TAKS test to teach my kids that important fact :(

Alex is finally starting to say more words. Everything is still one syllable but she is making an effort. In the last week she said, "ow"- bow, nack- snack, and mi- milk. At least she is finally having the desire to talk. She will also now point to her nose, her bow, and sometimes her ear.

Riley's special coloring book to get him ready for school!

On a side note, I gave my kids several extra hugs and kisses tonight. One of my fellow teachers was called at work to tell her that her 7 month old little boy was unconscious and his temperature was dropping. After emergency brain surgery, he is finally in ICU. Just reminds me of how fast your world can change. These babies are my whole world. I just can not imagine all the things she must be going through. Never take your kids for granted and give them extra love. They grow up too fast anyway and won't let you love on them in public.

Easter pictures

Last Sunday, I made a last minute effort to get Easter pictures in before another crazy week passed us by. We even stopped on the way home from church to buy Alex's shoes. This time we went to Portrait Innovations for something cheap and quick. Alex was her usual diva self. In this picture she was supposed to sit next to her brother. She absolutely refused and instead thought it was quite funny to stand by the rock in the background.My handsome little boy!

I just love this big grin!

Another Soccer Saturday!

Riley is having another fantastic soccer season. Most of the players around him are in their first year of soccer, so he can pretty much run circles around them if he chooses. On Saturday he only scored 3 goals. We are proud of how the other players are getting the hang of it and really learning to score goals on their own. A high five from coach!

This is what Riley d0es after each goal. He turns and points to us. "Yes, Mom & Dad there is another goal!"

This season we are working on mastering the other aspects of soccer besides just scoring for himself. Two weeks ago, he scored 8 goals and had one beautiful assist. This week he played some fantastic defense. Defense is a pretty foreign concept to most 3 & 4 year olds. But Riley has really learned to use his speed, get in front of the other players, and either stop the ball or kick it back toward his goal. I am so proud of him! While big brother is off leading the team to victory, Alex is content with playing with the chairs and just being a busy body. It won't be long and she will be on the field too!

Easter Bunny is SCARY! But not a little ole crawfish!

This past week, I knew how busy my schedule was getting, so I asked my mom & dad to take the kids to have their picture taken with the Easter bunny. I didn't figure it would be a great picture, but I had not planned on Alex absolutely refusing to sit by the Easter bunny on her own. Here is our end result...:) Notice Riley is not scared at all.... Then on Saturday we drove out to Frisco to have a crawfish boil at Greg & Christine's for Greg's birthday celebration. While there we learned that Riley is not so fond of the crawfish. He held him, but it took lots of coaxing!

Alex, on the other hand, was not scared at all!! She was so interested in it.
In fact, she even thought it was funny to try to make the crawfish attack Daddy! Then she took off chasing Riley all the way around the pool with her crawfish. I'm pretty sure we could have been turned in for animal cruelty, if it had not been thrown into the boiling pot seconds later. That poor creature was squeezed and dropped several times.

We did a good job of Riley faking it for the pictures!

Then Randy & Brad posed with the crawfish. Don't play with your food boys!

Finally it was time to eat. This was the 4th round of crawfish for the group. Of course, both kids really liked the meat.

Then it was time for Riley for to show off his white boy moves.

Overall it was a great Saturday and both kids fell sound asleep in the car on the long drive home!

Alex's 1st Haircut

Last Friday night I took Alex to get her first haircut. She's a girl, so I didn't want to cut much off, just mainly get the hair in the front out of her face.

This picture doesn't really show her true before shot. Her hair had been pulled up all day to the side, so the long hairs were not hanging in her eyes.

Unfortunately Alex was not like her brother in this adventure either. She wanted no part of the car or the hair cut.

Trimming her bangs

She was really upset, so my dad took her and held her while she trimmed the back.

After it was all over, and $13 later for literally 5 snips, Alex got a sucker. This part she liked!

Here is her after shot, but the bangs were still drifting off to the side.

First half of Spring Break!

For the first time in a long time, we stayed home for Spring Break. This means that I get to go and play for one whole week, as long as I am home to fix dinner and do the daily laundry. Blah! Anyway Monday was our first official day of Spring Break and Riley wakes me up at 5:30 with Mommy, I threw up in my bed! Up to throw the sheets in the washer and have Riley crawl in our bed. Unfortunately all of Monday was spent with a sick little boy. He ended up sleeping 18 out of the 24 hours on Monday. Poor little guy!
Tuesday was appointment day. I met my parents at their new house to drop off the kids, while I went to have my legs waxed. This is kind of like a right of Spring to have this done. I'll admit I am a little addicted. I love NOT shaving. Then I met everyone for a quick lunch at McAlister's. I LOVE their sweet tea. Then I went to my next appt, my regular dr, while the kids and my parents went to Chuck E Cheese to play. At the dr he determined:
1. I am not anemic. Just tired from keeping up with 2 kids, 2 dogs, a husband that is never home between work and paintball, and working full time.
2. Apparantly I just need to stretch my back. Another dr with an opinion and NO x-rays!
3. I have ringworm! GROSS!
Wednesday was a real play day. We drove out to the Arboretum in Dallas. It was beautiful. It had been several years since I had been able to go with mom, dad, and the kids. But my perfectionist came out and I got frustrated. I don't think I will ever get the perfect picture. All I want is both kids smiling, with dimples showing, and looking at the camera. Is that too much to ask for??? Yes! Because we took 260 pictures on Wednesday. I deleted them down to 67, but the perfect shot still does not exist! Here are some of my favs throughout the day....

1st picture of the day and the best of the day!

Snack time!

Alex did not want to sit next to the flowers, she wanted to sit ON the flowers!

My favorite of Riley. So much personality!

Alex was trying to cheer up a pouty big brother!

Ahh! The flowers!

My big girl!

First soccer game of the season

Looks like this season is going to be much like last season. Riley had his first soccer game of the season. He scored 8 goals and had a beautiful assist. I think I am most proud of the assist because that shows that he is maturing and growing as a player. His assist went to the second tallest player on the team, the girl Riley. I do kind of wish that he was in an older age group so that he could have more competition, but in the meantime we will just enjoy seeing how many goals he can score in one game.

Alex enjoying her tire swing at Nana & Gandpa's while they still have trees to hang it on.

I know they say she is small for her age, but lately she has outgrown all her 12 month clothes. I am so proud to see her wearing 18 month clothes and looking so tall.

Melissa's Baby Shower

On Friday we gave a baby shower for my team teacher Melissa at work. We were supposed to have given her the shower back in January before Lauren was born, but then Melissa got put on bedrest, so we put off the shower until Melissa returned to work. Unfortunately I did not get to be in the planning meeting because Alex had her 18 month checkup that morning. I originally wanted the colors to be pink & brown, the colors of Melissa's nursery. But Martha Stewart (Tammie) and her assistant had a better idea. I'm so glad that they got their way. Here was the centerpiece for each table. We used those chocolate robin's eggs inside a grapevine wreath. The cake was a whole other story. Chelsea had ordered the cake from Costco. We thought it would have little pink roses around the borders and some more colored borders drawn around it. Plus we certainly did NOT pick fluorescent pink for the border and kelly green for the writing. Luckily I work with the modern day Miss Frizzle who is also Martha Stewart on the side. So Chelsea called Tammie on Thursday night and told her to bring her cake decorating stuff as well.
15 minutes before the shower starts....

Voila! A Masterpiece!

The beautiful table!

The whole reason for the beautiful shower. Sweet baby Lauren!

The 4th grade team minus the one in Mexico & the one stuck in training!

Our gift to Melissa, her high chair.

Melissa in the chair that Tammie decorated, no stone left unturned!

18 months old!!! Where Did the Time Go??

Oh my! My baby girl is 1 year and a half old today. Where does the time go? I have so many emotions rushing through me as I sit down to write my thoughts out and update on Alexandra's progress. There is my first thought, I actually wrote Alexandra. Randy remarked to me the other day that we only call her Alex. We never call her Alexandra. Although my personal nickname for her is "Alex Ann". Randy's nickname for her is still, "Baby Girl". But I suppose she will always be our baby girl. Besides that I still call Riley, Riley Roo, when we are being silly.
This morning I took Alex in to the dr for her 18 month check-up. These mornings are always so crazy. Her appt is at 8. Then we rush like mad to get the kids dropped off and me back to work before my kids return from co-curr. This morning, my next door teacher Tiffany graciously kept an eye on my kids, sent my lunch count down, and sent my kids off to co-curr for me. I so appreciate it, because I don't have to take a half day or get a sub. Unfortunately our appt took a little longer than usual, so I was running late back to work. To make matters worse, I scheduled a meeting with our team this morning to plan a baby shower for my partner teacher, Melissa for next Friday!! What was I thinking???? Just add me to the forgetfuls of yesterday. Yesterday our team of 8 lost & found an ID badge, forgot a purse on the playground, and me forgot about the appt. CRAZY!!! That is what TAKS stress will do to you. Then because TAKS was not enough fun for this week, I left to go get the kids yesterday and returned to school at 5:15, then stayed until 7:45 making plaster of paris fossils for open house on Monday. OK, enough rambling about my life. Back to the my headstrong baby girl...

While at the dr, we found out that Alex is not progressing at a level that makes us all feel comfortable. She is being referred to an Early Childhood Intervention specialist. They will test her for speech delays. Alex simply is not talking like she should. She will say, "ma, da-da, na for nana, pa - for gampa, and ella for elephant. I have joked that she was simply lazy because her bubba will do all the talking for her, but our Dr is concerned that there is more. To add to that, she is not growing very fast. She now weighs 20 lbs 8 oz. (At 15 months, she was 19 lbs). She is 32 inches long. (At 15 months, she was 31.6 inches). After leaving the dr, I started crying. I know that my child is ok and nothing serious is wrong with her, but I still want her to be perfect. We all want our children to be the smartest, tallest, fastest, etc. So how do you deal with my child is not the best?? I guess we just have to learn to accept that they are healthy and happy and that is truly all that really matters.

As if I wasn't having a big enough pity party for myself, as we were leaving the dr both kids got a sucker to make the pain go away. Then a man and his little boy walk up. The little boy asked for a sucker, like the one that both of my children were eating. The man answered his son, "No we don't need to start any bad habits." Then he quickly covered with he is only 13 months old. Well I guess I get the award for the bad mother!

But my children love the suckers. Sometimes a mother just needs to make her children smile!