Some Things Never Change

No matter how different your children are there is one thing that always holds true with EVERY.SINGLE.ONE...if they are really quiet for more than 5 minutes you know they are up to no good.

Exhibit A:








Sister know how to write a B...even in black eyeliner on little sisters face


Sister also knows to how clean up!

When I peeked in to check on the girls I could have been a fierce Momma bear and told Blythe very sternly that we don't play with Mommy's things without her permission, but instead I ran and got the camera hoping they would still be up to no good when I returned. I lucked out and they didn't know they had been caught. Instead I chose to smile and enjoy the fact that they were enjoying each other so much and was impressed that Blythe was able to get Jericho to participate and how well she did the 'eye liner,' seeing as she doesn't get much exposure from me. Of course I did remind her that in the future she should ask Mommy before playing with the eyeliner, but really would it have been this fun if she would have asked and would Jericho have participated as well if it wasn't secret sister stuff??

Exhibit B:





Apparently she attempted to paint Jericho's face, but Jericho preferred and was much more cooperative with the foot. I only know that because there was some paint attempt on her cheek. Sister has a good eye for colors!

And here was our craftasticness for the week:



Have a Great Weekend!

Sleepless in San Antonio

The title is a bit of an exaggeration because I am sleeping, I just can't seem to get adjusted to this time change, and this is supposed to be the easier one. I am completely DONE for the day at 8pm and I inevitable start my day (meaning I am not sleeping, but still in bed) at 5:30am when Jason's alarm goes off. The new 5:30am is so close to the old 7am that I can't seem to fall back asleep even though I feel exhausted. Is this old age setting in, pregnancy, being in a new place?? Hopefully our entire household will be adjusted soon.

I can't seem to get my act together since moving to San Antonio. If you came to our house you wouldn't recognize it as my house, its a war zone. There are things everywhere. All the boxes are un-packed and neatly stacked in the garage along with the million sheets of packing paper, but that's where the neat ends. I don't know if I am suffering from having to keep the Bryan house in tip top shape every second of everyday, knowing that we don't know anyone so no one is going to randomly stop by, or if this is just Monica in San Antonio. I have never been one to overlook messes and keep a 'well lived in' house, but I seem to have mastered this skill since arriving. I keep trying to tell myself that I just haven't figured out the Fengshua of this house, but I don't even really know what that means, its just a fancy way of (oh crap the doorbell just rang..wheew just the USPS women) convincing myself that in due time I will figure out where everything should go and then I will keep it there. We'll see how long that takes.

Longs story short I have fallen apart in the 'house wife' category here in San Antonio, but the FUN with family category has been revved up a notch..San Antonio has a LOT more to do than Bryan.

Office Picnic at Fiesta Texas for a family of 4 for $20..YES PLEASE!


Blythe's First Roller Coaster - she LOVED it..She was just barely 36 inches




This little monkey was too small for most of the rides, but she had a great time sightseeing















Jason and I even got to enjoy a lot of the roller coasters because we spent the day with another family with kids and took turns on the rides. The company rents out the park so there were virtually NO lines...it would be hard to go any other time. Being able to walk right onto the roller coasters and sit in the front is AWESOME!

And the San Antonio Children's Museum....AWESOME! Awesome that our Bryan pass go us in for free not awesome that since it is downtown we had to pay to park, but it was worth it.













This girl can milk a cow:




I was so happy to capture this moment. I love the look of wonder in Jericho's eyes as she watches her big sister and them tries to mimic it.






Do you remember these from when we were kids? How the little pins would always go up your nose when you did a face imprint? This exhibit has perfected it and you are free to make a face imprint without the pins going in your nose!





And we have had our first fire in the new house...toasty!



Alright friends and family there are tons of things to do here in San Antonio so come visit us SOON!!

Halloween..Or What's Left of It

Does anyone know what happened to Halloween? The Halloween that Jason and I have experience with the girls the last few years is a FAR cry from the Halloween we remember. Back in the day, are we that old?, you put on your best costume, you fought over the biggest pillow case in the house, and out you went...on a quest to fill your pillowcase...several times over. In our neighborhoods ALL the houses on the block participated in Halloween, I think we were the only house on the block that turned off the lights and played 'not home,' but that was only until we hit a few houses, took the candy back to our house and 'recycled it,' knowing good and well there was NO WAY we could ever eat all the candy we would get before it went bad or our stomachs just plain rejected it. Now, you are lucky if every 5th house has their porch light on and has candy. Seriously people??? Have they all become the Halloween Grinch or has all this 'tampered candy' BS gotten the best of people and Halloween has turned into "Trunk-or-Treat," or Halloween at the mall. What might be worse than that is the few people we did see out and about were being DRIVEN around. Really people we are THAT lazy, that we won't walk with our kids house to house??

I dream of a day where all the houses on the block have their front porch lights on and candy in a bowl. Where we will walk down the street and bump into lots of littles, and bigs, decked out in costumes. Half the fun of Halloween is seeing all the other kiddos dressed up. We saw....5, seriously 5 other kids in 2.5 hours and NONE of those 5 were walking they were all being escorted in air conditioned SUV's. Alright I'll stop and move on; I just had to get that out.

Yesterday marked the first of a long line of End of the Year Holidays and we started it out right. Every Halloween must start with a pumpkin carving or painting, and painting we did.

















Apparently the deer, which are abundant around here, have a real sweet tooth for pumpkins, luckily I got the memo from the moms at the playgroup and after our pumpkin dried we promptly brought them inside to save them from becoming lunch.

Who were the cutest kiddos on the block??? Why these precious Mermaids, of course!





I think it took Jericho maybe 3 houses to figure out this candy business. She was a MONSTER in the candy bowl. Try explaining to a 15 month old that the polite thing to do is let them offer you the candy not to reach both hands into the bowl and grab as much as you can. Lucky for Jericho everyone thought she was TOO cute and were thrilled to give her gobs of candy.



At first Blythe was leading the way, walking up and knocking on the door, but before too long Jericho was giving her a run for her money.













Luckily the girls are too young to realize how lame Halloween has really become and instead were completely smitten with the idea that all you have to do is knock on the door say Trick-Or-Treat and get fist full’s of candy!

I have HIGH expectations for you next year Halloween...I hope you can raise the bar.

Monday Quickie

Stopping by just long enough to say, "Yes we are alive and well here in San Antonio." I have tons to catch-up on, but as you know the blog takes a back seat to the memory books so here's a few pages to tide you over until I can do a proper post!

The Pains of Moving

Denial. You can only hold onto it for so long before you are forced to let reality slowly seep in bit by bit, still trying to ignore it all the while knowing it is there. That's where I was...in denial. I was tricking myself that clearly we weren't really moving, I mean we still own this house in Bryan, we will be back in December for Jason's graduation, and then (God willing) in the not too distant future to close on our house.

We haven't had the typical moving preparations with boxes tripping us up every two inches, skimping by with the last few items we haven't thrown in a box, fingers cut from trying to use the razor cutters on the end of the tape, and inner thighs sore from squeezing much too full boxes closed with your legs while struggling to tape them with your arms. But now that our garage sits jammed packed with items our family members have graciously given to us to fill up the 'new' house and a few newly purchased items, a going away BBQ, and a last supper I have slammed..HARD.into the reality of the move and I would be lying if I didn't admit that I have already choked up on more than one occasion. I haven't let the torrential downpour start yet, but I know it's coming. It's inevitable like that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you make a bad food choice and you do your best to hold it off for as long as you can, but it eventually erupts like a volcano and there is nothing you can do but let it take over.

When Jason and I first decided to stay in Aggieland in 2005 it was a tough transition. All of our undergraduate friends had moved on and we were in search of other young married couples. It took us a few years to find our niche, but it is the best group of people I have ever been around. I would like to say it was instant, but we all had to get over some first impressions. There was the 'way too classy and international looking one,' 'the untouchable women's volleyball coach,' 'the couple that surely were going to physically duke it out,' and the 'profoundly deep catholic perspective on everything.' Yet there were three very strong beliefs we all had in common: 1) being Catholic 2) using Natural Family Planning 3) the desire to have a natural child birth. The rest just fell into place. What started out as a casual dinner maybe lasting two hours quickly turned into a commune where new mothers stayed up entirely too late knowing that the little ones would wake in just a few short hours, but knowing this conversation, this friendship, this interaction, was far more energizing than a few hours of sleep.

I'm going to miss the tar out of these wonderful people (cue torrential downpour). These are the people we sat in class with and did Kegel exercises, drank beer, talked about child birth and cloth diapers. These are the first people we wanted to call when we successfully had a natural childbirth with Blythe and the people we eagerly waited to hear a birth story from. These are the mom's that you can call at anytime of the day and ask about green, lumpy poop, why won't my baby nurse, can you grab an extra gallon of milk while your at the store? These are the dad's who are always willing to help change a tire, repair a leaking sink, and move.

The girls and I spend 2 or more days a week with these wonderful ladies and their kids...how can we leave them? Better yet how can anyone else ever fill their shoes?

I think that is the other sad reality of moving. You know it's going to be really hard at first, but you also know that time heals and you will meet new people, maybe not as great or even close to the same, but you will meet new likeable people. No matter how much you want to keep the friendships you have the same, you know it won't happen. You know that life is busy and you will be just as guilty as your friends about not making that Skype call or sending that random letter. You will move on and so will they, not to say that you won't still see each other a few times a year and exchange Christmas cards, but this deep profound, breath giving friendship will never be the same.

I won't be able to throw the kids in the stroller or on the bike and be at the Romansky's in 5 minutes. I won't be able to attend a knitting class with Crissy. We won't be able to have a commune night one or twice a month and make memories we talk about for the next 5+ years.

I know that moving will bring growth and happiness in new ways, but right now I am caught in the moment...the reality that we are moving and leaving behind irreplaceable friends. I'm not looking forward to Blythe asking me "Mommy, are we going to play with my friends today," and I will tearfully have to tell her "honey, our friends live far away, but we are going to make new friends here."

I know this is what we have been working towards for 6 years, getting the PhD and then moving on, out of a college town and into the real world with a real paycheck, but I can't help but feel like we peaked too early. It's a concept I can't accurately explain to Blythe and I know she is going to be heartbroken when the reality of it all sinks in. Kids are resilient and she will move on and make new friends, not forgetting these friends of course, but while its an exciting time in life it is a terribly sad time as well.

I am sure that I have dozens of fantastic pictures that I could share from this weekend, but I am saving them. I am going to pull them out when we get to San Antonio and have that day where we are terribly friend sick and we can go through those pictures and see those beautiful faces and remember our dear friends and all the fun we had, and damn it, we will still have!