Something New

For this week You Capture, I have decided to post pictures of the fireworks and the sun rise. I was going to post pictures of the kids at the beach but felt people had probably seen enough of that. I do hope you enjoy. If I had more skills I would have combinded these shots to make a much more amazing fireworks display, maybe later.

Labor Day Beach

Over Labor Day weekend, this year we chose not to labor and instead relax by the beach. Now some of you know that I grew up in California, so the beach in Texas is very different than those we went to as kids. Oh well, the kids had so much fun playing at the beach and swimming it made it worth the trip. Let me tell you, Texas is big. I knew this already but seriously when traveling with three small children you really want to get to where you are going in a timely fashion. Once we got the directions all worked out, on our way down, we finally arrived, only a couple of hours later than our originally intended time.

All of the kids loved the beach. I have three water loving children who can hardly wait to go again. Barrett and Isabelle did really well on the car ride down and were very patient with us about not having all of the correct information. But once we arrived, we quickly changed our clothes and were off to the water. The first day was a day of exploration and fun.

Since this is a beach in Texas, you can walk out from shore I would say, three or four hundred yards before not being able to touch. Plus there is no worry that a giant wave is going to crash on your head, since the waves are not even two feet high. The waves off the gulf are perfect for the kids to ride in on bogie boards, if you give them a little push. And of course we must not forget that the ocean is salty. I do not think I will have to salt my food for about a week.

One of the best parts was the adult fun. My cousin has a kayak that we all took turns on, that was so much fun. I really enjoyed that. Ben had so much fun that he dumped himself out a couple of times and he even dumped out Bear. Bear did is usual Bear thing and was quite happy with his fun time in the kayak and wanted to go again.

Isabelle was really entranced with finding shells and discovering ocean life. We found a mollusk that would come out of its shell and “crawl” around in Isabelle’s bucket that was pretty cool. Plus the little sand crabs that burrow into the sand after the water has receded were very entertaining.

Over all we had a great weekend and I finally got some fireworks pictures. So much fun!

Park Fun

Cooper is a kid on the move and Isabelle loves to help him out. She is such a great big sister. The kids wanted to play at the park today so before lunch we made our way over to the little neighborhood park and played for a little bit. Cooper did not want to sit still in the sling, but crawl around and do what the big kids were doing. It was too cute, and he had so much fun. Isa and Bear had a blast too, and did not want to leave, but their hungry tummy’s had another idea.

Old Signs

This week I thought I would get my shots in fast. After driving around for a little while I found a few old signs but nothing really to write home about. Here are two that made the cut.

Off to Preschool

The first day of school has finally arrived. Both big kids, Isabelle and Barrett, are going to school three days per week from 9-2:30p. Cooper says he's ready to go, but I think I'll keep him at home a little longer. Whatever am I going to do with myself? Cooper, I think will be lost with out his playmates. But somehow we will make it on our own. Just to show you how cute they look going to school and how much crap they have to take with them I of course took some pictures, imagine that. Each day they have to take to school and bring home, a school bag, lunch box and nap mat. Since I do not believe in carrying my children’s items for them they have to be able to carry everything themselves. Day one so far so good, we’ll see how coming home works out.

Just an update on Cooper he is doing great. We have been doing as the dentist instructed and his teeth seem less wiggly. We did go to the office to have him checked out and the dentist said that everything looks good so far, we just have to wait and see if they grab hold back in the gums. But if one happens to be dangling we should just pull it. We will check back with the dentist in a week to see how he is doing.

The teeth accident

This morning has been full of all sorts of craziness. Cooper was playing with one of those pre-walker toys that the kids can stand behind and push around. He really thinks he wants to walk, but does not get very far before he has to go down to his knees and scoot back closer.

Well he was, as babies are known to do, chewing on the steering wheel on front and it has three little triangles. Well one triangle is a little bit bigger than the others and Cooper got a little bit stuck. I heard him cry, I was folding laundry, and walked in to help him out. I was less than two steps away and he got free, which upset him. I proceeded to pick him up and do the usually, he just shake it off. Then I saw the blood.

Which if your kid has ever had a mouth injury before there is a lot of blood, so I check the outside of his mouth quickly, grabbed a wipe and then I noticed that his teeth were all most flat out from his gums. Not a pretty sight and for such young teeth very scary. This is when I started to get worried, I pushed his teeth back as much as I dared and then started to make phone calls.

And of course since I have a crummy phone I had to charge it because it did not have a charge. I called Penny first and left her a message to see if she would come sit with the older two if I had to go anywhere with Cooper. Then I called Ben, he had to work, and told him what happened and to get advise as to who I should call next the Dentist or head to the Emergency room. Well we settled on the Dentist. I had to wait through the entire message before getting the emergency number and then I called that line. I had to leave a message which was ok because I had some more phone calls to make. I was supposed to work in the nursery at church today and since it was about 8:30a I called for a replacement. Fortunately I know one person, Angie, pretty well and she helped me out. Thanks so much I’m not sure I would have made it at the nursery for two hours with Cooper at home with Ben or Penny. I am so grateful.

Penny had called back and said she would be on her way. I again called the Dentist and had a chance to talk to his wife, because he was away at the grocery store. We chatted and talked about our options and made the decision not to take him to the Emergency Room and she would call her husband to see what we should do. I jumped into the shower, I’m pretty sure I smelled funny, and went as fast as possible. She called back and the Dentist decided that we should try to make sure they teeth could settle back into the gums by hold the front and back gums together. Cooper is not a big fan of this or anyone really touching his mouth at the moment. Completely understandable since I would imagine it hurts.

Well this turned out to be a two person job so I had to wait for Ben to get home to help me. Then I also had to wait for Penny to get here with the Infant Tylenol, since I did not have any; a wonder since I have an infant, but we do not do shots so I have not had a need for any. Once we had him drugged up we pushed his gums together for the first time and he cried a lot but was then ready for bed. Everything so far has been pretty good, he is still nursing well, and sucks his thumb well so no worries there. He ate solids well and seems to be doing ok. I do not feel that his teeth are moving around too much, but I still think I will see about getting him into the Dentist on Monday while the kids are at school. I will try to keep you updated on his little teeth condition, and hopefully it will not be as long as this post.

Pictures of Food

Ok, so here is the long and short of it. My friend Anjie found this great blog, cleverly titled I Should be Folding Laundry, where you are challenged to get out there and use your camera. Now some of you are thinking does Allison really need this challenge and I say yes.

So this week the topic is food. I thought how great would it be to go to the Farmer’s Market in downtown Dallas and take pictures of the fresh produce available. That was my subject, now I wanted to go with Ben just to get is take on what we should buy and then I would take my pictures. This also meant going on Saturday. Well he came home on Thursday and said he had to work all weekend so there went his visit to the Market. I already had plans for Friday so I could not go earlier. Anyway, the kids and I went on Saturday and here is the result of our much awaited trip to the Farmer’s Market. Maybe next weeks pictures will not take so long to get up.

Merit based pay

I have never hidden my feeling regarding the public school system in Texas; in most areas I think it is a joke. And those feelings have led me to consider home schooling my children because I feel that the public school system does a disservice to the students because there is too much pressure on test results.

Standardized testing is a necessary evil of the public school system, and a factor that colleges refer to when accepting incoming freshman students. Now Texas has pushed it one step further by rewarding teachers for improved test scores on the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test and other factors.

Ultimately it is up to each district who is involved in the program to award the monies distributed to its teachers. And by the way it sounds; everyone could get a bonus if the test scores improve. So instead of actually improving the education, the students are just learning to memorize information that they will be tested on and can regurgitate the information to help increase the over all scores in the area. That to me does not translate to a better education but teaching students how to take tests and forget what they learned.

In my opinion merit based pay should be based on the teachers’ ability to teach the subject and engage the students. After all I think there are those people who teach just so they can have the summer off, and could really care less about what they are doing and whether or not their students learn anything. That does a horrible disservice to students across the board and later in life.

How much is this “bonus” actually going to change how a teach approaches a subject, if they are only getting a one time bonus of $1,000 or a little bit more? Is that worth it to those teachers who fit the criteria and qualify for the program? What amount would get a teacher to change? After all if a regular employee at company XYZ put in the minimal effort and the company overall did better, would the CEO want to award a bonus to that individual for their lack of effort? I do not think so.

Let’s start to improve out educational system by hiring teachers who care about teaching and having the students learn to further enrich their lives. Teachers who want to see the students succeed and continue on in their education to a college level or beyond. Standard tests do not make the entire student as a whole, and are not always the best gauge at a student’s ability. Many other factors are involved and educators across the board should consider this when planning the education of future generations.

The Crawl

At long last Cooper has gotten off his tummy and is crawling on his hands and knees. No more cleaning mommy's floor with his belly. I am very excited, I think he is too.

Stairs

No he has not started to crawl but he has started to climb the stairs. I think my future looks very "Bear like." And here I was hoping for a calm and easy going baby. Who knows maybe after he has conquered everything he will calm down. So that should give me a break when he is about 85.

My little Jackson Pollock

Yesterday I let the kids paint the morning away. Which is always fun, because they just love it and I get to see the changes they make in their artistic skills. Isabelle made some very interesting pieces which she of course must explain as she paints each step. I really enjoyed her Jackson Pollock interpretation, except that we were painting inside and the flinging of paint went a little far. She even did a partial Frieda Kahlo painting, very interesting.

Milk

I came inside to get the camera to take pictures of our garden so far to find Bear immediately saying “I going to clean it up.” My first thought is clean what up. I walk around the end of the island where he more or less leads me to and he repeats, “I going to clean it up, I thirsty.” There is milk all over the floor. Which unfortunately was partly my own fault; I left the milk on a shelf in the fridge where he could easily get it. Except for the fact that the milk was a new gallon and he is not quite strong enough to lift it. So there you have milk all over the floor. I really did not want to mop today but I guess I will have to after all, or at least a little part of the floor.

The new room

And he kicks in the winning goal

Fun stuff for his walls, besides paint

At long last Bear’s room is finally done. At least for right now, after a three week long process, or so it would seem, the paint is all up, the touch ups are finished and the furniture is back. I think he will really enjoy his room after all he picked out the paint colors, and Ben designed the room. My contribution was the soccer ball idea and my mad painting skills. I must say that it looks pretty darn good. What three year old could ask for more? But you be the judge and let me know what you think.

modeled after the Ball Park in Arlington Go Rangers!

This one was just a challenge to take but you get the idea.

New Random Stuff

Ok so I heard someone say that they were tired of seeing pictures of Bear’s new slide. So I thought about just adding in random pictures, to see what people thought and not typing anything important. Then I thought about writing a long piece about pretty much nothing, hell I figure that if authors can do it and call it a book I’m good to go on my blog. Instead I have settled for (pause to receive picture from Snapfish via UPS) a medium length post about random stuff. Maybe one day I can have it published and call it a book, ha, ha.

Let me see Cooper is now six months old and is moving all over the place. He has recently discovered that there is fun stuff up stairs and he thinks he should be able to get up there and check it out all on his own. So he tries to climb the stairs, with no luck so far. I’m sure it won’t take him long to figure it out. He is weighing in at 15 pounds 6 ounces. The ped was concerned that he had dropped off so much but I’m not worried, and I told her that. He just started moving around so soon, and I’m sure he is burning more energy than the usual non-moving six month old children. He is pretty tall coming in at 27 ½ inches. Watch out for the full gainers off the stairs though, they can cause a baby to “run” into items such as the banister poll.

The Southern Baptist General Convention is continuing to uphold that women are unable to vote, even if they hold the position of senior pastor at their church. Do you think they might come out of the dark ages on that one? If the congregation is happy with her work why not let her vote. But wait I attend a church that does not even let women be the head pastor at all, talk about a male dominated group. I’m sure my thoughts on this subject where much more coherent but I have a four year old begging for attention.


We are in the process of painting Bear’s room; it is going to be great. Once it is done I will be sure to post pictures. Ben came up with most of the idea, so you can pretty much guess what it will be but I will keep you in suspense until it is completed. We are waiting for a ladder, or better yet a car to transport said ladder to our house. Some how the POS ladder that we moved here with is gone, I guess we got rid of it after painting Cooper’s room. Who knows but it is gone and that is pretty frustrating. But really how often do you need to use a ladder? Not very!

Ok the people driving on my street are going entirely too fast. What if a kid was out there playing and they are speeding down the street at an unsafe speed? That would be horrible. These drivers make me want to sit out there and roll a ball in the street and see if they will slow down. I don’t think our neighbors would go for speed bumps but who knows; I might put in a request. After all our children’s lives are at stake here. And we live on one of the in and out roads for our subdivision. I think I would have rethought this location last year, if one I was not pregnant with mommy brain and two sick and tired of living in an apartment.

Ok well this has turned out to be a little longer than medium length. I guess I should add my pictures and be done. Until next time my friends.

Water slide

Here is a picture or two of Bear's new "slide." Ben's sister Penny purchased this slide for his birthday. Too bad we don't think it will work in our backyard. Maybe we'll try and see but we have a slight hill so that may be a challenge.

Sweet Potatoes

I usually like to wait to start soild food until the kids are actually six months old, but I told Cooper that if he was sitting up he could start then. I don't feel too bad because he'll be six months old on Saturday, so it's not too soon. Plus I'm sure that if I were counting by weeks he would be at the six month mark.

Wihtout further delay here are some pics of Cooper enjoying his first offical food, of sweet potatoes.


I'm Ready!


Look at how he wants to help out.


I think he did get some in his mouth.

Tooth

Cooper's first tooth has started coming in. I can hardly believe he is a week shy of six months. Does he not know that this process should have waited a little longer?

Slip and Slide

For Jodi’s party they had set up a great big slip and slide next to the chicken barn. It was made up of several large tarps and of course water. Ben was having so much fun with the kids that he finally wore us down, we had at least two drinks a piece, to slide down the hill, not once but at least four times. And by we I mean Jodi, Penny, Charity and I, Ben’s three sisters and me. The first time was great; we all went pretty much at the same time; down the hill cold and wet. The second time I chickened out at first and finally made it down, but since I started out late, I took Penny out at the bottom of the hill. I completely did not mean to do that it was just how I slid down. And the following two times were fairly uneventful, just entertaining for those watching our human stupidity. Apparently adults’ sliding down a big wet hill is entertaining; we had a good crowd watching us. I must say though that we all had a great time and will probably at some point in our lives do it again.

Barrett Turns 3

My wild and crazy little boy is finally three. Some of use did not think he would make it to Three but he as persevered and made it. Now getting to four might be a little more interesting since he has decided that he does not need to keep his arms in his car seat but that is a matter for another day.

I just love this little boy so much, and he has grown up over the past year, but is still that loveable, cuddly little man when he wants to be. He has been wonderful towards his little brother, not nearly as rough on Cooper as Isabelle was on him. And I think he will continue to be so much fun over the next year.

Some highlights from his second year include, moving back to Texas, learning to ride his tricycle, successful potty training, talking more and more and learning his colors, shapes and counting to at least 10 and sometimes beyond, when your not “looking.” Bear is so much fun to be around and on of the best parts is his laugh. You just can not help but smile when this kid starts to laugh.

He can give you one look and you will forget why you were mad at him in the first place. He has already started to learn and use his flirting skills to get away with everything. He just puts out that little lower lip and your heart just melts. I’m sure he will find many uses for that move later in life.

Barrett goes and goes all day long, and never thinks about stopping and even then he still wants to be on the move. School should be pretty interesting in the fall, I just hope the teacher has a lot of patients. Although he is really looking forward to the experience of school and will probably or hopefully learn better from someone else.

I’m sure his next year will hold many more firsts and be full of excitement, I can hardly wait or can I.

Eat My Fish

To celebrate Bear’s birthday on the day, we arrived in Wisconsin around 10:30am after driving all night, and once everyone was ready we headed off to Eat My Fish. A “local” farm run by an old hippy, perfect for hippy children, where you can catch fresh trout and they will cook it right up for you. Although we came a few days early for cooking, we still had fun fishing with Grandma and Grandpa and all the cousins. Since we could not cook our fish that day, they provided us with some hotdogs in stead that the kids roasted over the fire and we had hot dogs and cake.

Before lunch the kids had all pretty much gone “swimming” in the pond, which pretty much scared the fish away, at least from us. Morgan was the only one who caught a fish, and we took it home for later. The kids had tons of fun and I think they would love to go back again someday. Jodi had even gotten Bear a Thomas the Train cake to eat for his special day, what a great treat! I think all the kids really enjoyed this birthday celebration.