Write Stuff

It's so much fun when kids are just learning to read and write. I saved reams and reams of paper that Kayci wrote on during her PreK year, because everything just seemed so amazing!

Noble's at that stage now...the other night, I was reading the menu to him and I left off "Mac & Cheese" and "Pizza" because I really didn't want him ordering those at a Mexican restaurant. He listened closely as I read, then asked me to read it again. This time he pointed and said, "What about these two?" I think that's when the balance of power shifted slightly in our little universe!

Tomorrow is Uncle Timmy's birthday, and Noble was SET on being the first one to write on his card. It seems somebody has been learning some new sounding-out skills that are pretty cool when combined with his memory. Oh, that kid!




If you don't speak preliteracy, that's "happy birthday from Noble & Kayci." I almost hate to put this one in the mail...thinking this pic makes the Project Life cut this week!

Happy Thursday!

Vote for Mrs. K!

You guys know I'm a big fan of Kayci's school (hopefully Noble's school, next year!) and Kayci has been blessed with wonderful teachers all 5 years so far.  I'm hard to impress, but her 4th grade teachers have really knocked my socks off...they work HARD, y'all.  I was worried about 4th grade being tough, but while they're working on some pretty hard concepts, the teachers are putting in time behind the scenes to create hands-on experiences and finding ways to present things in more than one way so the kids really get it.  And they do it all without complaining--you know I'd know.  :)

4th grade is different (for parents, anyway) because the teachers never ask for ANYTHING.  No snacks, no extra supplies, nothing.  The kids get special snacks every Friday, but the teachers do it all themselves and don't make a big deal of it.  This sounds like a little thing, but my teacher friends know what a big thing it is.  I'm telling y'all, these ladies are wonderful, wonderful teachers who are obviously passionate about what they're doing.

One of Kayci's teachers, the famous Mrs. K. (well, she's famous at our house because she loves Texas as much as we do!), is in the running to go on a Toms giving trip.  You know Kayci is a big fan of Toms, and she'd love to help Mrs. K make her dream come true.  The voting ends in 10 days, and Mrs. K is a good 2000 votes behind the winner.  Could you guys please take some time and go vote for her? She's a wonderful lady and teacher, and we'd love to see her win this awesome experience!  Thanks!

https://www.toms.com/ticket-to-give/flags/2282

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter (a day late!) from our family to yours!  He is Risen, indeed!

It doesn't seem right to share the "after" without the "before," lest you think things are always easy around here.  :)  Turns out, photographers' kids can sometimes be the WORST at posing for pictures...which totally explains why most of our favorite pictures of our kids are the candids.  Sigh.

Happy birthday, DaddyBoy!

Happy birthday, DaddyBoy! We had fun decorating on the sly, until I realized that Kayci was slyly pumping me for information-"what time do you decorate for our birthdays?" I caught on fairly quickly, since her letters to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny usually include a request to sign the letter and put down what time they were at our house. Back to the decorating...Kayci made a banner,


and so did Noble.


They're hard to read in these phone pics; Kayci's is a collection of things we love about Daddy. Noble's reads: we (heart) goofy Daddy. He drew a picture of each of us--I wonder what his future psychologist will make of the fact that Noble drew himself much larger than Daddy? We had our usual morning birthday celebration, although we were running too late for Daddy's favorite, Big Daddy's tacos, and he had to settle for birthday donuts (which not-so-secretly thrilled the kids & Mommy).














We actually ordered this camera lens mug months ago, and Noble's been trying to tell Daddy about it ever since. Grr. You won't be surprised that I kept Daddy's "big" present under wraps, then. :)


Enjoy them, Boy-I'm just sorry you had to wait so long!

Enchanted Rock

Noble asked me a few weeks ago when we were going to go hiking again. That gave us the idea to give him his own hiking backpack and some hiking supplies (water bottle, compass, magnifying glass, etc...) for his birthday. And if you give a Noble a backpack, he's gonna wanna try it out...

So with the weather absolutely AMAZING during spring break, we headed out Wednesday to hike Enchanted Rock as a family.

We woke the kids up early that morning and hit the road around 6:00am to make sure that we got there before it got too crowded. But we spent a lot of time at Buccee's, so we ended up getting to Enchanted Rock around 10:00am and had to wait in a short line to get into the park. (hint: the line that comes up from Fredericksburg is waaaaaaay longer than the one that comes in from the north from Llano.  Save yourself a couple of hours in line and take the north route.  You're welcome.)

This was the kids' first trip to Enchanted Rock and Kristi's second, although it was her first time to hike it. And it was the first time I got to hike it when I wasn't in a hurry. So everyone was excited.

We hiked up the giant rock, and we were so proud of the kids. Neither of them complained about being tired or that hey were hungry or thirsty or wanted to go or anything.  They were having such a great time!

We finally made it to the top after about 45 minutes of walking.  By that time our breakfast had pretty much worn off, so we found a shady spot and had a nice picnic lunch. The kids had a great time looking at all the cactus and different rocks and bugs.

Then we began to explore and make our way over to the hill next to Enchanted Rock called Little Rock. Along the way, we stopped to examine some large boulders and caves formed by boulders that had broken loose.

When we finally got to the top of Little Rock, we were all a little tired from all the hiking, so we sat down for a snack. And we took a nap right there on top of Little Rock! Noble took the best nap - about an hour and a half - before we finally woke him up to head down the hill.

Once we had hiked down, we headed to Fredericksburg, where we treated ourselves for a fun day with ice cream!

It was a perfect day - perfect weather, time outside, exercise and time together!

Happy spring break, everyone.  We hope that yours was as awesome as our was!

Bluebonnicator: March 7, 2013

It's the return of the Bluebonnicator!

This year is shaping up to be a very good year for bluebonnets in Brenham! Just one week into March and there are already bluebonnets in full bloom in and around town. That's perfect if you're coming into town on Saturday for Noble's birthday party. Bring a camera, take a drive in the country and see some bluebonnets while you're here!

I've had reports (and photos) of bluebonnets popping up all over. It's not peak season yet, but they're starting out great!

This week's Bluebonnicator is at 30% - the highest start of Bluebonnet season in Bluebonnicator history!

This would be a good time to remind everyone about some general guidelines:

1. Don't trample the bluebonnets. Try to step only in the areas between the bluebonnet plants. It might require you to what I call "the bluebonnet hop", butit will keep the plants looking great for everyone.

2. Don't pick the bluebonnets. Period. Get some seeds off the bottom of the plant instead and grow your own! Besides, it's against the law to pick the bloom.

3. Don't go romping through people's yards and fields to take pictures without permission. It really, really makes the locals mad when "city folks" come up and go on quarter mile hikes into their pastures to take their family's picture in the bluebonnets. It's private property, and it's just rude. Most times, if you'll just ask permission it will be okay, but there are plenty of great photo opportunities on public land. The state makes sure of that.

4. Watch out for fire ants! The same kind of soil that is great for growing bluebonnets is also prime for fire ants. Watch out! [and watch out for snakes, too!]

5. Ask a local. As I said before, there a lot of great photo places to take your family's photo in bluebonnets. And a lot of them are very easily accessible, but might not be able to be seen from the highway. Ask a local where some great shots can be had as you buy some Blue Bell ice cream or a sandwich or an antique from their shop.

6. Don't cross a fence. I've heard a lot of stories since we moved up here about tourists crossing fences. Some stories involve getting chased by bulls, some involve broken fences and some involve animals getting loose. But every one of the stories involved trespassing and ticked off the land owner. I've been guilty of this in the past - I admit it - but now I know better, and I'm letting you all know, as well.

7. Have a great time, outdoors. Get outside and enjoy the spring air and the sunshine. You can't see the bluebonets from your living room couch, folks. Unless you live in Brenham, that is. ;)

Sending love your way...

...and big hugs to all of you who sent love our way, too!

Extemporaneous Speaking and Hamburger Seeds

Wait, the title gave it all away, didn't it?  Oh, well.

January is School Board Appreciation month.  At the School Board meeting Tuesday night, each elementary school presented a gift to their school board representative and had a few students speak about what they love about their respective schools.  Well, there was a bit of a miscommunication...Kayci's friend who was also speaking wrote an entire speech, and Kayci had one very well-crafted sentence.  So, the first school went...and the kids had these very, very long and impressive speeches.  I was a little nervous for Bitty...I didn't want her to be embarrassed with her one sentence, but I couldn't get to her to tell her it would be okay if she read what she had OR if she wanted to add some more.  Kayci's friend Jenna spoke, and did a wonderful job...then it was Kayci's turn.

That kid never ceases to amaze me.  She stepped out, and her tight grip on her paper made me a little nervous.  But then, when she looked at the paper and pretended to read, "Hi, my name is Kayci Pharaon and I'm a fourth grader at..." I knew that she would be fine.  But then she went on to give a completely spontaneous, completely convincing speech...on the spot.  She looked at that paper the whole time, and even I wondered if she'd had time to write out the speech while she was waiting.  But nope, when she came over to us the paper was still blank save for the one, lone, original sentence.

This wasn't Bitty's first public speaking experience, but I'd say so far it's been the best.  She's awesome!

Daddy came home from Agents' Conference right before the school board meeting, and to celebrate his homecoming and Kayci's great performance we went out to eat.  Noble ordered his favorite, a hamburger, but when it arrived he got really excited.  We couldn't figure it out--then he pointed at the sesame seeds and said, "I never had these on a hamburger before!!  Mommy, can we take these seeds home to grow more hamburgers??"

He was dead serious, so we'll be planting some sesame seeds this weekend.  Wish him luck!

Kayci's Piano Recital

On December 15, Kayci had her winter piano recital here in Brenham. Here is the video for those that couldn't make it:

Oh, Christmas Tree

So, the plan this year was to buy our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving since we were actually home (with no plans!).  But...then we chickened out.  That's a whole lotta weeks to have a live tree in our home, and our house is so small that 4 weeks of decorations just about drive me nuts...I love, love decorating for Christmas, but I also love, love taking it all down in January and having just a basic, clean house for a while.  :)

We made time this past weekend to decorate our tree, so off we went Thursday night to buy our tree.  That way we could get straight to the decorating this weekend.

Or...not.  But man, we did have a great weekend!

So, the new plan was to decorate the tree Monday night.  Last night.  Only, one of us commuted to Houston for work and got stuck in CRAZY traffic coming home.  So maybe we got a later start than we planned.  Daddyboy and I just looked at each other and agreed, it was TIME to get the tree up--the kids could stay up late one night.   :)

My favorite part of decorating the tree is opening the boxes and telling the kids the story behind each ornament...and remembering.

Each year we give our kids a Hallmark ornament for Christmas.  Whether they like it or not (and we hope they love it!), when they get married they'll already have a lifetime of ornaments that tell their story, ready for their trees.

When I was 9 (in 1983 if you must know), my Grandma Weseloh started the tradition of buying ornaments for all of us grandkids, which is where it started for us.  When she was unable to continue the tradition, Mom and Dad started buying ornaments for us.  So I have almost 30 years of ornaments that tell my story on our family tree., along with a few really early ones.  This is the ornament that started it all.  She's broken now, and out of rotation, but this year I had Kayci put her on our dresser so I could enjoy her again.  Man, I miss my Grandma.

Our tree is perfectly imperfect, as one of my favorite bloggers would say.  In addition to our bought ornaments, there are tons of kid-made ornaments.  It was fun last night looking at their 1-year old ornaments and comparing the size of their hands then and now.  Oh, how time flies, y'all.  

Each year we have our jobs:  Daddyboy puts on the lights (NOT my favorite!), and I sit on the floor and open ornaments and hand them to the kids, telling them the story of each one.  Then Daddyboy helps them place the ornaments on the tree (unless it's an unbreakable one, then we just let them have at it).

It's too early to go out there and take a picture, but I got a good laugh last night...last year was the first year Bubby was big enough to help with real ornaments.  Yeah.  I'm thinking we were a year early--at least 2 of our Hallmark ornaments are glued together with notes "Noble dropped, 2011."  But you know, being THAT KID is part of his story.  Someday his wife's going to get a big kick out of it!

It's been a little tough for Bitty to share the job of putting the angel on the tree--after all, it's been her job for YEARS.  Last year Daddyboy let both kids put the angel on, and he did it again this year.  I'm thinking we've spent enough on his back...next year we'll flip for it.  :)

And that's it.  It still needs a little garland for a finishing touch, but that's our story.  It's the kind of tree one either loves or hates.  But to me, a fir tree dressed with our story is a Christmas tradition.

Oh, Christmas tree.  You were a long time coming this year, but man, we're glad you're here.

I used to overload December with activities and too many traditions to count, but last year and this year we've kind of toned it down.  I realized I was focusing too much on the DOING and not enough on the BEING.  So this year, I'm not sure what we'll do.  Since it's December 4th, guess I better figure it out.  I know the kids are excited about the Advent calendar, so looks like I'll be working on that today.  Our Elf on the Shelf has been visiting, of course, but she's JUST an elf, not one of those mischievous ones.