Show Day at Little Gym

Ivy has been taking classes at Little Gym for a year now and she loves swinging on the bars.

Peaches and Steam

As summer punches us in the face, it's hard to find outdoor activities that you can do after the sun comes up.  But some days...you have to stick one to the man and say..."HEY!  old man Summer...this one's for you...and the horse you rode in on!"  So...today we headed out to Fredericksburg to pick some peaches.

After last year's drought, we've had enough rain to tick above Sahara on the rainfall map and the peach growers (farmers? cultivators? makers?) are loving it.  So, why not venture out to pick a fruit off a tree that doesn't grow tall enough to provide any real shade?  Well...I guess short trees are good when you've got short kids.

After a short car ride filled with knock knock jokes..."knock knock...who's there?...Gorilla...Gorilla who?...Gorilla me a hamburger I'm hungry"...and some knock knock jokes(??)..."knock knock...who's there?...banana...banana who....banana are you in the house"...and a quick stop at the Dairy Queen (insert DQ ice cream picture to make Mom jealous)

we arrived to pick our peaches.  We bought a 1/4 bushel but I probably should have paid for twice that, because I'm sure Ivy ate no less than 30 peaches.  Well, come to think of it...I'm sure we'll all be paying for that later.  Here's a little of how our day went:




So...now the question of what to do with all of these peaches...well...in Texas...there's only one answer: Cobbler!

And as for Ol' Man Summer....Knock Knock...who's there?...Orange...Orange who?....Orange you glad we don't give a crap how hot it is outside!?

Happy Sunday

San Francisco

Russell was in SF for work and I've never been so I met him out there. We had fun doing all the touristy things. Shopping in Union Square(3 story Anthropologie!), biking across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito (harder than I thought but not as scary), Alcatraz. A BIG thank you to my parents who kept the kids so we could have a few days of fun.

Early birthday gift

Ivy received a package from Spencer and Julie and opened it up before I had a chance to hide it from her. She was so excited about her new summer look that she took off her clothes and put on her new stuff. It was pretty cute.

School's out for summer!

The last day of school was a splash and pizza party. Bryce and Ivy liked the pizza better than the water but overall had a great time. I got a few pictures from things he did during the school year. If I can scan them I'll update this post. There's a great one of Bryce riding a horse.

Mother's Day

My mom, the kids and I went to San Angelo to spend Mother's Day with my grandparents. We had so much fun but I really didn't take the camera around. The big excitement was the train museum. Aunt Judy and Uncle Mark suggested it and off we went. Dear old Mr. Mathis showed us around. He was an engineer on the trains for 30 years and now volunteers at the museum. He took Bryce by the hand and we saw room filled with model trains. The kids got to push buttons to make the trains go, make noise, etc. After the inside we went out to climb up on a real engine and caboose. Mr. Mathis shared tidbits about how the engineer and brakeman would sleep in the caboose and how bathrooms weren't on board in the beginning...we all learned a lot :) Sorry about the pictures...I really didn't know what we were going to be doing.

First strawberries...

The new garden has already yielded the first 2 strawberries of what I'm sure will be a bumper crop for 2010.

Passover

We had a very nice seder with my family on Saturday night. Uncle Arnold condensed his previously condensed seder to accommodate the kids' attention spans. Plenty of matzoh and charoset kept Bryce in his seat. Ivy was not so easily convinced...

Wildflowers

This post is supposed to be about how beautiful all the wildflowers are this year. Instead the pictures will show how difficult it is to get one good picture of two kids. Russell tried his best...please use your imagination to put these two pictures together into one good one.

***UPDATE - ask and you shall receive...a little photo magic:

Egg Hunt

Since eggs are Kosher for Passover, we thought it would be fun for Bryce to participate in his school's Easter egg hunt.  He also needed a little practice for the Afikomen hunt on Saturday when we will have TIVO Passover at the Jessel house with the Barbans (that's right TIVO Passover...we've taken to recording all 8 days of holidays and then watching them when convenient...we get to skip the boring parts of the service as wells as the commercials).

Houston

We went to Houston for the weekend to visit some friends. The highlight of the trip was a trip to the Houston Zoo. Besides the standard favorites of the animals and a train ride, the kids had their 1st carousel ride. I couldn't believe that Bryce wanted to ride and was even more surprised when he loved it and Ivy cried.

New Garden

My herb garden was in serious need of help and Russell (with a little help from Bryce) came to my rescue. We now have 4 raised garden beds and hopefully our herbs and veggies will appreciate the makeover and will not die on me...

All Dressed Up

Someone told Ivy that the rodeo was in town so she got all ready to go!

Fox Family Fun

Russell's Aunt Dot and Uncle Marty were in Dallas visiting their daughter's family. They convinced Hilary and Scott to bring Morgan to visit us for the weekend. Morgan was the first one to sleep in Bryce's trundle bed. No one could believe the kids slept in the same room all night. Both are known to be night wanderers... On Sunday we went to the kite festival. Marty and Scott brought kites, Hilary supplied bubbles, I was in charge of food and Ivy monitored the port o potties. We all had a great time.

Corpus Christi

We took the kids to visit Dede for the weekend. We all had a great weekend. We took the kids to a new museum which had a great kids area in addition to the regular exhibits. Staying in a hotel was also a big hit. The kids loved popcorn at happy hour and the breakfast in the morning.

Visit with Nana

A major snowstorm in NY wasn't going to keep Nana from visiting her grandkids. Myra was able to come in for the weekend and our weather cooperated for a change. It was warm enough that we got to show off a few playgrounds and take a train ride.

Obligatory Snow Pictures

It snowed this week in Austin...here's proof.

A Close Shave

As I continue to struggle with the daily (or every other daily in my case) hassle of shaving, I've gone through almost every type of product there is.  Creams, oils, lotions, gels, clear, foamy...one blade, disposable, 3 blades, electric, 5 blades, lawnmower blades, henkel knives...whatever.  I hate shaving...always have.  Recently I discovered a website Badger & Blade (http://badgerandblade.com/)...a community dedicated to my nemesis.  On there, they review various shaving products, produce their own line of shaving accessories, and have actually started a mini revolution dedicated to the art of shaving with brushes, full lathers, and the most unbelievable part...double edged razor blades...super old school.  While they're convinced you can learn to shave the 'right' way with relative ease, I'm not ready to start hacking up my face quite yet (although our Costco membership would come in handy as we would surely have to quadruple the amount of toilet paper to cover up Freddy Kruger face) and I will more than likely stick with my 105 micro-blade concoction from Gillette.  I have however switched from my ridiculously expense shave gel by Zihr to a combination of shaving oil from Pacific Shaving Company ($4.99, 100 shaves)

and a good old fashioned can of Barbasol (with aloe...of course). ($1.99)


So...why am I boring you with details of my personal hygiene?   Well...Bryce caught a glimpse of me shaving with my new foamy shaving cream and thought it looked like a kick.  So...while at Target this weekend (what else do you do on the weekends...c'mon...you go too...it's ok) we happened upon a kiddie shaving kit...and the little man got a taste of what he has to look forward to in another 12 years or so.  The whole process was pretty hilarious as he was convinced that he didn't get it smooth enough (if he can't get it now while his face really is as smooth as his behind...he's screwed).  Anyway...he looked like such a little mensch...I had to post some pictures.  Who knows...with kids his age already having Facebook pages and playing World of Warcraft online...maybe he'll buck the trend and be old school...at least when it comes to shaving.

 

  

Love is in the air

Happy Valentine's day. Our day started as a lazy Sunday morning. With Paige at the grocery, I had the kids. The mission, as usual, was to have the same number of kids as when she left...success! The kids broke in to a spontaneous session of ring around the rosy and my video camera had just enough juice to capture a few seconds.



Since the weather was finally nice today, we headed out to the park for a little picnic and some digging time. The picture of Ivy above may be the first time I've successfully recorded a non food induced smile on film. The rest of the slideshow are just for fun.

We ended the day with some friends over to eat dinner. Ryan and Michelle made the drive down and David and Lindsey were nice enough to let Zach be harassed by Josie and Ivy for a few hours.

A Visit and a New Project

Last weekend, my Dad and Barbara came to visit. The standard mid winter visit to the warm Texas climate failed miserably as it was not much nicer than it was in NY. Well, I guess 45 is technically 30 degrees warmer than 15, but at this point I think we're splitting hairs. Despite being a little couped up, I think everyone had a good time. I know the kids have a few new expressions they're running around with, and I'm sure that Dad has a few bruises he's running around with after Bryce treated him as his personal trampoline.



This weekend was another Home Depot workshop. Bryce donned his apron and took to the aisle with his new project...a race car show stand thingy. I wish they had some smaller hammers so Bryce could do a full one handed swing (we tried that with the heavier hammer and...well...my fingers didn't appreciate it). Anyway...Bryce did great with the stickers and glue and couldn't wait to get home and set up his cars and trucks.

Perfecto

Russell and I just got from Playa del Carmen. We stayed at the most amazing resort, rosewoodmayakoba.com. My pictures and description won't do it justice so you'll just have to trust me that it was incredible. I know the staff is paid to be nice to us but they truly seemed to want our stay to be perfecto and it was!

Above is a picture of the "backyard" of our suite, a plunge pool overlooking the lagoon. Below we're enjoying an afternoon cocktail on our rooftop balcony.

Tinplate Trackin

The Austin Tinplate Trackers are a club of model train enthusiasts.  I'm not sure where on the hierarchy they rank...somewhere between people who build ships inside bottles and people who paint civil war figurines under one of those giant magnifying glasses with the light around it.  Regardless of how long they have until they evolve in to the internet age, or kiss a girl...Bryce and I took a trip to their open house to play with their toys.  For the event they rented an open storefront downtown and set up some giant train tracks.  For a few bucks, Bryce got to drive one of them for a few minutes...forward, backward, fast, slow, horn, smoke...the works.  Unfortunately we had to come home to our manually powered trains, but hopefully they're boring enough that one day he'll forget about them and actually take an interest in other things like sports or girls or daylight.

Here is Bryce's train

 Bryce dominating the controls

Checking out some freight cars

Utter amazement!

 

Rainy morning

aturday mornings are normally spent running at the lake and trips to the farmer's market for some fresh goodies (particularly kettle corn for the kids).  Well, it's raining here this morning and we're inside.  One of the best things we get from the market is fresh bread...so instead of going out today...we brought the market inside.  Paige dug out a Barefoot Contessa book and found us a recipe for some honey white bread...yum...so Bryce and I fixed it up.

Bryce hopped up on the counter to supervise with the adding of ingredients

Once we had everything in, it was time to Mix!

One last toss by hand before we let it rise

We'll see...hopefully we did a good job...lunch depends on it!

A Surprise Party?

 Bryce and Ivy got to go to a birthday party for a friend of ours in the neighborhood yesterday.  It was at a jumpy gym...which is a sectioned off warehouse type place with tons of inflatable thingies...not unlike the obnoxious Santas or snow globes people put on their lawns over Christmas...except much larger with a significantly higher chance of injury.  Both our kids hate them...but we're not ones to miss a party.  Luckily, they had lots of other toys and things for the kids to play with while we were there.

The funniest part was that it was a 'surprise' party for the little girl. Not only didn't her parents tell her she was having a party, but when we got there...they didn't tell her she was there for her party.  In fact, not until they brought out the cake with her name on it did they tell her the party was for her.  Either way...kids had fun, I got to test out my new camera, and we ended the night with Mexican food...can't be all bad right?

Just about done...

Enjoying the last quiet time of vacation.  Everyone is napping and I'm wondering when it'll warm up around here (was it that long ago that we had 60 days over 100?)  Been nice being able to spend time with the family and spend more than my fair share of time in pajamas.  Back to work tomorrow...2010...here we come!

Twist and Turn...

(Cell phone cameras were not made to explore your artistic side)

Make it tight! The first Saturday of the month Home Depot does a free kids' project. Today Bryce got to make a calendar. You should have seen him hammering it together. After he completed the project he got a calendar pin to affix to his very own Home Depot apron. This isn't new news to most of the kids there as I think there were some kids more decorated than a high ranking military officer.

While Ivy could have made her own, she decided it would be more helpful to supervise other people's projects since they clearly weren't able to follow the directions without her...nor would they have known where to find the glue or sandpaper.

Can't wait to go back and build again next month.

Happy New Year!

Well Happy New Year from the Texas Newmans...Russell, Paige, Bryce, Ivy, & Josie! This last week we had 2 honorary "Texas Newmans" when Unca Spencer and Aunt Joohwie came to visit. In fact, since they left on Thursday, Ivy has been looking everywhere for Joohwie...Joohwie? Joohwie?!?!?!

Spencer and Julie spent a nearly a week hanging out in the 'balmy' (well, compared to NY anyway) Texas winter. This trip was a mini vacation for them at the Casa de Paige bed and breakfast. Julie got to relax a little while we put Uncle Spencer through the real "what to expect when you're expecting" boot camp. He learned the ins and outs of trains, trucks, baby dolls, piggy backs, and piggy fronts. In fact, he did such a good job we thought about renting him out....look out for the Uncle Spencer doll coming Holidays 2010.
Well...we were so busy having a good time we only took these 2 pictures to chronicle their visit. So, to make up for our lack of photographic enthusiasm, I will pictographically describe their trip using generic pictures from the internet.

We started out by hopping in the And heading to a family party in San Antonio at
After we wore out our guests with family we took them to the Crown Jewel of their trip...a visit to
where we ate Monday, we hopped back in the And went down the road to
In Gruene, we shopped at the General Store and bought some treats. After that we headed to for some more Since the original point of this visit was to spend time with us and Juile's brother, Tuesday would have been the day Spencer and Julie headed to Michael and Amanda's to visit with them and their daughter. However, Michael and Amanda now live back in NY, so with a day to kill they drove to San Antonio to see And spent a romantic evening at the Hyatt Resort

(Resort pictured may not be the Hyatt; People pictured may not be Spencer or Julie; Romantic evening is implied)

After a nearly a week of travel and eating it was time to send them back to NY. It was a great visit and we'll do it again after Bryce and Ivy's little cousin is born.