Weekly Happenings: This past week, we got to go on a fun adventure. A good friend of mine who has since moved from San Antonio sent us a Flat Stanley to take around town. For those that are unfamiliar with the concept of Flat Stanley, here’s a brief explanation. There is a children’s book called Flat Stanley that is about a boy who gets flattened when a bulletin board falls on him. He uses this flatness to his advantage and mails himself to friends in different places so that he can visit with them. Elementary school teachers have since made Flat Stanley projects for their students where their students create a “Stanley” and mail it to friends and family. Then those people take Stanley all around and document Stanley’s visit with pictures. Once they do that, they mail Stanley back along with his new pictures and the students can create projects with all the different places their Stanley visited. We took Stanley to the Alamo (of course) and the zoo. 🙂
Weekly Weather: We’ve had some genuinely warm days (one day got up into the 80s), but mostly cool weather (not cold…just pleasant).
What Paul’s Been Up To: The AC in the van was acting up (blowing lukewarm air instead of cold), so he spent some time troubleshooting that (he changed the cabin air filter, which didn’t work, so he then added more refrigerant, which seems to have worked…so now we wait to see if it stays fixed or if it doesn’t, which might mean there’s a leak somewhere). He’s also been putting down all sorts of stuff in the lawn (weed stuff, insect stuff, etc.) since we’re already into February, which means spring is just around the corner.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: My back continues to improve, which I am very grateful for. I mainly did my normal stuff: errand running, kid wrangling, and piano teaching…with a bit of meal cooking and LIGHT cleaning tossed in (I don’t want to push myself too hard yet).
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He had a good week at school and we were able to meet up with friends at the park for a play date one afternoon after school. He did take a spill off of a skateboard (luckily he was on his belly, so he didn’t fall far) and split his lip, poor guy. He’s getting better, though.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been making the most of her pre-schooler life right now: tons of playing, looking at books, snuggling with Mom (and Dad, when she can get him), and the like. Her new favorite game is “Keep the Balloon Off the Floor”. 😀
This Week in Pictures:
Valentine’s decor!My quote for February. 🙂Flat Stanley at the zoo.This is one of our favorite statues at the zoo.Trying to climb higher…Abigail saying hello to the spectacled bear.Usually this guy is sleeping, but we lucked out!The Alamo!!!This building is across from the Alamo. I love seeing the historic buildings downtown! This one says it’s the Post Office and Court House…I’m not sure if those are both still housed in there or not. I should research that!I was surprised that she got the handle under her chin…and relieved that she was able to get it off again. 😀Another further-out shot of what my piano top looks like right now.Hearts for February!I made this…I don’t know how many years ago. It’s still looking pretty good!I had a theme going that day, haha.Pretty sunrises make having to get up early to drop off Joseph worth it.Oh, to get to sleep until my eyes pop open. 😉This is one of my favorite spots. 🙂 I love the double benches so much! They frame the piano perfectly. 🙂Selfie to show that there are occasionally days that I pull myself all together.She’s got this layering thing DOWN. 😀I love when she crawls up to cuddle…until she starts crawling all over me, haha.Bubbles!I managed to get a “just popped” picture. That scrunchy nose, tho’…She wanted control of the bubble gun. 🙂
Weekly Happenings: This past week was pretty typical. We didn’t do too much since I was still trying to rest so that my back could get better. Towards the end of the week, I started feeling well enough to let the kids go out in the backyard to play. I trust Joseph to go on his own, but Abigail still needs a bit of parental supervision (she only listens to Joseph if she feels like it, haha)…so I needed to be out there.
The Weekly Weather: It’s been really nice. Kind of cold in the mornings and then nice and mild in the afternoon and evening. One of the perks of living in south central Texas. 🙂
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been able to work from home, which was really nice as I was working on recovering. He’s been such a help while I’ve been laid up. I’m so thankful for him!
What Sarah’s Been Up To: Mainly trying to get better! I’m happy to report that I’m almost there! I’m still a little stiff if I’m getting up after sitting/lying down for a long amount of time, but my range of motion is almost all the way back to normal. Huzzah! It was pretty rough going there for a while, not being able to bend at the waist…and it would even hurt if I was walking or standing for a long time. I’m so grateful for the ability to heal!
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been so helpful. Picking up things I’ve dropped, running up and down the stairs to grab things for me (stairs were really hard), helping with Abigail…all while still going to school. He’s such a blessing!
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been her typical awesome self this week. A little sassy, a lot sweet, and doing things to make us all laugh a ton. One night, Joseph wanted to play charades. It was Abigail’s turn (you can imagine how this turned out, ha). She started running/dancing around, acting all crazy. Joseph and I were pretty bewildered for a moment…and then Joseph asked if she was acting like herself. She said, “Yup!” 😀 Oh, and one cute “Abigail-ism”: she’ll sometimes say “shine-shine” instead of “sunshine”. She’ll usually catch herself and correct herself, but man, it’s cute!
This Week in Pictures:
On this episode of “Everything is a Hat”: boxes and packaging material. 😀I knew one way to get my back on the mend was to slowly start moving around. I decided that making rolls was probably a good way to do this, because I knew there would be plenty of time for me to rest in between the different stages.Break-and-bake cookies for the win! Fresh cookies done in about half an hour. This was another way we managed to get some yummy treats without it being too hard on my back.We got the kids punch balloons……I knew it was only a matter of time before one of them got one to the face. Luckily, they’re so soft, it didn’t hurt at all. She just laughed harder.Taking advantage of a mild evening after dinner to play.Gah! I can’t believe how big she looks in this picture!Spin! Also…that sky…I love it!She loves it when her brother pushes her!Pretty sunrise as Joseph and I got to school to drop him off.Joseph drew (and painted) this in art class. When they finish their assignment, if they have time left over, they’re allowed to use whatever materials are available to do “free art”. He used marker to draw the platypus, colored pencils to color it in, and then watercolors to paint the water.I put it in the “art gallery” in the loft. 🙂Story time: Thanksgiving night, I noticed that one of the smaller diamonds in my wedding ring had fallen out. No problem. We have a warranty. The next day, I took it to Zales and they said, “No problem. We’ll send it to the repair center.” EIGHT WEEKS LATER, they call me and say that they can’t fix it because the ring will fall apart. ?????? We got it back from them and took it to another jeweler, who said he could totally fix it…but in order to do so, he’d also need to fix all the other things wrong with it. I’ve only had Zales do repairs on it, so we were surprised to hear that. When he explained the different things required, we realized that the repair center for Zales is probably full of less-experienced jewelers who didn’t know what they were doing and who also took shortcuts doing repairs. 🙁 On the left is my repaired ring and on the right is the old gold. The guy pretty much rebuilt my ring.The last time Zales sized it, instead of adding gold, they just stretched it. You can see how much thinner the old gold is compared to the repaired ring. They had also reset my center stone crookedly, and had damaged the band when they soldered it to the engagement ring (that last one, we hadn’t noticed, but when the jeweler pointed it out to Paul, Paul could see exactly what he was talking about). I think we’ll be talking to Zales about how poor the quality of work is.Another pretty sunrise.One might think, at first glance, that this is the sun, but it’s actually the moon! It was almost set and it was huge!The sky was so beautiful that I needed to take another picture!Abigail’s puppet show.Buc-ee and Iguana couldn’t decide who got to hold Teddy…I think they ultimately decided they would both hold Teddy. I love a happy ending!Swings!She loves going super high.One of those “then and now” collages. I can hardly believe how much she’s grown!This one loves getting to come home and swing (the swings at school are closed off, so he loves that he can come home and swing).Someone was rather curious about just what is in the neighbor’s back yard. She makes ample use of the knotholes, which are just the right size for one eye. 😉I did my nails!Here’s a close-up of the color. I love the fading look.
Bonus Video: There is a father-daughter duo from Kaysville, Utah who have started making YouTube videos of themselves doing covers of all sorts of songs. They recently did a cover of The Beatles’ song, “Let It Be”. This has always been one of my favorite songs (especially after I learned that “Mother Mary” is actually Paul McCartney’s mother, who passed away when he was young). In a time of quite a bit of turmoil, sometimes it’s good to just…let it be.
I’m breaking from my typical format for this post mainly because we had a very atypical week. I don’t remember if I mentioned it in my previous post, but my back went all sorts of wonky, which landed me in Urgent Care (thankfully we have a lot of stand-alone UCs, so we were able to find one that wasn’t busy). I left with some muscle relaxers and some Ibuprofen 800…and hardly being able to move without being in pain or without having severe muscle spasms. It’s now been a full week and I’m just barely starting to be able to get around. Paul jumped right into the trenches and took over everything. I am so, so grateful for his willingness to do so and for the fact that he was able to take time off of work so I could focus on healing. I’ve still got a ways to go, but I think (fingers crossed) that by Monday I’ll be able to handle enough of my daily tasks so that he can return to work, because I know he’s really needed there, too. Since I’ve mostly been in bed, I didn’t take too many pictures this week, but I got a few:
Abigail was just soaking in all the extra “Daddy-time”.I mentioned to Paul that I wanted a better way to store my cooling racks/platters/cutting boards. I had found an organizer on Amazon that I thought might work, so I talked with him about it and he agreed it would work. I love that they are not all leaned up against each other anymore. I do still have a couple of things double-stacked, but because they are straight up and down (instead of at an angle), it’s still easy to get the things I need.Our favorite BBQ place set up a food truck at the park in our neighborhood…so Paul went and grabbed dinner for us one night. It was soooo yummy!I absolutely love sunset clouds……especially when they go all purpley-pink.
