All About The Peanut: September 2017

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Horrible Henry

Our perfect little Henry has broken his streak... We got this message from his teachers today:

Good morning,

Today Henry had difficulty keeping his hands to himself at the playground. He hit three friends while playing and lining up. When a teacher from the other Pre-K 2 class was speaking to him, he stuck his tongue out at her. We spoke to Henry about his choices, and instead of the birthday cookies we were having for snack he had crackers. Please feel free to call us if you have any questions.

Granny D and Weekend Fun

This past weekend, Granny D came down to see the boys and we had a BLAST. It was a great busy weekend - Friday night dinner with Granny D, Saturday morning baseball game for David, then Cub Scouts, then a Henry soccer game, followed by Henry play date with Oliver while David was with his friend Chris, and then Chris came to our house for the night and we had a family viewing of the Aladdin.. and that was just Saturday. Sunday was a little easier - I went to the St. Mark's senior auction, Granny D went with the boys to David's flag football game. After we sent Granny D back toward OKC, we enjoyed a nice family night at sushi and some late night swimming before calling it a day. This is such a fun time, but man are we tired!

Here are the pictures:

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Weekends are busy...

Twice makes a trend, right? I am committed to keeping this blog up-to-date, so thought I would start with our weekends. They are busy! Like crazy busy! On Friday, we took David to Spirit Night at St. Mark's. We absolutely love our St. Mark's community and really enjoyed hanging out with all the second grade families. It is not quite the typical Friday Night Lights that Texas is known for (which I would expect because I don't know why any intelligent, educated parent would let their kid play football with all of the research and knowledge about the effect concussions have on brain development - but that is a different topic), but still lots of fun. We didn't stay for much of the actual game, but it sounds like the Lion's brought home a victory against the Casady Cyclones.

David recently joined the cub scouts and on Saturday, he was up early and ready to sell some popcorn. We walked around the neighborhood for a bit and then he took a shift with his fellow scouts at the local Lowes. On the way to drop him off, he said he thought they could sell $1,000 worth of popcorn. These are really motivated kids, and pretty darn cute, but that sounded absurd to me. I was wrong - in a 4 hour time period, six boys managed to sell over $2K in popcorn. Seriously, these kids are hustlers.

During part of David's popcorn slinging shift (each boy only worked 2 of the 4 hours), Henry had a soccer game. He is much more interested this year than last season - when he did nothing but run off and pick grass- but he isn't quite the soccer sensation just yet. It is still early in the season!

It was so hot (seriously, Texas, summer is over.. let's be done with the hot weather), that we rested on Saturday afternoon and then went to casual dinner with friends.

Sunday morning brought bunch with friends, soccer practice for Henry, a flag football game for David and then an afternoon baseball game, followed by a play date with Evan and some swimming. Seriously, busy.. but just great.

Without further ado, the photographic evidence:

Just try to say no to this cuteness...

David is still kicking butt at baseball.. He hit the first pitch, so he was already running by the time I took the picture.

Poor Henry has attended so many of David's games. He is just the perfect, chill child. he packs up his toys before we leave and just hangs out and plays. As long as he has toys and can get dirty, he is totally content.

Evan came over to play after the baseball game and the boys went swimming. Henry likes to amuse the older boys with his amazing belly flops.

David brought home a big pack of work from the first month of school. I thought his story was awesome... but I am not sure he has a future in the art world.

One really nice thing about our new non live-in nanny is that Matt and I have worked out a great schedule. I get up and make the boys breakfast and get them ready and he takes them to school. I love this time with them in the mornings. And I have gotten pretty good at making a healthy happy face pancake...

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Its been a year....

So I haven't blogged in a really really really long time.. and a lot has happened. We moved to a new house, we discovered the North Dallas Tollway (amazing by the way), Hannah left to go back to Brazil, we got a new au pair, Luma, who didn't really work out, so we got a new non live-in nanny, Ashley, who we love (and the boys anointed as almost as good as Aunt Hayley - and, let's be honest, Aunt Hayley is rated way above Mom and Dad), David completed his first year at St. Marks, Henry completed Pre-K I at Parish, both kids and Matt and I made lots of new friends - many that will likely be lifelong friends.

Everyone has been happy and healthy - for the most part. Henry continues to have a daredevil approach to life and has had staples in the head - twice, stitches on his face and one cut that required glue. He didn't cry through any of it and, from what I can tell, it hasn't phased his desire to jump off everything. Most of David's baby teeth - at least the ones you can see - have been replaced by permanent ones and he is almost as tall as me. They are both wonderful boys with very different personalities. We often say that David looks like Matt, but has my personality, and Henry looks just like me, but has Matt's personality. However, as they age, it is a little more nuisanced than that and we can see quiet of mix of us in each of them.

Tough most of the past year has been positive, there have been some tough times as well. I lost one of the closest people in my life - Grandma Gil - in January, which is still hard. I think of her almost daily and have really struggled not having her to call and go visit. But she lived a great, full life and left this world exactly the way she would have wanted - quickly and without fuss. One day, I would like to write more about the experience, about my time with her in her last few days, about how much she meant to me and how very much I miss her... but I am not quiet there yet.

Furthermore, for most of 2016, my work life balance was not balanced and I spent too much time focused on work and not nearly enough time focused on my kids or marriage. Matt suffered the same fate for most of the year so-far in 2017. Luckily, we seem to come out of it relatively unscathed and have gotten some balance back in our lives. I feel like this school year is off to a great start. Lots of good kid time, good routines and Matt and I have even gotten in some quality couple time.

All in all, life just everything keeps on moving forward, whether we are ready for it or not....

Lots of pictures (obviously), but I will do my best to keep up with the blog going forward.

David's baseball season with the Yankees. He is really good - hit the first home run of the season. And then a bunch more after that.