A few weeks ago I went to pick up Ethan from Mother’s Day Out. One of his teachers was sharing with me that he enjoyed the story of Peter Pan that day and was one of the few children in the class that recognized Tinker Bell. I laughed as I told her that didn’t surprise me since his older sister is a ‘princess’, so at our house we know all about princesses and fairies and such.
His other teacher overheard our conversation and started to laugh with us. She knew Kate from school last year and she added her take to the story. She said,
Oh, yes. Kate is most definitely a princess. She’s always wearing her tiara. You may not always see it, but it’s always there.
After laughing hysterically, I came home and told Shawn this story. He also laughed his butt off. We decided then and there that this was most definitely the best description of our daughter, ever. She is always carrying herself like royalty, constantly reminding her siblings of how things ought to be done (she told Ethan that he wouldn’t be invited to her tea parties again because he was not using his manners), but also constantly generous to those around her.
So now, whenever Kate does something particularly ‘princess-y’, Shawn and I just look at eachother, laugh, and say, “You may not see the tiara, but it’s always there!”
Karis’ 2nd birthday was the Wednesday after Hurricane Ike hit. (I know. Happy Birthday to her, right?) We had already decided long before Ike that we were going to have a low-key celebration with just our family and maybe an additional small playdate at a local park with a few friends. So, Ike just confirmed those plans for us.
One of the traditions I like for my kids’ birthdays is to make a cake or cupcakes or cookies for them for their big day. (Not because I’m good at it - I did NOT get the baking genes passed down from my grandma and mom - but just because it’s something special that I don’t normally do throughout the year.) With the entire city out of dairy products, though, that was going to be impossible. Every cake mix requires eggs or milk or both. Since I was already having a little bit of a difficult time accepting my baby becoming a toddler (I wouldn’t allow Shawn to even use the word toddler around me during that last week.), this just added to the emotion for me.
Somehow, my sweet mother-in-law found about my little breakdown and went to a store 20 minutes away that had dairy. She bought me a cake mix, eggs, milk, and even the icing for on top. That has to be one of the most thought-full things someone has done for me in a long time. I made the cake with great thankfulness and didn’t even get upset when it broke a little coming out of the pan. I iced it and then decorated it with mini-marshmallows from my pantry that I then colored with food coloring.
It was not the most beautiful cake I’ve ever made. But, it was definitely filled with the most love. Karis will probably not even remember anything about this birthday, but I will remember that someone special paid attention to the smallest of details to make it memorable for me.
Thank you, Brenda. :)
Karis 'helping' clean up after Hurricane Ike
I’ve been away from posting for the past few weeks due to a beautiful little storm named Ike. And by ‘beautiful‘ and ‘little‘, I mean destructive and HUGE. One might even say ‘Texas-sized’…
During the past few weeks, we’ve been without power (much shorter than most, though!), without water, without internet, and without dairy. Any one of those things is a daunting challenge in and of itself. Add all of them together and you’ve got the makings of a really interesting story. :)
My husband wrote our story of Hurricane Ike beautifully, so I’ll post it here. But, being a mom and a woman, I had to add one thing to the following story. After you read Shawn’s post, click here to read my addendum…
We spent all day Friday preparing the house (and yard) for Ike. I took the reflector from my satellite dish down, since it had the biggest potential to be torn off in high winds. We setup a shelter in my garage office, since it is the most secure part of our house. Had an air mattress, the kiddos’ sleeping bags, battery-powered lantern and other goodies in there. Continue reading…
Since so many of you who read my blog are my friends, and so many of you are asking how our first day of school went, I thought I’d answer you all here instead of retyping it in 12 different emails. :)
Ethan's 1st Day of Mother's Day Out
Ethan (my 3yo) did great at Mother’s Day Out at the church around the corner from us - it’s also where Kate went last year and loved it. He has a huge class of about 12 kiddos his age and 2 teachers. They said he did great and only got weepy at nap time when they wanted to help him take his shoes off. He, of course, would have NO one touching his new shoes and got defensive and whiny for mommy at that point. Too funny what kiddos will get hung up on, huh? Other than that, he seemed to have had a great day and he said he liked it and had fun. His favorite? The kitchen play area. Hmm. Do we have a future chef on our hands? Continue reading…
This is a photo that Kate took on Shawn’s iPhone recently. She obviously blurred whatever she was looking at, but the resulting image was just too pretty to delete. What’s amazing to me is that Kate’s a better artist on accident than her mommy ever is on purpose!! :)
Our wonderful friends, Jon and Terri, invited us to join them on the lawn at the John Mayer concert at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in The Woodlands recently. And it was A-W-E-S-O-M-E! It was HOT and it was HOT. And if you look at the picture here and see John in the middle, you’ll know what I’m saying about that second HOT… 
Yes. That’s John Mayer. With a newly shaved head and NO shirt. (You can click on the pic to see it a little bigger and get a better look.
Did I mention that he had no shirt on?
Now, granted it was hot as holy Hades (as it always is in Houston in August) and any shirt he may have attempted to wear would have been soaked through with sweat within 30 seconds on stage, but… All I know is all the women in the SOLD-OUT crowd were fanning themselves (and not just from the temperature heat) and all the men were wondering when he got so buff. :) And while I’m sure some of the ladies were upset that he shaved all his hair off, I kind of like it because, well… it reminds me of another shaved head on a man that I’m totally in love with - yes, that’s you, honey. So, for John, the shaved head was definitely a plus in my book! :)
Looks aside, the concert was absolutely phenomenal. The quality of musicianship from the ENTIRE band was probably one of the best I’ve ever heard at a live concert. Even from Sting. And I REALLY like Sting.
John did several solos that were beyond phenomenal, but the long solo during ‘Mercy’ was so incredibly off-the-hook that everyone who was there will be talking about it for years to come. Not only did he play a great shredding solo to start with, but then he played behind his head. And then he held the guitar by it’s neck with one hand and played it. But the real OMG! moment was when he laid the guitar on the floor of the stage and continued to play it while crouched down over it. That was it. I was done. He could have ended the concert then and there and I would have happily oozed to the car and sat in traffic to get out of the parking lot. Yes, it was THAT spectacular.
But, thank God that was not the end of the concert, because there was so much more great music to enjoy! He did a great job of playing to all of his different fans, and when he started playing “Crossroads” by Stevie Ray Vaughan (one of his inspirations to start learning guitar, btw), Shawn and our friend, Jon, were both done for the night, too. (You see, they’re both big SRV fans, and SRV was really big in Texas, so when John Mayer started playing SRV, they were both really happy, and well, I think you probably got the connection by now…)
But, one of my favorite things about the night was his interaction with the audience. Always smooth, always humble (wha, wha, what? A superstar like John Mayer, humble? Yip. So awesome.), always witty. At one point I leaned over to Terri and said, ”I think he reads a lot. I mean, he keeps using those big college-level words like ‘expository’.” :) She said, “Yeah. My personal favorite was ‘cocooning’. In fact, I’m going to start using that phrase - ‘I wasn’t being cocky, I was just cocooning myself in positivity.’” Well, whatever you were doing John, it worked, because we all loved it!
So, I suppose I’ve rambled through all of this enough for you to know that I had a great night. And this is my way of sharing my joy and also my way of saying THANK YOU to Jon and Terri. What a perfect evening! :)
At our last visit to the library Kate was disappointed to discover that they didn’t have any ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?’ DVDs on the shelf. (Do you remember that geography-sleuth kids’ gameshow on TV in the late 80s with the catchy intro song by the group, Rockapella? These are the cartoons along the same story lines.) So, I told her that when we got home we would get online and request them via intralibrary loan. While I was online looking for her DVDs, I ran across this book that I thought sounded really promising. (I’m not really sure why I felt the need to tell you all that, unless I really just wanted to share with the world what a geek I was in the late 80s and still am, apparently, since I can still sing some of that theme song to this day…)
Where in the World? Around the Globe in 13 Works of Art, by Bob Raczka, has turned out to be my newest favorite book for Kate. It’s a collection of 13 works of art from around the world (duh, you probably got all that from the title) with a page describing the geographical location of the piece as well as the artist and the time he/she lived in. It’s written for kids, so the language isn’t a stumbling block but, thankfully, it’s not sing-songy either. Continue reading…
Ethan was lying on the couch next to me watching tv when Shawn came over to tickle him. Ethan was giggling uncontrollably when Karis marched over and pushed Shawn’s arm away from Ethan with a very stern look on her face. Apparently she was trying to ‘protect’ her big brother from the big, mean Daddy. :)
Shawn saw her look of concern and said, “Oh, baby. I’m not hurting him, I’m just tickling him. Besides, he’s Daddy’s boy.” and he ruffled Ethan’s hair.
Karis looked at him, shook her head and said, “Un-uh” (her version of ‘no’.), then pointed at me and said, “Mama.”
Shawn and I looked at each other and started to laugh. ”You think Ethan is Mama’s boy, not Daddy’s?”
Karis nodded her head firmly and said, “Ya.”
When I was skimming through all the indoor Houston activites for kiddos on NinaLoca, I ran across some information that just really excited me. There is a mansion in the River Oaks area that has been donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, complete with all of the artwork and collectibles that the Masterson family had acquired over the years. It houses other collections from time to time and you can regularly tour it. But, during the summer time, they offer Rienzi Storytime Tours, every Wednesday in June and July at 10am, for kids ages 4-8, as well as other family activities.
I emailed a friend of mine and we decided to take our kiddos today to check it out. We loved it! They gave us a tour of some of the larger rooms in the home and would stop in each one and have all the kiddos sit down on the floor. The docent then gave a brief piece of information about the room or something specific in the room and then read a children’s book that somehow fit. In the Dining Room, she read “Bear Wants More” about a bear that wakes up from hibernation and wants to eat more and more. In the Drawing Room, the docent read a book about 3 mice who painted (Get it? We were in the Drawing Room?! hee hee ). In the Ball Room, she pointed out some of the Masterson’s collection of Chinese porcelain from the 1700’s and then read a book called “The Empty Pot” about a little boy who was trying to become the new emporer of China.
They have several different docents that rotate each week, and they each have different books that they like to bring and read to the kids. My 5yo absolutely loved getting to hear stories in such a new and exciting place. My 3yo actually paid attention and enjoyed kicking off his flip flops to listen. While my 21mo didn’t exactly listen to the stories, she absolutely loved pointing at all the paintings and statues throughout the house. Obviously the age range of 4-8 is best suited to the tour, but they don’t limit it to that age group.
After the tour was over and all the kiddos hugged our docent, “Ms. Mary”, we went out into the back yard to see the beautiful pool and grounds. We wound up playing hide-n-seek in the shrubs of the side yard until we were too hot and sticky to stay any longer.
All in all, a wonderful experience, and one that Kate is anxious to repeat!
By Kay on Sun, Sep 28, 2008
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