Fun Stuff This Week

This week has been full of fun stuff!
On Tuesday we went to the Library for the weekly story time. This week was the "Graduation" party. They don't do story time in the summers so this was the last one of the year. They made the kids "Graduation Caps" and certificates. Then called each child up to come get their certificate and a goody bag, which included a coupon for Sonic, a candy bar, and a book. Betsy was so excited! She still carries her certificate around telling me, "I got dis at da libary!" I also let Betsy get her very own library card with her picture on it. After we filled out the form and turned it in, the guy asked us to step over to have her picture taken. Betsy replied with, "Booyah!" I don't know where she gets this stuff... After the certificates were handed out they served lunch which included hot dogs, cheese puffs, wafers, oreos, and watermelon.

My little graduate!

Getting her certificate and goody bag

Wednesday is playgroup day. We have an awesome group of moms we meet with every week at one of the local parks (we change the location periodically to keep things interesting)(Fun fact: Laredo has over 95 parks!). Lately we have discovered the park and pool of an apartment complex a couple of moms live in. I don't have pictures of the playground, but it is 3 stories high... it is CRAZY! Betsy went down the slide from the tallest story on her own with no problem and I was amazed! The pool at the complex, well let's just say calling it a pool is an insult... it is AWESOME!

Even though it is Jetson friendly, he was NOT impressed... It doesn't help that playgoup is ALWAYS during his nap time...

Betsy LOVED it!

Most of the pool is only like 2 feet deep, but at the far end it goes to 4 feet.

Tell me that isn't cool... You can't.

Thursday I won a free Artisan Pizza from Domino's. So we ordered the the Bacon/Chicken one and threw on an order of Parmesan Bites for the kids. They were both pretty good. When I went to pick them up they threw on some cinnamon bread and dipping sauce for free!!! Woot Woot! So for $3.24 we got a medium pizza, parmesan bites w/ dipping sauce AND some cinnamon bread! AND I didn't have to cook AND clean up was a breeze. I was pleased!! :)

Hairy Business

See, I told you I would try to get better at this stuff. :)
Friday I kept my brother's two youngest kids all day so they could have a day out. Betsy was thrilled to have Londyn (4) over to play, but Jetson on the other hand wasn't so crazy about the other kid who came... Jaxin (1) is exactly one year older than Jetson and is HUGE into balls. He will throw a ball with you ALL DAY and has quite the arm. Unfortunately for Jetson, Jaxin is also pretty obsessed with him and tried "playing catch" with him all day... This resulted in many balls to the head for Jetson and a headache for both of us. :)
Friday night, I traded Jaxin for Andrew and Johanna's little girl Lauren (3) and the three amiga cousins had a sleepover! It was so cute!

Saturday morning we all met for a big breakfast at Josh's house and then all headed to a birthday party for a little boy from our playgroup. It was at a close by park and was full of all our friends and the kids had a blast! (On a downside, I wore white pants to a birthday party, and JUST as we were getting ready to go I sat down to help Betsy put her shoes on, and sure enough sat in dark blue icing... it was great). So after stopping back by the house to change clothes, we proceeded to run our errands for the day.
For awhile I've been talking to Eric about taking Betsy to get her hair cut. I've trimmed it a couple of times, but I REALLY have no idea what I am doing and am afraid to do too much. After the afternoon at the hot, sweaty park Betsy's curly hair was falling and looking quite mulletesque (yes, I made up a word.) So I finally talked Eric into just doing it that day. Which was perfect because he was off work and with us. I knew I would never take her by myself, because apart from not being crazy enough to take a child to her first haircut alone with a baby, I was pretty sure there would be some translation issues. So I got Eric to agree to go sit in the salon and take part, and it is a good thing I did... because that lady had no idea what I was talking about! So after her trying in broken English to repeat back to me what she thought I wanted, I finally got Eric to understand my signal to come get involved (I think he takes pleasure in watching me stumble through conversations). So then Eric tried to explain what I wanted, but his Spanish in hair terms is pretty limited, so we just crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

Betsy sat absolutely, perfectly still and was AWESOME. I really didn't know what to expect since the only nap she had gotten that day was in the car between stores and when she chooses to be, she can be quite a pill. So I was thrilled at how well she did! (She also saw a girl walking around with an ice cream cone on our way in and finagled a deal with her daddy for an ice cream if she was good. I'm not sure how much this deal played into the behavior). While the results weren't exactly what I was hoping for, they were MUCH better than what we started with, so I am pleased.

The first is how it looked before if it was fixed, but it inevitably always ended up like the second (a frizzy mullet). The bottom one is the after: MUCH better and no more possibility of a mullet! 

On the way home, we grabbed the promised ice cream and then decided to top the day off with running through the sprinkler.

I. LOVE. WEEKENDS. LIKE. THIS.

Let's recap:

So... yeah. I stink at this blogging thing... But I have good news! I should be getting better! The last time I posted was to write about the awesome addition of Jetson to the family and well, life has been a whirlwind ever since! I forgot how much energy a newborn takes, but now that he's almost one (yikes!) I am getting life back under control... hopefully. Also to help we finally got a desktop. I always hated using the laptop because it felt like such a hassle to have to pull it out and set it up every time I wanted to use it. So now that I have a stationary, ready-to-use, designated space for a computer, I want to be a little more diligent about the whole blog thing.
So almost a year in recap:
July: Extremely exhausted, hot, hot blur... I am sitting here trying to think of anything from July and I cannot.... That's one month of my life I'll never get back.
August: Baby blessing/family visit! 1 year mark in Laredo!
      In August we blessed baby Jetson and my parents and grandparents (on my mom's side) and Eric's parents and sister came down to visit. My parents have been down to visit many times, but it was the first time Eric's parents or my grandparents had been down. Unfortunately for them, August is a TERRIBLE time to visit Laredo. We had a record breaking Summer and it was hot! With Eric's family we did the San Antonio zoo and Alamo, and of course the big Laredo attraction... the Rio Grande. I'm pretty sure they were amazed that the river marking the border of the US/Mexico is in our neighborhood. August marked one year for us in Laredo! That is the LONGEST Eric and I have lived anywhere in our marriage, and I've got to say: It's kinda nice being stationary!
September: I'm drawing a blank.
October: Eric and I celebrated 6 years of marriage, though at the moment I can't remember how... I was still in an exhausted state. Jetson is not the sleeper that his sister was/is. That took some getting used to.
November: Trip to see family
        My parents moved from Mississippi to Waco, TX (they just couldn't stand being away from me ;) ). So after they traveled down here for some training for my dad and to rent their apartment, they talked me and the kids into traveling with them to get their stuff. So for two weeks the kids and I traveled with them and got to see most of the family we left behind in the South. It was fun to see everyone again, but I was definitely glad to get home and be with my better half again! While I was gone he surprised me and refinished some old furniture for me! He's the best! We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' new apartment, which is about 1/3 the size of their house. Thankfully, the whole family didn't try to make it. It was just us and my little brother.
December: Holidays!
      We celebrated Christmas by meeting ALL of my family (that's 37 people for those trying to count) in New Braunfels, TX. We rented out some condos so there was plenty of space for everyone and hit up Six Flags before most everyone came back to Laredo to visit. It is always interesting fun when the Brown clan gets together...
January: a much needed uneventful month after the Holidays (I even verified this by checking my timeline on Facebook... nothing!)
February: Celebrated Eric's last year as a 20 something... other than that (and all the birthday parties of Betsy's cousins that live down here) it was another low key month (thankfully).
March: My little girl turned 3! Spring Break
      I can't believe it! When we moved down here she was a barely talking, toddling toddler; now she is a preschooler who amazes (and amuses) me with what comes out of her mouth! I LOVE that little girl! She is my constant companion and helper-extraordinaire! She is a little comedian and loves making others laugh. She also dotes on her baby brother and thinks he's pretty amazing! We (the kids and I) also went up to visit my parents for a week while my sister from MS was down visiting too! We hit Six Flags twice during the trip and Betsy is in LOVE! She is a thrill seeker! and I got to spend some quality time with my mom and sister, which is always fun. We girls have to stick together in this family!
April: Ta-Da! We made it! April has again been a pretty low key month, which is great after busy March.

I realize this was EXTREMELY long and if you made it this far, I thank you for taking the time out of your day to see how we've been doing! Life is good for us right now. Stressful, busy, and far from perfect but we are blessed beyond measure!