Goodnight Stories

To start off, I apologize for no pictures on this one. Sorry! Tonight I was talking to my youngest sister, Dawn, and telling her about tonight's bedtime routine with Caleb and Ella. Typically our routine is take a bath, attack Ella's hair with a comb during bath time (that can be a challenge...more on that another time :), slather the kids with lotion because they both get eczema pretty bad with dry weather (Ella always has it, sweet girl...it's under control again, though), brush teeth, read stories, read scriptures, say family prayer together, and then...

..."Once Upon A Time" time. I'm really not that great of a story-teller but Caleb LOVES stories. Especially ones with dragons, eating bugs, "bad guys", or pretty much any random animal which he gets to name. We have a faithful star dragon in our stories named Apple-do (no idea where he came up with that one but it stuck). The whole reason I wanted to share all this, though, has to do with our standard introduction (which I think I've talked about before) which tonight was followed up by a comment by Caleb that made this Daddy proud. This is how it went:

Daddy: Once upon a time there was...
Caleb: ...a little boy named Caleb.
Daddy: And Caleb had a little sister named...
Caleb: ...Ella.
Daddy: And they were...
Caleb: ...buddies!

Wow, talk about being proud of this little guy. The best part is that it's true. We got to church this morning and the first thing they did was stand up on the chairs (we were in the back) and give each other a big morning hug and started giggling. I love seeing my kiddos love on each other. They are going to make very sweet and fun older siblings for their future siblings. :)

The Post-call Trip to the Zoo

I had a pretty rough call the other night. Pretty much an all-nighter with a major trauma I got to do the anesthesia for. They are exciting and very intense and very long cases. Being "Post-call" means I worked from 7am on one day until 7am the next day. When I get off I'm what is referred to as "post-call". It's usually a pretty rough day from a being tired standpoint. Usually Sally insists I go to bed immediately because I'm otherwise incoherent and a very poor listener on those days. She is usually pretty burned out herself, too, but I tend to make things worse if I don't sleep a bit. Sounds logical, I know, that I should go sleep after being up and working for pretty much 24hrs straight, but it is still a hard decision when I haven't seen or played with the kids at all. When I walk in they typically scream, "Daddy!!" and make me feel like a  million bucks. That makes it hard to then ditch them for the bed. That's my struggle for one more year of residency, and then things will be MUCH better. Thank goodness! :)

Having said all that, last Saturday I was post-call, and it was time for some family time. We ditched my morning nap and took off to the zoo. It was a BEAUTIFUL Texas day. A bit cool, sunshiny, breezy...the animals were out, especially the monkeys. They were swinging everywhere. Our zoo just got a family of otters, too, so that was pretty cool to see them swimming, fighting with each other, and just slinking around. 

 Caleb and Ella both love to climb all over the lion statues at the front of the zoo. It's the classic picture place at our zoo. Today started like every other day with some gymnastics all over them. :)

 During lunch, Ella watched another little girl get her picture taken by this huge set of butterfly wings. She promptly copied the girl once she left.

If you look closely you'll notice one carrot left in her baggy along with some monkey cages in the background. That's where we headed next and where Ella noticed that the monkeys were also eating carrots for lunch. At that point (and before I could stop her) she decided to share. That girl has an arm! She chucked the carrot to the monkeys who snagged it before I could. We kind of guessed that it would be okay despite all the signs saying not to feed the animals. Oops. What do you do? Ella was really proud of herself, so we just left it at that. Hopefully she doesn't make it a habit! :)

We didn't stay long, but it was great to be together post-call. Sally just taught a lesson to the young women at Church about being happy in the moment and not always waiting to be happy someday in the future. This was one of those days. My schedule is a bit crazy right now at times, but we've learned over the past 3 years that we can still make things work and make a lot of great memories despite the craziness of residency. We still look forward to me finishing my training and moving on to new adventures! 

Burgers and Fries with Daddy

A new restaurant showed up in our area of town a few months ago, and last Friday became a Daddy/son/daughter date night. Mommy needed a bit of a break after a long week, and the kids will never turn down the opportunity to drink soda (Caleb below) and to eat ketchup (Ella below :). I know, the ketchup thing is probably pretty nasty, but Mommy wasn't there (hahaha) and I couldn't stop laughing. Sally just informed me that ketchup is probably more healthy than soda anyways. Either way, I wasn't stopping anybody. :D

So, this restaurant is ingenius.  The layout inside is just a bunch of folding tables with folding chairs in a huge hall. There is a huge outside patio that is fenced in along with a HUGE astroturf field for the kids to play in. Everyone brings balls and toys and just runs around with the kids. The kids are hilarious. They chase each other, run around in packs, roll down the mini slope, climb the pitiful looking trees...and they LOVE IT. It's awesome. The parents can sit on the patio and see the entire field from their dinner table. I opted to chase these two around the whole time, and we had a blast. Ella loved our smiley face volleyball we brought and at 20 months has quite the ability to throw and kick a ball. Caleb just chased people, tackled his sister, tackled me, and dropped his pants over and over again. Thankfully it was an accident, but the poor kid needed a belt and I forgot to throw one on him. Oops! At one point I heard him say, "Dad!" and I turned to see him standing and pointing down at his ankles where his shorts were all bunched up. I'm just glad he's too young to be embarrassed yet.

The greatest moment was the melt down at the end when I tried to leave the restaurant without refilling the kids sodas. :) Wow, big no-no. Caleb dropped to the floor crying and Ella was already trying to figure out a way to get back out to that field. I admit, I resorted to bribery. It worked swimmingly, and we made it back home and got to bed before Mommy returned from her girls-night-out. It was a much needed break on both our parts. I'm gone so much at work that it's nice to come home and have all the kids' attention on me for awhile. Sally works hard all day trying to keep these two busy and out of trouble, and she needed a little down time. This will be a tradition we'll be keeping up for years to come, I'm sure.

Caleb's Surprises

It's amazing, you never really know what you're going to get with a three-year-old. He is amazing at keeping himself awake usually. Sally said the other day she was sitting in the kids' room holding Ella (who was falling asleep), and she watched Caleb rocking his head back and forth while lying on his back and then start bouncing his bum up and down in bed as he's half asleep just fighting with all he had to keep from falling asleep. It's so funny. When does the love of sleep develop in people? It's definitely not there yet for these two. :)

Having said that, Caleb just barely got over being sick. The pic below was taken 2 Sundays ago when we had some friends over for dinner. We were all sitting and talking at the table, Ella was just running around playing, and I looked over to see Caleb laying across two chairs, out like a light. The sweet boy woke up soon after when Sally tried to sneak him into bed. I have to say, it's pretty much the cutest thing in the world to see the crazy places an overly tired kiddo can get some shut eye. :)

While we're on the subject of Caleb...this is the result of going to dinner at some friends' house this last Sunday who have twin 8 year old girls and a 3 year old girl. Their dress up box was irresistible, and he came downstairs while the adults talked to show us some of their awesome outfits. He loved this one! :D We called him Joseph with the coat of many colors. It was probably a dress, but you can't just tell the kid to take it off when he's so proud of himself, right? He ended up in a very cool pirate outfit for most of the visit, though. That is pretty typical of my boy! :)

Gramp's Racquetball Eyewear :)

Caleb's grandpa (my dad), AKA "Gramps", was into racquetball back in the '70s and '80s. I'm telling you, these eye protection glasses were totally in back then! I picked up racquetball from my dad and therefore inherited all of his now antique racquetball gear. Caleb and Ella love rummaging through the bottom of our coat closet where I keep all my sports equipment and pulling out random things like this. :) He is a doll, isn't he? ;D We love his faces. (Oh, and sorry for the missing pants. Sometimes by the afternoon it's hard to keep the kids in their clothes. So it goes... :)

Cool Caverns!

Last week Joe was off from Tuesday through the rest of the week, so we took the opportunity to go see some natural caverns that are not far from where we live. The kids were wary at first of the semi-darkness, and so we carried them for a while, but eventually both wanted to walk along with the group of school kids that were sharing our tour. The tour was supposedly 75 minutes long, so the kids did really well!

Getting ready for the tour...

Every time I see this pic I have to do a double-take--

cuz it looks like they are swinging next to a river-!

I promise it is just concrete behind them :)

See the green light in the background?

Caleb & Daddy decided it was a dragon egg.

Oh, and that the caverns were a dragon's cave--

which made it WAY better for Caleb :)

Since our caves tour, Caleb has remembered quite a bit-- A couple days later, he said to me, "Remember the tights? And the columns?" I had to think a moment to realize he was talking about the caves--the stalactites and the columns. And then I was impressed! :)

Caleb's girlfriend

...at Old Navy ;)

We went shopping yesterday to get the kids some stuff for summer, and they both walked up to the little group of mannequins and started holding their hands, trying to sit on the plastic dog, etc. Caleb wasn't too happy about having to leave this one behind ;)

Lookin' cool

fun with Mommy's & Daddy's sunglasses :)

It's raining, it's pouring...

"Cheee..!" (="cheese!":)

We've had some steady drizzling rain for the past few days, so yesterday we went for a (chilly) walk with umbrellas! May not sound that exciting to most people, but let me tell you--these kids LOVE umbrellas :)

And...our garden is planted!

After adventuring in the park on March 1, we headed to a nearby garden store for seeds and tomato transplants. We also ended up going home with two Texas Mountain Laurel shrubs, because they have been blooming beautifully everywhere here and the flowers smell like grape Kool-aid!

Once I got home with the kids & plants/seeds, we went to work. Planting seeds with two toddlers is very good for helping me fight off my perfectionist tendencies, ha! :) In the end, the beans were well-planted in the proper locations in the garden boxes (plus several that may or may not sprout in the grass and in the steps off the back porch)--but the carrots, well, who knows where they'll end up sprouting? I showed Caleb how to sprinkle a pinch of carrot seeds, and off he went, sprinkling here and there, having a wonderful time :)

We meant to concentrate only on beans and tomatoes, but I couldn't help adding carrots, zucchini, and butternut squash. And cucumbers.

Joe planted the Texas Mountain Laurels on Saturday, and we are so excited to watch everything grow! Not to mention eating garden vegetables :)

Adventures in the park

There is a neat park not too far from our home, with a playground, pavilion, and wooded walking trails. I took Caleb and Ella there this past week, just for some good exercise and outside time--and they loved it! It had been raining before we got there, so the park was empty for a while; they played on the playground, and then we started our adventures into the woods :) Caleb is very imaginative--if you join him in his little world, he is much more persuadable--and I think we were doing Robin Hood or something as we walked in the woods, picking up sticks that sometimes served as walking sticks and sometimes as "bow-and-arrows". And swords, of course :)

We saw other little families walking on the trails; a little "hut" that some kids had constructed in the woods off the trail; and even a deer! Caleb wanted to feed it rocks, lol, and then he kept calling it a goat.

(Can you see the deer in the background?)

Ella, bringing up the rear with stick & snacks

Caleb, fearlessly leading the way!

Eventually, wandering off the trail, we found deer droppings, and I urged the kids not to step in them. I guess I urged too hard or too seriously, because every time we saw droppings after that, Ella shrieked, "Poot! Poot!" and tried to scramble into my arms. I had to giggle a little :)