One year closes ...

One year closes and another year begins. Before starting the next year, I wanted to post a little bit more about our Christmas Break. We had a wonderful time with multiple guests before making our way to Houston to start the New Year. My parents and my brother G left on Monday morning (28th) while my sister L was able to stay another day. My dear wife's sisters came with our nieces and nephew to help keep the house full of joy (and noise) for the next few days until everyone made their way to Houston yesterday (Wednesday-30th). We will go back to San Antonio tomorrow (New Year's Day) because DS#1 has a soccer game on Saturday morning (Jan. 2nd).

Monday afternoon/evening we played Apples to Apples, a game that DS#2 received for Christmas. We all had a great time playing, but I had to "bail out" near the end in order to start grilling steaks. My dear wife took over and suddenly we won. Hmmm.

DS#3 got plenty of playtime with his aunts, and really, everyone else too. He really loves the new Duplo Thomas the Tank Engine sets that he received for Christmas and is literally able to play with them quietly for over an hour. How often do you see a 2-year old with that sort of attention span?

Tuesday closed with several slow-motion sword battles, as well as some "real speed" play involving foam swords, silly boys, and goofy girls. Of course, the girls came complete with manicured nails. Everyone knows you need a manicure before a sword battle!

DS#3 loved the whole thing. DS#1 isn't in these pictures but rest assured, he took part in some of the crazy fun too.

We are now at CB's house for New Year's Eve with some family game night plans and probably some soggy neighborhood fireworks. I will try to get more pictures and videos up in the future as the kids have been doing some very hilarious things. DS#2 and his cousin N have created a stop-motion Lego video they titled "The Turning of R2D2" which just has to be shown. DD's Christmas gift to my wife and I is a book she created at school titled "The Three Bears and the Stormtrooper"-yes, she does have brothers ... no, we haven't received a call from the school, yet.

Right now though, I just want to say Happy New Year to everyone and wish you all the best.

The Revolving Door

Okay, silly title, but most of my post titles are a bit silly. My parents and my brother G are heading out of town tomorrow morning. My sister L will be staying another day, and DD is THRILLED! I am not sure L's ears won't fall off before then, but I think she enjoys a chance to be with the kids. Sometime around lunch my sisters-in-law M and C will arrive with my nieces and nephew so we get to keep the house full of guests for a while longer. I have to catch up with some of the Christmas pictures in the blog, and probably Facebook. Tonight I just want to make a quick post with a few pictures.

Here is one of my dear sister at dinner tonight with DD and DS#3.

This is one of the pictures taken of my parents with all 4 kids. Tomorrow afternoon I should have time to work on posting more of the Christmas pictures. We are sorry to see them go so soon and we are looking forward to seeing them again in Colorado for Spring Break.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We are fortunate enough to have my parents here as well as my brother G. My sister L arrived from Boston this afternoon, in time for turkey dinner. The kids always love seeing their Aunts and Uncles, particularly those they don't see very often. G lives in Alaska so we are lucky to see him every 1-1 1/2 years, and most of the time it is a little longer. I am thrilled that they could make it here this year.

Yesterday my lovely wife was on-call so she was at the hospital for a 24 hour shift. The kids and I visited her for a Christmas Eve meal of, well, pizza, but at least we got to have a little family time. Last night, of course, Santa had to arrive, so before I went to bed I had to "take care of a few things." One of the things I did was get out the tripod and the camera and try to take a few pictures of the Christmas tree using only the light from the tree. I was just trying to see whether or not I could get a good shot of the tree with the pictures under it. This one seems to have come out okay (after my dear wife did some work with it).

The kids were very excited about Christmas this year. Apparently DD and DS#3 were up and waking their grandparents at 4:00 AM. I know that DS#3 was up before 5 because he came to my room and I had him changed and back in bed with me to try to get him back to sleep at 5:00. He did go back to sleep and was able to sleep until a little after 7:00 AM. My dear wife got back home by about 7:30 and then the kids were all ready to tear into their presents.

Everyone had a great time, but DS#3 certainly had enough excitement today to end up taking a rare nap. Here he is after he climbed up on his Grandpa to be rocked for a while. Grandpa "ate it up."

Tomorrow should be a fun, though busy day, including a trip to the Riverwalk.

Christmas Cleaning

I have let the kids "get away with" a lot in the "Game Room" because trying to get them to make it really neat and clean is, well, stressful-it involves a great deal of yelling and in the end I do 90% of the work anyway. This week I decided that these darned kids are so spoiled that they have to get to work if they want to make room for this year's Christmas presents-I mean, the coal has to go SOMEWHERE!

Yes, that IS a drink in my hand!

The truth is, I want this room a bit more organized and I plan to send the dining room furniture to be restored in January so I might need the table that the kids use as a storage zone. In addition, we want to do some painting and make some changes in the Game Room so we definitely need to do some clearing out. The problem is that our children are far enough apart in age that the "old" toys (can you say "Thomas the Tank Engine" ?) are played with by the younger children. However, this does not stop grandparents, aunts, and uncles from giving the kids more gifts every year so the collection just grows and grows.

I literally give away garbage bags full of toys to charities every year. This does not include the broken toys we have to throw away. Come to think of it, it doesn't mention the "favorite" toys that I find ways to fix several times before they are unused for a year or so on their way to the next child.

The driving force for some of the cleaning is the fact that my parents, brother, and one of my sisters, will be here for Christmas. Then, we'll have some of my in-laws and my nieces and nephews over for a few days next week. They have all seen our house "as is" and know the chaos of our lives, but their visit, and "don't you want to have space for new toys?", becomes a rallying cry for cleaning up and discarding unused and/or unwanted toys (I hear there is an island for them somewhere ...). Honestly, I don't expect to be as "done" as I would like tomorrow, but that is when guests start arriving so whatever we can get done, well, that is what is done.

Christmas at Fiesta Texas

Okay, I am trying to do better about keeping up with the blog so we get posts two whole days in a row! This morning DS#1, #2, and DD all got hair cuts, and DD had a piano lesson. The afternoon was devoted more to doing a bit of cleaning up before leaving a little before 3:00 to take DS#1 to meet some friends to see Avatar. This was followed by a trip to the Riverwalk and some additional fun while the rest of us had a bit of ice cream and headed to Fiesta Texas to see the Christmas lights. Our fun included a brief sled ride down a man-made snow run (hey, it isn't like you can sled in San Antonio much), several rides, and a visit with Santa.


The visit with Santa was nice in that it wasn't a long line, DD actually wanted to go see him, and because SHE did, DS#3 followed along and let Santa plop DS#3 on his lap. Once upon a time DD was so terrified of Santa (and just about any dressed-up character) that she wouldn't go near him. I guess trips to Disney have changed that a bit. We also got a HUGE kick out of the fact that Santa pulled out a phone and showed the kids some pictures of his reindeer.


DS#2 was having nothing to do with Santa, but boy was he in for a surprise. Santa handed DS#3 and DD candy bars and as we were leaving he waved a candy bar to DS#2 and told him to come have one too. As soon as DS#2 touched the candy bar he was grabbed and pulled to Santa right in front of the camera.

Tomorrow morning DS#2 and I are getting up "early" [translated as, earlier than I'd probably like, but much later than a normal weekday] so that we can make a showing of the Avatar movie in IMAX 3d. The afternoon is going to be taken up with more cleaning and a soccer practice for DS#1. Well, that's all for this disjointed post, maybe I'll post a bit earlier in the evening tomorrow and actually make some sense.

Uh-Oh

Okay, I haven't been posting to the blog anywhere near enough. I guess life is just so exciting I don't have time to blog about it. This means that this will be a really long post, but don't worry, I will put up some pictures. I like to claim that it is because my lovely wife uses my desktop for the pictures and her blog, but that isn't a very good excuse. Don't let her know I said that though (bah, she'll probably read this post), I am trying to convince myself I need a new computer. I have, well, absolutely no (good) excuse to get a new machine, but I am sure I can find one sooner or later.

Let's see, the Fall Season of club soccer is now over which means the kids have a break, oh, wait, no, it means that DS#2 and DD have a break (and so do my lovely wife and I). DS#1 has the high school soccer season to go through, he actually has 4 practices spread over the 2 week break and his first game is on January 2nd. Yes folks, in Texas we play soccer while some of you huddle inside and stare at large mounds of snow.

In any case, DD and DS#2 both played in a tournament the weekend of December 12th (last weekend for those of you counting) and played well. DS#2 made the semi-finals for his bracket which means that between the two kids we had 7 games last weekend. My dear wife has posted some pictures of the games in her blog here.

One would think that the end of the soccer season would mean that we can now enjoy lots of free time, particularly with the beginning of the Christmas Break. Well, that just means we can plan lots of other things to do! Last night my dear wife and I had a wonderful date night that included dinner at Brasserie Pavil-a relatively new restaurant that we hadn't been to before- and we went to the Lion King which was performed at the Majestic Theatre in downtown San Antonio. We had a wonderful time, even though traffic downtown was so terrible that instead of being 20 minutes early, we were just late enough to miss the first 10 minute opening part of ACT I.

Today we had another slow day. First, DS#2 had a guitar recital. Honestly, he was very nervous about it, and really, REALLY did not want to perform in front of an audience. He looked a bit "serious" but I thought he got up there and did a fantastic job. He played with his teacher (with him in this picture), which I think helped with his nervousness. I am very proud of him for stepping up and performing for the recital, I know it was very, very difficult for him and I hope that the experience will help him in the future.

We saw one more performance after his, but then we had to practically run out of the recital to make our way to Laurie Auditorium at Trinity University where we had tickets for the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra and a family oriented Christmas performance. The nicest thing about this was the opportunity for the children to play with instruments beforehand. I was also impressed with how the performance was clearly geared toward children and getting them excited about music. *I* found it more enjoyable than some of the very formal (some would say "stodgy") symphony performances I have seen before.

When I went out with DS#2 and DD through the halls outside, we got to stop and play the Viola. By "we" I mean DD. I was surprised to see how serious she was with it, and how carefully she listened when being told what to do. I had to remind her that other children were waiting their turn, I think she'd have been happy to stay and continue playing with it.

Fortunately, the Symphony was in the afternoon giving us time to get home to eat dinner before, um, going out again ... We went to Santa's Railroad Wonderland again this year and it was a MAJOR hit with DS#3. The rest of the kids had a lot of fun too. In fact, DS#1 and DS#2 had the option of staying home and they chose to come with us, and I know they had a blast.

DD got to talk with Santa for a bit, doing little more than telling him her name and saying she likes legos. Okay, let's face it, she DOES have big brothers. I mean if it weren't for the soccer and the games, and the legos, and the desire for a "light saber" and the, okay, yeah, it is pretty easy to tell she has big brothers. It is also easy to see that she had a great time.

Okay, let's face it, I had a good time too :).

Friends and Aliens

Yesterday, DS#2's friend A, and DD's friend M (who happens to be A's sister) came over after school directly from the bus. A's Mom picks up DS#2 from "Media Club" on Thursdays when DD has piano lessons and was going to be busy after school on Tuesday so I was more than happy to have them come over.

These children have known each other for years, in fact, DD and M were in the same daycare room together at about 2 months old so one could even say that these two have known each other all their lives ;). Now, yesterday was a cold, rainy, dreary day so it was pretty much "inside time" --this meant that the boys played with legos for a while and then went into video game zombie mode in front of the TV for a bit.

The girls played all over the house, generally being chased by DS#3, who, for a while was doing his "I am yobutt" (I am a Robot) bit and then he decided he was a robot butterfly (I am yobutt bu-er-fly). Yes, I did take some video, when I get that uploaded I'll make a short clip and load it here. The picture at the top is of the girls hiding from DS#3 in the hall closet and this picture is of DS#3 after he slipped to the ground with laughter while running around the house.

DS#1 is going through high school soccer try-outs this week and has been getting home late. Once he got home we started eating and watching the tape of the most recent episode of "V." This ended up with a bit of goofing off and laughter when DS#3 started passing out hugs and kisses on the sofa with DD and DS#1. It is fun to have a show that we can watch together as a family sometimes, the comments and jokes make it so much more fun and enjoyable.

Closing out November

Well, I haven't been posting enough, mostly because I don't seem to get pictures loaded here to post about. Now, I could say this is because my dear wife is using "My" computer in the evenings and I generally post from there rather than the laptop. Tonight I will post from the laptop, you'll have to wait for pictures until another post. Basically, this is just a boring, catch-up on news post.

The kids (and my lovely wife) had all of Thanksgiving Week off and we kept busy. Now, last weekend was supposed to be taken up by a soccer tournament for DD and DS#2, but that was cancelled due to bad weather. The weather ended up okay on the weekend but there was so much rain Thursday night through Friday morning that they had to cancel the tournament Friday afternoon due to all of the teams traveling in from out of town. Right now it appears that they are trying to reschedule the tournament for Dec 12-13th which is actually a bit disappointing as we thought we were done with soccer for a little while. DS#1 isn't done with soccer tough, he has High School try-outs this week. I expect he'll make the JV "A" team-and it sounds like that is what he expects too. He has an outside chance of making Varsity but on the JV A team he'll likely be a starter, if he made Varsity he would be on the bench and he pretty much just wants to be able to play.

Back to this week, Tuesday DS#1's team had a get-together at a San Antonio Rampage (minor-league professional Hockey team) game. I took DS#1 and DS#2 to the game and we had a great time. I found it hilarious that they played against the Milwaukee Admirals. I went to a few Admirals games when I was a kid and I believe that every time I went to see them they lost. Well, now when I watched them in San Antonio I got to see them win. Of course, I was rooting for the other team. The really nice part about this is that the kids got to go down to the hallway the players come through and "high 5" the Rampage players as they came out on the ice for the second period.

Wednesday we went to Houston to spend time with family. We got there on time for the kids to play with my niece E before she went with her father for the holiday weekend. The cousins all get along so well that it is fun to watch (though a bit noisy sometimes). DS#3 LOVES the constant attention and the fact that he can pretty much eat anything he wants.

Thursday we had Thanksgiving dinner at C's house which has a bit more space for the kids to play in. It was a very relaxing day complete with more food than I should have eaten and several football games to watch. The three older kids stayed behind while my dear wife and I went home with her parents and DS#3. DS#3 was completely exhausted and slept through having his clothes changed and slept fairly late the next morning.

Friday I had lunch with my good friend Jim Bone who recently moved back to Houston. The move hasn't been great for him so it was nice to be able to talk, and give him someone to vent to. After lunch I came back to pack up the van and head back to San Antonio.

Today was a fairly boring day of errands and tree decorating. We did have a family breakfast at IHOP and my dear wife and I went out for a late lunch and ice cream together (sans kids!). After church this evening I ran DS#1 off to see some of his friends from the Atonement Academy at the ice skating rink. He hasn't ice skated before so we were a bit concerned, but I guess he got the hang of it after a half hour or so and ended up having a really good time.

I will try to have a "mostly pictures" post sometime tomorrow to make up for all of the boring text (sorry CB!) but I haven't posted in so long that I felt like I need to get back in a pattern.

Small But Fierce!

Okay, reusing a title here, and, well, typing the actual post after hitting the "return" key and posting a blank post.

This is a soccer family. I would try to tell you that I played soccer as a kid and was a superstar but that simply isn't the case. I was a swimmer, and I played some baseball. I coached and taught swimming for quite a while. In fact, one night after coaching some swimmers when we lived in Illinois I told my wife, "Don't let me make the boys (only DS#1 and DS#2 were around at the time) swim just because I was a swimmer." We have always tried to encourage the kids to be involved in sports, but the sports that they choose.

DS#1 was initially involved in martial arts, something that, quite honestly, he was much better at than the soccer that he seems to have fallen in love with. It has taken hard work for him to get to his present skill level in soccer, and his desire to improve continues. When DS#2 got involved in soccer I was initially concerned that he would move away from soccer the way he moved away from martial arts because he saw an older brother that played the sport. Instead, DS#2 wants to continue with soccer (and someday American football, but that is another story). Okay, we aren't that surprised, DS#2 is a good soccer player (playing against his older brother clearly helps).

What about DD? Well, last year she decided against soccer in favor of gymnastics and dance. We thought, "Wow, she IS a girlie-girl." This year she is playing soccer again. Not just playing soccer, but playing on a "U8 Academy" team against U9 girls teams and some boys teams. We love watching her develop as a soccer player, and laugh about the things she has clearly learned from watching her brother's games-and maybe hearing her papa's comments. Today she had a 4v4 "Fun Fest" where the split teams into smaller teams to play 4v4 games. DD's team played against older girls and did very well.

DD scored a goal in the first of their 4 games and was pretty excited about it. She returned to her defensive mindset later and clearly got tired out (she had a 7:30 PM game last night and didn't get to bed until late). I just love these few pictures as they show much DD, who is either the smallest, or tied for the smallest, on her team pairs up with "the competition." Our little girl has gotten far more aggressive on the soccer field than her brothers were at this age--maybe older brothers ARE a bonus!

My dear wife took a number of pictures, and I have some "captions" in mind for a few of them so look forward to an addition to the family webpage with a few of them sometime in the near, er, few years...

Mud Bowl (x2)

Well, it looks like Halloween just blew by without me posting anything about it, let alone everything else going on. Fortunately, my dear wife posts much more regularly and you can find pictures from Halloween, report card news, and more on her blog.

This past weekend was filled with a number of soccer games, with most of those games scheduled for Sunday. DD had a game on Friday night, with a start time of 7:30 PM. She played her best game ever and has shown HUGE improvement this year. We believe her team is going to be "disbanded" for spring and that she'll be placed on another team. The short story is that there are some "problem parents" on that team and the coach, and the club, just don't want to deal with them anymore. We are hoping that she'll be on a "new" team with some of the same girls (sans problem parents) and with the same coach.

DS#2 had a very difficult schedule this weekend, something I, as team manager, was personally very frustrated with. We had 3 of our 6 "regular season" games this weekend. We had 10 games for the season, but 6 games count for the standings. All games had to be finished by Sunday, Nov 8th. We had to have some games rescheduled due to rain cancellations, and rescheduled games are the responsibility of the "home" team, well the two games we needed to reschedule were "away" games for us and I ended up dependent on other people to do their jobs, they didn't do their jobs properly and we ended up having to play half of our regular season games in a single weekend. In addition, one of our main players could only make it to half of one of the two games on Sunday.

Saturday was our first "regular season" game with a full roster of healthy boys. DS#2's team won that game and dominated control of the ball. They "found the back of the net" but are still having problems getting balls into the goal. That will come with time and practice. We are getting much cleaner shots on goal now than earlier in the season and those shots will, eventually, find their way in.

Sunday was time for our two rescheduled games and due to some rain it was a muddy, sloppy mess. DS#1's game was canceled, but DS#2 was able to get both of his games in (as I said above, we really had to). Our first game was against the top team in the division that has yet to win a game by less than 5 goals. Basically, that team should be a division up, but this happens fairly often. They beat us pretty handily, with a little bit of luck on a few goals, but we were able to score against them-we are one of only two teams to score against them. In fact, we had a number of opportunities to score and just couldn't.

Our second game was on a completely different side of town several hours later. Field conditions there were even worse than the field we played on earlier. I could ALMOST say it was the worst field I have ever had kids play on, but, it didn't quite make worst. We controlled the ball pretty well in the second game, but clearly didn't have the energy we needed. Several opportunities to score simply went wide, or were stopped by the mud. The picture above was taken after that game while DS#2 was trying to clean some of the mud off of himself.

I know that DS#2 is a bit disappointed with his team right now, and I feel for him. At the same time, his play has improved tremendously, and his team as a whole has improved. We have a tournament in a few weeks and with several weeks of practice before it, I think that they boys should do well in the tournament and, hopefully, go into the winter break feeling good about themselves.

Next weekend DS#1 has a game scheduled Sunday, and probably a make-up for yesterday's canceled game. DD has a "4v4 Funfest" Saturday morning, and, so far, that is about it. This means that several more things will clearly have to be scheduled, otherwise we might actually be able to rest.

Trains and Malls

Well, it looks like I completely missed posting about this past weekend. I suppose I'll just have to depend on my dear wife's blog for that.

Monday was a rainy, dreary, awful day but yesterday (Tuesday) was as beautiful as Monday was ugly so I took DS#3 to Brackenridge Park to ride on the train. He loves riding on the train and when I had him at the Zoo recently he melted down when the train wasn't there for us to ride on. I knew I couldn't stand 20 minutes of melt-down until the train arrived so I took him home with plans to bring him back just to ride the train.

Much of the time he just stared at everything as we rode past. He clearly loved it though, so I guess we'll just have to keep going back once in a while. I took a few photos and some video but there wasn't really anything that really stood out.

Today is another somewhat dreary day. It isn't raining though, so I decided to take DS#3 out to one of the parks he loves playing at, when we got there it was a still a wet, muddy mess so I decided to head out to the La Cantera Mall where they have an outdoor play area for kids (and a food court at which to feed them). We ate first and wandered over to the play area where he played for quite a while. When he and I first arrived at the play area a woman came up to me and told me that I was doing a wonderful job with DS#3 and that I am a "truly beautiful human being." It was a bit odd, but I thanked her and she moved on.

I took more pictures and video, and have already deleted a number of them, but I thought I would post this picture from today because it helps show how much fun he was having. There were several other boys there that were about his age (2-3) and he actually played with them a little bit.

Friday I will be taking him to a "SideKicks" gymnastics class. We'll see how it goes, if he likes it we will continue with it. I was hoping for something on a Wednesday or a Monday, but I guess Friday morning will have to do.

Weekend Follow-up

Well, I am nowhere near as good about posting things right away as my dear wife is. I try not to overlap which pictures I choose for the blog with hers because I know that most of the family and friends that see this blog, also read hers. We had another soccer-heavy weekend this past weekend, but Saturday was made easier by the fact that the games didn't overlap. We had DS#2 at 8:30 AM, DD at 10:00 AM (at the same set of fields) and then DS#1 at 2:00 PM. We didn't get any really good shots of DS#1 so I guess he is left out for today's post.

DS#2's team faced two of the better teams in our bracket this weekend giving them back-to-back losses (unfortunately). The good thing is that they are definitely improving. The game on Sunday was against a team that beat us 6-1 two weeks ago and on Sunday we were 0-0 at the half, but lost the game 3-0 in the end. Unfortunately, one of those goals was an "own goal" shortly after the other team scored at the beginning of the second half. The boys got so disappointed that they hung their heads a bit and ended up allowing a third goal. With the exception of about 8 minutes in that game, we were able to shut down a team with several excellent players.

This second picture of DS#2 is from the Sunday game. We like it because it shows how much he got "mugged" at some points in the game. The boy in yellow was actually warned by the ref for dangerous play (and a foul) at one point. DS#2 should end up with a rescheduled game this coming Sunday, but otherwise he and DD have a "free" weekend this weekend and will head to Houston for my niece E's birthday party. DS#1 has two games so he will be home with me.

DD's team is very young and still getting the hang of playing on a bigger field, playing positions, etc. They played against a boys team and got beaten pretty handily, though they did show some real promise at times. A few of the parents on her team seem frustrated by the fact that there is just the one U8 girls team and the fact that they have to play either older girls, or play against the boys. I guess they just want to win games. Winning is certainly nice, and they do need a win now and then, but if you win every game you aren't really being challenged or improving.

Anyway, DD played at goalkeeper again for about a quarter of the game. She is a bit hesitant there, but honestly, all of the kids this age really are. I just find it humorous to see her in goal, she is one of the smaller players on the team and the goal behind her makes her look even smaller.

DS#1's team got another win on Saturday afternoon. I teased him, and a few of his teammates, after the game. Their regular coach was out of town for a game and we had a different trainer covering. If their coach had been there, he would have been upset at the 2-1 win because really, they should have won 5 or 6 to 0 but simply didn't finish the ball well. He has two games this coming weekend so we'll have to see how the team does.

Saturday night DS#1 organized a bit of a get-together with some of his friends which included friends from the high school, his soccer team, the middle school he went to last year, and the Catholic school he went to several years before that. He learned a major lesson about making reservations at LazerQuest--the kids had to wait until 9:00 to be able to play so I went with them to a pizza place just across the lot and got them some pizza before leaving them to play Laser Tag. While at the restaurant they sat at a table and I sat at the bar letting them talk amongst themselves. I told the several of the servers that I just didn't feel right leaving a dozen teenagers in their restaurant without someone being around, but I also didn't want to interfere with their fun. They all behaved well so it was probably not a real concern.

One of DS#1's friends stayed over Saturday night as he lives a good distance away and it was easier for his parents (and for us too). That meant that DD and DS#3 got to see A again too. We left the two big boys with DD and DS#3 when we went to DS#2's Sunday game and it sounds like they all had a wonderful time.

Well, time to get back to the weekly grind. If I am really lucky in a few minutes I'll be able to convince DS#3 to take a nap.

A Trip to the Zoo

Well, today was finally a nice, sunny, but not-to-hot day to take DS#3 to the zoo. We had a blast. He was constantly saying, "Look Papa!" and pointing at something. He was even thrilled to see the rocks, the waterfalls, and some of the plants. This picture of him pointing through the glass isn't the best due to the lighting, but I like the expression of awe and wonder.

We didn't even see the entire zoo, but we did get to see a jaguar and look at the black leopards. We also looked at some of the crocodiles, alligators, birds, and fish. He got particularly excited when we saw various fish tanks that were part of the Africa Live display(s) as well as fish tanks in other areas.

I took a number of pictures trying to get a nice shot. One of two decent pictures of the jaguar is above. That picture, and this picture of the black leopard, was shot through the glass using the "portrait lens" which has a better optics and tighter focus than the other lenses. This allowed me to try to focus on the cat in hopes of not getting any glare (or dirt) from the glass.

We have to close with a picture of DS#3 playing in a play area specifically designed for toddlers. We spent a lot of time in that area, and he spent a lot of time playing in the sand. He even met a new "friend" to play beside for a while.

Unfortunately, when we left the zoo to get a ride on the Zoo train before heading home we learned that the train had just left. DS#3 had a "melt down" and we basically had to leave because his Papa wasn't patient enough to endure 20 minutes of that before the next train ride. We'll just have to go back next week. Fall is a beautiful time in San Antonio, we often have wonderful sunny weather and mild temperatures making it a perfect season to head to the park, etc. I look forward to more trips with DS#3 this fall.

Middle School

Last night my dear wife and I went to the middle school with DS#2 for the Student-Parent orientation. Wow, they really want us to pick classes early. He doesn't finish 5th grade for almost 8 months and they expect him to pick electives for next year.

The truth is, 6th graders don't really get that many elective choices, and he isn't interested in Band, Choir, or Orchestra so that pretty much cuts his choices in half. With the core classes and the required PE/Health semesters he has 2 class slots left each semester for electives. His choices are likely to end up being PE (he needs an extra semester sometime during his 3 years of middle school), Debate, Art, and Theater Arts.

Right now he sounds set on going to the middle school we feed into, but there is a magnet middle school focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) that we thing is completely in line with his interests. DS#2 is both shy, and social. He likes "playing" with friends, but he is shy and it takes him a while to make new friends sometimes. His friends will all be going to the "local" middle school so that is the way he is leaning right now. We'll have to see what happens after he gets an opportunity to spend a day at STEM middle school.

The other news yesterday is that DD lost another tooth. When I looked at her teeth in the morning I told her that a particular tooth was very loose and if it didn't fall out during the day I would pull it after school. There was no need, it fell out at school. She has another that will come out in the next day or two (probably tonight when I get a chance to grab it ;)).

Weekend Recovery

Well, we had a nice, 3-day weekend that ended up not being as exciting as we'd have liked due to rainy dreariness.
I haven't posted anything about DS#1's birthday, I guess I fell down on the job and depended on my lovely wife to cover that landmark event in her blog.

We did get some soccer games in this weekend, frankly, I don't think there is any room for any more cancellations. DD had her Friday games canceled and moved to Sunday, and then the games on Sunday were canceled too. Saturday DS#1, DD and DS#2 overlapped with game times. While all of them had "home" games, DS#1's "home" field is at a different location so I had DD and DS#2 with me. I didn't get any really good pictures with the small camera, it is simply so slow that I just can't get a good shot. This is one picture of DD in the goal (at her level the coach plans to rotate 4 girls through goal every game. I ended up just taking a few videos with the small camera so that my lovely wife could "watch" part of DD's game.

DD and DS#2 had losses on Saturday. DS#2's game was actually better than the score looks and we play that team again so I think we'll do a lot better next game. My dear wife took DS#1 to his game. His field was in terrible shape, everything got very muddy, including the bright yellow ball. DS#1's team brought in a solid 6-0 win which helps their standings, and surely helps the boys' confidence. Having players healthy again is a huge help.

This coming Saturday the games are all spread out so we should be able to see all of the games. This means we should have nicer pictures for all of the games.

Columbus Day was a day off for the kids, and for my lovely wife due to it being federal holiday. Alas, it was a dreary, ugly day so the kids had friends over, and then went to their friends for a while. I grilled some steaks because, frankly, it was time for me to get grilling again. The summer was so hot that I really didn't grill very much. Usually I grill in summer to keep the house cooler, but it was SO hot that I didn't want to be anywhere near a hot grill and half the time nobody really wanted a hot meal anyway.

Well, DS#3 is playing away happily. This is a good thing as it is raining again. It is a light rain, but everything is wet now so I really don't want to take him out and get him all muddy right now. He'll just have to do that later ;). He and I will go out in a bit, maybe get some lunch, shopping, or just something outside the house.

What Time is It?

Maybe this should be more like "What Day is It?" but I'll get to the title of this post in a few more lines. My dear wife was on-call Sunday and is on-call again tonight (Wednesday). I guess Sunday went well, it sounds like tonight is pay-back. Anyway, when she has call nights she gets other days off that tend to throw of her (and my) sense of what day of the week it is sometimes. I shot a few pictures of DS#3 "hanging" with his mama on the sofa while both of them were in their PJs. In the interest of preserving my marriage, I picked a picture that just shows DS#3 and his "silly smile." I think posting a picture of my wife ready for bed in her "witchy" PJ's might just get me in trouble ;).

Now, on to the title for this post. Tonight I have been "helping" DS#1 with one of his projects for school and it has been tons of fun. He clearly loves the challenge of figuring out how to do things with the computer, and I really enjoy seeing how excited he is about it. He needed to add a music tract to a video he and his partner (for this class) created and I helped him find some music for it. THEN we had to figure out how to rip and MP3 and clip the right fragment out of the song. You have to remember, "I am a Mac" and pretty much plug a CD into the computer, load the songs into iTunes, sync the iPod and I am "good to go." Well, he needed to do more work than that.

I will have to get a copy of his video when he is finally done with it and upload it, because I think it is a fun, and funny, video clip.

Rainy Sundays

Well, with recovering "sick people" it was probably good that we had another rain-out for DS#1 on Sunday. I think he'd have been able to play, but he has lost a little over 10 lbs with the flu last week and really didn't have 10 lbs to spare (unlike me). He was scheduled to have a "home" game against a team from about 3 hours away so I knew they'd have to make the decision early. We had constant downpours from about 4 AM until 6-7:00 AM so I was pretty sure the game would be canceled, and it was. This does not mean good things for other weekends this fall, but we can live with it.

My dear wife was on-call so I was at home on a rainy, horrible day with the kids, including a sick DS#3 (who was okay until the ibuprofen ran out). The kids kept entertained with a combination of video games, reading, piano/guitar practice, and a few other things such as board games. I got a kick out of the kids playing Monopoly Jr. together. DD was particularly thrilled that her brothers played with her and DS#3 loved just being there (the videos helped too!).


Later that afternoon DS#1, DS#2 and I made more progress in our present game of Talisman (4th edition--yes, that is the game in the picture). DS#2 loves board games and I really enjoy playing with the boys. DD and DS#3 enjoyed watching too!

DS#3 absolutely refused to nap Sunday, despite great efforts on my part. I think was closer to "out" than he was. Later that day he was climbing all over DD and DS#1. I included this picture (before deleting it) just to show how hard it is to get a picture when they are goofing off full blast. Both of them were looking toward the camera and then looked away when I was trying to take pictures. Of course, DS#3 promptly climbed down and ran off to his next activity. Later, he fell asleep sitting up on the sofa "watching" DS#2 play a video game ;).

and the Dominoes fall ...

Well, this evening DD and DS#3 added to the list of possible "sick folks" as both had the low-grade fever this bug seems to start with. It looks like DS#1 is on the downhill slide as he has been feeling better but his fever still isn't completely gone. This probably means another missed day of school for him tomorrow which is not a good thing.

I am sure my dear wife is going to be the most disappointed of all of us. She is using her last two days of vacation on the present contract tomorrow and Wednesday. Thursday she'll be at the same job but under a different contract with a different contracting company. Basically, it looks like she took two days of vacation on "early dismissal" and conference days in order to either be home sick or be home with sick people.

This bug is pretty brutal, not sure if it is H1N1 or something else, but it certainly isn't much fun. Worst part is, I was planning to get flu shots this week. Sigh.

Off for more ibuprofen and bed. Maybe I'll veg to the football game for a bit, we'll see.

Soccer and "The Bug"

Well, the family is starting to get hit with the bug that has taken so many kids out of school around here lately. DS#1's team was decimated by illness their first few games and had to play with 10 players. This weekend it was DS#1's turn. He played goal keeper the first half of the game on Saturday and a little bit on the field in the second half. When he got home, he was toast, done, finished, wiped out, etc. He is home from school today and I would say he isn't happy about it, but the truth is that he is sound asleep.

His team had a game Sunday too, but he simply could not make it, he was sick enough he couldn't even sit the sideline and support the team. DS#2 and DS#1 had overlapping games on different fields so I took DS#2 (I am his team manager) on Saturday and because DS#1 couldn't go on Sunday my lovely wife was finally able to watch DS#2 and his team play. Alas, Sunday's game didn't go well for his team and they lost badly. Saturday, the game she missed, his team won and really dominated ball control. Unfortunately, she started coming down with "the bug" and went straight home to shower and go to bed.

DS#3 came with me on Saturday so I had to keep him entertained. Low and behold, a small plastic train and the cooler. I guess sometimes it isn't so hard to keep a 2-year old entertained. He had a few bad moments but survived the game well.

DD only had one game this weekend. She played on Saturday morning and her team played quite well. Hers is the only "U8 Academy Girls" team in our club so they have to play against the boys and against the older girls. Saturday she played against the same team she played against last week and they lost 2-1 in a very close game. We enjoy watching her play when she is "serious" and still get a kick out of it when she is "silly." She has a good little team but the girls are new to the larger 8v8 format and fields so they are still adjusting a bit.

Well, that is about it, right now it seems that DS#1, my dear wife, and I all have "the bug." It might be the flu, it might be another virus. So far the younger 3 don't have it and I am glad that DD and DS#2 are at school away from us. I have been letting DS#3 play (and watch his favorite shows) to his heart's content in the hopes that keeping him away will keep him from getting it. Sometimes I think that (healthy) children somehow instinctively know that a parent is sick and seem to behave very well all of a sudden. So far today DS#3 has been fairly easy to deal with. I am hoping all my hand-washing, etc. helps keep him healthy.

I hope I can get everyone healthy for the weekend, we have lots of games and activities scheduled so we'll see how it goes.

I'm Not Tired

Quick post about DS#3 today. Lately he has been trying to give up his naps. Now, the truth is, he can play pretty well throughout the afternoon most days, but in the evenings he gets very tired and cranky. This means that I TRY to get him a nap everyday so that he'll be more pleasant in the evening. During the week (M-F) I think we get a nap about 3 days out of 5 but that is clearly starting to drop off. This picture from the other day shows him in "tired" mode just resting beneath the piano.

Yesterday and today he took naps, but took them much earlier than his usual and only napped about an hour or so each day. Today after telling me that he wasn't tired, he needed to be carried and simply draped himself over me as we left Costco. He fell asleep on the way home and I decided to let him sleep in the van. The weather was nice so I just opened up the doors and sat in a chair in the garage writing in my notebook while he slept.

When he woke up he wanted to be held and cuddled for a bit, which is always nice, and then it was "off to the races" as he went off to play with his trains. I am sure my dear wife will post about the fact that all three of the older kids had haircuts today at the salon where she gets her hair done so I will leave that to her. I just thought it would be nice to post a bit about DS#3 today because it'll be another "Soccer Saturday" tomorrow and this usually means news about the other three kids.

This evening DS#2 and I went with DS#1 to a "Family Game Night" at the high school. DS#2 and I played a board game together and then joined the larger group DS#1 was playing "Apples to Apples" with. It was a pleasant evening and I enjoyed meeting a few of the friends that DS#1 has been talking about.

Thanks Mom!

I haven't been posting often enough lately. I just wanted to mention the fact that my mom came to visit this past weekend and was a HUGE help. She was planning to try to come sometime during September and when I realized DS#1 had a soccer game in Laredo on a day my dear wife was on-call I decided to give her a call and encourage her to come that weekend. The fact that she came kept me from having to find other babysitting for the younger three kids. Sunday was basically an all-day trip with travel time to Laredo, the soccer game, lunch afterward, and the drive back home.

The kids love seeing their grandparents and don't get to see my mom and dad very often so they were very excited about seeing their grandma. DS#3 warmed up to her again pretty quickly and was more than happy to get grandma to do things for him. I think my mom was a bit surprised at how busy our weekends can be, but she jumped in with both feet and attended several soccer games (2 and a half games worth) including DS#2's away game in San Marcos.


This picture of DS#3 when we went out to the shopping mall for lunch (it was raining and we wanted DS#3 to be able to walk around a bit) was hilarious. And I think a great close to this post. Thanks again Mom!