Soccer

Austin has ventured out and tried soccer this spring. I really pushed him to try it, because I thought he needed to broaden his horizons, try different sports, learn new skills. I also pushed Brian into being a coach, because really, how hard can it be? In the future, we will be sticking with baseball.

Brian claims to know nothing about soccer, and doesn't really have any interest in learning. But he is there, every week at practice and at the games praying for rain watching and encouraging and teaching the kids, and keeping them from digging in the dirt to find worms. We have an interesting team. I am not sure if any of them have played soccer before, maybe one or two. One of the kids, who is very large and you can tell he is a bully in his everyday life, just likes to run and fall in front of the other team trying to trip them. One of the two girls we have just cries and cries if she has to play. Thankfully the other one is pretty good and our star scorer*. And one of them has a perpetual runny nose and coughs/spews forth nastiness on everyone/thing in his path, and I am sure he is the reason Austin has strep, again. The other kids are like Austin. He likes it (although not as much as his beloved baseball), but I have decided he is not aggressive enough for soccer. He and his teammates like to run after the ball and watch the other team kick it. I am constantly shouting for Austin to "get the ball!!", and he tries so hard, but it just isn't in him to kick a ball away from another kid. Our team has scored a total of 1 point this spring, (*and truth be told it was really the other team who kicked it in on accident after our "star scorer" kicked it in the general direction of the goal, but hey, we will take what we can get. We celebrated like we won the World Series). We rarely get the ball on our side of the field. It has been fun, and overall I am glad I made Austin play. He has learned a lot, and so has his daddy. Mostly how to deal with frustration and losing, but those are good lessons right?

Only three more weeks...

Reason #547 My Kids Shouldn't Watch TV

When I got home from work today, Austin wanted to tell me about a commercial he had seen that "was really funny". He told me about the M&M commercial that has that song "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" playing in the background. Austin even hummed it for me for added effect. It is not a song you can easily get out of your head. and especially after your 5 year old has hummed it. Anyway, the green girl M&M walked by, and the red boy M&M said "Whoa!", with a 'funny' look on his face. Austin thought this was pretty hysterical. I asked him if he knows what it means to be "hot". He said it is when a girl is really really beautiful. He then said Aubrey was hot. I told him maybe we should just stick with calling her beautiful.

And just to catch you up, here is reason #369 why my kids shouldn't watch TV.

A while back Austin and daddy were watching TV, baseball probably, after having been outside playing and coming in because daddy was tired (i.e. wanted to watch the baseball game). There happened to be a commercial for Viagra. Austin has already told daddy he needs Rogaine from the hair club commercials, but this one is even better. He asked daddy what Viagra is. Daddy, being the smart daddy he is, said that it is something that gives men a lot of energy. See where this one is going? Austin said that maybe daddy needed this too so that they could go outside and play some more baseball.

Easter 2009

We had a pretty good Easter again this year. The kids enjoyed dying the eggs the night before (Aubrey thought it was "juice" and had a green tongue/shirt/fingers by the time we were done), and the traditional Red Sox egg was made by all. It IS officially baseball season you know.


Austin and Aubrey had a good time hunting the eggs too. That has always been my favorite part of the holiday, and before we even had kids Brian would hide eggs for me to find. It is so much more fun watching my kids do it! That rascally Easter rabbit did a good job hiding them; they were in the silverware drawer, the microwave, the dryer and the stove! And the Easter goodies were found in the bathtub of all places! It was a lot of fun watching them, and Austin was such a good big brother, he let Aubrey find a lot of them too.

Austin and Aubrey at church. They look so very grown up in this picture to me...

Our Magical Vacation

We just got back yesterday from the most amazing vacation. My parents took all of us (including my sister) on a week long Disney Cruise that sailed to St. Croix, St. Thomas and the Disney Island-Castaway Cay. We had such an amazing time. We had a slightly rocky start; our flight from Oklahoma to Dallas last Saturday morning was cancelled due to snow (!!), so we drove to Dallas to catch the 9am connecting flight in the middle of the night. With two kids. And tried to sleep in the airport. On airport cots. Not much fun. Our original flight home was not routed through Dallas, so we were a little unsure about how we would get back to Dallas to pick up our car, but I was not missing the cruise!! Thankfully, the folks at Disney Cruise Lines were wonderful and got us on a different flight home to Dallas, so we could pick up our car. The trip was definitely worth the trouble, once we finally met my parents and sister in Orlando. Other than being utterly exhausted the first day of the vacation, we had a wonderful time.

There is nothing like cruising. The food was amazing, (and plentiful, I gained 5+ pounds), the service was amazing, the live shows nightly were amazing. The weather was beautiful, and I came home peeling. Nothing better. Austin and Aubrey had a really great time too. Austin fell in love with Pluto, so of course we had to get him his own stuffed Pluto, which he has not let go of since. He loved playing in the pool and sliding down the Mickey slide, loved being able to get ice cream day and night by the pool, and enjoyed meeting all of the characters. Aubrey loved Minnie, and would shout out her name whenever we saw her. I felt about 7 years old the whole cruise, racing around to meet all of the characters and getting their autographs. Brian even enjoyed meeting them, none more so than Cinderella. He wanted to meet her again and again and again...

Both kids had fun playing in the ocean, but I think Brian enjoyed that part the most. The first beach at St. Croix was pretty rocky, and Brian slipped and hit his toe so hard it turned black/red/blue/purple and we thought it might be broken, but it quickly got better. We took an island tour in St. Thomas, and then hit the beach. It was a much better beach, and we enjoyed "riding the waves". Austin liked to fight them. The best island was the Disney Island. We spent the day playing in the water, floating on tubes (Aubrey fell asleep floating with mommy) and laying out. It was awesome. Austin and daddy also did a treasure hunt, and got some real pirate treasure (or what looked like it to Austin!). None of us wanted to come home, and Austin was very sad on our last night. It was definitely a vacation of dreams! I am so thankful we got to spend time with my parents and sister, who if it hadn't been for us, probably would not have chosen a Disney vacation!

Below is a slide show of some of the pictures from our trip. I would have loved to include them all, but I took over 500 pics!

Disney Magic