This week Brian started P90X. Funny, he's not just out of shape, he's deconditioned. He takes naps, has to rest, is the first one to go to bed last one up. Decides that he wants to get in shape, so Im thinking maybe start walking or riding a bike, and he comes home with P90X. Last night he was doing these pushups where you stick your butt up in the air and when you go down your head touches the ground. Emi was doing them with him and mimicking his every grunt and fall. Angie and Tony LOVED doing the pylometrics and tonight they asked to do the yoga with him. Me, I'm so overweight and out of shape, I'm sticking with the Jane Fonda workout for the more "mature set" that I'm doing with my mom. Brian was really impressed by how stong Angie and Tony are.

I was supposed to iron Kindergarten graduation gowns today, but they moved the picture day to next month. Darn, I was really looking forward to that.

Well, two stress ulcers later, we booked our trip to Tofino, British Columbia. I can't believe we are actually going to be there for Jack's wedding in September. Airline tickets for 9 are bought (including mom and dad). We wented a house and have secured a rental 12 passenger van. We had many discussions about skipping the trip and using the money to pay off debt. That's what Dave Ramsey would have us do. I justified going anyway by reminding Brian that if we weren't planning this trip, we wouldn't have the money to pay off debt because I would not be working extra. Over Spring Break we plan on getting passports. I still can't believe that we are actually going.

Well, I have no idea where this post will lead but onward I go. We went to do our taxes a couple of weeks ago, and our disc drive woudn't read the disc. SO, I say "time for a new one" and Brian says "I think I can fix it". So, he restores our computer. Strangely, the computer read the restore disc, but still wouldn't read discs, so we bought an external one and were able to do our taxes. So, since then its been one inconvenience after another. First, all my pictures are gone. I was very sad for a day, until I realized that most are still on the camera, phone etc. I did lose some from my fist iphone that crashed, but lets not think about that. Second, our itunes recognized that we have a "new computer", so all of our music that we downloaded and stored on there....you guessed it....gone. Then I learned that you can only have 5 computers before you have to get a new account....irritating since its not a new computer. So, eventually, I will get all the updates on here and I can start posting pictures again. In the meantime, they are on fb.

The kids and I met mom and dad at Port Aransas this weekend. This place is really special to us for some reason. Maybe because its one of the few times that we do nothing. We don't plan anything we just do whatever we feel like doing when we get up that day. The beach is alot different in the winter. Still nice, but alot different. I could sit and watch the dolphins jump all day. We rode the jetty boat out to St. Jo island and went shell hunting. I found some really nice ones. This island is really just a sandbar about a 10 minute boat ride from Port A. I don't recommend it in the summer, there is nothing there. And by nothing, I mean not even a port a potty. There was tons of trash there as well, and the kids looked at me like I was crazy when they had to pick theirs up after we had a snack. The kids didn't have school on Monday, so we stopped in San Antonio at the witte museum to stretch our legs. I liked this place. I just wish that we had more time there, but we left in time to beat rush hour traffic. I hope to take the kids back there. The HEB Tree house is really cool.

I've been working alot of extra, so my house is in shambles. Its very overwhelming, and I called in sick today because I don't feel well, and have had a headache all day. So, I didn't do anything today either. Emi and I napped. I work tomorrow, and then I will tackle it Thursday.

I have to go get the kids from detention. They have 5 tardies. Uggh. Another reminder as to why I went part time.

Kids and their Blue Chickens

I try to clean my pockets out before I come home from work,but sometimes I accidently bring home things like tape, alcohol swabs, and occasionally a stray glove or two. Zachary got a hold of these gloves blew them up and drew faces on them. Then he named his babies Chicky poo, fluff fluff, handy and little joey. Little Joey isn't pictured because Emi laid claim to him and colored him with markers. She slept with little joey every night for a week. Zachy then started hiding his other babies before he went to school so that they wouldn't suffer the same fate. I really found this whole thing hilarious, especially when they started taking them for walks in the baby doll stroller. So funny the things kids find to play with and I am wondering if I should rethink spending money on them at Christmas time.

Growing up too.

Here's a picture of baby girl on right before her first haircut. Her hair's always kind of crazy, just look at the pictures on the side of my blog. She's wearing a Rapunzel dress and sitting on her new bike that she got for Christmas. Just what every girl wears biking right? Such a mess.


The last three days she has been in underwear and using the potty. This is one part of growing up that I have to say I'm not sad about. She's the first kid that we've tried to train in the winter, so she's training a little later than the other kids, but she's still 4 months from her third birthday.

A while back, we were at Sam's, and Angie was shocked at the cost of pull ups. I promised the kids that I would put the pullup money in our vacation envelope. Since April 2001 I have had at least one kid, if not two, in diapers. Wow. that's almost 10 years straight. If we added up that cost would be astronomical. Maybe I'm better off not knowing. :)

Growing up:(

Angie got new bedding for Christmas. In the last year she has gone from sleeping in the bunks with her brothers to finally sleeping in her own bed. In the last couple of months she has started moving away from pink. For some reason I am noticing that the natural next step for girls is turquoise or aqua. In this case, aqua, brown and white. I chose this set because its polka dots, another obsession of hers, and because its a quilt and therefore washable. We haven't taken the flowers off the walls yet, but I'm sure its coming. Her sheets are magnenta! That's the set Pam got her for Christmas, and while it doesn't technically match, it still looks cool. While she will always be my little girl, my first baby, she's growing up on me, no matter how often I tell her to quit it. Thankfully she still loves her Panda pillow pet.

Proud mama 2011

Friday was the assembly for the first semester. Angie and Tony made all "A's" for the semester. Angie had an E+ folder for the semester. This means that she had no marks at all. Tony missed it by one mark. There are usually only a handful of kids had get this so the school will take them somewhere fun, skating, bowling, a movie, something. When you get either E+ folder or Top reader for the six weeks they get to go to DQ for lunch.



This first picture is of all the kids in their school who won either a medal or a ribbon. Looks like overall as a school they did pretty well. I was especially proud of Angie's 4th grade class. Someone from her class medaled in every single event.



The kids also got their UIL medals. I've blogged about this before, but heres the pictures to back it up. Angie's are: first in Art, first place team, 3rd in music, 1st place team.



Tony's are: 1st place Music memory, team 3rd. He was so proud, I especially like how his chest is all stuck out in this picture of him.



This is just a fun one of the two of them together. I'm sticking my tongue out making Angie laugh. She has a beautiful smile when she laughs. Brian and I were both very proud. They worked hard.

Future Mad Scientists

Yesterday we finally made our trip to the FW science museum. Tony has been asking for forever to see a mummy and the exhibit leaves Jan 3. I had no idea how packed it would be. This was our first trip since the museum was remodeled. Brian and I were a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it is super nice, but we kind of liked the old smaller museum. This one is beautiful, more spread out, but has a mall feeling rather than a museum feeling. The Egypt exhibit was awesome. I was a bit bummed that my kids weren't more excited, and the mummy kind of freaked Angie out. She refused to look at it. But the whole exhibit was very interesting and she did say that she liked the hieroglyph exhibit.


I have two other science musuems that I hope to check out in the coming year, The Mayborn at Baylor, and the San Antonio HEB tree house. I have to tell you that the Planetarium was AMAZING! I know very little about stars/space/astronomy, but after that visit we will be visiting other planetariums for sure. They gave us a link for a star chart to print out and put together, and if you haven't tried Star Walk on the iphone, I think it is my favorite app ever. I was so surprised at how much the kids enjoyed the planetarium, even Aiden and Emi. When I asked the kids to tell me their one favorite thing of the day Aiden said that he thought the "trip through the milky wave was the best". I probably should have corrected him, but I thought it was super cute. They had a couple meteorites on exhibit, and Zachary showed me a rock today that I am pretty sure is one. Its the same color and texture as the one they had and it is very heavy. Who knows? He's had it on his shelf at least a year, I would be curious to find out though. That reminds me, I hope to also get to the meteroite exhibit at TCU.


When I asked Zachary his favorite thing, he refused to tell me, and when Amie was cutting his hair today, he told her to go to Sea world instead! My inlaws call him a ball buster. He's a mess for sure. Later he will subtly bring up the thing he liked.
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I packed a cooler and they no longer allow outside food and drink, so we ate our lunch in the car. The kids didn't mind because they got to watch tv while they ate and Brian and I sat on the tailgate. Dave Ramsey would be proud, but its not just about the money, but about health and waste. It is ridiculous for us to buy hot dogs, nachos etc and watch the kids not eat. But, make them a sandwich and give them some fruit and they tear it up. Now I did let them have cheetos but still what a treat. I hope that they have good memories of lunches like this.

These are just a few pictures. Overall, it was a good day.