A REALLY cold Cowboy Breakfast

So yesterday it was 94 degrees here. This morning, it was FREEZING cold and very windy. But we went to the Fair Oaks Ranch Elementary Cowboy Breakfast anyway. Sydney performed with the jump rope team.

It could have been a lot of fun if not for all the wind. The little guys were miserable and ended up going back to the house with Gran and Grandad before too long. (A big thank you to Gran and Grandad!) Blake and Sydney disappeared with friends until we finally rounded everyone up to go home. Here's hoping for better weather for next year's Cowboy Breakfast.

Monkey see, monkey do

Max was being cute one morning this week, so I made a little video:




And of course, when I make a video of Max, Brady has to get in on the action too:




How can you hear that infectious belly laugh and not smile?

It's February, and it's ninety-something degrees outside. WHAT?!

Bread Winner

A few nights ago, as our family was preparing to sit down to dinner, Andy made some off-handed comment containing the words "bread winner". I don't even remember the what we were talking about. But from that point on, the conversation went something like this:

Blake: Dad, what's a bread winner?
Andy: The bread winner makes the money. Daddy is the bread winner at our house.
Blake: What about Mommy?
Amy: Well, I don't bring home any kind of paycheck. That's Dad's job right now.
Blake: But what about when the lady comes to clean the house (look of epiphany)...Oh, YOU pay THEM.
Andy: Yes, Mommy is the bread spender.

If anyone finds someone who will pay me to clean my house (or will work for a loaf of bread), please let me know. That would be nothing short of a miracle.

Last minute Mardis Gras

Here is what's left of the King Cake I made for Mardis Gras on Tuesday:

Those of you who are from Louisiana are asking, "Why would you MAKE your own when there are dozens of awesome cakes at every bakery and grocery store around?"

I'll tell you why.

Because I live in Boerne, TX, where no one even knows what King Cake is!

The local HEB, bless their hearts, offered up a sad looking little danish with PINK sprinkles and called it King Cake.

Pathetic.

So I made my own from one of Emeril's recipes, because how can you go wrong with Emeril, right? Well, it wasn't awful, but it's no Gambino's.

I also tried Emeril's quickie cajun jambalaya. Again, alright, but not awesome.

Somehow, I imagine it would taste better in Emeril's kitchen. My kitchen just doesn't contain any Mardis Gras magic, I guess.

So here's to all my Baton Rouge friends, who take their King Cake, CC's coffee and precious jambalaya for granted. At least San Antonio can make a good tortilla.

Predictions

Andy and I had dinner out for Valentine's Day while the kids were home with awesome sitter couple Mason and Jenni. (I prayed back in December for an army of great sitters, and boy, did the Lord deliver!)

We had dinner at a lovely little restaurant in Boerne called Cypress Grill. Now you would think that you couldn't get a decent evening meal in itty bitty ole Boerne, but you'd be wrong. The food was wonderful and the service was fabulous (after the initial wait...I think they're unaccustomed to large crowds). It always does my attitude good to dress up and get out sans children.

I'd like to say that when we're out, we focus only on each other and never talk about kids. But that would just be a big, fat lie. Actually, the kids compose a large portion of the conversation, mainly because they are a large portion of our lives.

So we thought up some predictions about what each child might be when they grow up, and I thought I should write it down for posterity's sake (what exactly does that mean, anyway?).

Sydney will go to ACU and major in early childhood development or elementary education. We see her getting married by 24 and having kids pretty quickly.

Blake will go to ACU too, just because Syd did and he hates being away from her for too long. He'll likely major in some kind of hard core science. He MIGHT go medical like his Uncle Matt, but I'm thinking more along the lines of research.

Brady will go to ACU and be a youth ministry major. I just don't see any way around it.

Max will be the wild card. He may or may not go to ACU, but we see him in something financial and possibly entrepreneurial. He'll be the guy who is always on to the bigger, better opportunity because he bores easily.

It's fun to talk about what will be, although we obviously don't EXPECT that any of this will be reality. My goal is to be so involved with my children that I can help them identify strengths and weaknesses, in order that they might learn to use them for God's glory.

Each day, I learn to love my job a little more. Some days, I'm still surprised by the fact that I'm Mom to four. I mean, seriously, who woulda thought? But God is slowly giving me a passion for my children, and I'm grateful for that.

Praise God for Sydney, Blake, Brady and Max. And praise God for a husband who understands, without being told, that their mama needs a night out every now and then.

Heart Day Happenings

Yesterday, Blake and Sydney had their school Valentine's Day parties. I got to go, compliments of Briana, the super-sitter. (Side note: I knew Briana would be an awesome sitter when her younger sister told me that she didn't understand her sis because her "only ambition in life was to be a wife and mother". Can you say perfect babysitter?!)

Blake's class made ice cream sundaes. They were very serious about the toppings...

Sydney's class was pretty much finished with their party by the time I got to her classroom. Apparently, the party was from 1:15 to 2:05, not 1:30 to 2:30 as previously advertised. But I followed them out to the playground and enjoyed watching them play. Here's a pic of Syd with BFFs Camryn and Casey.

This morning, Andy made french toast with white bread (anything on white bread is a treat to my kids). And then the kids opened up some little gifts I'd bought them at Lifeway. Max got a cd of kids' worship music, and our morning turned into a jam session. I will admit that isn't uncommon around here, but this morning, I managed to get a little video. You can't tell me that white kids can't dance.

I leave you with my favorite photo of the week. Last Sunday, after church, we went to Denny's for breakfast. We'll talk about how insane it is that my family's favorite restaurant is Denny's another time. But I just happened to have my little pocket camera, and got this shot:

Martha in the making

Ever since Gran gave Sydney an apron and a cookbook for Christmas, the kid thinks she's a mini-Martha. She plans and cooks a meal once a week, and they're generally very good. Last week's offering was Teryaki Beef with Pineapple, or something like that. Even Blake liked it.

It's inappropriate

Overheard in the bathtub last night:

Blake: Brady, don't pour water on Max's head.
Max: No Way!
Brady: But I want to.
Blake: But don't.
Max: No WAAAAYY!!!
Brady: But why not?
Blake: Because it's inappropriate.

Did I miss the 1st grade vocabulary list that included "inappropriate"?

Now I get it...

I remember when my sister called to tell me that her son had just broken a dozen eggs all over the kitchen floor. I'm sure I thought to myself something like, "How on earth could one child make so much mess?"

And when I heard my sister-in-law say that she blocked the ignition from her son's view because she feared he would figure out how to get the key in and drive away if he ever saw her do it, I thought she was nuts. I mean, what two-year-old could do that, and when on earth would he have opportunity, right?

And when one of my girlfriends used to call to beg me to let her kids come over just so she could clean her house, I just thought she was totally high maintenance that she couldn't clean her house with her kids IN it.

I think the devil had me actually believing that I was just a better parent.

And boy, do I owe those three women (and I'm sure many more) a HUGE apology. So Erin, Sara, and Maryellen, watch your mailboxes.:) Because now I get it.

Here's why.

Yesterday, Brady and Max came home from school, and I sent them upstairs to watch TV for a few minutes while I unloaded the groceries. By the time I had finished unloading, I went upstairs to find all the clothes I had folded in one big pile on the floor. This is not the first time they've done this, and I guess I'm not smart enough to remember to put them all away IMMEDIATELY or suffer the consequence. So I sent them outside to eat their snack while I refolded it all. They were out there all of five minutes when they come back in, covered in mulch. Wet mulch, because it had rained. Now the mulch was all over my floor. So I stripped them down and sent them back upstairs to the room they had already destroyed once so I could get the floor under control before it stained my carpet. By the time I had vacuumed and treated a spot or two (couldn't have been more than 5 minutes), I heard Max screaming. I go upstairs to find wet toilet paper everywhere, but mostly on top of Max's head. Sydney's toilet is filled to the top, and the boys are both covered in potty-water soaked toilet paper. Brady is grinning ear to ear because he thinks it's hilarious. Max is not quite so thrilled with his new "hat". And no, I did not have the presence of mind to take a picture because I was too busy trying not to beat them.

So apparently Blake and Sydney were just remarkably well-behaved children. And apparently, I do not deserve a mother-of-the-year award for that because I really had nothing to do with it. I really have no love left for the Babywise guy, who had me falsely believing that because my first two children slept through the night at six weeks, I was a superior parent.

So I'm thinking that there's a good possibility God sent me Brady and Max to teach me a little humility. Ouch.

Now I understand that some children are just more "high-spirited". With more personality comes more mischief. With a greater sense of adventure comes a greater sense of independence. And independence is just not always pretty in a two year old.

But somehow, though my life is more hectic and more frustrating, it's also more fulfilled. The little guys have brought a kind of joy that I hadn't experienced before them. Not that I don't adore Blake and Sydney. I do. I just think that Brady and Max have brought us the personality that now defines our little family. And they somehow make me understand my relationship with my Savior a little better. And anything that brings us closer to the Lord makes our joy more complete.

Yelling match

I've been meaning to tell you about the evolution in conversation between Brady and Max. It has come to this:

Max: No way.
Brady: No way!
Max: No WAY.
Brady: No WAY!
Max: NO WAAAAAAY!
Brady: NO WAAAAAAAAAY!!! Mom, Max is yelling to me!

Actually, it's hard to tell if they're saying "no way" or "go away", but you get the idea...

Good times.

Brady's adventure

Brady had a field trip with his preschool class to Boerne Gymnastics last week. To say that he loved it is an understatement. He was so excited to go on an "adventure with Mommy". As far as he was concerned, this was just an extended imaginary Diego adventure. He swung through the jungle looking for Baby Jaguar and rescued just about every animal ever mentioned on Diego. It was a delight to get to be there to see his joy.

At one point, he looked up and saw some kids climbing and exclaimed that he wanted to go climb on the HEB's. This is what he was talking about:

Wow. ABC. 123. HEB. San Antonio really needs another grocery store.

After we'd played downstairs for a little while, they took all the kids upstairs to the special preschool area. They had this foam pit that the kids just loved. Now, I'm a little too germophobic to be comfortable with this concept. If you look closely at the pic, that sweet little girl on the left is reaching for a stuffed animal. Yep. That's right. They weren't content to contaminate my child with foam blocks alone. They had to add 50 year old stuffed animals to the mix. I'm just waiting for my sweet little Brady to contract some kind of horrible disease...

But after I got over my initial impulse to grab my child and head for the safety of our bathtub, I had a great time watching him jump in over and over and over again. He loved it so much that I might actually think about letting him try gymnastics this summer. So I'll be looking for a gym that actually has disinfecting on their to do list.

Tooth fairy gone broke

Blake has been very busy losing teeth lately. Of course, he works it and works it and works it, but refuses to actually pull it out. Eventually, it just sort of falls out without much bloodshed at all. When his first front tooth was loose, I took a couple of pics of his "Billy Bob tooth". Gross.

Then it finally fell out:

And yes, I'm aware that he is in desperate need of a haircut. I'm a little embarrassed that I photographed him like this, but it was bedtime already, and I thought it a little ridiculous to comb his hair at that point. He got a haircut yesterday, thank goodness.