We got SNOW in San Antonio!

 School was cancelled today for "inclement weather".  We got about a half inch of snow.  It melted by 11:00 a.m. but we went out to play around 8:00 a.m. and had fun sliding down the "hill" next to our house.  This might be a joke to other places that actually get a winter and enjoy snow for a whole season, but it is a rare thing down this far south in Texas.  Even the big kids were out playing in it!

 We used our laundry baskets as sleds and it worked pretty good.

 We saw other kids using anything from boogey boards to plastic tables or plastic garbage bags.  Our idea was the best.

 Russ swung Ethan around in a circle, which worked well the first time...but the second time he fell out on his head.  That was the end of the fun for Ethan, poor guy.  He is always the one to get hurt.

All in all, we had a great time.  Russ even got to stay home for the day!

New family photo

These photos were taken on Sunday, 19 Dec 2010.  We just got home from church and I decided that while we were still dressed up a little, we should just go shoot a few pictures.  I'm going to get our family pictures done for real, sometime soon.  But in the meantime, here is what a tripod and a timer will get you.  Lizzie was the hardest to get to look at the camera and smile, both at the same time.  It never really quite happened.  Other than that, I'm pleased with how it turned out.  We were sitting on our little picnic table with a black cloth hung on the fence behind us.  The rest of the black I edited in.  As for the other pictures, I don't know why blogger turns the pictures on their sides like that, but if any of you know how to fix it, please tell me.

Fall Festival

Tonight we went to the Fall Festival hosted by Matthew and Ethan's school, Hardy Oak Elementary.  They did a lot of jumping in bouncy castles, played on the playground, did some carnival type games and that took up three whole hours.  Russ left with Lizzie after about an hour of all the fun he could stand.
This is the "hamster ball" that we waited in line for half an hour for Ethan to ride.  It lasts about a minute--they run down the field and then run back (inside the ball).  It's kind of funny because they really do look like hamsters running in their balls.  When Ethan got out, his two front teeth had grown about half an inch. :)

What a sweet picture.  Ethan and Matthew were standing in line waiting to get into a bouncy castle when I took this shot.

 

 Both of the boys on the monkey bars.  I never really got into them much as a kid, but my boys really seem to like them.  Matt would have some at home if he could.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Lizzie!

 As you may or may not already be aware, Lizzie's great love in life is all things Winnie the Pooh.  So, for her birthday it was a no-brainer--what Pooh movies does she not have yet?  Okay, Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie and Piglet's BIG Movie.  She's watched them over and over already.  Her birthday was September 20th, and now it is October 10th...we probably all have them memorized by now.

Then, we were in the Disney store down at Riverwalk Mall a little while before that, where we discovered Roo and Lumpy the Heffalump stuffed toys.  This picture captures the moment Lizzie opened the bag and pulled out ROO!  She was so excited.  Now she has Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, Roo and Lumpy.  I really don't think they make Rabbit or Owl stuffed toys, as they are not quite as lovable as the other characters.  

 Now, she fills her arms with the whole gang and lugs them around the house, setting them all up in a row and talking to them.

 Before the candles were lit...

 blowing out the candles was a bit difficult, as they kept relighting themselves!  Can't wait to try this trick on Ethan!

 I really don't know what the deal is, but this blog is not letting me put these pictures right side up.  Anyway, this is Lizzie with her "pak-pak" as she calls it.  She loves that thing and tries to lug it everywhere.

So, it's hard to believe that my "baby" is now three years old!  In fact, as a birthday present to me, Lizzie potty trained on her birthday.  She's doing pretty good (yes, you can empathize as you read pretty good).  Then, yesterday we sold her crib at our garage sale.  We all loved that crib, but Lizzie loved it more.  When we came into her room last night, she gave a start as she suddenly noticed that beloved piece of furniture was missing.  "My crib!  Where is my crib?"  I told her that we had sold it to another family who needed it for their baby.  Her response was to tell me, "Mom, buy me a new one!"  Later to Russ she lamented quietly, "My crib gone.  I want it back."  Just for the record, it's not like we tore it from her in one day.  She has been sleeping in her big girl bed for many months now, and more recently has been coming to get in our bed.  She hasn't slept in that crib for quite a while, but once it was gone, it was certainly mourned.  It's like the official notice that she's not a baby anymore: she potty trained and we sold her crib.  Happy and sad.

New family photo

                                 Ethan, Russ, Matt, 
                        Lizzie, Val

Well, since I haven't posted in forever, I thought I'd throw this picture up here.  This was taken in July up in Washington at Russ' parents' house.  We were sitting on their front porch, so there was a lot of photo-editing in this picture to make the background all white.  We had fun visiting with Russ' entire family. 

                This is the picture I got the edited photo from.

           Lance (left) and Russ (right) both barefooting.  It was something to behold.

                       Here are the cousins (minus the two babies) out playing at the sand dunes. 
                       Left to right: Luke, Matthew, Lizzie, Ethan, Mikey.

                      Matthew and Ethan at the sand dunes.

My next blog will be pictures of Lizzie's 3rd birthday.  Ethan will turn 7 next week, so that will be the next blog.  Hey, I'm doing my best here.   But, rather than make this post better, I'm going to bed instead.

Driving in Trucks with Boys

Yesterday I knew Lizzie wasn't a baby anymore when I told her, "I need to get you a bib so you don't spill on yourself." Lizzie sighed, "Oh, Mom!" She sounded much older than her 2.5 years.

A couple of days ago, I went on a walk alongside Ethan and Lizzie, who were driving in their little truck. Those things can go fast enough that you have to run to keep up! We went around our circle once and I was so sweaty and hot that we had to go in. But, no matter how hot it is here, it sounds hotter where my parents live in South Carolina. My mom said that they've been in the 100's with so much humidity that the heat index is 115 degrees F. Glad I'm not there!

Snapshot of Bedtime

I decided to snap a few shots of Russ reading the kids a bedtime story (Richard Scarry's "The Wolf and the Kids") tonight and try to post it while they were still reading. No luck, they're done already. But this happened just a few minutes ago. How's that for up to date?

Matt wanted Russ to read a page out of his Insects book, and Ethan's stipulation was "But nothing disgusting--like that giant white worm!"


Ethan loves to do this funny pose...all the time.



Tomorrow is Matthew's 9th birthday. He has been SO excited about this...for the past three months! That's all we've heard about from him. I hope his day goes well, because he's built it up so much that I'm afraid to disappoint him. We have a Star Wars party planned, although mostly it's a pool party. We'll still try to do some Star Wars games there if we can. We're going up to our property at Canyon Lake to swim in the HOA pool there. It's usually empty and it's the best pool! Clean and quiet. But, it's a 25 minute drive.

We got Matthew 11 pounds of Legos that I won in an Ebay auction. I believe Russ is currently trying to figure out how to package all those Legos so that Matt can't guess what is in the package(s). Matthew can build anything out of Legos--currently his passion is Star Wars Clone Wars (cartoon version). The boys just saw the original Star Wars today for the first time. Since then Matt has been drawing X-Wing targets for a game he made up. He is so creative. My little tormented, creative genius. Did you know that Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) is also bipolar? So are Jean-Claude Van Damme and Picasso among others.

I need to go finish making Matt's birthday ice cream cake. Signing out.

4th of July

Today was the Stone Oak Ward 4th of July breakfast and bike parade. Russ and I didn't get the memo that the time changed to 9:00 am instead of 8:00 am. So, we showed up at 8:15 thinking we were late...Of course, we didn't hear because we were late getting to church yesterday and missed the announcements. That's what we get for being late. In fact, when I was telling the boys to hurry or we'd be late, Ethan asked "Are we ever on time?"

So, the bike parade was so fun--watching all these little kids ride around on their bikes that were decorated for the 4th of July. Ethan rode his bike, Lizzie rode her scooter and Matthew opted out, until he saw his friend riding a Razor scooter and decided to try it. They had a good time, although it's hard to tell by Ethan's pictures. He was so determined and focused on riding that he forgot to smile. At one point he was riding inside the loop of bikers, going against traffic. When I stopped him, he said "But the other kids were getting in my way!" That Ethan, he's a problem solver.


Lizzie got a little flag that she never let go or stopped waving the rest of the day it seemed like. She was so cute.


I heard a funny conversation between the boys yesterday. Ethan was asking Matt to describe a pill bug. (I do not know why.) Matthew gave this thoughtful response: "Well, it's an arthropod that kind of looks like a trilobyte." I 'm thinking, what the heck is a trilobyte?! Matt reads all these books about dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, as well as watches movies about them over and over.

Back to the story: Ethan then asked Matthew, "What color is it?" Matt contended that it was a deep dark blue color. Ethan insisted that it was gray, and promptly turned to me and announced, "Mommy, Matt can't even describe a pill bug!" That was hilarious to me since Matt just gave a better answer than most adults (including myself) ever could. He's such a bright kid, he is always amazing me.

Currently Matt's favorite pastime is building Star Wars ships out of Legos. He is obsessed with Star Wars stuff, even though he has never seen the movies. I don't get it. But, we're having a Star Wars birthday themed party for him in two weeks.

Father's Day Pics

Russ spent this weekend flying cross-country, but he returned home in time for a Father's Day dinner. We snapped some shots, since everyone was still in their church clothes.

Russ & Ethan



Russ & "the Lizzle" as we call her


Russ & Matthew


Russ, Matthew and "the Lizzle" (who wouldn't leave Dad's lap. period.)


Awww...they all look so sweet, so innocent...
but Mom knows.

Moms always know.

Hammerheads!

The past few weeks have seen the boys signed up in the neighborhood swim team. This team has about 150 kids, ages 5-17, and goes for two months. Ethan wanted to join, and after seeing him swim the first day, Matthew decided he didn't want to miss out on the fun...the next day he joined too.

Ethan

Ethan

Matthew


Matthew

MooooOOOoo

At breakfast today I was looking at my United States map placemat and showing the kids various state flags and their unique qualities that help differentiate them. Just so you can see how effective this little "lesson" was, here's how the conversation went:

"There is only one flag that is all brown. I'll give you a hint: it is from one of the "new" states. (After New York they have no idea). Okay, I'll give you another hint. It's another name for a jacket." Ethan, the 6-year-old, answers "New Sweater!" "Nooo, I'll give you another hint. It's another name for a type of cow." "New Calf!"

Blackbeard the Baby

I fell asleep on the floor this morning after getting the boys off to school, and before I could exercise, clean or do anything with Lizzie. This is what I woke up to...


Lizzie loves to help herself to my makeup. It's kind of funny. She's wearing Ethan's transformer pajamas, has my makeup on, but it looks like a 5 o'clock shadow, and she was walking around in my pink high heels. Those are her favorite dress up shoes. She makes me laugh.

First Place Cake!

Blue and Gold Banquet tonight--Matthew's first. Father's and son's were to decorate cakes for a little friendly competition tonight. Russ' cake won first. He really did all the decorating by himself! I baked the cakes and made the frosting to save time, but he did all the rest. Matthew of course, was too busy playing Harry Potter with Ethan to help his dad make the cake. But he didn't mind standing up there getting the credit. Oh well, it's good for him to have some positive attention once in awhile!


The cake is a model of the Pinewood Derby racetrack, with cars on it that read 1910 and 2010, since this is the 100th year anniversary of Boy Scouting in America.

French and Indian War

Okay, when was that? And who fought who? Honestly, I don't really remember much. But Matthew is learning about that in his second grade class. So he came home today all hyped about wanting to act out a battle scene. He had me find a colonial scout costume for himself, indian costume for Ethan, general for me. Then we played war. This all sounds so easy, but let me assure you there was PLENTY of drama involved.



Matthew is learning how to "get along" and "play nice" with other people so that other people will want to play with him. Because I have to admit, there were about five times tonight that if I were any less mature than my 34 years, I would have said, "Fine, I quit! I'm not playing with you!" But, I mustered all the good nature I had left at the end of a long day, and a little more borrowed from prayer, and calmly kept it light and playful to avoid him bursting into tears. You see, he has a picture in his mind of how a game is supposed to go, and everyone must act according to that picture, or else they've ruined it. HE can make up rules as he goes along, but no one else can. Everyone else can and must be injured or die throughout the game, but he will never die, and above all else, HE must always win. Yeah. NOT. I had to kindly help him see that games just aren't fun for other people if they never get to win, or if the other guy never pretends to die, or if Matt always tells them everything to do.

(What Ethan often looks like after interacting with Matthew):




So, I sort of set up a little scenario where Matt was up in his fort, Ethan (the indian) crept up under cover of dark, and made some noise to lure the colonial scouts out of their safeplace. Then, once they were out, he led them toward me and we ambushed them and fought hand to hand. This was more fun, because Matthew had the rifle (extendable grabber) and was just shooting us from afar. All we had were arrows (those orange Hot Wheels track pieces) and tomahawks (plastic pirates cutlasses). Hand to hand combat was more fun. I had to kind of give Matt a nod a few times to remind him to keel over, but he got better at it, and it all went pretty well, until Ethan accidentally whipped him in the eye with a net. Matt screamed. I cried, "Man down, man down. I think he's lost an eye!" Matt recognized my melodrama and said, "No, I've still got my eye, Mom." "Whew, disaster averted." (The real disaster averted was distracting Matthew from destroying Ethan on the spot)!



After that risky and frankly exhausting adventure, I was more than ready to put them in bed. Make no mistake, I did not do all that with a purely willing, happy, motherly heart. No, I wanted to send those tiny louts to their beds as soon as we got back from scouts, but I felt obligated to feed them first. I fed them yesterday. Here they're back for more. I bet they'll do it again tomorrow, even. Predictable little ingrates. hahahaha Ooh, I better go to bed earlier tonight.

The funniest thing I heard today...

First, the background. One thing I do to motivate my boys to hurry up so we can get them to school on time, is that whoever is buckled into his seat in the van first gets to choose the first song we listen to on the way to school. We have this pirate CD we all like to listen to and they each have their favorites.

This morning Ethan was buckled in first, but he had forgotten his backpack in the house. Matt, of course, only remembered his because I gave it to him on his way out. Ususally they both leave theirs and I end up taking them to the car. But, Matt contended that since Ethan "wasn't ready since he didn't have his backpack", then Matt should get to choose the first song. Ethan protested, following which they argued and Matthew hit him hard enough to make him cry.

Since they were arguing, I decided to let them listen to the most recent Primary CD instead, which neither one liked. But, when it got to the second song, "I am a Child of God", Ethan knew how to get the most out of it by annoying Matthew. He used his ability inherited from his dad to make up funny words to a song as it goes along. This is what I heard coming from the back seat, punctuated by Matt's "Shut Up" every few seconds...

"I am a child of God, and He has sent me here
Has given me a meeee-ean brother, who hits me, kicks me and doesn't share.

Lead me, Hide me from my brother...."

Now for the funniest thing I've seen all day:

Lizzie, brushing Tigger's teeth this morning. She also came into the kitchen tonight, riding the boys' big dinosaur and giving her teddy bear and Tigger a ride, too. It reminds me of how in the movies little boys used to pretend to ride those stick horses, only here is Lizzie with her dinosaur, riding it like a cowgirl around the living room. She makes me laugh.

Airrosti!

I can breathe and move without pain. What a wonderful thing. We don't really think about it much, until it is taken away for awhile...then we appreciate it.

Four weeks ago, I was laying down on my bed when my two-year-old daughter jumped on me and landed a knee in my left ribcage. Great. Pain. Apparently separated the ribs. There was a sharp pain every time I tried to breathe in deeply, or lay on my side, or move certain ways. I tried everything I could, to no avail (aside from the obvious...see a doctor). Three weeks later when my parents and Russ's parents came out here to see Matt's baptism, one of them tried to help "fix" me which made it worse. Extreme. Pain. (I had invited the help, mind you). So, I took a muscle relaxer and pain pill, and it was great for a few days. Then just two days ago, I was literally walking out the door to go to my neurofeedback appointment (to fix my brain, remember), when I coughed a very innocent cough. Probably a lingering pneumonia cough combined with allergies. Just a cough. And whammo! I heard a crack or pop and FELT a rib move out of place. It was a disgusting feeling, followed by extreme pain. Now, I do natural childbirth, but I tell you that as I stood there hardly moving, breathing shallowly, I was crying. And, obviously not thinking clearly, because I was still considering driving to my appointment with my daughter in tow. Yeah, right.

Finally, it came to me that I would have to have help from somebody. I have only one neighbor that I would feel okay about asking for help from, she's really sweet, but she homeschool her two girls and I didn't want to interrupt them. The rest of our neighborhood who know us don't even like us, the ones who don't know us don't care to (more on that later) so that is right out. And the south is supposed to be friendly. Let's see...we've lived in the south for 7-8 of our 10 years of marriage and have yet to find that to be the case. The military are friendly, but the locals, not so much. But I digress.

So, here I am, in pain with no one nearby to turn to. Who do I turn to? Who else--my visiting teachers! I called one, who happened to be in a primary presidency meeting at the time. They all hurried over, and one lady took Lizzie to her house to play with all the kids, while my visiting teacher took me to the doctor's office. There they were, right away, so concerned for me, so happy and willing to help, making it seem like no trouble at all. That's what I love about the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They open up their hearts to love everybody, and show it by serving, and they're so good at it. Some of them, you can't be in their presence without feeling that you've met a real, live angel, but you don't want to ask because you know that's silly. Angel's aren't pregnant mothers of five children. Are they?

Anyway, the reason I wrote this post in the first place was to say that two days ago I was in severe pain, could hardly move or breathe without extreme pain, and two days later I have very little pain and full range of motion. I went to an Airrosti clinic of a chiropractor I know from church, where an Airrosti student (former chiropractor)worked on me there. It's a "hand's on treatment [that] will correct and realign the muscle/fascial injury back to its original state. This will improve your muscle function, range of motion, and flexibility, while decreasing inflammation." Basically, they identify the exact muscles involved in the injury and press really hard, working along the muscle and bone to put everything back the way it's supposed to be. It's a very intense and painful treatment while it lasts, but boy it works, and I walked out of that office an hour later, sore but in much less pain.

Today, they worked on my ribs again, and I had them work on my back that has been bothering me forever. That feels better already. I'm going to keep going back so I can fix all these problems I've had for years. Airrosti can treat traumatic injuries (like my ribs) or chronic problems (like bad knees, backs, carpal tunnel, etc etc). So....now I'm a big fan! I'm moving all over the place today!
Check out Airrosti.com maybe they have it in your neck of the woods. Since I had a "student" fixing me, I was only charged a training fee of $35 for an hour of treatment. That was talking/education, the torture (I mean treatment), rehab program design (physical therapy) and strapping with kinesio tape to promote healing. Pretty awesome, huh?

Lizzie is up from her nap now, so I'm done. This is far too long anyway. I'm outtie.



This is the picture I got from the www.airrosti.com website that shows what types of injuries they typically treat. Although, if you notice, separated ribs aren't mentioned, yet they fixed me up just fine. So, who knows. Check it out. Tell them Val Bastian sent ya. I get a hundred dollars per referral. Just kidding. But you'll thank me.

Goals R Grrrreat--let me set some for you

Russ loves setting goals. He would categorize them and make major and minor ones in each category. He'd end up with like 37 goals. I would watch and try to remember my goal to not tease him about obsessing over setting goals. But, in the spirit of making a new person of ourselves, here is my suggestion for a few things one could do to improve oneself each day...

How about this:

8 glasses of water a day

8 hours of sleep a day*

8 hugs, kisses, I loves you's, or back slaps to 8 of the most important people to you a day

floss 8 of the teeth you'd most like to still have when you are 80 a day

That should about cover it.

*I say this as it is one o'clock in the morning and I am inexplicably on the computer blogging about goals including getting more sleep. Incidentally, I have recently begun neurofeedback---that is, a very expensive therapeutic procedure with unquantifiable results intended to "fix" your brain.

Some of us will try anything...

Willy Nilly Silly Old Bear

Lizzie loves Pooh Bear. It's her answer to everything. The first thing I ask her in the morning when I wake her up is "What did you dream about last night?" Her response, invariably is "Pooh Bear!"

This morning in the van on the way to church, following a scuffle with the boys, Russ asked them "Now, who wants to have a good day today, and not fight?" Both boys actually said, "I do!" Then Russ said, "And who wants to fight and have a bad day today?" That's when Lizzie piped up with "Pooh Bear!"

On the way home from church, Ethan had some theological questions for us, as our kids tend to do at the age of six. He started with, "Why didn't God want Adam and Eve to eat the fruit on that tree in the Garden of Eden?" After discussing that, it progressed to "If God created the earth, then who created him? And who created him? And him, and him?" Before we could even open our mouths, Lizzie had the answer: "POOH BEAR!"

Update--Disney World trip

Well, I haven't written in this blog with anything substantial in about forever, so...why start now? Just kidding.

For Thanksgiving we drove to Orlando, Florida, to meet my parents at their time-share and go to Disney World for 5 days. It was a really nice trip. The kids were even pretty good in the car. Thank goodness for portable DVD players, of course.

Disney World was fun. It was nice to have grandparents there so that we could split up the boys. Plus, Ethan loves all the fast rides and Matt...not so much. Ethan went with Grandpa Nielsen and they waited in the lines to ride the fast rides they wanted. Disney has this cool thing now--aside from FastPasses (where you insert your park entrance ticket in a machine and you get a return time to come back to the ride with little to no wait). The cool thing is "rider switch." Both parents go to the beginning of the line with the kids, and if one of the kids is too little to ride, they'll give one parent a rider switch pass (which is just like a fast pass) so they can wait with that child, and as soon as the other parent (and/or other kids) comes off then the second parent can go without waiting in line again. The really cool thing is, if you have other people with you (like grandparents, aunts, uncles, whatever) the second person can take 2-3 other riders with them on a rider swap. So, some of the people get to ride twice in a short time. And, if it was a ride that you had a fast pass on in the first place, all the better.

Anyway, that was cool. When I was younger, I was willing to wait in lines, but now with kids, No Way. Even by myself I wouldn't wait longer than 20 minutes I think. I just like to walk around and look at stuff. We took our stroller, and that helped a lot. Another good thing is that you can take in your own food and drinks, unlike Sea World. We upgraded to park hopper tickets, but never used them, so I wouldn't do that again. Each park is enough to keep a family occupied for a whole day and more. We got a great deal with the military special. Russ got his 5-day pass for free, and each of our companion passes were only $99 each (no charge for Lizzie who is 2 years old), with $25 extra per companion to upgrade to park hopper. I believe it is a lot more for the general population. Also, as a retiree, I think my dad got a free pass and my mom got a companion pass as well.

The only unfortunate thing about the trip was that on the drive home our driver side window just exploded all of a sudden. It was about 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night. We were on the highway in Louisiana and there was a loud POP and then glass shattered and blew in all over the car. Amazingly, neither the driver (Russ) nor any of the rest of us were hurt. Lizzie was in a car seat directly behind the driver, and there were little pieces of glass in her car seat, a large chunk of glass that flew right past her head to land in the middle of the van, glass all along the side of the van, driver's side, even all over the back floor where Matt, Val and Ethan were sitting. It was tempered glass--maybe that's why the glass didn't cut anyone? Matt and I actually had our heads bowed together at the time it happened, because I was praying with him before he went to sleep. That was a blessing, since we were in line behind the driver and Lizzie. All in all, it was an amazing experience, and a witness to us that God answers our prayers. We always pray for safety whenever we embark on a car trip, as we had that day.

We learned from our last car trip (when we hit a deer) that it's a good idea to lower our insurance deductible to $0 before a big trip, which we did, and boy are we glad. We got a short length of heavy duty plastic table cover from the sewing section at Walmart to cover the window, duct taped it on, and drove home the next two days with it like that.

We've all been sick here the last week and a half. Matt has had adenovirus for over a week now (fever, coughing, extreme fatigue, conjunctivitis, and overall zombie-like appearance--haha). I'm hoping he'll go back to school tomorrow. Ethan had a bad asthma attack last night, and I was worried that he might get what Matt has, which would be so much worse with asthma. Then, Lizzie has conjunctivitis now. Her eyes were glued shut this morning. I have appointments for all three tomorrow. So, I'm thinking that the boys will be fine, and Lizzie will have eye drops so hopefully nobody will be contagious with anything by this weekend.