Our Whirlwind Getaway!

One of the great things about living near family is that Seth's parents are able to help with some babysitting. (We try not to use them too much, of course, and have an unspoken rule about using them only once a month.) They help in the fall for our annual Fredericksburg trip which is usually a long weekend, and I came up with the idea for a springtime getaway as well, but one that's shorter and closer to home. Just something like 24 hours to get away--eat a few meals, see a movie, run an errand, sleep in, etc. Just little things to recharge ourselves and our marriage. And this past weekend we did it!

Kim came over at about 1:30pm on Saturday and we returned to the house at 2pm on Sunday. It was a quick 24 hours of a vacation, but it was perfect! We crammed fun and relaxation into that time and because we stayed in Las Colinas, we didn't spend much time traveling to our destination. It was a perfect time. And the Omni we stayed at was amazing! The view was great, service amazing (they upgraded us to a suite on the 23rd floor!) and the staff was very pleasant.

We started off our getaway with some spa time, then a movie, dinner, got ice cream and ate it under the stars (as much as is possible in Irving, TX!), then slept late, had breakfast at the hotel, and then drove the Miata around Dallas, enjoying perfect Top Down Weather. We stopped at a kiosk in The Galleria for Seth to buy several pairs of sunglasses (wearing sunglasses is very important to your eye health--there's family history of macular degeneration in Seth's family, and he's terrible about losing/breaking his sunglasses), had lunch and came home. It was perfect. Thanks, Kim and David for watching our sweet boys for us!

Our view from the 23rd floor included downtown Dallas!

Here it is zoomed in. 

Our dinner at The Ranch included this Front Porch Swing drink.
Those ice cubes were perfect and frozen long after the beverage was gone!

 We got to see the city lights and the sunrise!

And then we went driving. With me in my scarf! Wearing that thing makes me a much happier Top Down Passenger as my hair isn't impossibly wrecked!

Seth's been wanting to drive over this bridge for forever. Doing it in a convertible was the perfect first experience! And then we went to Oak Cliff for some sight-seeing and then the Design District for window shopping.

A Visit with Grandma

The tradition in Seth's family is that we get together with his mom's side of the family on New Year's Day each year to celebrate not only the new year, but we also celebrate Christmas. We do a gift card + ornament exchange for the adults and all the kids get gifts. The morning of that event, we went to the nursing home Grandma Houston had recently moved into to give her gifts and take some pictures of her with all the great grandkids under Kim's family. That was in the midst of our camera troubles and while it worked fine while we were there, we were unable to get the pictures off of the camera. (Even after spending a significant amount of money taking it to some camera card wizard recommended to us by several camera shops.) And so, all these great pictures were gone.

It was important to me that we get some other, more updated pictures of our boys with Grandma, though, since we hadn't seen her in quite awhile and as such, she's absent from most of the pictures (but not our hearts!). So on a random Saturday, we headed up there to visit with her and get some pictures. Here are the best ones.

The boys love this singing bear she has:

Me trying to be creative/artsy:

 

All four generations:

 It is SO hard to get good pictures with kids in them!

The three oldest generations:

And a funny few:

Front Room Transformation

I have hated the plantation shutters in our dining room and front room (what we call our formal living room) since the first moment I stepped into this house. We will have owned it 5 years next month! The shutters are also in the kid bedrooms and I don't mind them there because it is an easy way to quickly darken the room and there's nothing to get caught up with littles around. But in the living areas of the house, it felt like I was living behind prison bars or something. I wanted to be able to see out and have the sun shining in.

Seth had popped the shutters off the hinges in the dining room years ago, but we hadn't actually removed the edges and had the texture and paint fixed. The unfinished edges were hidden behind the drapes in that room. But because the front room shutters were such an expanse, we couldn't do the same in there because we would not have been able to hide it. Other things have taken the front seat for the past few years, but we finally were able to make this a priority and I am THRILLED with the results!

This is a perfect picture of what I felt like I was living in. Jail bars.

My live-in (sexy) handyman popped the shutters off the hinges.

And then we hired Alex to come remove them and repair the resulting damage. He took off the edges and then painted corner to corner on those two walls.

The boys LOVED watching him and he was super great with them.

And it's off! It's off!

A few pictures of the damage uncovered by removing it.

We hadn't realized that the windows had all those holes.
It was covered up by the shutters this whole time.

I've been wanting that finished off for so long and it was awesome to watch it come down.

More damage:

After he removed everything, he had to caulk and use compound and then texture over it. He ended up coming back the following day to paint so that everything could dry properly over night.

He made short work of all the painting! And Graham loved watching.

He even opened the windows to finish painting the windows so they wouldn't be painted shut.

I love how crisp the window sill looks now!

The dining room put back together!

And the biggest change was in the front room. In addition to removing the shutters, we hung some curtains and bought some pillows. It makes such a difference! I love being able to see out so much better. I literally feel like I can breathe better in that room.

After.

Before

What do you guys think?

It's Official! I'm a Soccer Mom.

I cannot put into words how excited I am about this. What's crazier is that I can't fully explain even why I'm so excited about this. I didn't grow up with soccer in my life--didn't watch it, didn't play it, didn't know anyone who played it and yet I'm THRILLED to have Austin enrolled in soccer at our local YMCA. I'll be learning the rules alongside Austin.

At the Y, teams are formed around coaches so in order to form your own team, you need to have a coach. We didn't, so we went on a wait list. It worked out great though, because within 24 hours he was placed onto the Ninja Turtles. The coach and the majority of the team is made up of a group of friends from a preschool. So it's a little weird to not know anyone like everyone else does, but I'm sure that will change over the course of the season.

In ordering his red jersey, we got to select the number on the back. It felt like such a shock, such a surprise, something felt very overwhelming about choosing The First Number On Austin's First Jersey. I was paralyzed a bit, but then suddenly thought of Lightning McQueen's number which is 95. And so, 95 is the number to look for in the pictures below. We had a great time shopping as a family for the required black shorts, red socks, shin guards, and some shoes. We decided to splurge on cleats for him to wear because we hope Graham wears them when he gets ready for soccer.

The lady in the blue jacket is Coach Jenifer, the Ninja Turtles coach. The coaches from each team are supposed to be on the field the whole time and everyone else is supposed to be on the sidelines so that they can keep the ball from going too far from the field. The adults simply kick it back onto the field. The first game was surprisingly like a game. I expected it to be a bunch of standing around or what I've heard called Blob Ball or some such thing. It was like a soccer game played by preschoolers! (At least as far as I'm able to tell. lol)

After some drills (which was just kicking the ball into the goal), the referee (in the orange shirt) had them run end to end to get warmed up.

Note the guy in the gray shirt and black messenger bag.
You'll see him again. And again. Grrr.

Is that not the cutest concentration face you've ever seen?!?!

Graham was GREAT about watching his big brother play soccer.

Then they kicked off and Austin got to do the honors! (I assume the guy in gray shirt and khaki shorts is the other coach.)

Austin actually went on to score the first goal. For the other team. ! And then later in the game, he scored one for our team and though the messenger bag guy is in the way, I got some pretty good shots of it.

Since there are 12 people on the team, not everyone gets to play the entire time, so Austin was pulled partway through so that he could enjoy some juice. He was working harder out there than I had expected! I hadn't even brought some water for him. I guess it was a good thing that we were in charge of snack that day. I had initially sorta balked at having to bring a snack because I thought "how could they possible work enough in 3 year-old soccer to require a snack at 9am!?" But they actually did run around quite a bit, so that juice hit the spot!

After going back in, he had his first (and only!) meltdown. He was kicking the ball and a boy from the other team (perhaps the one playing with the flag in this picture. lol.) stole the ball and Austin lost it. He came off the field, hugged Seth's legs and cried. After a few seconds of that, Seth sent him back in and he was great for the rest of the game.

I love these action shots!

When the game was done (they don't keep score, so we don't know who won), the adults formed a bridge with our arms and the kids walked through. I still had my camera in hand and managed to catch Austin as he walked through!

My sweet boy.

When we got home, I forced a bit of a photo session on him. I kept taking pictures until I got something that I thought was Just Right. I thought it was this first picture you see and I immediately set my camera down. However, looking at it now, it's a tad blurry. Boo. But then I found the last one and think it's great. Love my sweet soccer player!

I can't wait to learn the game of soccer alongside Austin and watch him develop as a player.

UPDATE: True to current trends, he got a trophy for participating. The ball spins around, so at least it's a cool trophy! lol