beach, day 2

day 2 started with some clouds, but non-threatening ones. we all sat on the 3rd story porch and enjoyed the breeze (could be classified as strong winds at times), drank coffee, and watched the kids play.

after a yummy breakfast of egg/bacon tacos, we cleaned up, donned our bathing suits, packed a cooler, picked out a bucket full of toys, and headed to the beach. we were packing so much stuff, we could have been confused for the clampetts. 3 houses down the street, across the dunes on a long boardwalk, and we had sand between our toes!

kaleb's 1st steps into the water. a bit tentative, i suppose, but they would be the only tentative steps he took all day :)

an attempt at a family foto in the water. kaleb had other plans - back to the sandcastle-building. 

the kids played great together forever in the sand. they would work together to fill a bucket of watery sand (sand soup, if you will. a delicacy of ellie's outdoor kitchen.)

the beach was all ours! i don't know if it's the timing (school started today) or the location (pretty much as far from either beach access as you could get) but we had no company all morning. really nice!

our house was barely visible from the beach. it's the blue one with the wide roof in the middle of the picture.

ellie ran and ran and ran in the "skinny water" as the tide ebbed and flowed.

aunt b and ashlee lounged, enjoying the time off between clinicals this week.

we're in the water!

and back to the mess of the sand...

definitely all boy, kaleb always had 2 fists full of sand wherever he went - unless he just laid down in it.

this boy is dirty! fabo helped him along the way with smearing some wet sand all over him - kind of cement-like once it dried a bit. and since kaleb liked sticking his head in the sand, it was all over his hair as well :)

 i think he might even be telling us he's got some in his mouth. it was definitely in his ears when we got him in the bathtub.

and fabo wrote both kids' names in the sand, a repeat of ellie's first year at the beach.

super fun first day - in fact, while we were all in the water, ellie told cacky, "this is the funnest party." she was right :)

beach, day 1

 we are here! we've arrived! and actually, all this happened yesterday. we met up with fabo and cacky and aunt b and ashlee in austin for lunch and caravanned down here in the afternoon. got to port a around 5pm and unpacked both full cars.

and then it was dinner time - we chose the brewery. reportedly kid-friendly, and they've got cold beer (something we didn't have on moving in, but would have been nice). there was a (fake) serviceman at the front door that the kids really wanted to play with. but due to his one-armed status, i think we were supposed to leave him alone.

one of the best features of family vacations is that my kids have plenty of helping hands so that we're afforded a bit of a break. i'm not sure we've taken a picture of the two of us sans kids since ellie was born!

and one of fabo and the kids. ellie truly was happy, but she's in this phase of making silly faces for pictures. fabo indeed is not choking her.

today's agenda: soak up the sun, sand, and surf!

kids just wanna have fun

i had the pleasure of hanging out with the "babies" tonight at church...there were 3 of them - kaleb and 2 2-year-olds. and i had another helper in there with me. ashly and i had the easiest job ever!

as i dug in my purse for some lip gloss just after arriving, j.d. wanted to peer over my shoulder at what i might pull out. he spotted an extra headband and donned it. thus started the idea to document in photo my evening. and now i present to you all the fun i had tonight:

j.d. in the extra headband. he was a bit afraid to sit with me. i had to coerce him with the appeal of a chair for him, and he only stayed just long enough for 1 picture. glad it was satisfactory.

the kids have this habit (on a weekly basis) of playing nap-time with all the baby pillows and blankies. here, penny decides ashly might be getting cold. i'm not going to comment on all the germs i envisioned on those pillows and blankies. moving on...

kaleb took no part in nap time (in fact, he shook his head vigorously when i asked if he wanted to go nite-nite). instead, he sat on the car garage (not intended for sitting upon) and played the mobile music so the nap-goers would have a soothing lullaby to which they could fall asleep.

towards the end of the evening, they wanted to line up in chairs in front of ashly. so she played the role of teacher - one she does well! she started with simple math, and it didn't get any harder. 1+1 is quite a challenge for most of these :) so much so, in fact, that kaleb had to pick his nose while thinking. great...a new habit he's picked up from his sister, no doubt.

and as if tonight in the baby classroom wasn't fun enough, it was also potluck sunday, and we had breakfast for dinner - sugary syrup and muffins and cinnamon rolls, yes please! extended play time in fellowship hall allowed the kids all a chance to ride on one of the heider's dueling skateboards.

penny was the first to belly-ride, and she wouldn't let brodie quit pushing her!

and sorry for the blurriness, but the camera was a last-minute thought, and the kids were moving. settings are off, but the pure joy is so evident!

i imagine penny saying, "thanks, friend, for such a fun time. you rock!"

spaghetti pizza pie

lately, i've resolved to try all these things i bookmark and pin. one such project i can't share because someone will unwrap it at Christmas...can't wait! but the next logical thing to do after trying them is to review them. and thus, we are here discussing the spaghetti pizza pie my family just consumed for lunch. i found the recipe several weeks ago at Full Bellies Happy Kids and thought, "winner, winner, pasta dinner!"

it was slated to make its debut in our house last week, but with all the craziness of life, we didn't eat it. and on a whim, i decided to cook lunch today. so, on to the review...

likes: tastes great, kids ate it (ellie asked for 2nds), easy to cook, few ingredients, comes out like the blog made it look

dislikes: dirties up too many dishes, takes 45 minutes start-to-finish

overall verdict? for a baked pasta dish, my ziti wins (according to eric...i agree). and for a spaghetti dish, it's one less messy dish to just fix spaghetti and sauce. and quicker, too. so although it wasn't at all bad - in fact, i'd eat it again at someone else's house - we'll stick to what we know around here!

happy sunday :)

big girl

i had a treat this afternoon - i got to pick up ellie early from school, and we had a girls' afternoon before going back for kaleb. the downside to the afternoon was the visit to the doctor that was included. along with growing older (at any age, i suppose) comes an annual visit to the doctor. and this year for ellie, it was to also establish a new doctor in a new city. 

her name is dr. heidi, and she was phenomenal with ellie - and ellie was phenomenal with her as well. ("it's because i'm four now." she told me when i told her how proud i was of her answering all of the doctor's questions.) but before we actually met the doctor, several things happened.

she was measured for height (70th percentile) and weight (90th percentile), which put her BMI (body mass index) around the 90th percentile. i didn't even know they measured kids' BMI - it's more commonly been used as a marker for degree of overweight-ness/obesity in adults. it's a sad sign that we're now measuring children for such things - but not my children...i detract.

after those measurements, she played a vision game and then a hearing game, as the nurse called them. the vision game included her standing a certain distance from the eye chart with a card in front of her, and as the nurse pointed to a letter on the chart, ellie pointed to the corresponding letter on her card. perfect score! and the hearing game included headphones, and ellie raised her hands with all beeps she heard. she heard them all!

then on to the exam room! ellie had her blood pressure measured (again, something traditionally reserved for adults) and then was asked to get undressed and put on a gown. she was the cutest little thing in her gown!

dr. heidi came in, introduced herself to us, and asked ellie a series of questions...

can you name the colors of the tabs on the chart?

can you count how many tabs there are?

what are these shapes?

can you draw a square?

do you recognize your name?

who lives in your house with you?

do you go to school?

do you like school?

all of which she answered without hesitation. the hesitation came a bit when she was asked to take deep breaths while the doctor listened to her lungs. but she pulled through :)

the toughest part of the afternoon was at the end of the visit when she had to be a REALLY big girl and get 3 shots in only 2 arms. the upside? they came with bandaids. and then a trip to HEB that included a new sticker book and some apple juice. she was super-brave, and i am so proud of her!

swoon, sprinklers, sudan

so as none of you will recall, one of my new year's crafting goals was to complete a quilt using the 'swoon' pattern (go ahead...you can click. it'll come right back here for your continued reading).

well, all plans for the swoon quilt were out the window. i started working on 16 other projects, really concentrated on the robot quilt (which is mostly finished but the borders and backing. someday...but i have strayed from the story). so believe it or not i found the pattern online and purchased it again - not remembering i'd purchased it once already. and with the 2nd version purchased, i set off on a mission - to complete this quilt for ellie's newly-painted room. and tonight, i've completed block #1 of 9!

half of the blocks will look like this, and the other half will have a matching green solid in place of the pink. can't wait to get both types of blocks done!

in other news, we attempted to go to the city pool sunday. we were actually going to try a new one that had a reportedly HUGE baby pool area where kaleb could go to town, and it's just around the corner from us - much closer than the famous dick nichols (ask ellie about dick nichols...you'll get an earful!). the internet (which never lies) says it opens on sundays at 11am. so we packed up the car, fought kaleb screaming because he had to get in his carseat, at 1055 and set out. arrived at 1108 to find NO ONE at the pool. a sign on the rec center door said it was closed saturdays and sundays. no way.

so off to dick nichols anyway. by now we've wasted 30 minutes of precious swimming time driving around the city looking for a place to dip our toes in the water. drive up to dick nichols and discover the city of austin changes pool hours on sundays in august, and they don't open until noon. nap time starts at 1pm for us. no good.

so last resort, we came home and, on our official watering day per the city, turned on the backyard sprinkler and let the kids get a little wet. surprisingly, ellie enjoyed it much more than kaleb (kaleb loves the water usually...).

not so surprisingly was the liking kaleb had for his picnic table, complete with leftover pizza heated up and some fresh watermelon.

turned out to be a great sunday! after lunch and a bit more sprinkler, we all headed inside to take naps; although, i don't think eric slept...and to make up for it, it was my 2nd nap of the day. it's rough when your kid falls asleep right on you and you're so afraid to move that it might disturb him. right.

after naps, we went to our grove gathering to hear about the trip several of our friends took recently to south sudan. they just got back late last week, and we heard of amazing things God is doing in that region. i am overwhelmed by how many hardships i think i face on a daily/weekly basis only to hear story after story of the women in south sudan who have lost all male relatives due the wars in their land. 

one woman had lost a father and 5 brothers in the war, and as a result, she is raising 16 children belonging to her extended family. only one of the children (i believe) was hers. and he was the result of a rape when she was 14 years old. yet my friend ashly (who went on the trip) will tell you with tears streaming down her face that this woman has more joy than all of us put together. true, everlasting, God-glorifying joy of the life and the blessings she's been granted.

hmmm. makes me a little more thankful as i sit in my air conditioned house, typing on my computer with my smart phone at my side so as not to miss any facebook update or text or e-mail. makes me a little more tolerant of small hitches in the day - so i worked an extra hour today without time to craft this afternoon...but still came home safely to a family who loves me, time tonight to craft (and the supplies to do so), will sleep in a comfortable bed and still can return safely to work tomorrow to carry on about the job God has called me to. and not just the job i was hired for at the hospital, but the job He's assigned me in life: to live for His Kingdom, to live the Gospel out loud, not ashamed of it or of Christ.

celebrating 4 years

hard to believe, but our little girl is just about 4 years old! it seems crazy that at this time 4 years ago, we had no kids. and this time last year, we crammed a garage sale, birthday party, and a move to a new city all in one weekend. so just to pull off a birthday party is nothing, right?!?

a couple of months ago, ellie picked a movie-themed party (maybe with a little persuasion from some pinterest ideas...maybe), and we sent out the invites a couple of weeks ago. and boy, was yesterday one star-studded event :)

 the birthday girl poses with her cupcake

and in case we couldn't read that the yellow candle says '4', she's holding up four fingers to demonstrate how old she'll be!

on the way into the house, all party-goers (young and old) were encouraged to stop at the table o' bling for some jewels to adorn their hands/wrists/necks and eyewear to die for! after they got to looking like a movie star, the kids were ushered to the concession stand to pick up some popcorn, pizza bites, and candy. thanks, grandmothers and aunt, for serving (you can thank me for not mandating your attire - i thought about aprons and hats :)

 the kids all went home with a movie-watching bucket - all they will need to add is the movie! the pop corn containers contained a bag of popcorn, some pla-dough (to get through the slow parts of the movie) candy, and a magical (mechanical) pencil (this is ellie's term).

the living room was the perfect location for a drive-in movie! there was just enough room for 9 "cars" and before the part ever started, kaleb was totally excited about his task to try them all out!

who ever would have guessed that a bunch of preschoolers LOVE boxes?!? i turned on the movie, and they all wandered in with snacks to find their car (they got to pick...first come, first serve). AND THEY STAYED IN THEM!!! after the movie, we proceeded to open presents, then cupcakes, then back to the boxes to play in them some more! little jonah was so excited to fold himself up inside one and pull the flaps on himself, i was concerned about him having a heat stroke. his mother kept pulling him out and making him grab a drink of water in the kitchen to help cool off.

my little girl looks SO BIG here!

family foto at the drive-in :)

i wasn't sure what ellie would think of everyone singing to her...after all, she's historically been super shy with this sort of thing. but she beamed as she listened to everyone singing to her yesterday...and she even blew out her own candle! it was such a fun afternoon of celebration with family (both sets of grandparents and an aunt) and friends (from church and school).