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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Reinspired


Today was a good day.


After reading "NieNie's" blog for the past couple of days, I have been inspired to have more fun with my family and appreciate (more) all that I have. Her blog sure puts things into perspective . . . and quickly helps me get over the "my-kids-are-driving-me-crazy" or "pitty-party" moods.

Anyway, today we beat the heat by setting up the slip & slide. My 3 kiddos had a good time and several neighbor kids enjoyed themselves too. Here are several pictures from the day . . .



Action shots. . .















































Kimball kept trying to drink the water from the slide sprays . . . nice.


































































Ahhhhh . . . Rehydrated!










After lunch and naps, Allison and Sarah had a little face
painting session on their own. No supervision. It wasn't a problem, (thankfully, since Kimball wasn't involved) and I was able to capture their "creativity" before we took baths and washed it all off. (man, Crayola watercolor pencils are AWESOME. If you don't have them, you should get them. The color washes RIGHT OFF with water. Sooo fun for the kids, & nice for the parents! And great for Halloween!!)



After that, we made a nice big bowl of chex muddy buddies. Mmmmm. One of our favorites. And it's already gone!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Summer Fun begins



Last week we did a few fun things to kick off summer vacation. 

Thanks to Aunt Melissa who remembered to bring her camera on our trip to the Downtown Houston Aquarium.  It was a lot of fun.  We tagged along with the "other Craners" (Matt's brother's family).  Here are a few pictures from the day . . .

Me & the girls

                                                        







                                               

Sarah touching the baby rays


Spencer, Jonathon, Sarah & Allison



We also went to the drive-in movie last weekend, to see the new
Pixar movie, "UP."  It was pretty good, but not at all what I was expecting.  In my opinion, "The Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo" were WAAAYYY better.   Sorry Pixar.  UP just didn't have a story line that kids could relate to. Cute, but besides being animated, it was basically a movie only adults could really appreciate.  Kinda too bad. We all still enjoyed ourselves though.  Above is a picture of Allison (front right) with a bunch of friends before the movie began . . . fun memories in the making!

We've also been to the neighborhood pool a few times by now.  Kimball, our 20 month old is bound and determined to drown himself.  He has absolutely NO fear of the water and LOVES to jump right into the pool, whether there is anyone there to catch him or not. He doesn't care! We even let him sort of flounder in the water for a second, hoping it will scare him into not doing it anymore.  Nope.  It doesn't work.  Augh, This kid!  He's going to be the death of ME! or Himself! or BOTH!




Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Month in review



Well, I haven't posted in a while.  So I thought I'd do a fast month in review and include some pictures.  

First, Today is Matt's birthday! He turned the big 3-2.  So, the girls and I cooked a good dinner, made brownies complete with candles, Allison made a cute card and wrote a poem, and we even put up balloons!

















Above, is Allison's kindergarten celebration . . . a program that all kindergarten classes from her school (there's 8 of them -- sheesh!) put on.  It was cute, and Allison is holding an "E" in the picture because she had a speaking part for the letter "E" in a  poem where they spelled out kindergarten and each letter had a sentence about what they did over the past year.  (hope that makes sense)





Here's Allison with her Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Young.  She's engaged to be married this summer, and so some "room moms" got together and threw her a surprise bridal shower at school with the class.  It was really fun and cute, and one Mom even made a veil for Ms. Young to wear.  

Notice, that in the "class picture" below, that Allison is arm-in-arm with the boy on her right, and holding hands with the boy on the left!  hee hee!
I asked her tonight if any boys in her class liked her, and she smiled and said that boys don't like girls because they're afraid of growing up and marrying a girl.  So funny.



















Below are a few pics of some green anoles (lizards) that live in the sago palm tree that we have in our front landscaping.  We have at least 3 different ones that we've seen and Kimball LOVES to go outside and look for them.  (I think it's kinda fun too.)


































Next is a picture of Allison.  She came downstairs one day after school and asked me to tie this rubbermaid container to her head.  I asked her what she was doing and she said she was pretending to be the Mars Rover.  "What?" I said.   She responded, "you know, the robot - Mars Rover."   "oh." was all I said.  Sure enough, I just googled it and it's a robot that does exploration missions on Mars.  Wow, guess I'm not as smart as my kindergartener. Just in case you wondered what it looked like, I posted a picture of the REAL Mars Rover for comparison :)
  



Allison has also designated herself as the "librarian" in the "study" of our new house that Matt has put together.  She made a name badge for herself, wrote out the library rules, and made Sarah her assistant librarian.  So, hey, when the books need to be picked up after Kimball pulls them down, all we do now is call on our librarians to clean it up -- and they do!  Man, that was easy.  Why didn't I think of that?Below is a picture of Sarah "helping" paint a room in our new house.  Ok, ok.  I KNOW I need to post more pictures of the house, but it's all in varying degrees of "readiness. " (or rather, cleanliness . . . or unpacked-ness  . . .  or whatever . . .  But don't worry.  I'll get to it eventually .

AND FINALLY, 
our "old" neighbors (they lived next door to us at our rental house here) invited us to their annual crawfish boil on Good Friday back in April. (so these pics are over a month old),  It was fun, and educational and Amazing to see how much FOOD they made!  They had 2 coolers
FULL of crawfish,as well as huge pots of shrimp, crabs, & veggies  . . . they'd boil it all in special seasoning , and then dump it out on 8 foot long tables covered with tarps.  And people would just dive in and eat like pigs at a trough.  It made me smile.    
No one ate any of it but me, (I was in heaven) but the kids liked looking at the crawfish.  Sarah was the only one brave enough to hold one.  
Kimball was pretty curious about them & checked them out briefly.      And Allison kept a safe distance. All in all, it was a good time & I got some good pictures of the event.

So there you have it.  Some fun updates on us, with  lots of pictures!!

Monday, May 18, 2009

it once was lost, but now is found

For the past week and a half - since we've moved - I haven't been able to find my wedding ring, or my anniversary band.  I've been STRESSING!!  I thought I had put it somewhere where it would be safe and not get lost, but I couldn't remember where that was!!!  After searching all of the places that I THOUGHT I would've put it, I couldn't find it.   What a sinking feeling.  

Well, last night, Matt and I were cleaning up/unpacking our Master Bathroom some more, and I finally found it in a random place.  I was SOOOOOOOOOOO relieved.  I've been praying that I could find it.  But I just had a horrible fear that it was gone .  .  .    

I'm so thankful to have found it!  I mean, we have both insured, but who wants to go through all of that?  

Friday, May 15, 2009

Robert's Graduation


My brother, Robert, graduated from Oral Surgery Residency this week, so my Mom and I flew out to Dallas for the big event.  

It was a whirlwind trip -- we were only there for 24 hours, but we did alot.  Robert examined my teeth, I drove his Jeep around town, saw his house in Downtown Dallas, went to graduation, watched his fiance do a live broadcast (over the internet - she's an anchor woman) and eat at the best frozen yoghurt place I've ever been to (Yogilicious).

It was fun to be there for the momentous occasion, and I'm glad we went.   Congratulations Robert!!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

oh my, my, my

Dude.  I'm really about ready to kill Sarah, my 4 year old.  (not really, but you know what I mean.)

I'm seriously considering the fact that she might be bipolar.  She's a complete nightmare.  And she's driving me crazy.  

I just had to get that out . . .

Monday, May 11, 2009

Back in the Saddle Again . . .

Well, I've started working again.  It's part-time.  Well, PRN actually.  But really I'm working 6 scheduled days a month at a Surgical Center (ambulatory surgery, aka: Same Day Surgery).  I'll mostly be circulating in the operating room, but will also help out in the Pre-op area as well, when needed.  

I'm really liking being back in the OR again.  And the beauty about working at a surgical center is that I still don't have to work nights, holidays, weekends, or take "call."  HUGE BONUS!!!  It's like having the best of both worlds.  Yea me!