The week of March 16th- Spring Break 2015

On Monday, March 16th, we drove down to Victoria to attend my father's retirement party.  It was also his birthday.  The drive is just under 2 hours and the kids did pretty good.  We made it to the retirement party in time to enjoy the food and festivities.  My dad was excited to see us there. The kids loved drawing pictures on the dry erase board.  We stayed the night at my parent's house and then drove to Corpus Christi on Tuesday to enjoy the beach.  We saw 3 dolphins swimming very close to the beach!  We ate at Joe's Crab shack and played at a nearby park.  We drove back to Victoria later that day.   On Wednesday, we ate lunch at the kids' favorite restaurant, China B.  Then we started on the road back to Houston.  The kids slept in the car ride back so when we showed up at our apartment, I was now ready to take a nap.  Poor Mimi had to stay up and watch the kids so she didn't get a nap that day.  

On Thursday, we saw the Cinderella movie at Memorial City mall with Hattie.  Going to the movies is always a treat!

On Friday, we went to the Children's Museum.  Matthew and Audrey LOVED it!  It was crowded because of spring break but they didn't care.  Audrey jumped on the trampoline and Matthew did the hampster wheel/ball.  The kids also enjoyed the grocery store, vet, and restaurant where they pretended to earn a paycheck and "work".  We were exhausted after a full day at the museum and took a quick dip in our apartment pool.  The water was freezing so we didn't stay in it too long but it felt great in the heat.  We usually go to an indoor pool on Friday nights and I didn't feel like going so this was the next best thing.

We went to the park on Saturday for a bike ride.  And we enjoyed dinner at Kennedy's house on Sunday.  Mimi caught an early flight Monday morning.  It turned out to be a fun spring break despite the rainy weather.

 Matthew is playing clue with Mike and Dad

 Audrey took this picture of me

 Breakfast at Nanna and Papa's - Fruitloops!

 Painting a Rice Krispy Treat at Joe's Crab Shack

 Hanging out with uncle Mike

 Corpus Christi beach

 The Children's Museum

 Grocery Shopping

 The stocker

 At the park with a broken bike - Daddy to the rescue

 There were record blue bonnets this year but Rusty is the only one to get his picture taken in them.

Eating brownies at Kennedy's house

The week of March 9th

On Monday, March 9th, Mimi joined me for a Lenten Day of Prayer at our church.  It was a challenge trying to get ready, drop off Audrey, and walk Rusty to make it there on time.  It turns out we left Audrey's nap sack at home so we had to drive back home and then back to school before making to the retreat.... needless to say, we were a little late but it was fine.  It was inspiring to attend so I'm glad we made time to go to it.  On Tuesday, we met Matthew at church and sat with him at mass.  Matthew was so excited to see us there.

Andy was sick on Thursday so it was nice to have Mimi here to help out.  When the kids got out of school, we took them to the mall since it was raining.  They had a blast on the play area and enjoyed Chic-Fil-A.

Matthew got out of school early on Friday so we went to lunch with him at Jason's Deli before we picked up Audrey. He has the next week off for spring break but we don't really have any big plans.  Andy needs to work and the weather has been so rainy that I prefer to hold off on any travel plans.

On Saturday, I joined Matthew for a friend's birthday party.  The friend had a beautiful home in the Heights with a long driveway.  We were seriously considering making an offer on a house that we liked but when we showed up to the party and saw this one, it made us realize that a long driveway with a backyard would be so much better.  We decided to skip that offer and wait for another house to come on the market that would better fit our needs.

I started Rusty on some new dog food that our vet recommended.  Rusty has been doing great now that he started the shots.  Unfortunately, the food makes him poop a lot so I have been having to walk him a lot.  Sometimes he gets me up at 2am!  I will be glad to finally move into a house where we have a backyard so I can just let him out there.

 Memorial City Mall play area

 riding in the car looking at houses

The week of March 2nd

Audrey is getting to know the kids in her class and now she has a best friend, Hattie.  We met Hattie for a playdate at the park on Wed, March 6th.  Hattie's mom is from Louisiana so I clicked with her right away.  And they invited us to get frozen yogurt with them at Munchies near their house on 19th street in the Heights.  Audrey and Matthew loved it and they request to go back there all the time.

Matthew had his first baseball practice.  I spent time during the week to get all the supplies (glove, bag, etc...)  We have some of these items but they are packed up in storage.  It's just easier to go out and buy new.  Matthew was excited to see his friends on Saturday and play ball.

Audrey is enjoying her ballet on Saturdays.  She is learning the routine for her ballet recital on June 6th.

Mimi came into town on Sunday.  She is staying for a couple of weeks to visit.  We were frantically cleaning before she came into town as she was our first visitor.  I tried to vacuum but the vacuum cleaner blew dust everywhere...even after I changed the bag.  I told Andy that I was not good at cleaning.  He says "What is there to be good at?  You just do it".  Then he realized there was something wrong with the vacuum cleaner and took it to a repair shop.   I felt better that it wasn't just me.  LOL!

 Matthew's favorite past time - monkey bars

 Matthew's baseball practice

Mimi thought they looked cute watching their ipads and asked me to take a picture.  They were supposed to be getting ready for bed.

The last week of February

I purchased some kites when I was at the grocery store and we flew them at our favorite park, Spotts Park.  The park is located near Andy's work so we texted him so he could see us.  At first, Andy was very excited to see us.  He had co-workers in his office and they all watched the kids run around with their kites.  But later, Andy commented that it didn't quite seem fair that we were getting to have all the fun while he was working in the office.  He joked that maybe I should go to work and he should be the stay-at-home parent.  But I quickly reminded him that there are other tasks required from a stay-at-home parent (cleaning, errands, driving the kids around, etc...) so it's not quite as glamorous as it may seem.  Andy didn't seem convinced that was true.

 Audrey was thrilled to fly a kite.  It was her first time!

 Audrey took this photo.  I have been wearing my snow boots because of all the rain and mud.

 Houston Rodeo Trail Ride - Many commented on our dog, Rusty.  One guy asked "What breed is your horse?"  I think he meant dog. Matthew and I laughed.

 Matthew is washing dishes each night for lent.  What a good helper!

The week of Feb 16th

Matthew was out of school for Presidents Day on Monday and we spent most of the day working on his presidential poster for Calvin Coolidge. We watched a few videos online to learn about the roaring 20's. He practiced presenting and then took it to school on Thursday to present to the class. I was nervous for him all day! This type of project would have terrified me as a kid. He did an excellent job presenting and received a perfect score! We were so proud.

Matthew had a mardi gras parade at school on Fat Tuesday. There are a lot of New Orleans locals that live here now after Hurricane Katrina. I met a few at the mardi gras luncheon at church for the moms group. They brought delicious red beans and rice and king cake. I went to mass on Ash Wednesday. On Friday, we went to the fish fry at church. We were excited to go as this was my first one to attend. The kids ran around and played while the adults talked and ate without having kids interrupt. What a concept! I felt a little ill that day but thought it would go away. Later that night, I had a stomach bug and I felt bad the entire weekend. I think it was the same bug that Matthew had a few weeks earlier.

 On Sunday evening, Matthew and I went to mass and we went to a potluck at the church afterwards. Andy went to mass early in the morning since he gets up so early sometimes. Audrey was taking a nap so Andy watched her so I didn't have to carry her around at church while she slept on me, which is what she normally likes to do in church.

 Audrey's mardi gras mask

 Matthew's presidential project

Fish fry at church

The week of March 2nd

It was a productive week. I took Rusty to the vet for more tests, went to the dealer for a safety recall and oil change, and met a furniture company at the apartment to fix the broken couch leg from our move. Many of these items were on my to-do list for a while. I took Audrey to ballet on Saturday morning while Andy took Matthew to his first baseball practice. He will play on the school/church league with 2nd graders for coach pitch. We had to buy all new baseball stuff since it was buried in storage and easier to go buy all new instead of rearranging boxes.
We found out Rusty has Addison's disease and that's why he isn't eating his food. Andy has been urging me to take Rusty to the vet for a while but I just thought it was the transition that made him off his normal schedule. Rusty is normally 60 lbs but is now down to 47 lbs. We had a barium test with a series of x-rays to see if he had blockage in his intestines but that showed everything was moving along like normal. Thank goodness! We didn't want to have to perform surgery on him in his feeble condition. We were also concerned about cancer but the MRI showed nothing so that was a relief, too. The vet gave him pretnisone and a shot that we need to keep up every 25 days to get Rusty back to normal.

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The week of Feb 23rd

It's hard to believe that February is almost over. Rusty has not been eating his food lately so I took him to the vet to get checked out and they did a blood test and we are waiting for the results.
I bought kites at the grocery store one day and the kids had a blast flying the kites. We did it at a park near Andy's work so he watched us outside his window along with a few coworkers.
I went to the moms group meeting on Thursday and then out for lunch with a friend and previous coworker on Friday. I took the kids to an indoor pool on Friday evening. The kids loved it! We will be back there every Friday evening. Audrey is enjoying her ballet on Saturday mornings after a short stint of refusing to go.

Houston Rodeo Trail Ride - they rode right in front of our apartment

Matthew's good deed during lent- helping mom with the dishes

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