Weekly Happenings: This past week didn’t really yield anything out of the ordinary for our family. It’s hard to believe that we’re two days away from it being April. Where is the time going?
The Weekly Weather: It’s been really nice this past week. We’ve had warmer temperatures, but it hasn’t been too bad. When July and August hit, I’m going to have to close my eyes and try to remember how today has felt, haha.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s really been working with our yards. We’ve had quite the influx of weeds (unfortunately, none of our neighbors seem to have quite the same desire to keep up their yards, so we get a lot of stuff blown from their yards over to ours). He’s been working hard to eradicate the issue.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I tweaked one of my back muscles pretty severely, so I’ve been trying to take it as easy as I can while it recovers. I did feel well enough to attend my monthly book club meeting though, which was fun as always.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He continues to be a big help watching Abigail while I teach piano. One fun thing that he did was that he brought his recorder in for Show and Tell and played a song for his class. 🙂
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She has demonstrated that she has quite the interesting palate when it comes to food choices. The other day, she was in the pantry with me and she started asking for chips. Since we didn’t actually have any chips, I looked around to see what she thought were chips. She was referring to my rice crackers that are flavored with soy sauce and toasted sesame seeds. Well, okay then. She was happy to get some with her lunch. For our splurge eat-out lunch today, she ate more of my onion rings than she did her own fries.
This Week in Pictures:
She does this quite often…it keeps her busy for quite a while, which is nice.I saw this porcelain succulent at Target and thought it would look perfect in the powder room. I was quite pleased with the result.Abigail has been big into giving kisses this week. I brought this bear out for her to play with (it’s one I got as a teenager) and she had to immediately give it a kiss.Playing his recorder for his class. I didn’t realize he would be able to play it, so I’m grateful his teacher got this picture and shared it with me.I’m a coupe days early for April, but I figured I would change out my St. Patrick’s Day decorations for my springtime ones today, since Monday will be a bit on the busy side.This is a little banner I made last year (?) to go over our electric fireplace.I went to take a picture of the decorations I put on the piano and decided that this shot was much better.My spring door hanger decoration. I think I made it a couple of years ago out of stuff I just had lying around. Those are often the best projects, in my opinion.Yet another entry in the “Everything is a Hat” Hall of Fame. 😉I put her in her room for “quiet time” so that she could watch a video and play while I got some things done. She fell asleep right before I went to get her, apparently…and slept through me cleaning up the toy-nado in her room. Paul was able to complete the framing project for our TV by painting the sides and staining the front.
Weekly Happenings: This week we officially heralded in spring. I have to say, I was looking forward to it this year. This past winter seemed longer and colder than others we’ve had in the past. I’m ready for sunshine and a little more warmth (not summer warmth, mind you…just a smidge warmer). As far as activities as a family, we didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary. Pretty soon, summer will be upon us and we’ll probably do more things.
The Weekly Weather: It’s been a bit warmer and a bit sunnier. I love it!
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been busy at work and also busy with stuff around the house. I sure appreciate all he does for our family!
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve been busy with mom stuff, piano teacher stuff, and all the rest. It’s a good type of busy, though. This morning, I got to go to an activity for Relief Society which was spiritually uplifting and a lot of fun to boot.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He had a great time at school this week, especially when his teacher took them out to the field at school and let them fly kites.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been her usually sweet and sassy self. There’s a few words and phrases of hers that I want to write down so that I don’t forget that she was saying them this way at this age: “opapus” (octopus), “keep-a-boo” (peek-a-boo), “bes you” (bless you…when someone makes any sound that remotely resembles a sneeze), and “Oh, dear!” whenever anything that she considers upsetting happens.
This Week in Pictures:
On St. Patrick’s Day, I made corned beef hash and Irish soda bread. The bread (which was like a biscuit) was really good with jam on it!My shamrocks are getting nice an settled in.I didn’t expect the blossoms to have a purple tinge, but they do! It was fun to make that discovery. 🙂These two play so well together!Joseph was in the middle of saying, “It’s Bat-baby!”On this day, she had to wear her tutu all over the house. She also felt the need, since she was so appropriately dressed, to make sure that Joseph danced with her…even though he was busy doing something else. She kept grabbing his hands and waist until he caved. In this picture, she was playing with a sports bottle full of reusable ice cubes. She really liked the rattling it made.Sometimes fun lunches (in this case, Happy Meals) lead to after-lunch shenanigans.Rainbow sprinkles on top of rice crispy treats make them so fun!
Weekly Happenings: This past week was spring break for Joseph. I was grateful it was this week because it made it easier to make the transition due to Daylight Savings Time starting back up and having to change times. Paul also took the week off work, so we spent the week catching up on projects around the house (and adding new ones, haha) and doing some fun daytime activities. We went to the new IKEA that recently opened not too far from us (hence the “adding new projects” since we always walk out of there with at least one thing for Paul to put together). We also went up to Austin one day. It’s been a lot of fun family time, but I think we’ll all be ready for a little bit of structure again.
The Weekly Weather: It’s been a mix of warm and cool, but no real cold, which is nice.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He was able to get done a lot of stuff on his to-do list and also spend a lot of time with the family which we all loved. One funny story: with the warmer temperatures starting back up, bugs have also starting reemerging, with what seems like an abundance of crane flies. Joseph HATES crane flies. One of them got into our stairwell and was REALLY high up on the wall (our stairwell is open to the second story of our house). Paul got it into his head that he was going to use Joseph’s rubber band gun to shoot the thing. After a couple shots at it, he got it enough to stun it, which made it come down low enough for him to run for the fly swatter to get it. I was rather impressed with the entire process.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I had a bit of back-and-forth with my schedule this week. I still had students (nobody opted to take the week off), so on those days we didn’t do too much out of the house. On the days that I didn’t have students, we did our fun outing stuff.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been soaking in the “go to bed late, sleep in the next morning” aspect of spring break and says he’s looking forward to summer vacation, haha. That kid takes after me in that he struggles to wake up in the morning if it’s before a certain time. He also immensely enjoyed stopping off at Buc-ee’s (think gas station on steroids) both on the way out to and the way back from Austin.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She has been a ball of energy (and sometimes fury) this past week. We rode the mini train at Zilker Park in Austin (it’s a park similar to Brakenridge Park that’s over by the San Antonio Zoo…so, a huge amount of acreage with walking/jogging/biking trails, big, open grassy areas with picnic tables, a playground for the kids, etc.) and it was a full-time job just keeping her on the train. She doesn’t like to be contained unless it’s her idea. She also was excited to go to Buc-ee’s, since (for some crazy reason), she really likes the mascot (a beaver). Two-year-olds are an interesting lot.
This Week in Pictures:
We were watching the original Superman movie and she was completely mesmerized by the music at the beginning.Walking in Daddy’s flip-flops.She had gotten them on and I was rather surprised with how well she maneuvered around in them.The main reason we went to IKEA: a new media cabinet for our living room.An unplanned purchase from IKEA. Abigail loved playing with the other kitchen we had gotten from a friend, but she was HARD on it. With it being a bit lightweight, I was afraid she’d end up getting hurt by pulling it over on herself or something similar. We stumbled upon this one which is quite a bit more heavy-duty and as a bonus can be anchored to the wall. 🙂 She absolutely loves it and I love that it has storage for her pots, pans, and play food.I got my sign and baskets up!Posing by the giant Buc-ee’s statue outside the gas station.The kids each got a small Buc-ee keychain.Walking in Zilker Park.Posing on the old fire engine that’s incorporated into the play structure at the park.Family selfie on the train!Stopping at Buc-ee’s on the way back (notice the keychain still firmly in Abigail’s grasp…that thing has been her constant companion…in fact, today as I was putting her in for a nap, she insisted that it be tucked in next to her).Abigail was trying to hold his hand while Joseph was being a goof.Abigail kept giving him a hug, haha.I seriously think this was the highlight of the entire trip for her!Paul was able to find a good spot for Abigail’s sign in her room and get it hung up. They look a bit sad right now because there’s a cold breeze blowing today, but when we were at Lowe’s this morning, we stumbled upon purple shamrocks! I had no idea they existed in a color other than green! These will be fun to see grow. Paul also transplanted my miniature rose (the one he got me for Valentine’s Day) into a larger pot. Oh, and we picked up some tomato and strawberry plants as well. I’m glad that spring is right around the corner!I never tire of sights like this!
