Snow Day

Sunday we came out of Stake Conference and it was pouring rain. It wasn't yet ice, but we knew that during the night it would freeze. As we were getting ready for bed, we got a phone call from the school saying school would be closed on Monday. Then we got a text from his teacher saying the same thing. Blake was excited. When I woke up, it really wasn't too bad, but then the ice started to come down...hard. The rule here is if it isn't safe enough for the buses to leave the district bus yard by 5:30, then  they either cancel school or have it start later, depending on the weather forecast. We get a couple storms a year so they only sand the bridges and hospital entrances...and some intersections if there is time. But our ice is bad news..snow is one thing, but ice is super crazy. So, we got a lot of ice, then we got a little bit of snow. This made it a little fun because you can at least play a little bit in the snow, even if it is only a little. We just had to be careful because not everywhere was the ice covered in snow. Before lunch we headed out to have fun.

The boys were excited. We haven't yet had a snow day...well, we don't call them snow days because we get ice, we saw inclement weather days. We have had a little ice, but not enough to close schools or stop me from running. I was talking with some moms last week saying how sad the kids were that they hadn't seen snow yet this year and how we might not get any this year because we were already at the end of February. Well, some wishes came true.




Unless you have to go into work, then they tell everyone to stay home. Aaron stayed home to work, but that didn't stop the boys from throwing snowballs at his office window.




Of course they had to taste the snow.



Our neighbor was one of the unlucky souls that had to go into work, so we decided to go on an adventure and see where the path took us. Since very few people are out in their cars, it is really peaceful outside. As much as I don't like being inside, it is nice to have to slow down...but good thing this only lasts for a couple days because that's about as much as I can take of it.

We ended up at the park and found our neighbor friends, Ashley and Carter. They were trying to break the ice. At this point, some ice was starting to melt.

Blake, Ashley and Carter having fun in the snow. We then headed home for lunch and some hot chocolate. The ice melted a tiny bit in places and Monday night was going to be freezing, so we got a call once again from the school that the schools would be closed Tuesday..all day. The bummer is that it is all ice now, no snow, so not much fun outside. Tonight it is forecasted to snow, but fingers crossed that it won't.

Lunch With Blake

Blake has been begging me to come eat lunch with him at school, so Friday things finally worked out and we were able to go. He was so excited. There is a designated table for parents to eat with their kids, so we all sat down. Then Blake's classmate Cooper came over and asked if he could sit with us..and then he wanted to be in the picture too.

Later that night we had a new babysitter come over because our regulars were all busy. The boys loved her although Blake didn't like that she forgot to lock the backdoor after they jumped on the tramp. He has such a thing about locking all the doors...he may get that from me.  Aaron and I went out to dinner and then played games at a place nearby that has laser tag, mini golf, bowling, and arcade games. It was fun.

We also got all our paperwork submitted to Dylan's preschool, so we are all official. We didn't ever go on an official tour of the place, so Dylan and I did that together before our weekly library trip. I'm excited about this preschool for him. I had lunch with a friend this week who just found out they are moving to AZ. She lives about 30 minutes from me and she said that she hears so many great things about this preschool..that it is the preschool that is so hard to get into, but everyone wants to go to, etc. I thought it was nuts that her neighbors know all about this preschool because it isn't exactly close, but luckily for me, it is. I did tell his current preschool teacher this week that he won't be coming to her school the next 2 years. She is an awesome teacher and Dylan loves her, but he needs a little more.

The last couple of weeks Blake has been learning his Texas history. He has been teaching me what he has learned because I didn't know what our state bird, flower, were. Although some of the stuff we have learned at the museum, so I guess I'm not totally out of it. He was pretty excited to learn about the state capital and tell his class that Austin is his middle name. They also learned about the Alamo, which he was excited to tell them that he had been to. This week they are going to make chili on their last day of Texas history. They are even allowed to dress up as cowboys...oh boy.

Happy Valentine's Day

Friday night I got a call from my secretary in Primary who had a daughter who was scheduled to get baptized on Saturday. My secretary was sick with the flu so she had to postpone the baptism. It was a stake baptism, but we were the hosting ward, which meant that we were responsible for everything. Luckily there was only one other person scheduled  to get baptized so I was able to convince that ward to take over...then I canceled almost everyone from our ward. Everyone from our ward was happy because it meant they could do something for valentine's day now.

But Aaron and I hadn't scheduled a babysitter since I was scheduled to have a baptism, so we took the whole family for lunch at a BBQ place. It was tasty. For my birthday with my folks, we went to a place called Lockhart's. This place is very similar, although I think the meat is slightly better at Lockhart's, but I think the kids would say they like Hutchins better because they have French fries, yummy mashed potatoes, and free dessert--ice cream, peach cobbler and banana pudding (not a favorite).





It was a gorgeous day. The restaurant is right by the Cowboy park, so we decided to enjoy the nice weather at the park. Well, everyone else had the same idea...it was crowded. But we still had fun and went on a nice walk around the pond at the park.

Sunday the primary presidency was asked to speak, well, since my secretary pulled out, I told everyone to add 5 minutes to their talk. Saturday night and Sunday morning I worked on my talk. We get to church and I was excited because our friends who we invited to come came, but not excited because my counselors didn't take the extra 5 minutes, which meant I had a lot of time to talk. I think it went well. I am also glad to check that off the list.

After church we went to dinner at the Drysdale's house. Aaron serves with him in the EQ presidency and then they had the Neumanns over to (this is Beckett...and she is one of my counselors). There were 7 kids there--5 boys, 2 girls, but 1 girl is 7 months old...such a boys world. It was fun to chat with friends, although they are trying to convince Aaron to run a race...we should all do it as a group. One of the guys really wants to do a race where you have to sign a death waiver because the obstacles are insane. Um, no.

Earlier in the week...Wednesday to be exact, Dylan and I made our weekly trip to the library for story time. Dylan (and I) were in a picture that was in the newspaper. We were in the background, but we are still in there. It was fun for Blake and Dylan to see it.

School Valentine's Day Parties

Thursday Dylan had his Valentine's day party at preschool. Parents didn't attend, but he had a fun time. He loved exchanging VDay cards. After we picked up Blake from school, we went to Beckett's house to decorate Vday cookies. There were some other friends from the neighborhood there. It was fun, but we stayed longer then I was hoping so we weren't able to attend the Art Show for our school district. Blake came home with an invitation for this art show a week ago that was going to be held at the school district office. I assumed everyone had a piece of art there because that's how things are these days...no one gets left out right? Well, when we went to Blake's school party on Friday, I was helping out another table and his friend at the other table said that he saw Blake's piece of art. So I started asking the kids at the other table all these questions about this art show....um, there were 3 kids from his class who had their art work displayed. Um...my bad. 

But we did go to his party...that's more fun anyway right? They did a fun project. They had foam letters on a canvas, then finger painted around the letters, then take off the letters and you have the word... LOVE. It actually turned out really well. Probably should take a picture of Blake's.


But Dylan wanted to take some pictures and took a picture of Lauren, a classmate at the same table as Blake.

They also got to open their Vday cards. Blake really wanted to open them up with Dylan and it made Dylan's day.

As we were walking into Blake's school Dylan said, "Soon I get to be at Blake's school." Poor kid with a late birthday...he really wants to be at school with Blake.

Superman Friends

Last Monday I went to register Dylan for preschool at 7am. The school that I wanted to go to is not huge and everyone loves this school, so people are freaks about registering and sleep in their car the night before so they can be the first in line.  I wasn't going to do that. I figured if we didn't get in, then we had plenty of other options. Aaron took Blake to school that day so that I could register Dylan. My friend Cambria was there, so we waited it out together. But both Beckett and Dylan got in. It is a Methodist preschool...pretty sure I went to a Methodist preschool when I was little. One of my favorite parts though is that it is 1.9 miles from my house. That may seem not super close, but it currently takes me 15 minutes to get to Dylan's preschool, which is about 6 miles away. I timed how long it takes us to get to the new preschool and I just missed the 1 stop light that is on the way and it took 4 minutes and 51 seconds. The preschool itself is also rated really high online and from friends within the community. I think the staff are great. We will see how much Dylan likes it once he starts because he really likes his current preschool, but I think this one will be better for him.

Tuesday was a beautiful day so Beckett and his sister Kelsey came and played at out house and then we went to the park. Wouldn't you know it...both the boys had their Superman shirts on.

They were plotting how to get the bad guys (which of course were us moms).

Energy

Aaron came back from his trip with a bunch of PwC stuff. One of which was a pedometer. Aaron tracks his steps everyday with his watch and we ask him a lot how many steps he has, so when he brought home one that they could use, they were excited to try and get their 10,000 steps for the day. They ran around in circles trying to get their steps.


And would periodically look at the pedometer to see how many steps they had.


But of course they still had more energy and it was a nice weekend, so we went on a walk and Blake wanted to ride the tricycle. He had fun going down the hill by the pond by our house.

One of Blake's homework assignments was to make a box for his valentine's day party for all the cards.  Moms spent hours on these boxes although some of them I will admit were very creative and cute, but way more work then I would every put into. I am all about easy. We try to participate in all the Home depot projects and this one we weren't going to miss because we were going to make a box for Valentine's day. It was perfect. We went and made the box and Blake loved his box. It ended up being a little too small for all his goodies, but still fun.  After the project, Blake and Dylan wrote out their Valentines for their parties. Then we ate lunch and went over to our friends' house to play. They have a big dog...didn't even smell us or lick us, but Blake freaked out. Dylan on the other hand wanted to pet the dog. Aside from the dog, we all had fun. Speaking with playing with friends, I wanted to note Blake's recess progress. In the beginning of the year he was kind of freaked out with kindergarten and with recess. He would just sit on the playground. I talked to all his friends and told them to go try to get Blake to play with them and they did. Soon Blake would play for a couple minutes, then he would go sit back down. He progressed and played with his BFF Cohen everyday. Then he would play with is buddy from his class Carson. Cohen moved away and now Blake plays with everyone. I don't know if he doesn't want to play with just one person because he was just playing with Cohen and he moved so I don't know if that left an impact. He now goes up to kids who aren't playing with anyone and asks if they want to play with them. He switches constantly with kids and as we saw at his class party, he is good friends with all his classmates. They love Blake. It is fun to see him growing up. I will say it was interesting when he told me that he played with all the girls in his class (there are 5 girls in his class...the rest are boys). I asked if he was the only boy and he said..um, yeah!

Boys

A couple weeks ago Beckett came over to play at our house while his mom and dad went to the doctor to see if she was pregnant with a boy or a girl. They are having another boy. There are lots of boys in our lives.

They had fun playing together.

Aaron spent the beginning of the week in Atlanta for training. He is back with PwC.

Cowboy Park

Dylan's friend Lacie came over today to play. It was a little chilly in the morning, so after we ate some lunch the sun was out and warm enough to go to the park.


Aren't they cute?

Dylan was annoyed that Lacie put her hand on the same place that he wanted to put his on the slide.

Very annoyed....but it didn't bother Lacie at all.  

We went to Costco afterwards and then came home just in time for Lacie's mom to pick her up and Dylan and I to run to school to pick up Blake.

While we were walking home from school Blake was telling us about something that happened in school. Somehow his class and teacher were talking about how all the kids in his class don't like playing with their siblings. Blake then said that he liked playing with his brother because his brother was his best friend. He said that his teacher then said, "That makes my heart happy Blake." I liked hearing this story and wanted to write it down because there are times when they don't act like best friends and I want to remember this time. Yesterday Dylan and I were playing together while Blake was at school and he kept asking me if it was time to pick up Blake. So after the 10th time I asked him if he liked playing with Blake...he told me that he liked playing with Blake more then he liked playing with me. They really are good buddies.

Lately

The other day we went to the library for story time and crafts. When we came home he was still in an artsy mood.

Some other things that we have been up to lately:
-Aaron went to visit Trevor and Meesa and gang after he wrapped up work in Florida.
-Aaron got an offer and accepted a job in Dallas
-The boys went to their dentist cleaning. We found out that Blake's 6 year molars were coming in and one was already in. A week after the appointment he woke up during the night in a late of pain, but he still went to school the next day and was fine. Dylan did in fact break some of the bone on his tooth. We will wait to see if it causes him pain. If it does, then he has to get the tooth pulled, otherwise we will just wait for it to fall out.
-Dylan and I toured lots of preschools. We are going to change from where he currently attends and add another day.
-Dylan was screened by our school district for his speech. He has trouble with his Rs and his Ls, but they said it is all age appropriate so doesn't qualify for their speech program. His tongue is slightly larger so he moves it left to right a little bit slower then average, but nothing that concerns them. We have some exercises to work on to help him out. When things were too hard for him to say or do he would just say, "I don't know". But they also screened his academics. He is doing great in this. They say that he is a great problem solver and very analytical. They said that he doesn't need instructions, he can be given something and he will figure it out by himself, which according to them is pretty good for his age. One of the ladies just loved Dylan and said, "He is such a blessing." I told her that she probably says that to everyone...she said no, he is a really special kid and everyone loves him. She also said something that made me happy and sad...she said, "You can tell that there is a lot of love in your home." This made me happy for obvious reasons, but sad because it means that she sees a lot of kids who don't have love in their home.
-We've had lots of friends over to play and gone over to lots of friends' houses to keep us sane during the cold temps
-While we did have a lot of cold days, this past week was beautiful (like in the 70s). It was awesome. Everyone was so happy and full of energy. It might have been harder to get our homework done because we wanted to be outside more :)
-Got to Skype with our friends who moved to Minnesota.