Our camping trip to Bastrop

Desperate to have something to look forward to after Carlton's return, we started planning a camping trip earlier this fall. We'd never gone camping just the four of us but thought it sounded like the perfect way to spend a few December days and it couldn't have gone any better. Carlton's parents were generous enough to lend us their camper, which the girls love, and were already very familiar with since they've gone camping with their Grandma and Grandpa and cousins on several occassions.

We spent three nights at Bastrop State Park, home of the famous "Lost Pines." Temperatures were very mild the first couple of nights and then a strong cold front blew in and allowed us to bundle up and be very grateful for heat at the flip of a switch. (Those poor tent campers down the way from us!)

We kept commenting about how nice it was to be relaxed and enjoying family time the weekend before Christmas, a time that is typically busy and stressful. We know that Carlton's unusual schedule allowed us to do this and while we'll probably never get to go camping again right before Christmas, we'll certainly never forget the wonderful memories we made! Here are a few of the highlights:

- Sarah gaining confidence riding her bike
- staring up at the stars and tall pine trees
- smores, hot chocolate, hot dogs, breakfast tacos (everything tastes better when you're camping!)
- the centerpiece Sarah created for our picnic table
- playing indoor putt-putt golf ... Sarah loved it and after some bribery Julia came around to liking the black-light panther that originally scared her to death
- Julia securing food for the deer she just knew we were going to see on one of our hikes (a handful of leaves and a stick)
- Julia and Sarah reluctantly hanging out together while we packed up the camper, but ending up having the best laughing fit I've ever heard them have!

Christmas programs

Once again, I haven't posted anything in a while, but tis the season for doing a hundred things other than posting on my blog! Here are some pictures of the girls' Christmas programs. Sarah was in the program at our church and Julia participated in the program at her school. Julia's favorite song was Feliz Navidad ... what can we say, she's a true San Antonian!

Blast from the past

This video clip from Christmas 2005 is one of our family favorites! Santa and Rudolph will be well-fed come Christmas Eve, if Sarah has anything to do with it.

An orange dum-dum and chicken pot pie

I couldn't let this go without somehow documenting it and figured some of you would get a chuckle out of it. When we ask Julia what she wants for Christmas, her reply is "orange dum-dum, chicken pot-pie!" This is consistently her answer, so Santa gets off easy this year, aside from some cooking. :) She loves dum-dums, but I have no idea where the chicken pot-pie came from (other than people usually laugh when she says it so of course she loves saying it now!)

An especially thankful Thanksgiving

Since Carlton had just gotten home two days before Thanksgiving, we stayed at our house for the holiday and had the traditional turkey and dressing meal just the four of us. We missed being with extended family but got to see most everyone later that weekend. We enjoyed hanging out on the deck to watch the Macy's parade and later that night to roast marshmallows in the chiminea and watch the football game.

A happy homecoming

I'm back ... and so is he!

I can hardly believe it's been a month since I last posted, but then again life has been a little out-of-the-ordinary the past several weeks. Carlton arrived home on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so needless to say it was a truly thankful day for us! In the week leading up to his arrival, Julia got an ear infection, busted her lip and I got a really bad cold, but we were all well by the time he got home. His flight was scheduled to arrive at 1:30 p.m., so we took Julia to Little Gym that morning, had lunch and then headed to the airport. I actually felt butterflies in my stomach ... you know the kind you feel when you're just falling in love? It was fun to experience that again and Carlton and I later talked about how you can't recreate that feeling unless you're apart for an extended period of time. I think we're both okay with no butterflies in the stomach for a good while!

As we were getting out our homemade signs and I was telling the girls where to watch for Daddy, a man asked if I was waiting on someone in the military. In no time, a handful of volunteers were there with flags and a banner to add to our little welcome party. And a lady standing nearby offered to take a picture of me and the girls.

Sarah ran into Carlton's arms the minute she saw him and tears immediately came to my eyes, knowing that he was really home, for good, right there with us. It was finally real. Julia was all smiles and excited to see him but didn't want to get too close to him until we got back to our house.

The last week and a half have gone as smoothly as can be expected. We're all readjusting to our roles in the family, and I'm relishing in the fact that I have my partner back! I have a whole new appreciation for single parents.

I have lots of pictures to share so I'm going to break them up into a few different posts. Thanks for checking back ... I'll try to post again before the first of the year!

Confessions of a kindergartener

Sarah woke up super early this morning, so she was hanging out with me as I was getting ready. Out of the clear blue, tears started forming in her eyes and she said, "Mommy, I have something to tell you, but don't get mad." I put my concealer down and gave my full attention to her, awaiting what she was going to tell me. She said, "Mommy, sometimes when I tell you that I have white milk at school, I really get chocolate or strawberry milk, and I'm really sorry!" (As I'm sure all you parents can relate, I was relieved to know we were talking about milk choices here ... not that I expected anything more serious, but you never know.) You see, Sarah and I have a little deal; we talk about what kind of milk she's going to get at school each day. Our general rule has been that if you get chocolate or strawberry milk one day, you get white milk the next. It all appeared to be going so smoothly! Anyway, this mornings' little confession opened the door for a great talk about telling the truth, and I was grateful to scoop her in my arms, hug her, and easily forgive this minor offense. Here's to hoping her conscience will always prevail!

"Why?"

I did not remember that kids starts asking that innocent and short, yet very persistent and annoying question, "why?" around 2 years of age! But Julia now questions most of my actions and words with "why?" A few days ago, she asked the question, and I finally said, "because I said so!" And she replied, "oh, cool!" I'm cherishing that because I know very soon that little three-letter question is going to drive me crazy!

Horsin' around

Carlton's former boss invited us out to her house which is near Bulverde. They have land, horses, a longhorn, goats, dogs and cats. The girls had a blast just seeing the animals up close and I was suprised they both rode the horse.

Halloween

If this doesn't help the Horns win tomorrow night, I don't know what will! (Sorry Ed and Carrie ... and Carlton too!).
Hook 'Em and Happy Halloween!

Hangin' out with Julia

It's been so fun to be able to spend some one-on-one time with Julia now that Sarah is in school. Here are a few pictures from this week.

(Oh, if I could only have that kind of happy attitude while cleaning the potty!)

"Dink muk!"

I admit it ... I let my child drink the milk from her cereal bowl! And it's part of our little morning ritual now. Since school has started, and I'm the only one getting us out the door in the mornings, cereal is the breakfast of choice at our house (my kids will actually turn down other yummy breakfast foods because they're so addicted to cereal!). For a couple of months now, Julia will eat most of the cereal from her bowl, then say, "dink muk?" and proceed to drink the milk from her bowl.

Some other amusing things she does/says right now:
- she refers to lips as "ips" and loves to put lipstick/chapstick on herself or me; she also notices anyone wearing lipstick and will point and say "ips!"
- in the last week or so she's started saying, "miss ya mommy" when I'm not around or when she knows I'm leaving.
- sometimes when we're outside on the swingset I'll sit on a swing and she'll push me; she stands in front of me and puts one hand on her hip and pushes me with the other hand ... every time!
- this girl is still obsessed with brushing and fixing my hair! I think beauty school might be in her future. :) It's actually pretty relaxing for me though and she always comes around to look at me from the front to check out her masterpiece and will say, "Pretty? Okay."

Daisy Sarah

Sarah has joined the first level of Girl Scouts, so she's officially a Daisy. There are about a dozen 5-6 year olds in her troop and they're so darn cute when they sit in a circle and say their little Daisy pledge. It's kind of like being in a club. And I'm pretty sure that most of Sarah's preconceived notions about what Girl Scouts would be like came from watching an episode of Max and Ruby (one of her and Julia's favorite shows) where Ruby is a "bunny scout." So far, she loves it!

Pumpkin Patch

We made our annual trip to the Bracken United Methodist pumpkin patch today, and it was the perfect day to be outside! Bracken is a small community on the north side of San Antonio, but you feel like you're out in the country. I always love this time of year and a trip out to Bracken has become a "must" to help it truly feel like fall.

Of course it wasn't the same without Carlton, but the girls had fun looking at all the pumpkins, taking a hay ride, and enjoying some bribery candy for all their sweet smiles for the camera.

Unfortunately the trip ended with Julia throwing a temper tantrum because we didn't get one of the 3-4 wagons they had to haul pumpkins. Nevermind the fact that we didn't need it and would have had to wait a long time to use one. Luckily, a man sitting close-by with his baby boy saw what was going on and offered to help. At first I was embarrassed to accept help from a complete stranger when it was obvious I couldn't control my own child ... or carry the heavy pumpkin I'd just bought. But it didn't take me long to realize that that man's willingness to "help another parent in need" (as he said) was God's little gift to me. This man did just what Carlton would have done if he'd been there - he helped carry my load. He even tried to make Julia laugh by chasing her shadow, and I think the scowl on her face finally melted.

All in all the trip was a success; memorable to say the least!

Meeting baby Kensie

Last week my good friend Jenny and I headed north on I35 to visit another friend of ours (we all went to high school together) Monica, who just had a precious baby girl. It was so much fun meeting baby Kensie, and of course seeing the other kids together too. This baby girl was all smiles!

Splish Splash!

These sisters had so much fun at bath time last night!

Pajama Day!

Sarah had pajama day at school today and they could also bring a teddy-bear. She was very excited that she got to wear the same thing to bed and to school!

Julia-isms

This post will be most interesting to Carlton, but others of you will appreciate it too!
Julia's vocabulary has really blossomed over the past several weeks (maybe Sarah being in school has something to do with this????) and some of the things she says are so funny. It's much cuter in person, but I wanted to capture some of them in writing.

-- "Sawah do dat" (Sarah do that) or "Mommy do dat" (she usually says this when she's doing something herself that she's seen me or Sarah do
-- "Mo again" (More again) - means she wants me to do something again
-- "Tank ooo Sawah!" (her cute little way of saying thank you, which she frequently says; she also says "no tank ooo" a lot)
-- "Cool!" (no explanation needed, other than it sounds so funny for a 2 year old to observe things in life and respond, "cool")
-- "Deal?" - it's so funny how being around a 2 year old all day will reveal what words/phrases you use as a mom, and evidently I will present a plan/situation to Julia and then ask her, "deal?" so now she sometimes does it to me
-- "Good morning to you!" - Sometimes she sings this to the tune of "Happy Birthday", which I can only guess she's learned at school
-- "My car?" - when we walk through a parking lot now, she usually tries to guess which car is ours, and she usually narrows it down to all of the silver vehicles in the lot
-- "Hoooome! Daddy truck!" - this is what she says as soon as we're in view of our house, and Daddy's truck sitting out front

Super Sonic!

A couple of times over the past few weeks, we've gone to Sonic after we pick Sarah up from school for a special drink/snack. The girls just think it's the best thing in the world. Julia usually gets an apple juice slush, Sarah has fun picking out a different flavor slush each time and we usually split an order of cheese sticks - yum! I laughed yesterday as we were driving back home because all I could hear was the squeaking of straws against styrofoam cups as both girls tried to stir their slush.