T-ball pictures, Last day of swimming, Company picnics and a visit

Last week/weekend were super busy with the last day of swimming, t-ball pictures, Ben's company picnic and a visit from Mom and Tettie.

As you can imagine, I'm sure, t-ball pictures were absolutely dripping with cuteness.  All the tiny kids in uniforms way too big for them - oh my goodness - adorable overload.

Ben's company picnic was at a local water park (and by local I mean like 15 miles away LOL).  It was interesting.  I got to meet some of his co-workers and their wives.  It was more of a free for all event tho so there wasn't much interaction other than Hi, This is, Nice to meet you and so on and so forth.

Mom and Tettie's visit was a lot of fun!  We took them to Cameron Park Zoo and a couple of our favorite restaurants.  It was a nice low key visit.

We took Mia to the pool last night and realized just how many little friends she has made ... actual friends - not just a child she has seen before.  It was so cute to watch her, 2 little girls (S and T) and one little boy (J) sitting on the steps of the pool all playing together.  Even better when we were walking thru the gate J's dad recognized us and was like "J! Look who's coming thru the gate" and J got all excited to see Mia.  Now if we can just learn the parent's names.  LOL

Ben and I are working a lot on our eating habits and working out every day right now.  I'm personally stretching my skills and attempting to learn how to cook all types of vegetables in interesting ways so we don't get bored with them.  Last night I made what I'll kindly call beef and mush...  It started out beautiful with fresh squash, purple onion, eggplant, jalapenos, banana peppers, and bell peppers (all from the farmer's market) and ended up looking like ... well, beef and mush.  Needless to say one of my projects for the week is to scour the cookbooks and educate myself on proper vegetable preparation and cooking.

Just an ordinary day

Swimming lessons, housework, and laundry filled our day along with some board games and math practice.  Nothing spectacular just another ordinary day.

I made my very own - totally from scratch pasta sauce tonight.  It ended up being super yummy (and pretty too!)

Museums, swimming and family time

Due to the threat of thunderstorms we skipped the farmer's market and visited the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University instead.  It is a really cool museum full of the history of Waco and Texas and then 2 stories of hands on kid stuff with everything from a tea party room to a prairie style house to a kid's weather station to a room dedicated to the inside of the human body.  As usual the weather didn't turn out as threatening as expected (in fact not a drop of rain fell) so we ended the day at the swimming pool.  I think my child is a fish. :)

Just an ordinary day

June 14, 2013

Today was the first day all week that we didn't have to be anywhere at a certain time so Mia and I took full advantage of it and did nothing.  We cleaned the apartment, made some food ahead for the weekend and played at the pool.  It was lovely.

Recipes gone wrong, Nail polish on the carpet and T-ball

Add swimming in there and it all makes for quite the day...

Nothing new in swimming today but tonight at t-ball was the first time the kids simulated game play and it was definitely cute to watch.  However, the late practices on Thursdays are just late enough that it makes for an unruly bunch of kiddos.  This is pretty much everyone's first year so hopefully the kids will get used to the strange schedule soon.

I'm pretty sure that we will be continuing Mia's swimming education on our own time at the apartment pool once this class is over next Thursday rather than signing her up for another class like originally planned.  Swimming and T-ball at the same time are proving to be way too much - for both parents and child.  

Lizards, Swimming and Sanding

The little guy above decided to come pay a visit to our balcony the other night ... it was a stroke of good luck that I had the telephoto lens on the camera because he's actually only about 2 inches long - 3 inches at the most.

Today was day 3 of swimming and then after running errands Mia and I spent the afternoon sanding and painting a butterfly that her Papa cut out on his cnc machine for her.  Once it all dries and we put it together I'll post a picture.

Swimming - Day 2 / T-Ball - Practice 3

Day 2 of swimming went really good.  They practiced kicking, going under water, kicking with a noodle and floating on their backs.  After the first class Mia has already gained the confidence to jump in the pool both with being caught without floats on and not being caught with floats on.

 Mia decided to exercise before practice started so she ran from the opposite fence back to me.

Swimming lessons in the morning and then early evening t-ball practice is a pretty big adjustment for her.  As you can see here she had a little difficulty handling it tonight.

 Mia batting and running to first base!

Swimming - Day 1

Gammy and Papa come to visit!

We had an awesome visit with Ben's parents this past weekend.  We painted, swam, went to the Dallas World Aquarium, visited with Ben's Uncle and Aunt in Dallas and ate tons of amazing food.

Mia's Room, Granola Bars and a Snake

I haven't been entirely happy with Mia's room since we set it up.  It felt small and got impossibly messy way too easily.  I was reading in the current parenting book I'm studying that it's really important to "simplify" your child's room as much as possible.  After reading that and my over all feeling of dissatisfaction with it I knew what today's project was going to be.  I spent the morning moving the furniture here and there, organizing all the little stuff, books, etc until I got it to where it is now.  I think (once the closet is finished but I needed Ben for that - his height definitely comes in handy!) that it turned out just about perfect.

The rest of the day Mia and I just chilled at the apartment cleaning, playing board games, listening to music, reading books and making more granola bars - we decided to put off Library Day until tomorrow - it was really good to have a day where we didn't go anywhere.

Ben headed to get his hair cut after work and stopped at books a million to browse - on his way into the bookstore he saw a snake!  It was all curled up and just chilling in the corner.  Adding that to our list of local wildlife we have now seen: a road runner, an armadillo and a rather large snake.  :)

Dinner was buffalo chicken salad - seriously nom nom.  A great "make ahead meal" because it tastes even better when it's been in the fridge for a day or two.  I'll post both that recipe and the granola bar recipe on the Recipe page just in case anyone would like them.

In other news - my mom got married today.  She and her fiance were in Huntsville for a visit and decided to go ahead and tie the knot since all the kiddos, save for me, were there.  We are very happy for her and wish her and Jim the best.

Tomorrow is library day, more cleaning and a visit from Ben's parents!!!!  We are super excited!  So forgive me if I don't blog over the next couple of days - I am sure we will be crazy busy.  No fear tho - it'll just make for a great post on Monday.  :)

T-Ball!!!!

Mia's first t-ball practice was tonight!  Yipee!!! She did awesome!  So far her coach seems pretty fantastic and very laid back.  The league is just for fun so there won't be any score keeping or even winning/losing for each game.  Mia is one of two girls in the midst of about 12 boys (give or take a few - it was hard to get a good count).  The coach is all about parental involvement and so long as it's a practice the parents handling their own children with his guidance.  Thursday I will not be dressing cute nor will I be wearing cowboy boots - I'm thinking athletic shorts and tennis shoes so I can help out too!

Gorgeous Morning, Reading and the Pool

This morning we woke up to an absolutely gorgeous blue sky and after breakfast could not bring ourselves to do anything other than to head to the pool.  Next thing Mia and I knew it was almost 2 in the afternoon and well past lunch time.  But with the weather as beautiful as it was we only came back to the apartment long enough to eat lunch, clean up and get dinner started.

New month = New short term goals.  One of my goals for this month is to finally read some of the parenting books I've had sitting around.  I read like 7 novels last month - surely I can read a few parenting books!  So in between spurts of playing with Mia in the pool I started reading one of the books.  It has so far been really interesting and I have already found some areas that I need to think about/work on.

I made another new recipe for dinner tonight - Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken ... here's hoping it turned out yummy.

Coloring, Avocados and Closet Organization

Another weekend down.  We got to skype with Ben's parents today and work out plans for a couple visits (super excited!!!).  They are going to come visit us this coming weekend and we will be heading to Huntsvegas for a visit in July.

Ben and I got bit by the organization bug today and finally finished sorting out our closets and getting them organized.  We are definitely blessed with having 2 walk in closets in the master bedroom.  The extra space has been a huge life saver.  While we were organizing Mia occupied herself in her room coloring.  She is doing such a great job working on being meticulous and staying inside the lines.  She is also to the point where she has the attention span to actually color the entire picture (and actually gets irritated if interrupted) rather than coloring a little on each page.  :)

We also went to the pool (of course) and decided to go ahead and get Mia a set of arm floats.  She gets very frustrated at the pool since she is stuck to a noodle or other type of floating device.  I'm not a big fan of the arm bands, but we'll try them out and see how they work.  She can't wait for swimming lessons so she can be more independent and play with the other kids.

Tonight's dinner was "fresh tacos" ... carb friendly/whole wheat tortillas, chicken, avocado, tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, purple onion and hot sauce.  So very yummy and Mia tried an avocado for the first time!

I visited Target today - it was ummm... very disappointing actually.  It reminded me of the Walmart on Drake Avenue in Huntsville.  Hopefully there is another one in town, but I haven't looked yet.

This weekend was wonderful - full of pool perfect weather and lots of down to earth family time.  Nothing much out of the ordinary. I'm glad we are starting to settle into a routine ... still waiting for this all to feel real tho.  

Face Painting, Boots and Grocery Shopping

Hooray for the weekend!!!!!  Today was filled with a trip to the farmer's market, trying a new bbq restaurant (I gave it a "meh"), "family boot day", grocery shopping and finally a couple hours at the pool.

Farmer's Market was awesome as usual.  We got tons of awesome produce, some more czech sausage and skirt steaks along with local Pineapple Balsamic Vinegar and dairy free cookies!!!!  A new vendor this week was an airstream bakery.  When I saw the posting about them on fb - I messaged them and asked if by any chance they would have dairy free cookies (a total treat for Mia because that generally isn't available) and they did!!!! When we went by they had set aside two for her and didn't even charge us.  It was totally sweet.  We will definitely be going back next week and buying some.  :) (and maybe begging for the recipe too)

I think I've mentioned it before but I <3 H.E.B.!!!!  Their "bulk foods" selection is fabulous.  Today we got different fruits for more homemade granola bar and made our own trail mix.  I was also able to get ground ginger for a total of $0.08 because they had it in bulk and all I needed was 2 tbsps for a recipe I'm going to try this week.

Fabulous start to the weekend for sure.