The Days of Our Lives. . .

My LEGITIMATE reason for being behind on blogging!

2012-01-31T18:18:00.000-08:00

So, let's just get this out there. I have fallen behind in the blogging.
Sure, I blogged about Cabo, but that was because I was feeling the PRESSURE to record those memories before they were out the window (along with everything else that comes in and out of my mind these days).

But, let me be a 100% honest about the real reason I have fallen behind on blogging.

I have 3 words for you.

FRIDAY.

NIGHT.

LIGHTS.

How did I not know about this show until it was off the air? Why did I not know about this show when it was FILMING IN THE DALLAS AREA, people? I would have been an extra and stalked those people like nobody's business. . . . I can assure you of that. It is my all time favorite show and I am crushed - CRUSHED, I TELL YOU - that I only have one half of Season Four and all of Season Five left to watch.

I have not been so enthralled with a show since 9 years ago when I watched back-to-back seasons of the greatness of Felicity every night from 2-4 a.m. when I was sitting up in a postpartum stupor and nursing twins and just trying to make it through the night. Was that too much information? Probably. I still cannot see a picture of Scott Foley, Scott Speedman or Keri Russell without flashing back to those LONG and DESPERATE nights. Such a good show, but such a hard time in the Amezcua household!

Do you people know about FNL? Do you know the greatness of Coach Eric and Principal Tammy Taylor? I want to BE Tammy Taylor with that flowing, perfect hair and always knowing the right thing to say and helping everyone and being a GREAT mom. And, let's face it, then I would be married to the hotness that is Coach Taylor.

I remember that actor (Kyle Chandler) on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. He got blown to pieces trying to diffuse a bomb that was in the hospital (GASP!) and I didn't even care. I thought his accent was annoying and I had no emotional attachment to him whatsoever! If Coach Taylor was blown to pieces by a bomb then I might never recover. NEVER! EVERRRRRRRRR! It brings a tear to my eye to think of it. And I could certainly listen to him talk ALL.DAY.LONG.

And I know many of you are rolling your eyes. . . .you probably aren't even reading this anymore and that is FINE. Because you don't know what you are missing. I have talked about this show to anyone and everyone. Some people think I need an intervention (obviously haven't ever watched it - CARLEY). Some people want to borrow my CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS, CAN'T LOSE, PANTHER FOOTBALL shirt (Christmas gift to myself, thankyouverymuch). Everyone who has watched it immediately starts spewing the greatness that was Friday Night Lights and how much they loved that show.

I am just completely and utterly enthralled with the fictional town of Dillon, Texas right now, folks, and I cannot break away to blog.

ESPECIALLY after my friend who shall remain nameless (she HATES it when I do that. . . .OK, it's Dasha) kept putting the bug in my ear about Netflix. "WHY do you not have Netflix?" she would question me. "Because I have Blockbuster by mail!" I would retort. We were both watching the same series, but she was watching it ON DEMAND. And I was watching it the "antiquated" way of waiting for Blockbuster to mail me the disc since they don't carry it in the store.

I knew it was becoming an obsession when I would turn my mailer disc in and get a new release from the store (which I had no intention of watching) and then I would get in my car and literally drive around the store and pull back up like I had not just left the same building 15 seconds before and return my new release in the slot in the front of the building so that they would check it in and then Blockbuster by mail would then ship me out the next Friday Night Lights release.

Yes, I really did that.

So, I asked Mike Peters to give me a tutorial on how to get this Netflix business.

His e-mail to me said, "Netflix.com. You are welcome!"

I am so thankful for such helpful friends. Sigh.

So, I FINALLY went online and figured it out myself. All I had to do was go to netflix.com and enter my information and VOILA! Less than five minutes later I was watching the next episode! And if I can watch them all during my free trial month and before Feb. 27 then I will have gotten 3 seasons for FREE! BLOCKBUSTER SHMOCKBLUSTER!

So now, every night as I should be sitting down to blog about my kids or what we have going on, instead I find myself typing in netflix.com and sitting down with the ol' computer to watch the greatness that is Tim Riggins. Or Matt Saracen. Or Coach Taylor. I could go on and on. But instead, I am going to go watch another episode or two and save the blogging for another day. I have about 20 episodes left and I am averaging 2-3 shows a night now that I can watch it on demand.

So, I will be back in about a week and a half when the series is done. I might actually shed a tear when I am finished with this greatness. But I will always have my t-shirt. And I might even go buy the whole series on DVD so I can start watching it all over again. Never mind the fact that our laundry is piled to the ceiling and I haven't looked at or spoken to my kids or my husband in WEEKS!

I am just kidding. Kind of.

Cabo - The End

2012-01-08T18:48:00.000-08:00

Oh how the title of this post even makes me shudder. There is a reason that there are only four pictures with this post. We thought this vacation was over.

2:00 p.m.
We all headed to the Cabo airport and had about two hours to kill. There was nothing worth taking pictures of, let me assure you. We sat in a generic Sports Bar while the guys watched football and we decided that the food looked so unappetizing that the fast food choices of Subway, Burger King or Pizza Hut were a better way to go. That is sayin' something!

I opted for Subway at first until Kerith debated the quality of cold cuts in Mexico with me. I had already had pizza the day before so I decided a good ol' Whopper and fries would be a great way to end this vacation. I think this was the first time I had eaten at Burger King in probably, oh, about 25 years. And I am NOT exaggerating.

So, we all ate our YUMMY (gag) food and then boarded the plane.

4:45 p.m.
Rob and I were towards the front. Kerith & Brad were in the exit row a little ways back. Mike and Dasha were, unfortunately, at the very back of the plane. We all settled in and I remember CLEARLY that the pilot said it would be a "quick" two hours and 15 minutes back to the big D.

I quickly calculated that I could watch 3 episodes of Friday Night Lights on my computer during this time period and I plugged my headphones in and settled in for the last little bit of peace and quiet that I would have for the foreseeable future.

6:00 p.m.
Rob pulls out my earphone and tells me to shut down my computer. I was only a few minutes into my second FNL episode so I was very confused. He said the pilot had just come on and said that we were going to be landing soon and to put my stuff away. I then noticed that the girl in front of me was flipping out. She was SOBBING and rocking back and forth and the flight attendant quickly came to try to settle her down. It was then that I turned to Rob and asked for some clarification on what the pilot really said. He then further explained that we had some kind of oil leak in one of the plane's engines and they were going to have to shut that engine off and we were going to be making an EMERGENCY landing in El Paso. My heart almost stopped. Everyone around us was watching the girl in front of us as she continued to panic and cry and get increasingly upset.

My first thought was - STUPIDLY - how many engines does this plane have? Logically, I probably already knew the answer to that, but I just needed to clarify. Rob said, "Two." I asked him if he had ever been in this situation since he flies all the time and always seems to have some kind of plane maintenance issue or delayed flight at least every couple of weeks or so. "No," he said. Really talkative, as you can tell.

About that time the pilot came on and said that the engine had been shut down, but not to worry that these planes were meant to fly with one and we should be fine. He also added that there would be fire engines on the ground waiting for us as we landed in El Paso. .. "just in case".

Cut to the girl in front of me who is now about to need to be put in a straightjacket. Seriously. She is throwing up the window cover and looking out (you can't see anything because we are flying in the clouds) and then slamming it down. She is sobbing and doing the rocking back and forth thing. Her husband or boyfriend or significant other is obviously lacking in the ability to give her any support and is basically ignoring her. If that was her boyfriend then she needs to RUN and if it was her husband then she has bigger problems FO SHO!

Rob and I are holding hands and I have a death grip on him. He doesn't seem to mind which makes me even slightly more frantic inside because normally he would be lecturing me on how things were going to be fine. He was abnormally calm and this made me KNOW that he was a tad bit nervous and I had to really reign it in to not go into all out FREAK OUT mode like my friend in front of me.

The pilot said we would be landing in about 20 minutes so there was nothing left to do but stare out the window at the white clouds rushing by and wonder how close we were to the ground and what was going to happen.

I prayed without ceasing asking God to please watch over us as we landed and guide the pilot and let everything be OK. But, my mind also wandered uncontrollably as I prayed.

I kept thinking the following things:

SERIOUSLY - Did I just eat Burger King as my last meal?
Am I really meant to die in a plane crash?
Does Brad Leffler know how to open the emergency exit and he BETTER DARN WELL be reading that seat back pocket information JUST IN CASE.
Why oh why did I eat Burger King as my last meal?
That Capt. Sully landed that plane in WATER with no engines so surely this guy can land on flat ground in El Paso with one engine!
Can someone give the girl in front of us a sedative before she has a heart attack?
I am going to vomit up my Burger King!

And then the yahoo behind us decides to start throwing out his airplane knowledge and starts loud talking about how it is taking longer to land than they said because we are flying over Mexico and dumping our fuel "just in case" we have a hard landing so the plane won't explode. JUST the information that everyone around us wanted to be thinking about so thank you for that, Mr. Know It All.

It was seriously the LONGEST 30 minutes of my life. I hated that we were not closer to our friends so we could talk to each other (really I just wanted to see if anyone else was freaking out and if I had a reason to really panic). We finally came out of those clouds and could see the lights of El Paso so we knew we were getting close to the airport. We could also see that it was raining and/or snowing in El Paso so this added to the anticipation about the landing.

I continued to pray and pray and PRAY that Burger King wasn't my last meal and that God would not make a reason for Brad to be in charge of the emergency exit (not that I don't think he couldn't do it. . .I just didn't want to find out either way). We FINALLY landed and didn't need the fire trucks that were waiting for us. The whole plane burst into applause and we thought this nightmare was finally over.

But here's the thing. . .we were coming from Mexico so this was considered an "international" flight. Most international flights coming into Texas probably land in Dallas or Houston. . .but not El Paso. So, we had a problem. We had to clear customs and there were no customs agents on hand because it was now about 8:00 p.m. on a Sunday night. So, they told us to sit tight while they tried to figure things out.

So, we sat. And we sat. And we sat. And we sat some more. People were frantically trying to call and book rental cars because they were NOT about to get back on another plane after this situation. Others (Rob included) were trying to get through to American and see if we could get booked on another flight to DFW that would still get us back Sunday night. Sounds like a great plan, but to get on another flight they have to actually have to let you off the one you are on and unfortunately, that was not happening anytime soon. We continued to sit.

Someone around us mentioned that there was a new law that they can't keep you on the plane for longer than a certain amount of time or they will be fined and will incur other penalties. So, Rob googled it and found out that they have to give you food and water if you have been sitting there for 2 hours and if they don't then they get fined an astronomical amount per person. So, at one hour and 56 minutes (and I am not even kidding) the flight attendants come through the aisles with granola bars and cups of water.

At this point, people are mad. And not just a little mad, but A LOT mad. We have been sitting there waiting for over two hours with no updates and no one knows how they are getting home. Thank goodness we were only going to Dallas. A ton of people were going on to other places from DFW and it had already dawned on them that they had missed their connections and they would not be getting home that night. No bueno!

Finally, they said another plane was coming and would be arriving around 11:00 and would be taking us back to Dallas. But, we were still waiting on some customs agents to arrive so we could clear customs in El Paso and they could get us off the one engine plane, transfer all of our luggage and get us back on a safe airplane.

They finally got some agents and they took us off the plane and loaded us into a small room with a HUMONGOUS drug sniffing German Shepherd (lest this be not really a maintenance issue but a huge plot by Cabo San Lucas tourists to smuggle drugs back into the good ol' U.S. of A) and had us wait in a long line to talk to the Customs agents. Usually this is a quick process where they look at your passport and ask you a question or two and let you go through, but this obviously wasn't routine for anyone in El Paso so we had to answer a lengthy list of questions about who, what, where, when and why we were in Cabo and have our passport studied and we even saw some people who had to be fingerprinted. They were thorough to say the least!

Then we had to wait for EVERYONE on the plane to go through customs and then they sent out all of our luggage that had been rechecked and we had to get that and then be ushered out in groups of 15-20 through the terminal so we could RECHECK our bag with American and then come back through security to sit at the gate to board our new flight to DFW. Does that sound confusing?? Because it totally was.

But, wait. . .I forgot the KICKER of the whole fiasco. To make up for our pain and suffering and NEAR DEATH experience, American oh so kindly wanted to give us all food vouchers for the El Paso airport. There are about 3 restaurants there and guess what? They were all closed by 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday. But take a wild guess as to which establishment OH SO KINDLY agreed to open back up and give us all $12 vouchers for FREE food???

Any guesses?

Wait for it. . . wait for it. . .

BURGER FREAKING KING.

I am not even kidding.

So, now not only was Burger King not only my LAST meal, but it is going to be the FIRST meal of the rest of my life.

11:30 a.m.
We all pooled our vouchers and bought $60 worth of Burger King food (which is pretty much one of everything on the menu) for a Sunday night FEAST in El Paso.

The fun and togetherness just WILL.NOT.END.

We have now almost crashed, sat on the plane for almost 3 hours, been sniffed by dogs, gotten our luggage only to recheck our luggage 5 minutes later, stuffed ourselves full of BK for the second time in one day, and gone back through security to find out our plane is delayed and we have to wait some more so what are 6 friends to do in this situation? Break out our last $10 and take turns in the NASTY airport chair massagers. We are desperate to stay awake by this point, folks, and have thrown our cares about head lice and cooties to the wind!

1:00 a.m.
Finally, it is time to reboard. Several people had jumped ship and rented cars or found other means of transportation. But that lovely girl in front of me walked back on the plane. . .can you believe it? I actually was feeling unusually comforting so I gave her a shoulder pat and told her that there was NO WAY it could get worse than last time so that should make her feel better. She gave a half laugh and buckled herself in. I prayed that she was sedated.

We took off and headed to DFW. Remember how I said we were landing in the clouds, rain and/or snow earlier? Well, all of that weather had hit El Paso and was heading toward DFW so we flew thew that mess the whole time. And this meant turbulence. A LOT OF TURBULENCE. Enough that the girl in front of me was yelling out, "LORD HELP US!" or "OH DEAR JESUS!" at the top of her lungs. I mean, my nerves were shot and this was about the end of what I could take. She cried and rocked and screamed out the whole way which made for another unnerving leg of the trip.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO EXCITED TO LAND AND GET OFF A PLANE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!

2:30 a.m.
We finally landed at DFW and arrived home.

3:40 a.m.
We arrive home, courtesy of the Lefflers (thank you! sorry for calling you a crippled man in earlier posts)

6:40 a.m.
Welcome back to reality! Alarms go off and it's time to get everyone out the door to school. Our days of relaxation and fun in the sun are long gone, but certainly not forgotten!

Until next year. . . .

**A little side note. . .for our "trouble" we were all given 6,000 frequent flier miles from American. Plus that $12 Burger King voucher. Can't forget that!**

Cabo - The Middle

2012-01-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

Like any good story, our Cabo trip has a definite beginning, middle and end and the drama builds with each installment! You will notice that the middle picks up still on day one. . .my how things head south quickly!

When we left off in the previous post, Brad was "meditating" in the bubbles in the spa. What you didn't see pictures of was the girls all lounging around and reading quietly and the guys discovering the swim up sushi bar. It was a very leisurely and FUN afternoon, but Dasha was quickly developing a migraine and Rob was quickly developing a condition that was going to lead to a massive hangover on day two. It was very entertaining to watch Rob leave the pool area. He was trying to go from Point A (the pool) to Point Z (our hotel room). The only problem was that he took a leisurely stroll past Points B,C,D,E,F,G,H and well, you get the idea, as he wandered his way back to the room. Let's cut the guy some slack, though. . .this was the first fun he has been able to have since his unfortunate COED OVER 30 INDOOR SOCCER incident (can't go a post without mentioning that).

We all said goodbye and headed back to our rooms to get ready for dinner with the intention of meeting up in about an hour to figure out what our plan was. I quickly discovered Rob wasn't going anywhere for dinner so I headed down to dinner expecting to be the fifth wheel with everyone else. Fun times!

But, lo and behold, we had another man down. Dasha had a full blown migraine so she stayed behind to try and sleep that off. So that meant a nice, romantic dinner for the remaining two couples:

The lovely Lefflers

Julianne and Mike on our first date. Seriously, Brad could not let it go. Our poor waiter didn't know what to do when Brad kept reminding him that we were on our first "official" date and we would all giggle like schoolgirls. I am sure he thought something weird was going on. We had a nice Italian dinner at our Mexican resort and then called it a night and headed back to our respective spouses and hoped for a better day on Friday.

We met at the pool Friday morning for another day of lounging by the pool. Thankfully, Dasha and Rob were back to 100%. Mike and Brad were playing golf so it was just the girls and Rob all morning.

Enjoying the beautiful setting. Not enjoying the annoying kids that were playing in the pool. My how quickly we forget that we have 9 of our own between the 3 couples back at home.

We finally thought to ask the guys that were serving us by the pool how much the cabanas were to reserve and we were shocked - SHOCKED - to find out that they were free. As were the chair massages that they offer poolside. I cannot believe we wasted a whole afternoon and morning not knowing this information. Believe me, we took full advantage of these tidbits for the remainder of the trip.

Happy Anniversary Mike & Dasha! This was actually their 11th anniversary.

I made ONE dinner reservation prior to this trip and this was the night. I didn't even know it was Mike & Dasha's anniversary when I made it. We had some friends who had eaten here before and it had great reviews online so I went out on a limb and booked it. This was the tunnel we had to drive through to get to the hotel Capella Pedregal.

We arrived just in time to watch the sunset at El Farallon. Such a romantic gesture. YOU ARE WELCOME FOR THAT ON YOUR ANNIVERSARY, MIKE PETERS.

Can you imagine laying in the lounge chairs at this pool overlooking the Pacific Ocean? Well, start saving your money now and this could be a reality for you. I am starting to lobby now for Rob to plan a trip to this hotel for my 40th birthday (still over 2 1/2 years away thankyouverymuch) because it was AMAZING. Not that this affects my view of this place in ANY WAY (wink! wink!) but evidently this is a popular place with the famous people. I tried to pump the valet for information but he acted like there was a language barrier (when he had been talking to me FINE for the previous 5 minutes) when I asked if there were any famous people there now. He did finally admit that Zoe Saldana may or may not be there. Or maybe he said she had been there in the previous year. . .I really can't be 100% sure. One of the guys asked him who was the most famous person he had ever seen there and he said "Will Smith". I was on high alert as we walked to and from the restaurant but there were no star sightings.

I posted all of these pictures on Facebook and I got more likes and comments on this picture than any of them. Does anyone else not think it's weird that Brad jumped in my romantic picture with my husband? I guess not.

Of course they sat us right next to the musicians. The setting was so amazing, though, that it didn't even phase us!

This restaurant has to be in my Top 5 of all time. It is an open air restaurant on the side of a cliff on the very tip of the Baja Peninsula. You walk up to a stand with tons of fresh fish on ice that had been caught in the previous few hours. You make your selections and then the chef grills it for you right then. It was great!

And this concludes the end of a very nice and leisurely day. Where is the drama, you might ask? It is coming. It's a slow build.

Saturday morning sunrise in Cabo. My internal clock would not turn off so thankfully I was up and able to witness this AND get down to the pool and score one of those free cabanas!

Rob and Mike spent part of the morning jet skiing on the Sea of Cortez.

Brad spent the morning making eyes at the ladies and peeing in the pool. Just kidding. Kind of.

A little toast to good friends (and celebrating the fact that we are into Day 3 and everyone is still talking)

We (and by we I mean Mike, Rob and Brad) spent a small fortune at the swim up sushi bar

At some point during this day, Brad started talking about a foot race. As in Brad vs. me in a foot race. And then we had a few drinks and the foot race talk really started ramping up. Let me just preface this by saying that Brad has had multiple knee surgeries and is basically crippled and I have only started running in about the last 2 years. This was gonna be a GREAT race.

Guess we know which team Kerith is rooting for! What a good wife. . .helping her husband stretch his crippled self.

Well, here we are. Mike marked off the course. On your mark, get set. . . .GO!

We started off neck and neck.

Still hanging in there. . .

And then he cut me off and I started laughing and the race was over. But I will claim a small victory in the skin color department. For those of you who have always known me, you know that I am what you might call "pasty". But I do believe that I am tanner than Mr. Leffler by a long shot in this picture.

Such a drama king. . .he can't just RUN across the finish line. He had to take a flying leap and crash land in the sand. And then I stood on his back and threw sand in his hair to anoint him the champion (and gross him out).

The trash talking never ends.

So he won. Everyone slow clap for him.

So, we are headed back from the Great Cabo Foot Race on the beach to our cabana by the pool and look what we saw. . .a wedding tent set up on the beach! Of course Brad and Kerith had to re-enact their wedding smooch for all to see. We had watched the workers set it up all day and had been pumping various hotel staffers for information on when this wedding would take place, but we could never get a straight answer out of anyone.

Mike is SO super pumped and excited about the wedding that he even dressed the part.

Finally a few guests arrived and the groom was back behind our cabana waiting on things to get started. And then we peered down at the set up and take a look at the setting BEHIND the white canopy. There would be A) a man in a speedo, B) a woman in a flesh colored swimsuit who appears to be squatting and peeing in the surf and C) some people out walking their dogs. Here are my thoughts on this. People - can you not SEE that you are right smack behind a wedding canopy and wedding guests, for goodness sake? Do you really think that the bride wants you back there in all of her pictures? Hotel staff people - WHERE ARE YOU? It was all I could do not to run down there and run some interference for this poor bride and get those people out of there. Set up some ropes. Get the speedo guy out of there!

EXACTLY what I want to see in the background of my wedding pics!

They are still there and the bride is about to walk down the aisle. I am about to come unglued!

We finally sat there long enough that the wedding party started coming in. There is the bride walking down the path in front of us.

Even Rob was watching!

The wedding has started and yep, the speedo guy is STILL there. What is WRONG with people? And look at the other people who just decide to stroll right through the background? Are you really that clueless, people? AHHHHHHHH!

The whole beach so you can get an idea of how far the speedo guy had to walk from his chair to get right behind the wedding. So thoughtful. . .and what I am sure will be a memory that they will never be able to erase from their minds. I do have to say that I am not sure why this all bothered me so much considering the fact that we tried to befriend this whole wedding party since they were gathering RIGHT BEHIND our cabana and they were so unfriendly. I mean, we were being SO FRIENDLY. . .we bought the groom water because he was sweating. We wanted to run interference for his background setting and that garnered no response. We cheered louder than the whole entire group of wedding guests at the first kiss and they just all turned and stared at us. I'm sorry, but if you don't want public participation then don't have your wedding on a PUBLIC beach!!

Our friendly free popsicle delivery man, Jorge

After a long and relaxing day at the beach, we headed out in the trusty rented MINIVAN towards Cabo for a fun night out. Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Yes, we would appear to be driving with the door open and no one cares. This should have been a good indication that things were about to go off the rails and our smooth sailing easygoing trip was about to head south.

Something is wrong. . .WAY WRONG. . .in this picture. Only those with keen eyes will understand.

We stopped by The Office for a margarita while we waited 20 minutes for our table to be ready for dinner at Edith's.

Evidently, Brad doesn't. . .como se dice. . . speak Spanish. Or READ Spanish. . . .as he puffs on his cigar while sitting at the table with the sign that says "NO FUMAR!"

We finally arrived at Ediths'. Rob and I had eaten here back in 2004 and it was our favorite. We were hoping it lived up to the hype in our minds.

TALK TO THE HAND BECAUSE THE EAR'S NOT LISTENING! Understatement of the trip.

We realized about halfway through the appetizers that every chair in the restaurant had a serape on the back. Was this for decoration or dress up? Take one look at Brad and guess what we decided!

Kerith could not get in the Mexican mood and put on her serape. She could only think of headlice and all of the cooties that could be on those capes. Obviously the rest of us threw good hygiene to the wind!

This restaurant had so much FIRE on the menu. These guys put on quite a show making flaming Mexican coffee. . . .

. . . and Bananas Foster. Good stuff!

The last happy picture of the evening.

And then it happened! Rob uttered his only two words of the WHOLE night. . . "Brett Hull." The chatter at our table stopped and everyone whipped their head around to look at the group that was walking past us. Sure enough . . .it was Brett Hull (former Dallas Star hockey player). I would not have noticed him immediately, but I would have recognized him if I stared long enough. Well, Brad immediately jumped up and made a beeline for him. He told him we were a group from Dallas and we had seen him come in and we would love a picture with him. GREAT! A semi-celebrity sighting AND a picture and it wasn't even me that was doing the stalking! But then, in typical man fashion, he had an epic fail. Instead of waving all of us over to Brett Hull or BETTER YET - getting Brett to walk the 3 tables from the bar to our table he let Brett Hull tell him " have someone get me when you are ready for a picture and I will come over there." Sounds good in theory, but who is this "someone"? A waiter? A busboy? And were we REALLY going to interrupt his dinner to ask for a picture later on in the evening? So, needless to say these fuzzy and blurry shots of a random kid's head are all the proof that we have. Blow the picture up and look at the guy with devil eyes talking to Brad in his striped shirt. . .that would be hockey star Brett Hull.

And look to the right of the tree and the man's arm. . .see the devil eyes? That's him. I mean honestly, I know you once were big time and everything, Brett Hull, but wouldn't you think that if a group of fans from your HOMETOWN (OK - where you live now) approached you even if you were on vacation then you could be nice enough for a quick little picture? Evidently not. Brett Hull, Brett Hull. . .why have you forsaken us? Brad Leffler may never get over this snubbing. Seriously - he is STILL talking about it. And for your information I have now crossed Hully & Mo off my list of restaurants that I want to try in Dallas. . .SO THERE.

The Brett Hull curse was now hanging over our group like a black cloud. Things went from happy go lucky to sullen in about two split seconds. After we left Edith's we got the BRILLIANT idea to go to Cabo Wabo. Let's just say that little adventure ended with our RENTAL car stopped in the middle of a busy Mexican and our driver (who shall remain nameless) bailing because he couldn't take the backseat directions being given to him for one more second. We then spent 20 minutes trying to find a parking space and then trying to find our driver who had taken off wandering through Mexico at night ALONE. We finally all met up at Cabo Wabo for what was probably the most uncomfortable Happy Hour of all time. No one said a word. We were SO FUN, let me tell ya. Finally, we all headed back to the hotel in our sullen and cranky moods. I fully blame Brett Hull for this turn of events.

Thankfully, Sunday was a new day. Everyone woke up in happy moods again. I mean, how can you not in this setting? The girls and Rob all met up at the pool for a few more hours of relaxation before we had to head back home. Brad and Mike played one last round of golf.

Our cabana on our last day. So sad to leave this place. I actually finished reading THREE books on this trip. . . The Glass Castle (totally depressing yet oddly it made me feel better about my parenting skills), The Art of Racing in the Rain (GREAT book yet so depressing given what we are going through with our dog. . .made me feel like the worst pet owner ever) and Still Alice (another totally depressing book about a 50 year old Harvard professor who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. . . a nice light read - HA!). I need to find a list of good beach reads for our next trip.

So, I am happy to report that we are all still talking and are actually looking forward to next year's trip. I think we will make this an annual thing.

Adios, Hilton Los Cabos!
OK - so I reread this and the drama didn't really build like I hoped it would. I guess you had to be there. But you weren't so it probably just seems lame and boring. Or else I am just lazy because I don't want to go back and add to it or change anything. I am going to blame Brett Hull for this, too.

Cabo - The Beginning

2012-01-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

I am not sure how this trip came about. We talked about going somewhere with the Peters and the Lefflers and a bunch of places were thrown in the pot as ideas and then somehow we decided on Cabo. And then Rob had his unfortunate COED OVER 30 INDOOR SOCCER accident and the whole trip was in jeopardy. But then it became an incentive for him to actually get better and be able to walk in two shoes so we could go somewhere and have fun and relax after this fall that was full of surgery and rehab and a lot of not fun stuff for him.

The last time Rob and I had been there was 7 years ago when I was pregnant with Mia. It was my 30th birthday trip. We stayed at the same hotel that we were going back to this time. . .The Hilton Los Cabos. I didn't really remember much about it other than that it was nice and it had a great pool. We weren't very fun back then, obviously, since I was pregnant and tired and not looking so hot in a swimsuit.

At first it seemed like a good time to plan a trip to Mexico and the beach. . . Jan. 5-8. You are coming off the holidays and OBVIOUSLY you need another vacation. OBVIOUSLY. No, really, after all of the stress of the holidays it was nice to have this to look forward to. However, you just get the kids back in school and start thinking about going back to the "normal" routine and BOOM! You leave the country and screw it up again. Not to mention the fact that the girls' birthdays were the day before we left and OH THE GUILT I felt about that. But we were here on the actual day so that was the most important.

We all met up at the airport on Thursday morning (because we all had to drive separately. . .certain people DO NOT ride together. . .this was our first trip so we have to figure these things out as we go) and toasted what was to come with a Mimosa.

Then we boarded our flight for an easy trip to Mexico. No issues. This trip was going to be a breeze! There had been LOTS of banter back and forth on e-mail about schedules. CERTAIN people travel with a "fly by the seat of your pants" philosophy and CERTAIN people like to have a written schedule printed, bound and color coded for all to have and review on the plane on the way to the destination. We compromised and I made one single dinner reservation and Rob reserved a driver for us to get from the airport to the hotel and that was it. For those of you who have traveled with me before, please pick your jaw up off the floor because I know you are not believing the lack of plans.We have arrived at the hotel and they had some lovely pomegranate margaritas waiting for us while we checked in. Our cares are slowly fading away.

The view of the pool and the Sea of Cortez from our room

Our room. . .NOW I remember why I loved this hotel so much!

This is the happiest I have seen Rob since about, oh, September 25 when he left and was on his way to his first COED OVER 30 INDOOR SOCCER GAME.

We all changed and headed down for a late lunch by the pool. Rob and Kerith are having a serious heart to heart talk here. Or more likely, Kerith is laying down the law about how things are going to go for the next 3 days.

Mike & Dasha enjoying a popsicle by the pool. A nice little guy came around with an ice cream cart every day about 4:00 p.m. and offered everyone homemade fruit popsicles.

And then I went for a quick trip to the bathroom and the dumb toilet (pee only) overflowed on my TORY BURCH flip flops and I had to push this overwhelming sense that this was a BAD BAD sign of things to come far out of my mind.

Brad was obviously also trying to push bad thoughts out of his mind as he relaxed in the hot tub. Like any good story, Cabo - The Middle and Cabo - The End will be coming soon and the drama will just continue to build through each chapter. Trust me on that one.

Birthday Girls

2012-01-04T18:27:00.000-08:00

I know I say this every year, about every kid, at every birthday. But, really. .. how are they 9? NINE? As in almost 10? It really seems like yesterday. And I am sure I will continue to have this little session of disbelief every year, about every kid and on every birthday. So, get over it.

The girls both wanted bacon and eggs and a donut for breakfast. They also wanted to take donuts to school to share with their class so this was easy.

We ate lunch with the girls at school. Maddie wanted Subway and Ally wanted Raising Cane's chicken fingers.

This year will go down in the record books for two reasons. First, I haven't planned their birthday party. At all. And I am not kidding. Usually, I have it all thought out in early November so I can have it all set up and ready to go by early December. This year, we talked about it and they could never decide on exactly what they wanted and then things just got chaotic with the holidays and I just let is slide. OH THE GUILT! Maddie will keep track of this in her mind forever.

Second, they could not agree on a restaurant for their birthday dinner. We have had this to a milder degree in the past, but they usually come to some compromise and everything is fine. This year Ally wanted the old standby of Jinbeh and Maddie went out on a limb and wanted Magic Time Machine. Now, honestly, I am not sure if they REALLY wanted two different places or if they conspired together to ACT like they wanted two different places knowing full well that the other would get to go so they would get two meals out of this. Rob, of course, thought this was what they were doing, but I held my ground and told him it wasn't fair that they had to choose the same thing. If they weren't twins and just had birthdays close together then they would have been able to choose different places so why was this different?

But then we couldn't agree on which restaurant we would go to first and that started to be another fight. So I put both names on a piece of paper and put them in a cup and let Will draw one out. Magic Time Machine it was! Maddie was thrilled.

Right after school, I invited several of their friends to come meet us at Nana Yogurt since we didn't have the party planned. They were thrilled to get to spend a little time with some of their favorite people.

Maddie and Katelyn

Brighton, Sydney, Zoey & Ally

Since this was Maddie's choice of restaurant, we let her pick one special friend to take with her. She took her friend Paige.

Oh, the Magic Time Machine. A child's greatest fantasy and a parent's worst nightmare. The food is awful. It is expensive. The salad bar is in a car. If you ask to go to the bathroom they parade you through everyone telling them you have to go "Tinkle Winkle" (I remembered them screaming "POTTY PATROL!" but I guess they don't do that anymore). Rob tried telling them that the restaurant burned down shortly after we left so that hopefully we never have to go there ever again, but they are on to him and his tactics and they didn't buy it.

Cheers with their fizzy potions

Our waitress was Rapunzel. Doesn't she look EXACTLY like Rapunzel?

Happy Birthday to my beautiful 9 year old girls!

And, never fear! Exactly like my mother, I am all for equal treatment for all family members so we headed out to Jinbeh exactly one week later at Ally's request and she got to take Zoey with her to celebrate. The girls LOVE this place and always request to go watch the guy cook "on" your table.

Fun with chopsticks!

Rob told the girls we could to to BerryLucious for frozen yogurt if they would both try sushi and, surprisingly, they both tried it. I would say they LIKED it, but they ate it. This picture of Maddie is right after she ate the sushi. He tried the same thing on Will and Mia, but that wasn't about to happen. He did get them to both try zucchini, mushrooms and onions. They will do anything for yogurt. We'll see if any parties get planned or if all of these celebrations are enough. Rob's mom took them to the American Girl Boutique while Rob and I were out of town so they go to continue the celebrations a little more and we also have a big Halpin family get together in a few weeks to celebrate all of the December/January/February birthdays that we have in our family.

Did you know that we have a dog?

2012-01-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

One thing that I can barely bring myself to blog about is our dog, Bailey. Do you even know that we have a dog? We have so many kids that we even forget that we have a dog sometimes. Bailey is an almost 13 year old chocolate lab. We got her the year after we got married. We were great pet owners back then. We walked her. We bathed her (ourselves! Not even at Petsmart). We spent thousands on vet bills because evidently we didn't get her from the most reliable breeder and she has had a whole host of problems for her entire life. And then kids happened and she fell to the back burner. It makes me feel like the worst pet owner ever.

Despite all of her health issues, she really is the best dog. She doesn't bark. She has never bitten anyone or even snapped at anyone. She is quiet and easygoing and just easy to have around. And thank goodness that is the case because with all of our kids being born so close together there were a few years that she HAD to be easy or I wouldn't have been able to handle it. We used to take her to the lake so she could swim and we would take her to Austin every time we went because she loved a good car ride, but then it just got too difficult. My wonderful parents have become her 2nd family. They let her stay there when we go out of town or they come over here and watch her. And our neighbors have a particular soft spot for her and they also help out if we aren't here.

Bailey started having hip or knee problems a few years back and we thought the worst, but then things seemed to get better. Then she developed major skin allergies and we had to go on SUPER expensive dog food and tried all sorts of medicine. She scratched all the time and developed these growths all over her skin. They would go away and come back pretty consistently. And then she started peeing every where. She would be laying on the couch and get up and there would be a wet spot. And then we would find urine spots on the hardwoods. And then the rugs started smelling like pee. So, we took her to the vet yet again and got some medicine and things started to get better. And then about 9 months later it started happening again.

And then on Christmas Eve we started noticing blood on the floor. We didn't know if she had a bladder infection or if the sores on her skin were oozing. . .we couldn't determine the source. And then it got worse and we knew we had to do something. We called our normal vet that we have seen for almost her whole life. The one that told us we HAD TO be on this high dollar allergy pet food and sells it to us every month. They were booked solid on Christmas Eve. Your dog is bleeding? So sorry. Try somewhere else.

Seriously.

First the idiot thyroid doctor and now this. I just want to kick people in the face sometime. GET SOME CUSTOMER SERVICE AND HAVE A HEART.

So, I called Carley's vet and they were SO nice. They said they would work us in no matter what time we came and they called and got her records from the other vet. They even called back to check on her when we weren't there in 30 minutes.

I made Rob take her because I just couldn't deal with it.

He came home with bad news. Worse than I expected. She was bleeding from her mouth because she has a huge tumor on the back of her tongue. Without biopsying it they cannot know for sure what it is, but he said he feels certain it is cancer. He said she will continue to bleed off and on and that it will probably continue to grow and will eventually affect her ability to eat and breathe. Until then, we just need to make her comfortable and watch her.

That has been a few weeks and she continues to bleed off and on. She also smells horrible. I can't take her to get a bath at the vet (our regular CUSTOMER SERVICE-FREE one) because evidently she needs one vaccination and Rob doesn't want to pay for all of these vaccines if she isn't going to live much longer. The tumor makes her breath smell horrible and they said that will only get worse. She sores all over her also appear worse and it makes her just look awful.

So, it's not like you want to just sit down and cuddle up with her and it is AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL to say that. It makes me so sad to see her like this and to wonder if she is in pain or to wonder if she wonders why no one pays any attention to her. We haven't told the kids how serious her condition is yet because while they know she is sick and old, I think it is just too much for them to handle right now and they will worry so much about what is to come.

I really don't even know where I am going with this post other than to set the stage for what is probably an inevitable post that is soon to come about losing our beloved old dog. I dread it. I hate it. And so I will end on a happier note. Look at the cute puppy that Ally's best friend just got. . . .

Buster, the miniature dachsund

He's the new neighborhood mascot. I think my kids are almost as excited as Zoey is to play with him after school!

We tried to introduce him to Bailey. She wasn't very interested. She was actually quite scared of that tiny puppy. And no, we are not getting a puppy anytime soon no matter what. For now, we are just going to love our dear ol' Bailey and try to be the pet owners we once were and pray that she has a happy time for however long she has left.

New Year's Eve Festivities!

2011-12-31T18:12:00.000-08:00

Well, my fear in San Antonio was correct. I was sick and I went down hard in the coming days. The night before New Year's Eve I headed to my favorite neighborhood doctors at Legacy ER and had to get a breathing treatment, steroid shot, inhaler and antibiotic! It's been a long time since I was that sick. So, needless to say, I was struggling on New Year's Eve.

We were invited back to Scott & Karla's house in our neighborhood for a fun family party. This year they made some authentic Mexican food and it was AMAZING! They also had some more Minute to Win It games PLUS a pinata. Could the kids really ask for anything more?

Uh oh! Barely 8:00 p.m. and already naptime?

First Minute to Win It game. . .how many dice can you stack on a popsicle stick?

Rob goes for the world record. . .

FAIL!

Next up - threading the penne noodles onto dry spaghetti without touching anything. It was a lot harder than it looked!

Mia & Annika

The precision. . .the skill! Look at Dr. Jay at work!

Of course, Rob thinks he can beat him.

OH YEAH!

Victorious! We really get into this. . . .can you tell?

Happy 2012!

One more game. . .stacking the chapstick

Pinata time! Will went in for the kill since he was the first one to go.

Look at that poor purple unicorn. He is so broken.

They don't make those things like they used to. The candy started spilling out after only a few hits. We reloaded it a few time and kept going until the whole thing was smashed. I'm telling you - this is a competitive crew!

Special occasions call for special treats. . . all of the big kids had a Dr. Pepper! What am I going to do when a Dr. Pepper is not the highlight of their life and I cannot bribe them with it anymore?

I made it as long as I could. Will and I finally headed home about 11:40 p.m. so I could get my prescription cough medicine and fall into a drug induced sleep. I rang in the New Year watching Pete Delkus and Dale Hansen yuk it up on Channel 8. Fun times.

In the meantime, there were poppers galore in the Hermanson's front yard and Rob and the girls stayed for awhile.

Thanks for a great New Year's Eve party. Here's to a great 2012!

Our $1 Million Mistake

2011-12-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a little history for you. Rob and I both went to Baylor. I grew up a Baptist in Garland so it was only about an hour and a half down 35 for me and a logical place to go since it's a Baptist University. Rob was Catholic and went to high school in Kentucky so it is more of a mystery of how he ended up at this fine conservative Christian establishment! Just kidding. . .he was going to be pre-med. That lasted one semester. Anyways, we sat next to each other during our second semester of our freshman year in Spanish, however, we never spoke a word to each other. Then we both lived in the same apartment complex our sophomore year and that is where our love bloomed (HA!) and we dated for the next 4 years and got married right after graduation.

Our commitment to Baylor up until this point has been this. I think we both have a Baylor shirt. I have a Baylor Alumni license plate holder on my car. We take the occasional drive through campus every couple of years on our way to Austin and talk about MY how things have changed since the good ol' days. We even hosted a Baylor reunion at our house a few years back so we could catch up with some our friends from those fun years. And that is where it stopped.

We met with a financial adviser shortly after having the twins and he informed us how much it was projected to cost for a student at Baylor by the time our kids were 18. I almost choked on my own saliva when he said it would probably cost $250,000 for ONE KID for a four year private school education at Baylor in the year 2021. We quickly decided PUBLIC SCHOOL all the way! Rob is still pushing for Collin County Community College.

So, this is where we have been for the past 16 years or so since we have graduated. We supported our school from an arms length distance. I mean, really, there wasn't much to support. We have never been a power house at any sport and who could have imagined what was to take place this year. Baylor is actually GOOD in multiple sports (football, men's & women's basketball, and maybe another but Rob is not here and I am not up on such things and am too lazy to google).

So, a few months back we started hearing Rob talk about RGIII and we started watching Baylor football games because they actually showed them on TV. And then we REALLY went and did it. We got to be better and better friends with the Lefflers. The Lefflers aren't some fair weather Baylor fans. They are HARDCORE. They go to multiple games a season and probably have for years. They take their kids to homecoming. I think Brad even recruits for Baylor. Before I even knew them I knew their kids were big Baylor fans by the cute Baylor outfits they always wore at school. And then they talked us into going to that Baylor vs. Tech game at Cowboys stadium and we sat in those really good seats and Rob was hooked.

I started hearing rumblings about bowl games and WHY IN THE WORLD would I have booked us a trip to Cabo during Bowl season and how he was going to whatever bowl game Baylor was in no matter where it was and when it was because - WAIT FOR IT WAIT FOR IT - "this is a once in a lifetime experience, Julianne" (same thing every time - Mavericks, Rangers, Stars, Cowboys - always a once in a lifetime experience. . .until the next year rolls around).

I was actually kind of relieved when I heard they would be playing in San Antonio. At least that is within driving distance and the timing was perfect. . .in between Christmas and New Year's and he would be back in plenty of time for our trip to Cabo. And then things started to snowball. Instead of just Rob and Brad going of course it turned into a family affair. All 11 of us would be going and supporting OUR team!

The mad dash for Baylor gear started and we started getting the kids pumped up. They were super excited to be going to the game PLUS their friends would be there so what could be better?

So, two days after Christmas, we headed out. We drove to Austin the first day and spent one night with Rob's parents and then drove on to San Antonio the next day where we would stay for two nights.

We stopped on the Baylor campus and took a few pictures. This picture, in particular, made me flash forward 9 years. I can totally see us dropping them off at their dorm and pulling out this picture and saying, "Remember when. . . ."

It really is such a beautiful campus and I have so many fun memories from our years there.

We bought even more Baylor gear at the bookstore because I mean if you are going to jump on the bandwagon at this point then you better be outfitted head to toe to do it!!

The Lefflers were only a few minutes behind us at this point and it was lunchtime so we all met up for a big family lunch at George's. This really makes me laugh because George's is also known as "Home of the Big 'O". . .as in big o' beer that costs about $2.75. I didn't even know they served food OR allowed children inside, but I guess things are totally different in the daylight hours. We headed on to Austin and the kids played and we called it an early night so we could head out for San Antonio first thing the next morning.

We got on the road mid-morning the next day and tried to figure out where we wanted to eat lunch. Rob is a big fan of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network and he remembered some pizza place northwest of San Antonio so we took a little detour and drove out there for lunch only to discover that it was closed for the holidays and wouldn't re-open until Jan. 4. We were a little discouraged until we discovered that we were right down the road from a Mexican food place called La Fogata that we had always wanted to try. It definitely lived up to the hype!

Our next stop was to check in at our hotel. . .the Sheraton Gunter. We didn't know it when we booked it, but this was the "Baylor Headquarters" hotel. The bookstore had a store in our lobby and there were TONS of Baylor fans everywhere. This added to the excitement for the kids.

We had two adjoining rooms with connecting doors so while Rob and I tried to get luggage situated in our room we heard quite a commotion in the other room. Pillow fight!

AND jumping on the bed? Who taught these kids their manners? And before I could even say it. . .wait for it. . . .5,4,3,2,1. . ..

Someone ALWAYS gets hurt. ALWAYS. Do I even need to speak the words???

We had a few hours to kill in San Antonio so what is the logical thing to do? Well, visit the Alamo, of course! We weren't the only ones who had this idea. It was packed.

I think the majority of the history was lost on the kids (the girls don't officially study Texas History until 4th grade) but they had a fun scavenger hunt that we made them do and they thought they might get something if they actually finished it so they were pretty game. And then they got nothing and they were mad.

We were trying to kill some time before the Baylor Pep Rally began and we were trying to bribe them to keep walking rather than pay for a taxi so we got ice cream for everyone!

With my new found subscription to the Baylor Bear Network e-mails, I was notified that there would be a pep rally at the Tower of the Americas. We were relatively close by and thought the kids would like it so we headed that way.

SCORE! We got all kinds of FREE Baylor stuff. . .towels!

Pom poms!

RGIII posters and tattoos!

And then the fun really began. We were a few minutes early so we were able to secure a pretty good vantage point. But the kids couldn't see a thing so they weaseled their way in between legs and random people and made their way to the front and took a seat. I pushed my way up a little bit with the excuse that I need to be able to see my kids. It worked, but Rob was stuck at the back.

The cheerleaders started performing and my kids were enthralled! I was starting to notice that everyone around me was approaching this nice lady with the green fuzzy jacket and congratulating her and talking to her and asking her for pictures? Hmmmm, my radar perked up. She then turned to the side and I saw her RGIII button. I realized I was standing with all of the player's parents and they were all wearing a button of their kid so this was obviously RGIII's mom. Now, I know that means nothing to most people, but you have to remember that I am what you might call - a celebrity stalker. And I don't care if it's an A lister or a Z lister or an up and coming sports star's mom. I wasn't sure what to do with this information. I tried to signal Rob. He could care less. And then Maddie came to ask me a question and I whispered it to her and it was like a switch was flipped. And then someone on the front row realized that Mrs. Griffin was standing so they offered her their seat. It was about this time that the players started filing in and RGIII waved to his mom and it really all clicked for ol' Madds. She looked at RGIII. She looked at his mom. She looked at her poster. She asked me for a pen. I didn't even have to ask why. THAT IS MY GIRL!

We got to listen to former Coach Grant Teaff speak.

Of course, RGIII got to pump up the crowd. The kids kept chanting "BEAT. THE HUSKIES. GONNA BEAT THE HUSKIES!" If I heard that once, I heard it ONE MILLION TIMES that weekend.

And here she goes. . .she is inching her way in. First she wanted her picture with RGIII's mom and sister in the background, but then I think she figured out that that was not good enough.

Ally just wanted a picture with the cheerleaders and she decided that she HAD TO have a Baylor cheerleader uniform for her birthday. We are getting deeper and deeper into this, folks. BY THE MINUTE.

And then all of a sudden I turned and there she was. Beaming from ear to ear! She asked for a picture and they obliged.

And then I turned and OH MY GOSH it was Ken Starr, who I recognized from his involvement in investigating former President Clinton years ago but who I also knew (from my recent research on all things Baylor) was Baylor's current president. I just blurted out that my kids would love a picture with him because OF COURSE they absolutely knew who he was. Yeah right. It was more like they were asking me, "WHY WERE YOU SHOVING US NEAR THAT STRANGER WITH THE BIG HAT, MOMMY?" I have high hopes that they will thank me one day. Maybe he will still be Baylor's president in 9 years? Or will be investigating another U.S. President?

So, overall, it was a really fun pep rally. Especially for Maddie. And, OK, me.

We headed back to the hotel and wreaked some havoc in the lounge on our floor that offered free snacks and drinks from 5-8 p.m. The Lefflers joined us for some fun after a long day at Sea World.

The free cookies and cheese & crackers can only get you so far so we headed downstairs to the hotel's restaurant for dinner for lack of a better idea. They were BEGGING us to leave by the end of dinner because we were upsetting the peace and quiet in the rest of the lobby. I hate to point out the obvious, but that is what you get when your restaurant is literally IN THE LOBBY and you have a kid's menu.

Calgon, take us away!

Baylor shirts, Baylor hats

After a rough start to our morning the next day (let's just say we had some BEHAVIOR problems in a MAJOR way because everyone was overtired from the previous few days), we had an unexpected act of kindness bestowed on us as we left the hotel. Maybe they could see the weariness in my face and Rob's as we tried to corral 4 kids on the street? Maybe they were in the next hotel room and heard the disciplining going on in our room and wanted to make sure our kids were OK? Who knows, but it really turned around our attitudes. Will was wearing his Baylor t-shirt and this man asked him if he liked RGIII and was excited to see him at the game? "Yes!" Will replied. "Do you have an RGIII jersey, son?" the man asked. Will looked confused so I told him, "Not yet!" (not willing to admit that we were not about to pay $40+ for a jersey for our 4 year old). The man tossed one to Will and said "Here you go! Wear it with pride. I bought it for my son at the bookstore in Waco and they won't let us exchange it here and we needed a different size so we just bought him a new one" We just kind of stood there with our mouths open and they walked off. We thanked them over and over and I guess we should have offered to pay for it, but we were too stunned. Will immediately put it on and then wore it for the next 3 days straight.

We headed out to do another traditional San Antonio thing. . .take a ride on a riverboat. I just have to say that the riverwalk is much cleaner and nicer than I remembered. They have added a lot and the kids really enjoyed it.

After our tour of the river and a nice lunch, we headed back to rest for a few minutes and then FINALLY. FINALLY. FFFIIIIIIINNNNNNNAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYY. It was game time! The kids were excited to take a taxi over to the stadium.

We met up with the Lefflers in the Fan Zone and the kids had fun playing games and winning prizes.

If Mia could have a mural painted on her wall, I think she would pick this. She is OBSESSED with Dr. Pepper!

The Leffler family

Let's go, Baylor!

Will was mesmerized by everything about the game. This was his first time in a big stadium for a football game and let me just tell you. . . .he was impressed!

They even had the real live Lee Greenwood there to sing God Bless the USA! Very moving!

All of a sudden, we noticed some commotion on the field right in front of us. Of course I had to check it out. Maybe it was a famous person or something really good was going on? Everyone was taking pictures of something and I just could not get a good look at what it was. And then we realized it was RGIII's Heisman trophy. So, like any good celebrity stalker, I handed my camera to some nice looking girl on the sideline and asked her to walk over and take a close up picture of it. While she was gone the police swarmed all of the people that had come down to get a closer look and tried to shoo us back to our seats. I had a mild panic attack that I would not get my camera back, but eventually my new friend emerged with some great pictures for me.

Baylor warmed up right in front of us.

The kids were all Baylored out - tatoos on their faces, necklaces, shirts, pom-poms, towels. We are TRUE fans!

And then look at that! First quarter. . . see the blue jacket on the bottom with the big white polka dots and she is waving and her eyes are big. That would be Ally on the big screen! She was SO excited. I could see the guy filming on the sideline and saw him pointing it at her so as soon as the red light went on I snapped a pic. Because I am observant like that!

And then a few seconds later. . . who could that be? Why that is Mia and Maddie wildly waving their towels and being LOUD and PROUD! What a way to start the game!!

ALL night long she chanted "BEAT! THE HUSKIES! GONNA BEAT THE HUSKIES!" I am sure the Washington fans behind us LOVED that.

The game was SO back and forth. We would score. They would score. We would score. They would score. There was NO defense. It was emotionally exhausting.

Just ask Josh!

For awhile there in the 3rd quarter, I thought we might have to put Rob and Brad on suicide watch. They were so dejected. And then the tides turned. . .

And we WON! WE REALLY REALLY WON! A REAL BOWL GAME! I felt better about the money we spent on these tickets since we won.

All of the kids ate their way through this game. I have never bought so much pizza, popcorn, pretzels, hot dogs, chips, Pepsi, and water IN MY LIFE. But it did keep them occupied and they watched the whole game!

These two formed a funny little friendship during the game.

I show this picture so that you can see who is standing and take note of the people around us. . .

Because it happened again! THIRD time on the big screen! That is Mia in the middle waving her pom pom like a crazy woman.

Final score. Too bad so sad for those Washington fans behind us who were mouthing the WHOLE.ENTIRE.GAME and then lo and behold they left early.

Champions!

Trophy presentation!

Happy Baylor Bear fans! It was the LONGEST game ever. It was almost midnight when it ended and we ended up walking back to the hotel because the traffic to get out of there was crazy and there were thousands of fans walking through the streets and screaming Sic 'Em Bears!

The River Walk was still lit up from Christmas and it was so pretty as we walked home.

OK - so obviously they are fake sleeping, but they were exhausted and could have fallen asleep immediately!

Except for this one who drank probably a liter of Pepsi (can you believe they only sold Pepsi at a BAYLOR game?). She was ready to PAR-TAY at 1:02 a.m.

A little midnight game of hotel football, anyone?

We finally got everyone to bed and then we collapsed as well after an emotionally and physically exhausting few days. I was starting to feel a little sick, but was trying my usual mind over matter technique that I WOULD NOT GO DOWN! We had a great time in San Antonio enjoying this once in a lifetime experience of witnessing a Heisman Trophy winner from Baylor WIN in a big bowl game. Our kids think Baylor is the greatest thing they have ever heard of and there isn't a question in their mind of where they want to go to college. So, now you can see why this is entitled our $1 million mistake. . . .$250,000 x 4 = YIKES! We are praying for scholarships.

Merry Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T12:33:00.000-08:00

Rob and I could hear the pitter patter of little feet a little bit before 7:00 a.m. on Christmas morning. I'm not sure who was up first, but that person quickly went and rallied the troops and they were admiring their haul from afar while trying to figure out what could be in all of those packages. We could hear their discussions and it was funny!

They ran in to get us up right at 7:00 and we came out to let the festivities begin.

A main part of ALL of our Christmas this year was a surprise ROAD TRIP to San Antonio right after Christmas to watch the Baylor Bears play in the Alamo Bowl. I am not sure if this gift was more for the kids or their daddy, but everyone was excited nonetheless! They even all got a Baylor Bear pillow pet to mark the occasion (because seriously - we really needed 4 more of those things).

Mia was thrilled to get Kit, the American Girl doll, and yet another fur real cat. Maybe she thinks that if we have enough fake ones then she can sneak in a real one someday and no one will notice?

Oh, the tides are turnin'. Yes, all three girls got American Girl dolls, but they also got a set of Justin Bieber perfume and lotions (along with a singing Justin Bieber toothbrush). Santa must have known how much they really LOVE J.B. . . or else he had a REALLY GOOD coupon for that perfume/lotion set!

Will made quite a haul including his Beyblade set and a Cowboy football helmet and uniform. Rob was very proud of all of these manly toys. Disregard the Fijit friend box that is also clearly visible in the picture. All 4 of them wanted one and we didn't realize until after the fact that they are all girls. The one he got is BLUE and it's name is LOGAN. Honest mistake. And he doesn't know any different PLUS the boy toys even everything out.

You know you are old when your main and favorite gift is a super duper paper shredder.

We had a fun trip to Cabo planned with some friends coming up so Rob decided that would be my gift. He filled up a box with sand and some pictures so we could start dreaming about the beach!

I see a recurring theme here of little white fake pets. Do you think they are trying to tell us something?

The kids played with their toys a little and then we had to pack up and head out to Garland by 9:30 a.m. I'm not sure how many years Mimi & Gongi have been hosting this Christmas morning breakfast, but I think it is over 40. Now THAT is a tradition! The kids were so excited to see their cousins and compare notes about what everyone got that morning.

Joel and Ally's Kanani doll had a lovely conversation. Dolls were always his favorite toy growing up. . .at least that's the way I remember it :)

All of the neighborhood kids play with Nerf guns every afternoon so Ally, Maddie and Will were THRILLED to get their very own so they can join in the fun. Jeremy showed Ally how to put it together and Owen & Noah were lined up ready to show her how to use it.

Clayton got a cool new camera and enjoyed taking pictures of the action.

Thank you, Mimi & Gongi, for hosting this crazy bunch and for going out of your way to pick gifts that each of the kids loved so much! They always have such a good time at your house.

After breakfast, we all head around the corner to my parent's house for lunch and to continue the family craziness! I feel bad because this same thing happens every year. . .I start off taking a million pictures on the morning of Christmas Eve and then the chaos starts to take over and I pick up my camera less and less to the point of by noon on Christmas Day I am lucky if I come away with 10 pictures. This doesn't mean that Christmas Day is any less fun or that we love my side of the family any less. . .it just always seems to work out this way.

We had so much fun visiting with everyone. Who would have ever thought when we were growing up and having our family of 5 in this room that one day it would be overrun with 10 grandchildren!

We try to have the tradition that all 10 kids go around in order from youngest to oldest and open one gift at a time so everyone can see and we can prolong the process as long as possible. That is easier said than done when the oldest cousins are 8 and the youngest is 18 months! It usually ends in a free for all with each parent just trying to see what their kid opened and figure out who it came from so they can thank them.

The girls were thrilled with their new makeup kits. And now you will understand what I am dealing with when you see them out in public with light blue eye shadow and electric pink cheeks.

Maddie loved her Harry Potter lego set. The girls also got an Easybake oven which they could not wait to get home and try out! We finally headed back to Frisco around 4:00 p.m. so we could wind down and play with toys and get to bed at a decent time.

Will couldn't resist putting on his new football helmet on and taking a run at his tackle buddy. This is going to turn out one of two ways. . . he is either going to become a really good football player or he is going to start tackling his sisters and hurt someone. Anyone want to place bets?

The mess in our living room at the end of another long day. We had a wonderful Christmas surrounded by so many family members and friends and we are truly blessed!

Christmas Eve Traditions

2011-12-24T12:07:00.000-08:00

Ah, the holidays! A time of relaxation. A time to enjoy spending time with your family. Everyone is happy. . .things are not stressful. It's a joyous and lovely time of the year. We focus totally on the TRUE meaning of this season. . .the birth of Jesus. This is the setting that I have in my mind.

Alas, the true picture of our holidays is more like this.

Wake up and GO, GO, GO! Screaming and chaos! See this side of the family! See that side of the family! This side of the family is mad that you see that side of the family more! Snide comments! Who can buy more gifts? GO, GO, GO some more! Kids end up being totally overwhelmed. The back of our car is stuffed with more presents than we can possibly fit in this house and the kids are so over everything that they just want to sit and watch TV and they don't play with anything. Good times, folks, good times!

Most of that is exaggerated and said in jest but there is a little truth to it! Seriously, this is a snippet of everything we crammed into Christmas Eve. Christmas Day is a WHOLE OTHER post, my friends!

We woke up Christmas Eve morning to our elf, R.W. having gotten hold of all of our icing and sprinkles and gone to town on some old cookies that we had sitting around. He really went all out on his last day with us this year. Thank goodness he left a little icing and sprinkles so we could make some cookies for Santa.

I decided to take a step back from being the typical control freak that I usually am and actually let my kids roll out their own dough and decorate the cookies TOTALLY on their own. Novel idea, huh? And then I got a look at how "fancy" they were getting and I had to sit down and make a couple on my own just so we would have a few that looked. . . how can I say this nicely. . .NORMAL? What is wrong with me?

I made two cookies on this plate. I'll let you guess which two.

Mia lost control a little with the yellow can of icing. She just couldn't help herself. We spent a couple of hours making all of these lovely gingerbread cookies and then guess what happened? No one would eat a single one. Except for me (and I was very choosy).

The kids proclaimed these cookies works of art and plus (insert eye roll from Maddie) "DON'T I KNOW THAT NONE OF THE LIKE GINGERBREAD????" Um, no. Do you eat gingerBREAD, kids? Yes. Do you eat those favorite cookies from the Czech stop in West that are gingerbread men, kids (after you pick the raisin eyes and buttons off) Yes. But will you eat gingerbread cookies that you just spent hours rolling out, cutting with cookie cutters and decorating? Nope. Wouldn't think of touching them. BIG SIGH.

So, then we made snickerdoodles because EVERYONE (all eyes on me) knows that those are Santa's favorite. I didn't take a picture of that escapade because I was too beaten down. But I did it. And they were good.

Next up on the agenda for Christmas Eve was a little run with Carley and Colleen because we were still kind of in running mode from the half marathon. But, we failed to take into account that it was SUPER windy and the temperatures were falling by the minute. So, needless to say, our 6 mile run turned into a MAYBE 2.5 mile run and it was SLOW and we complained the whole way. But at least we got that blood pumping for a little while!

One of my FAVORITE Christmas traditions has become the annual Polar Bear swim in our pool by our crazy (and I mean that in the NICEST way possible and I only call them crazy on this one day out of the year) Norwegian neighbors.

Katrina tried to coax Jakob into leaping at the same time, but he decided to take the plunge from the side of the pool rather than taking the flying leap off the waterfall. I cannot even imagine every forcing myself to do that. My kids REALLY wanted to join in and I thought about it for two seconds and then thought about the fact that if anyone can come down with pneumonia in a matter of 12 hours then it would be my 4 children and we were SO CLOSE to getting through a holiday without someone going down with an illness so I had to be the mean mom and say no.

HOLY MOLY! That water was COLD!

Not only did she jump, but she swam all the way across the pool and didn't even take the short way out. Impressive!

Jakob's turn! Do you know any other 3rd graders who would do this?

First and last swim for December. . . . check that off the list!

Just call him the Pioneer Man! Rob spent several hours during the afternoon making the Pioneer Woman's homemade cinnamon rolls. I can't remember who had been raving about them, but we had been talking about them and then we saw her make them on her cooking show and we knew we had to try them out to take to Mimi & Gongi's annual Christmas morning breakfast the next day. It was definitely a labor intensive process, but they came out AWESOME and we will be making them again. We intended to take some with us for breakfast the next day and then deliver the others to friends and neighbors as gifts. Guess what? Only one set of neighbors got some as a gift. And why is that, you might ask? Because we ate them all.

GOOD STUFF! And totally low-fat and healthy, too. HA!

Next up. . .the 5:00 p.m. Christmas Eve service at our church. We actually set a plan to leave our house at 4:00 and get there in plenty of time to get a seat without stressing about it and we actually executed that plan this year with no problem! It was a Christmas miracle! There are two services on Christmas Eve and both are packed to the rafters with thousands of people so parking and finding 6+ seats is SO hard, but the early bird gets the worm and this is not a phrase I can use often in regards to my family!!

Can you believe this post is still going on and on? We're only at 6:00 p.m., folks. Next up - we headed to my in-law's town home for our annual red and green enchilada dinner and to open gifts. The kids all got matching pj's and they changed into those.

Ally

Mia

Maddie

Will

Posing in front of the tree with Jake

We set the timer to take a whole group photo

Mia was thrilled to get the crutches and cast for her American Girl doll. Along with the wheelchair that she got last year she should now be able to handle any emergency situation that might arise!

Will's most prized possession so far. . . a Happy Napper. We tried to point out to him that he doesn't even nap anymore PLUS he has to have all stuffed animals removed from his room each night because he thinks that them staring at him when he is trying to go to sleep is - AND I QUOTE - creepy and what if. . . . NO, SERIOUSLY - WHAT IF. . . .they all really come to life like in Toy Story? I think what really drew him to the Happy Napper (besides his obvious love for infomercials and commercials) was the theme song. Google it and see if you can get it out of your head. "Happy! Happy Nappers! And they love to play with you!"

Cathy brought a boy (man? guy?) home for the first time ever this Christmas. I will not make a big deal about it so that she is not embarrassed, but it has to be noted in the blog because it was a momentous occasion. This was the first time that we met him and OH THE CONVERSATIONS that we had to have with our kids before we met him face to face at Smashburger for dinner a few days before Christmas. They all had made him gifts. . .handmade gifts with lots of hearts and the word love everywhere. They wanted to know WHEN the wedding will be (just dating - not even engaged). Will he be their uncle (don't know yet)? Can they call him uncle (NO!) And we tried to get them to tone down the uncle/wedding talk so the poor guy didn't decide to fake an illness and leave early. Overall, he didn't seem too scared off by the craziness and he was really nice!

We headed home about 9:30 p.m. and the kids put out some reindeer food along with their SNICKERDOODLES and milk for Santa and everyone settled in for the night so we could wake up bright and early Christmas morning and start the chaos all over again.

GEEZ LOUISE

2011-12-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

I am so behind on blogging. I have uploaded tons of pictures tonight and now I just need to sit down in the next few days and tell the stories to go along with those pictures!

But, before I do that, I have to clear something up. If any of you saw a picture posted that had one of my daughter's bare bottoms in it then I want to apologize! I kind of thought that even though it was up for probably 9-10 hours maybe just maybe no one really reads this little blog and I was in the clear.

No such luck.

I have talked to MANY people who saw it. . .including my own mother who thought, "Huh! To each his own!" SERIOUSLY MOTHER!

I need to give a a big shout out to Tyra who had either a) the inkling that maybe something wasn't right when she saw that post or more likely b) she just thought I was a weirdo and was trying to call me out about it in the nicest way possible so I would rethink posting something that bordered on child pornography.

I don't really know what happened. I take TONS of pictures of my kids. Yes, I did upload those pictures myself, but I obviously didn't scour every one looking for exposed body parts. It had been a bad day when I wrote that particular post. . . I was flat out tired. . .. and I was on the verge of getting sick. That is my story and I am stickin' to it.

And in the future, if you see something that is blatantly inappropriate regarding my kids on my blog then PLEASE PLEASE PLLLLLEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSE for the love of all things that are good in this world. . .call me. E-mail me. Text me. Do whatever it takes to get my attention!

More blogging coming soon. . . .

We dont get out much. . .

2011-12-23T14:11:00.000-08:00

We have been WHEELS OFF, SCHEDULE OUT THE WINDOW crazy people this Christmas break. I am going to be hating life when Jan. 2 rolls around and we have to go back to school. We are typically the 7:30 p.m. bedtime, 7:00 a.m. get up type of people. We are very scheduled in our eating. We are boring. But, not for these last two weeks. We have had party after party with friends. We have hung out with family A LOT. We have been on a last minute road trip. We are flying by the seats of our pants, people!

We have been to TWO parties where the hosts have a delightful buffet of food and drinks set up for adults downstairs and then all of the kids get to go upstairs and be supervised by babysitters. This is a SCORE for everyone, in my opinion. But this is what happens when the kids have been up too late for too many nights and grab the camera at 11:30 p.m. Re-entry into the real world is going to be rough. Pray for us.

I am not sure where Will is in these pictures. Probably fast asleep on the floor somewhere begging to go back to his regular life. Or maybe partying it up with the fun sitter upstairs!

It's just hair. Deep breath. Repeat. It's just hair.

2011-12-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

I took the girls for their twice a year hair trim over the Christmas break. They were SUPER excited because the girl who cuts their hair had recently moved to this cute little place called The Style House in downtown Frisco and they were so anxious to try it out. I intended for everyone to just get a little trim to cut off the split ends and make their hair look healthier, but surprise, surprise! Someone had something different in mind from dear ol' mom. (Note that says 'ol and not old).

I don't know why I am such a freak about their hair. I think I make a post similar to this every single time we go for a haircut and that is sad. It's just hair. It grows back. I am a rational adult (SHUSH IT, ROB AMEZCUA) and I know this. Maybe I flash back to my childhood and those heart-wrenching times when I talked my mom into letting me do something stupid with my hair (or she just did it for me) and then I hated it and had to go through that horrible phase where it had to grow back into a suitable style. I can remember several bad perms/dye jobs/bang cuts that must have scarred me for life. Because I would be perfectly content for my girls to have long flowing one length styles that require me to put a lot of effort into their hair to make it look good. Rob is forever rolling his eyes and getting mad that the girls can't do their own hair because it gets so tangled and I have to use so many products and tools to get it looking "perfect". He says "normal" 8 year olds do their own hair and can get whatever style they want. And so, the hair battles begin and we haven't even reached puberty. Ah, the things I have to look forward to.

We arrived at their appointment with a plan. . .Ally wanted a slight trim, Maddie wanted a slight trim and Mia wanted to chop her hair off. To her shoulders.

I tried to reason with her. Even the stylist tried to reason with her. That was A LOT of hair and her hair is SO pretty. Maybe just a few inches? Nope, she had her hands on her hips and showed us where she wanted it cut to. It was about 6 inches. I told the lady 3. Mia said 4. I communicated with my eyes that maybe 3.5 was OK. And then I held my breath and prayed she didn't regret her decision.

Here we go!

Stone faced and matter-of-fact about it. She even had to show it off to rub it in my face.

It ended up being between 3.5-4 inches and I did feel sick about it for a few minutes. But then I saw how excited she was with her new 'do and I had to get over it. I can't be in control forever. Keep telling me that, please. Maybe then it will really sink in.

It does look so much healthier now and I have had MANY people tell me that they thought it was way too long anyway (thanks for that AFTER THE FACT). I mean, it's not like she was approaching Crystal Gayle status or anything. It was just long. And pretty.

Next time she says she will go for more. Hopefully it will grown out plenty more in the next 6 months before we go through this again!

Outdoor Ice Skating

2011-12-20T13:28:00.000-08:00

They had an outdoor (yes, really) ice skating rink at Frisco Square this year. I am sure they had to spend big money to keep that thing frozen with this Texas weather! The kids were so anxious to try it out and it sounded fun in theory. . .until I found out it would be $10 each to participate and we drove by and saw that the thing was about the size of our living room.

But, Gigi's best friend Donna's granddaughter was in town so we met up for an semi-annual trip to do something OH SO FUN. We saw the latest Chipmunk movie at Frisco Square, walked over to Mattito's for lunch and then as we walked out the door the ice rink was just begging for us to come over. Thankfully, we stopped in the little shop next door before we headed over and were able to snag some buy one get one free coupons for the skating. SCORE! I felt much better about paying $5 per person for this little outing.

Gigi and Donna weren't up for skating, but carefully guarded all of our shoes and coats. I took my life in my own hands and supervised all 5 kids on the ice. Will and Mia had never ice skated before, but consider themselves quite the expert roller skaters and were determined that this would be EASY PEASY. And then they stepped on the ice. I might have a new hernia from trying to hold them upright and keep myself steady as we skated slowly around and around this little piece of melted, slushy and non-Zamboni-ed ice.

Ally was smart and took a break every couple of trips around.

Ally & Brenna

Will and Mia finally got the hang of it enough to inch themselves around holding on to the sides. I still went behind them carefully because there were several kids out there treating this like a hockey rink and/or practicing their serious ice skating spins. You were really taking your life in your own hands by trying this out.

Will was determined to do this by himself and scoot away from the edge a little and he finally succeeded!

Overall, it was a great day and we even got some free popcorn at the local popcorn store with our receipt from skating. An outdoor ice rink in the 60 degree temperatures. . .the kids will remember this forever!

Winter Party Time!

2011-12-16T17:22:00.000-08:00

The Friday before Winter Break started, all of the girls had their holiday parties. The 1st grade classes had a "Tacky the Penguin" theme. They were supposed to dress "tacky" and did crafts and games based on this cute book. Mia went to great lengths to pick out her tacky outfit. . .zebra hair flower, tie-dyed shirt, leopard pants, black Valentine socks and pink sparkly shoes. She looked very SPECIAL! One dad in her class had no idea about the theme of the party and when he walked in and caught sight of his daughter he whispered loudly to the little girl's mom, "NICE JOB ON THE OUTFIT TODAY!" She then replied, "It's tacky day! Look at Mia!"

Making her Tacky the Penguin craft

Her penguin is complete with shoes, two watches, earrings and a hat!

Just hanging out with her sweet friend, Alyssa

Eating her winter cookie

Getting ready to play "Tacky Says" instead of Simon Says

Tacky Penguin Bingo time! It was a great party for the first graders.

Immediately after the first grade party, it was time to head to third grade. The girls just had a good, old fashion holiday party. They played games and ate a snack. There was not an elaborate theme or a crazy craft. I have to admit that it was kind of nice!

I had forgotten about the greatness of Mad Libs until Ally & Maddie came home with a book of them the other day. That activity is HOURS of fun for 8/9 year olds! Ally and Maddie think those things are the best thing they have ever seen. Probably because they can use the words stink, Justin Bieber, any potty words and crazy animals and then come up with the funniest stories ever. We have even done a few as a family over the dinner table and it ends up with fits of giggles from everyone (including Rob).

Still mad libbing it. . .

Silly third graders. This is what happens when you have to wait until the end of the day for your party and then you load up on donut holes and apple juice.

Time to play Pictionary. It was a daunting task when you are learning to play in front of your whole class and you have to go first!

Poor brother. . .he had to attend all of the parties, but he couldn't participate in anything. Thankfully, he had packed a bag full of snacks and could use my phone to pass the time. It's hard to believe that next year I will be attending his Kindergarten party, too!

Text to Self Connections with The Grinch

2011-12-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite pieces of 1st grade schoolwork to come home so far this year:

After reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss, this is what Mia had to say:

It makes me grumpy when "my sister Maddie gets me in truble." (Note the picture of straight haired Mia crying major tears while curly haired Maddie looks on).

It makes me happy when "I get my sister Ally in truble." (Note the picture of long straight haired Mia smiling and short straight haired Ally crying).

Now that is laugh out loud funny!

Happy Birthday Jesus Party

2011-12-15T17:39:00.000-08:00

We have two extremes when it comes to holiday parties. We have the preschool Happy Birthday Jesus parties where it is all about the true meaning of Christmas and you cannot mention Santa, yet you can still pass out homemade treats to your little friends. Then we have the elementary school "holiday" parties where you cannot say the word Christmas and everything has to be store bought and it's very generic. Can't we all just get along and talk about whatever holiday we celebrate and tell about what we asked Santa for? Can't we all just get along?

Just kidding.

Will's Happy Birthday Jesus party was very cute. We have some room moms this year who are ON TOP OF IT! Everything is decorated, personalized and done with flair. Even the water bottles are decorated. It makes me feel like such a slacker because a) I am not a room mom this year and b) I can barely make it to the party on time. And don't get me started on my child's attire! He is only 4 and I have already lost the spirit of making sure he has a shirt for every holiday. The girls wouldn't be let out of this house without the cutest holiday shirt and matching bow and then there's their brother at the Happy Birthday Jesus party in a monster t-shirt. A MONSTER T-SHIRT! For goodness sake!

Check out the cute candy cane decorated like a reindeer that a sweet little girl passed out to all of her friends. I think I passed out something similar about 8 years ago. Now I am just lucky if I can recognize the faces of the kids in his room. I used to know all of the kid's name and parent's names. My how times have changed.

Time for some games!

The water bottle with "flair"

Time for a yummy red velvet HOMEMADE cupcake. Enjoy it, buddy. Next year is when the individually wrapped and store bought goodness begins!

Good stuff! He could not get enough.

I love these homemade little crafts that they always make. They are some of my favorite things to pull out every year and put up on the tree!

Time for a little book exchange. It was about 3 minutes into this that someone mentioned that THREE kids had gone home on party day from vomiting. I could not get out of there fast enough. We grabbed our stuff and got out of that germ infested room! Merry Christmas!

Caroling!

2011-12-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

I've said it once and I will say it again. .. I love our school. I love our neighborhood. We are surrounded by amazing people!

Our sweet 4th grade neighbor at the end of our street was diagnosed with leukemia about two weeks ago. It was a shock to everyone to say the least. It is a treatable form of leukemia and after about 7 months of chemo, they are hopeful that she can make a full recovery.

Can you even imagine going through that as a 4th grader? And finding out at this time of year?

Our amazing school receptionist organized some caroling to cheer up sweet Anna Rose. She was delighted to open the door and see all of those happy faces singing their hearts out for her. She has to wear a mask and cannot get near other kids for the foreseeable future, but this had to boost her spirits as she had just arrived home from her first lengthy hospital stay.

Ally & Maddie were at their Brownie meeting so they couldn't participate, but Will & Mia were thrilled to be out there with the big kids and this was their first time caroling.

They were thrilled to see Anna for the first time since her diagnosis. We are praying for her daily and the kids have been drawing pictures and get well cards and struggling hard to understand about this disease. Please keep this sweet family in your prayers in the coming months and ask God to fully heal Anna and restore her strength so she can be outside playing and being a normal 4th grader again before we know it!

Merry Christmas Mean Girls!

2011-12-11T17:45:00.000-08:00

We were missing Daph & Jenny, but at least some of us got together to celebrate this holiday season. Great friends. . .fun times!

HA-LE-YU-LA!

2011-12-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

Will's last preschool Christmas musical. I know I say that about EVERYTHING regarding preschool this year, but it is our 8th and final year there so you will just have to bear with me as I think back about how quickly the time has passed!

For the first time in my history of preschool musicals, we had the dreaded 11:30 a.m. time slot. This meant that you couldn't just drop your kid off at 9:00 and then go stake out seats for the 10:00 a.m. show. You had to leave to run errands and then figure out early you wanted to come back to get the people's seats who would then be leaving the first show.

Sadly, I had too many things to do that day to give up 30 min. just sitting there plus there are some CRAZIES that were going to get those first rows NO MATTER WHAT and I realized that this was just not a fight that mattered that much to me. So, I let Gigi, Grammy and the wonderful Peters extended family get there first and stake out some seats about mid-way back for us.

I quickly realized I could see NOTHING from my vantage point. I was not going to be able to video the performance for Rob without a big fat head in front of me and there was no way any pictures would turn out, so I moved to the side of the room and had to stand up the whole time.

Look, Ma! It's my friend, Tripp!

The performance was SO cute. The kids sang several Christmas songs. My favorite had to be the Hallelujah Chorus. . .or as Will calls it - the HALLEYULA Chorus. He sings it so sweetly. .. HA-LE-YU-LA! HA-LE-YU-LA! HALLEYULA! HALLEYULA! HAAAAAA LEEEEEEEE YUUUUUUUUU LAAAAAAAAAA! I love it! And they ended with the cutest version of Feliz Navidad. I love that he is learning so much about the birth of Jesus. He told me tonight that Jesus had a baboo (blanket) just like him. Except that Jesus did not have a brown and blue polka dot one. He had a white one that was called "swaddling cloth". LOVE that boy!

Will and Avery

Will with his cheering section! Thanks Grammy and Gigi for coming to watch the best Christmas musical ever. It was about 5 minutes after this photo that the day ended on a super SOUR note. Evidently, if your musical is from 11:30-12:00 ish then you are "expected" to take your child with you. Um, school is over at 2:00 p.m. Do you know how many errands I can get done by myself in 2 hours? About 72. So, imagine Will's shock and awe when he went back to class ready to eat his lunch and there was ONE other kid in there. ONE out of 16. How well do you think that went over? Yep, about as well as you are imagining. He freaked. I didn't know what to do. He had big huge crocodile tears running out of those huge brown eyes and he was SO sad! But I had told the one other kid's mom that Will was staying so she had already left and if I took him then that kid would be all alone! I was seething inside at the whole situation. They should just tell everyone to take their kids and set the expectation level! It drives me nuts that they look for every opportunity to cut our days short when we are paying for our kids to go a measly two days a week from 9-2!!! I will be going out in a blaze of glory on my parent survey at the end of this year, let me tell ya!

Anyway, I ended up telling him he could leave with me, but that we were going to finish a few of my Christmas shopping errands and we would not be going straight home. All of a sudden, his tears dried up and he decided he wanted to stay! His teachers were shooting daggers out of their eyes at me, I am pretty sure.

So, HA-LE-YU-LA, the day ended up being a win-win for everyone. Except maybe the teachers.

And I said I would never do this again!

2011-12-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

I thought I crossed this off the bucket list last December, but then I got a wild hair in the fall and signed up again. . . yep, I am talking about the White Rock Half Marathon! Rob had signed up to do the full marathon and when he had his accident I decided to take up the torch and RUN ON in his honor. Too bad they won't let you transfer the registration fees to another person. . this ended up being the most expensive half marathon ever!

Carley, Colleen and I trained together all fall and were looking forward to a great race. We did some great long training runs and had no injuries. We were praying for a beautiful day with no wind.

Instead we got a day with temperatures in the low 40s and a steady stream of light rain. But there was no wind! We had to look for the positives for this day to mentally psych ourselves up.

We rode down to Fair Park with Katie & Garrett and left Frisco at 6:00 a.m. Rob had intended to come find us on the course and bring the kids to cheer me on, but the weather was so nasty that his mom ended up coming to watch him and he came on his own. My parents skipped church and came to brave the elements with him. It was a great morale booster to see them around mile 6 and then again at the end!

We stayed parked in the car until the last minute. Everyone had a garbage bag poncho or some kind of rain gear to try to stay a little warm and dry (ha!)

Carley and I stuck to our original plan to start slow and stay steady. We knew Colleen and Katie would go faster and would not want to stop so we told them to go on without us. We even wore matching yellow hoodies so we could find each other if we got lost in the massive crowd. We averaged out to about 10 min/mile (actually a little faster, but we stopped for the restroom once and then walked a few seconds through each water station) and finished in 2 hours and 11 minutes. That is about 15 minutes that what I did last year when my leg was hurting so bad so I was really happy with the results.

Katie and Garrett finished their first half! They both did great although Garret's chip malfunctioned and it didn't clock his time which was really unfortunate because he finished in lightning fast speed. I think he deserves a refund or they should at least let him do it again next year for free so he can get an "official" time.

Colleen and I trying to get warm and showing off our medals.

We wanted to have a nice leisurely lunch to celebrate our accomplishment, but alas, we had two birthday parties, a soccer game and some other nighttime commitments. No rest for the weary. Rob took me through the Taco Bueno drive thru for some Mexi Dips and Chips since I had been being good for so long and trying not to eat fast food. What a way to celebrate a crazy day!

We have lights!

2011-12-03T17:20:00.000-08:00

Not a great picture, but for the first time in this house we have outdoor Christmas lights. I don't know if the kids are more thrilled with the fact that we have them or that their P.E. teacher, Coach Erwin, put them up!