Meet Our Poster Child...

...for why we have to be careful around swings that are in motion!

The other day, Eli was in the baby swing (I have no idea why...and now he is banned) and Elina was pushing him.  Well, Eulee came around and got too close to the swing and *pow* she was knocked to the ground.  Face flat in the pebbles.  Screaming her head off.  B ran over and picked her up and she stopped crying.  So we knew it didn't hurt TOO badly.  But the cut on her face looked awful.  Then the next day, she started getting a black eye.  Poor thing!

Luckily, she's been healing quickly.  All the kids at school ask me what happened to Eulee and I tell them that this is the reason parents get so worried when their kids walk too close to swings that are moving.

So this is our black eye kid this year...

brings back bad memories about our black eye kid last year...

Evie's was definitely WAY worse, but it always pains me to see these kinds of injuries.  How about no more black eyes for the rest of the year?

Valentine's Day 2014

Valentine's was pretty fun this month!

For starters we did a candy countdown.  For each day that we counted down, I had 3 Dove chocolates up under the date.  The kids looked forward to this each day...and it was easy to put together!  (I didn't even bother making it look super festive though.)

Then during the week of Valentine's Day the kids would find clues in their Valentine mailboxes for a mini-scavenger hunt to a treat or little gift.

On the actual day, the kids do a huge scavenger hunt together.  Each clue is for a specific child to search for. Intermittent locations would have little prizes and there was a big prize at the end.  So much fun!

To my dismay, none of the kids wanted my cute lollipop Valentine's cards this year.  So I opted to have the kids give out non-candy Valentines this year and they didn't argue about it.  Evie gave bubbles with a tag that said "You blow me away."

Eli gave out Valentine gliders (that you assemble yourself) with a tag that said "You're just plane awesome!"

Elina was set on making word searches for her friends.  So we found a great (and free) word search puzzle maker online.  It was cool because she came up with all the words and then we also added the friend's name into the puzzle.  Then we attached a pencil to each card.

On Valentine's Day we had AJ and her family over for some playtime, heart-shaped pizza,

 

and some fondue.  Don't you love all the chocolate smiles?

 

The kids had a blast!  I'm also taking a cake decorating class this month (a great birthday present from B!) and I decorated my practice cake as a Valentine's cake.  It came out pretty well, right?

Then during Valentine's weekend, B and I went on a little date.  We got some good coffee, went bowling, and then tried a new restaurant out.  Simple, but fun.

The older kids also had a duet recital.  They played "Oh, Susanna!" and did a wonderful job! Hope your Valentine's Day was filled 

with lots of love and laughter!!

Year of the Horse 2014

Chinese New Year was a little different for us this year.  We celebrated a week early when my parents came into town.  Then, we went to Austin to celebrate the actual holiday with J and V.  We actually went to Austin because Elina's GT family field trip was the same weekend as Chinese New Year.  This year's GT theme is Law and Justice, so the field trip was in Austin to visit the Capitol and the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.  Because of this field trip, we had to miss the Asian Festival this year--our first time missing it in years!  The kids missed a bunch of other lion dance performances the same weekend as well.  It was a bummer, but we still had lots of fun in Austin.  Luckily, the kids still have other performances to be in, so they'll still be able to do the lion dance this year...just not at the Asian Festival.

We actually spent all of Friday in Austin that weekend, which was really nice because we didn't have a real plan but we had a great time!  We arrived and grabbed a delicious lunch at Torchy's Tacos at the South Austin Trailer Park and Eatery.  SO good.  I mean, SO SO good.  I also got a frozen hot chocolate from another food truck and was not disappointed either.  We sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  It was just a great dining experience for us.  (With so many little ones, sometimes a smooth dining out experience isn't always guaranteed!)

Then we went to the Long Center to check out a visiting exhibit by the Architects of Air called Miracoco.  This is the largest domed luminaria ever built.  It looks like an inflatable bounce house from the outside (we had to warn the kids that it was NOT)...

...but the inside is spectacular.  There are all these designs on the ceilings that look amazing because sunlight can penetrate the luminarium material.  It's really one of the most unique things we've ever seen.   They encourage people to meditate and relax while inside, so that's why in some of the pics the kids are just laying on the ground.  They also limit the number of people in it at one time, so it's never too crowded.

Luckily, we went on a weekday during the day, so we only had to wait 30 minutes to get in.  B says that if it had been an hour or longer, he definitely would not have stayed.  I read that some people waited more than 2 hours on the weekends!  Crazy!  Anyway, the kids thought it was amazing and even Eulee enjoyed sliding around on all the material in her socks.

On Saturday we had our GT field trip.  At the Capitol, we took a tour and got to see parts of the Capitol I had never seen before.  We also did 2 scavenger hunts on the grounds outside.  It was fun and educational!

The Texas State History Museum was super fun, too.  I've been wanting to go to this museum for a long time.  They had a visiting exhibit called Extreme Mammals, which was right up the kids' alley.

The kids especially enjoyed the funny hats at the gift shop.

Our admission also included the 4D Texas movie at the museum.  Many of you know that 3D and 4D things do not mix well with our children.  When Elina was in kindergarten, she had to leave the 4D movie 3 minutes into the show because she was so freaked out.  Eli still remembers the part of the movie that scared her!  The kids did well, sitting on our laps, while we hugged them during "scary" parts.  For example, they talked about a hurricane in Galveston and there was mist from the ceiling, huge fans blowing gusts of wind, and "lightning."  The kids were SO scared.  After the movie, I asked them what they thought and they didn't really like it.  Elina summed it up with "I've decided that I will never watch another 4D movie again."  Wow.  That's some statement!

For our New Years meal, we had a sushi rolling party courtesy of V!  This guy knows how to roll sushi, so he taught us what to do.  We had our very own live cooking show!  The kids got to pick everything they wanted to put into their sushi. The kids' favorite choice was the julienned apples.  Elina and Eli even got salmon and tuna...and liked it!  We were all impressed!

Of course we had a movie night and played video games while we were there.  We even started training V how to play mahjong, since he is about to join the family in a few months.  It's kind of a requirement!

The last thing we did right before we left on Sunday was sparklers in the backyard!  It was SO cold and windy, but we just did it anyway because V had a whole bunch.  The kids loved running around with sparklers...although there were a few little fires in the lawn because it was so dry out.  But we took care of those with a few stomps of our feet!  

We even had a fire in the fire pit because we were so cold.

We were sad to miss the Asian Festival, but it was definitely a fun trip that made it all worth it!

Plus, I still taught a small Chinese New Year lesson in both Eli and Elina's classes.  We brought our lions from the lion dance performances for all the kids to try out and they loved it!

Elina's class had PJ day on the day I went in, so sometimes the lion was wearing Hello Kitty slippers or neon pink fuzzy slippers.  It was so funny!

Happy New Year to everyone!!  Wishing you a year of happiness and fortune!

Coldest Winter Yet

This winter has been so fun for us here in Texas.  It has been SOOOOOO cold!  I know, you're probably thinking, "C'mon, how cold can it actually get in San Antonio?"  It has gotten down in the 20s quite a few times!  That is really really cold--for anyone!  Right??

We even had a Snow Day where school was cancelled!  Best. Day. Ever.  I forgot how fun random snow days can be!  We got some light precipitation and it was in the 20s, so everything had a thin layer on ice on it in the morning.

Technically it wasn't "snow," but still not safe to be out....especially for Texas drivers.  The kids got dressed in their winter gear right after they woke up and they explored outside...breaking off pieces of ice, slipping and sliding everywhere they stepped.

We even had the kids sit in a box and slide down our driveway.  Ha!   We enjoyed lots of hot cocoa that day and watched movies and played games by the fireplace.  It was a great day!  (Look at how cozy Eulee is in the picture below!)

Then we had another day when we woke up to graupel on the ground.  What is graupel, you ask?  It's snow and ice that look like dippin' dots.  It is the neatest thing actually.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a snow day.  But the kids still got to play with it after school.  Evie, on the other hand, enjoyed it all day!  She especially liked jumping on it on the trampoline!

  After school the kids collected a bunch in a big bucket.  They also loved going down the slide that was full of graupel.  Lots of fun!

Then Eli's school had their annual "Snow Day" where lots of ice is brought in for kids to play with.  Eulee wasn't sure about it all and she lost interest after a little while.  But Eli had an awesome time throwing it at his friends.

We have definitely been putting our winter coats, hats and gloves to good use this year!