Friday song, my pacifier for this week

Something about her voice just soothes me like a warm blanket on a cool night.  I've been addicted to her this week.  This week was better at work, worse regarding Gabriel and school.  He hates it and has been waking up crying in the middle of the night.  Just praying at this point for him to find peace.




I am adding on to this because I forgot to write something funny this morning, and I was late for work.

Many years ago I was driving my mom and I to Fredericksburg for a weekend trip to visit my grandmother.  I was excited for my mom to hear Gillian Welch, who I had just discovered and thought was amazing.  I popped in her first CD, "Hell Among the Yearlings", and was instantly taken to another time and place, and of course, calmed by her voice.  My mom quietly listened to about four songs, then in the middle of the fifth song, with her face totally deadpan, said, "If you don't take that depressing CD out I will grab the steering wheel and plunge the car into the next ravine we cross."

So I did.  To each his (or her) own, I guess!  Makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Cousin sleepover swap

Two or three times a year, we do a Cousin swap weekend with my parents.  Friday night my niece stays with us and my nephew stays with my parents (or vice versa), then Saturday they switch houses.  Saturday night we all eat dinner together.  It is super fun and works really well because it means Cade and Macy are here one at a time with Gabriel and will play with him.  When they're here together he sort of gets lost in the shuffle. 

This weekend was all about the Olympics and our backyard water park.  

Look at how Macy has her head tilted just right to the side.  It is so inbred in girls to pose for pictures!  What a cutie.

Time for bed!  I love this picture, and I love it when Cade and Macy can spend time with us.  Hooray!

Backyard Decathlon!

I'm trying to wrap up the summer posts.  Because even though it's only mid-August, our summer is basically over since Gabriel has started school.

We had Olympic fever at our house.  Before they started, I decided to try to get the boys geared up by holding the first annual Backyard Decathlon.  We started out by having our own parade of countries, marching around the back yard while I hummed the Olympic theme.  Then it was time for the competition to begin.  Our categories were things like Ladder Jumping and Purple Ball Throwing.  Whoever won got to stand on the upside-down ball bucket and be presented their medal, along with a kiss on each cheek from Mommy.  It was great fun, and we WILL do this again, even in a non-Olympic year.  

One new fun thing that we've been doing this summer is glow stick bubble baths.  We fill up the tub with bubbles, get the sticks going and flip off the lights.  INSTANT FUN!!!   I can't put into words how much the boys love this.  We got the idea from Gabriel's former school friend Luke's mom, who has a blog where she tries out things from Pinterest and posts about the results.  She started the blog because she felt she was wasting a bunch of time in the evenings, and had lost her creative spark sometime in the middle of having children (didn't we all?)   Here's a link if you're interested.  I have a list going of things I want to try from it.  

My mom's birthday was at our house, very last minutely thrown together.  Which can sometimes be very, very fun.

The Birthday Girl

I'm kind of proud of my pretty Turk's Cap centerpiece, clipped from the garden that morning.

Joel, showing his "Cheese-y" smile, with his Aunt April.

Now I need to still finish up with a Cousin weekend post, and my fabulous NY/NJ trip post.  

My Friday song

Love Brazilian music, love music that makes me think of walking along the beach.  This offers both.




I wish I was on a beach with my family.  This has been a tough week.

First day of school!

Gabriel bravely marched into Kindergarten this morning.  We had an open house Saturday to meet the teacher, who was not the teacher we were expecting.  They hired a teacher one week before school started, we think because the teacher from last year didn't want to deal with 22 Kindergarteners.  This greatly upset me because I was worried it would upset Gabriel.  He doesn't accept change very well.  But, "Mrs. B" seems like she has her stuff together and has been teaching this age for a LONG time.  Some of her best quotes from open house:

"I love my kids, but it's tough love".

"I don't want parents in my classroom.  You can peek in the window over the bushes if you're that concerned about what's happening in here, but kids don't act the same when their parents are in the room"

"My goal is to make them self-sufficient and independent by the end of the year".

Well, my fears melted away with every word the woman said.  And since my kid picks up on my approval or disapproval with some sort of internal radar, he seemed excited to get started this morning.  I walked him in and dropped him off with two other kids melting down and one little girl totally ok.  The rest of them hadn't shown up yet.  He didn't seem upset at all, and a miraculous thing happened.  I didn't shed a tear.  Not one.  Didn't even well up.

The only thing I was sad about was Joel.  He and Gabriel have been inseparable this summer, and now Baba is gone all day.  I think he'll be ok once his preschool starts back after Labor Day, but until then I'm trying to play with him and fill the void that his brother has left.

Of course, after all the praising I gave Gabriel when I picked him up, he decided to COMPLETELY melt down about going back tomorrow while I was putting him to bed.  Seemed he had thought about things and decided he didn't want to be gone away from home that long each day.  But I think it had more to do with the excitement of starting school coupled with a late afternoon VERY HOT swim lesson that wore him out.

We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Christmas in July 2012!

Yesterday was the official 3rd annual Villarreal Christmas in July!!!!!   We ramped it up a few notches this year.  And just to be clear, this is purely a pagan celebration.  Maybe we shouldn't call it Christmas, but come on people, don't take things too seriously.  We save the more serious stuff for December.  

Here's why our day was really special.  

1.  Stay in pajamas all morning.  

2.  Watch a Christmas show or movie, or several.  This year we watched Rudolph.  

3.  Dance around like crazy people to Christmas music.  Gabriel requested Brave Combo first, of course.  Then we did a little interpretive dancing to The Nutcracker.

 4.  Make a carpet angel.  My son's idea, which I thought was brilliant.

5.  Bake cookies!  We didn't want to spend much time on making them from scratch, so we used the Nestle Toll House pre-cut numbers and added red and green M&M's.  BTW, you can't find JUST red and green M&M's this time of year.  I had to weed them out of a multicolored pack.

6.  Go to Dallas for a trip to Froggy's, the greatest toy store in the whole world!!!  I forgot to take any pics while we spent over a hour just browsing.  It was great because when we go in December the store is always packed, and there was no one in there today.

7.  Eat at Chuy's.  Yum, yum, yum.

8.  Save some cookies for dessert after Chuy's.

 9.  Picture next to Harry's Hot Dog hot dog.  It's just become part of the tradition.

10.  Show off the toys you got at Froggy's:  Gabriel picked out a talking Lost in Space bobblehead robot.

Joel just wanted a garbage truck.

And finally, one pooped Daddy.  Mommy was totally worn out too.  But we're already looking forward to next year!!

My new addictions

Number 1 - Coffee.  I tried drinking coffee when I was in my 20's but never liked the taste.  I would end up putting in so much cream and sugar that I might as well have called it Sweet Cream with Mocha flavoring.  Well, lately I've become really hooked on Diet Coke, and it seems like I need more and more.  The more I've tried to give it up the more I craved it.  I've also been reading that the medical experts are now finding out that having one or two cups of coffee a day actually has health benefits.  And after all, common sense tells me that something natural like coffee has to be better for you than the bunch of chemicals that is diet soda.

So I thought I would give it a try, and within a few days I was drinking it with only one tsp of sugar and a dollop of milk.  I LOVE the bitter taste.  I can't get enough of it.  I'm having to really watch myself and stay true to my "only two cups a day" limit.  It's so interesting how your tastes can change as you get older.

Number 2 - Downton Abbey.  My mother has been raving about it, and so has my friend Christi, who seems to like so many things that I do.  I've always loved anything Maggie Smith does, so knew I would probably like it.  Mom brought over Season 1 and it sat for a few weeks gathering dust.  But once I popped it in, within two minutes of the opening I was hooked.  The beginning scene is a telegraph office sending word to "the family" that the father and son heirs to the Downton estate and all that implies have been lost at sea with the Titanic sinking.  Pretty good beginning to rope you in.  Even though I don't know anything about the other actors besides Smith, I already have my favorites - and they all have been nominated for Emmys!  As well they should!

I have the second season waiting on my shelf to start, but the new 3rd season doesn't start until January 6th of next year.  So I'm sort of trying to savor it, just like my cup of coffee every morning!

Birthdays and big surprises

I can't believe I forgot to post this!  On May 20th, which is my sister-in-law's birthday, we went to a very nice restaurant in Oak Cliff that served Mexican food similar to the kind you get in Monterrey.  We were also celebrating her boyfriend Michael's birthday, which had fallen earlier in the month.  

It was special in that Michael's two daughters and his older sister even joined us.  We had a big, long table and everyone seemed to love the food and atmosphere.

I think it was sweet that Michael picked out this restaurant in the hope that Sandra's parents would like the food and feel at home.

Lizzie and Grace.  We had not seen Grace for almost a year when we met for this dinner.  She will be a sophomore in high school.  That explains alot.

The boys loved the mariachis.  They sang two songs at our table and were very LOUD.

We had cake and then it was time for presents.  We didn't think it was odd at all that Michael's big present to Sandra was a Chef's knife.  That is a big deal for Michael, who is one of the best cooks whose food I've had the pleasure of eating.

But then, he said he had one more gift.  And he pulled out a little box, and started backing up his chair.  I got goose bumps from the bottom of my feet all up to the top of my head and started hoping the thing we had hoped for was about to happen.  I think I was so worked up that Gabriel got concerned that something was wrong.

But no, everything was wonderful!!!  He popped the question right there, in front of the whole restaurant, and more importantly, in front of all of us.  What an incredibly sweet thing to do, to include us in that joyful moment.  I was laughing and crying more than anyone but Sandra, because I remember how wonderful it feels.  It hasn't been that long since I got to have that happy moment, and I remember like it was yesterday.

We were starting to accept that it might not happen.  They've been together for 3-1/2 years.  And we were ready to accept that if she was happy.  He'd been married before and we thought he just wasn't going to go down that road again.  But I'm so happy we were wrong!!  This is just so much better.  They are making plans, and talking things over.  They probably won't have a really big wedding, but Jav contends that Sandra would never get married without her family around her.  And I'm sure Michael knows this.

What a happy, happy day!!!!!

Fun with (mommy's) glasses

Give them a few years and they will probably both need them for real!

Big changes

My dad and Jav spent the 4th of July putting them together (at my dad's suggestion).  This all seemed like a good idea at the time.  It would free up our weekend a little more.

We had been going back and forth about whether or not to let Joel start sleeping in the bottom bunk, straight from the crib, or to let him sleep in Gabriel's old bed for awhile.  He's still really loud when he wakes up at night and has a tendency to wake up earlier than Gabriel.  We decided on Gabriel's old bed because with Gabriel about to start Kinder right around the corner (August 13!!!!!!!), I want him to have some good night's sleep under his belt.  The problem with this arrangement is that the bunk beds are going in Joel's current room, so that means not only would Joel be sleeping in a new bed for the first time, he would be in a different room also.  And on the first night all of this was to take place, there were fireworks popping all around us until late into the night.  How many things could we possibly throw into the mix to make sure he didn't sleep?  Sheesh.

Here is the finished product, with a very happy customer up top.  I thought he might not like it once he got up there, but I was wrong.  But Joel was very restless and had trouble sleeping.  Jav finally went in and slept with him in the bed that first night.

But things have settled down and now Joel loves his new bed.  I mean LOVES.  He can't wait to go to bed at night.  He was waking up early with the early sunrise (he has West Texas hillbilly in his blood), so we got some Eclipse blackout curtains from Target and he's now sleeping until 8 on weekends and I have to wake him up most weekday mornings.  Woohoo!!!

He's not smiling in these pics, but it's because the moment he gets in bed he gets really sleepy.  What happened to my baby boys?  They're so big!

I would be such a nerd without you

I must thank you, Julie, for turning me on to so many good bands, past and present, that I might never found myself.  I heard this on KXT, our public radio gem that I can't get enough of, and thought it was solo Neko Case (you burned me 2 of her CD's a couple of years back and I love her now).  But then looked it up on You Tube to find it was a band you turned me on to through one of our Girls Trips CD's, who Neko Case sings for sometimes.

Right now my boys think I am the coolest mom musically, ever.  I know that will change, but I will try to retain at least a tiny bit of my musical hipness as they (and I) get older.  Keep helping me, Julie!  I'll need you more than ever now!!!

Isn't this one of the coolest songs, ever?  Love the cello and the whistling.

T-ball - Successful or Not?

Gabriel played "Spring" t-ball, his first time to try baseball.  Why they called it spring when it started May 23 is beyond me.  It was stinkin' hot at those games.  We wondered how he would like it. Soccer wasn't too fun for him, which I partially blame on having lousy coaches.  The TCU kids were super nice, but they didn't know a thing about communicating with and motivating kids that young.  So we knew it might all depend on Gabriel's coach (or coaches) and hoped he would get a good one.

Here he is at his first actual game getting his first actual hit.  Pretty good camera work Daddy!  His coaches were wonderful.  Coach Rick and Coach Jaime both had sons on the team and were very good about teaching the kids why they were doing what they were doing.  They were patient when they needed to be, but also tough with the boys if it was called for.

Look at the variation of sizes on his team!  Evan (#10) looked like a 3rd or 4th grader.  Little Aidan (between #5 and #4) was the shortest team member, but also the scrappiest.  He kept trying to either run away from practice and games, or was starting scuffles with his team mates.  Aside:  There were two Aidans on our team, and at least one on every other team.  Popular name!  The boys were also very varied on their skill level.  Maybe because of their size, Evan and Johnny were great at fielding.  I'm wondering if this was supposed to be for Kindergardeners and their parents held them back a year.  Don't know how that works with the age rules at the Y.

Gabriel did really well at hitting with a tee.  But when they switched to coach pitch he couldn't seem to hit the ball.  When he was playing third he would mostly stand there and yawn the whole game.  I thought (hoped) at first that he was nervous and breathing more shallow, and the lack of oxygen was making him yawn.  But Jav just looked at me when I suggested this and said, "He's bored silly."  I will say that he wanted to practice throwing, catching and hitting MUCH more than he wanted to practice soccer.  But it was still usually around a promise of getting to do something else after 10-15 minutes of practicing.  Jav bought a tee and rubber home plate and bases for him to run around.  If nothing else it did help him understand what he was supposed to do a little more.  And he greatly improved his throwing and catching with practice.  But during games, when the ball was hit towards him, he just stood as if glued to the grass while his teammates scrambled around him trying to get the ball.  This is very frustrating to watch as a parent.  But I did pretty good most of the time and let the coaches reprimand him.  Most of the time.

This picture was taken during their last game, after he got a hit and ran to first.  The game before this one he got a hit and barely jogged to first and was out.  I was screaming at him to run faster.  The only time during the season I wish I had duct taped my mouth.  Coach Rick told him to be sure and run as fast as he could next time.  So when he got the hit before the pic was taken, he ran his little heart out and was looking over at me for approval when he made it on base.  This makes me wonder if all of his playing is for pleasing parents instead of pleasing himself.  Something I never have to wonder when I hear or see him playing the drums.  Sigh.

My sister-in-law Sandra took this awesome shot just after they got their trophies.  She and Jav's mom came to almost every game.   I liked that Coach Rick told each player how many hits, RBIs and outs each team member got before giving them their trophy.  I think the "let's give a trophy to every kid" doesn't really do anything to drive them to do better the next season.  Hearing some of the higher numbers his team mates had, Gabriel said on the way home, "I bet if I had gotten the most, we would all be really proud of me right now".  We told him that we were SO proud of him already, because he had gone to every practice and game, and had tried his best.  

We'll see if he wants to play when next "Spring" rolls around.  I hope so, but not too much.  

Father's Day

We went to Railhead for BBQ Saturday night with Jav's dad and forgot to take any pictures.  It wasn't a real kid friendly place, and neither of the boys liked their food.  It was ok, but won't be going back.  They didn't even have Shiner Bock on draft for God's sake!  What kind of a Texas restaurant do they think they're running?  We had to settle for Ziegenbock.  But Jav's dad seemed to enjoy everything, so that's what mattered.  

And what do we love about Father's Day, along with getting to honor all the great Dads in our lives?  DONUTS!!!!!!!  The 2nd time this year we get donuts and sausage rolls for breakfast (the 1st being Mother's Day).

Jav, the greatest Dad in the world (alright, tied with my dad), and his boys.  We were supposed to go over to my mom and dad's but they had a carpet issue and asked if I would host at the last minute.  Since I hadn't had the family over since Christmas (!!!!!), I agreed.  Mom and Dad brought the food, so I just had to make sure the house looked halfway decent.

Three of four cousins making silly faces, while the fourth one just looks at them like they're crazy!

Luckily it wasn't too hot to get the hammock out.

My dad and his two babies!

Mamaw and Poppy and their clan.

Staged, true, but funny nonetheless.

We had pizza and salad and birthday cake (it was also my sister-in-law's birthday).  Poor April always has to share her birthday with Father's Day festivities.    But it was a really fun day and I'm glad we got to spend time with everyone.