September 16-22

Tuesday was McKay's day off, so he took Tyler to school instead of me.We got a new tire on the Rav4, and spent the morning straightening up the house. I got my test results back from my first Patho test: 90! There was a very generous curve that helped my score out, but I am pretty darn pleased with myself :) 

When it was time to pick up Tyler from school, we had to get him from the nurse's office because of a big bloody nose; after this, and with crayons, markers, exploding pens, and spaghetti lunches, Tyler's poor school shirts are not going to last long!

McKay and I each went running that night, our normal 3 mile routes. Just before his turn, McKay took Tyler running up and down our street. Tyler has been very interested in excercising and running lately as McKay and I have been training, and he's been begging to go. The problem is that Tyler likes to run for about 100 yards before he poops out. I made the mistake of really taking him running to the park a few weeks ago, and it did not go well. McKay is traditionally the more patient parent with this sort of thing though, and this little jog up and down the street was just the best thing ever to Tyler. McKay would point out a stop sign or mail box in the distance and tell Tyler they would run to that place, and apparantly it worked! McKay is talking about signing Tyler up for a 1K in the future :)

Wednesday: I really cannot remember what we did this morning except that I made a wreath at some point in the morning. Melyssa and Tom watched our kids that night so McKay and I could go to the long awaited Mumford and Sons concert! It had been scheduled for June originally, but one of the band members had gone to the hospital with a brain aneurysm the very morning of the show. Understandably, they postponed. We weren't real thrilled with it being a school night, but it turned out to be a great night.

Traffic, traffic, traffic. Yes, I sure am taking a picture in the driver's seat. The car was in park and had been for a good ten minutes. Love me some 5:00 driving on the I-30.

Classic Mumford lights!

Annnnnnnd back to traffic, one of the only downsides to concert-going (besides the crazy guy in sunglasses standing next to you on the lawn smoking his recreational contraband).

The show was awesome! The only sad part: we had lawn seats. After being spoiled with pit seats at fun., it was sort of hard to go back to being on the grass with the rest of the peasant. We couldn't see much of what was happening, but we still had a really good time. Afterwards, we stopped by Jack in the Box for shakes. McKay asked for peppermints to go with our order. The drive thru guy frowned and hesitated, and said "...Yes?" McKay said, "Great! Can we get some?" The confusion was explained when we opened the bag to find not peppermints, but pepper packets to go with our shakes. We could not stop laughing. We ended up getting home at 12:30 in the morning. So so late! We felt awful keeping Tom and Melyssa waiting so late. 

Thursday: Understandably, we had a super slow morning. McKay had gotten off work for that day, so we enjoyed a lovely lazy day (everyone except Tyler, who was at school. Sorry Bubs!)  After a bit, we took the RAV4 to get new brakes (ouch!) and to get a few new books for Tyler's Literary Luncheon the next day.

Friday: Back to real life! Jamie was awesome while I dropped her off at school, no tears! She was actually pretty excited to go. That morning was Tyler's Literary Luncheon. The parents were invited for lunch and to bring books to donate to the school library. It was so fun seeing Tyler in his element. I'm so glad I get to go to things like this. I know it will be harder when I am in school full-time next semester. I saw a lot of kids whose parents were not able to  make it for whatever reason, and these poor kindergardeners spent the hour watching the main doors with tears in their eyes while all their friends' parents arrived, but not their own. My heart broke for them, and I promised myself I would try to never miss Tyler and Jamie's school events, even after I start working.

I spent the rest of the day studying the new unit, the endocrine system! 

Saturday: The kids and I went to Legoland, but first we tried our best to take a cute picture of ourselves. No such luck :) 

This girl LOVES the karoake part of Legoland.

Check those moves out.

Woooooo! Can you guess what song she's rockin' to? It's Bob the Builder :)

McKay upped his running to 4 miles that night, and then he babysat the Bitters' kids while I studied at home.

 Sunday morning: McKay and the kids baked a super yummy batch of Pumpkin Snickerdoodles to give to a few of our favorite people at church while I ran my own 4 mile route. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! Maybe this training thing might work after all. We went to church, and afterwards had a lovely dinner at Eve and Milko's up in Plano.

I saw this in Plano and got excited about the Redondo Beach ad on the side. My dad's parents lived in Redondo Beach, CA, and we would visit all the time.

Kicking our trash in a rather violent game of Sorry!

The gallant losers :)

I'll add the funny things tomorrow! See you next week!

September 9-15, 2013

Monday: I had my class, and so did Jamie. I dropped Tyler off at school, and then Jamie, who had a hard time again, but when I called about ten minutes later to check on her, she was happily playing with her little trio of school friends. I guess she just saves all her sadness for me, sweet girl. It is heartbreaking to leave her when she is sobbing, but I know she is having fun and learning, and she is really, really excited when I come to pick her up at the end of the day :)

My class that day focused on neurological function and disorders. One topic was abnormal posturing, 

Does this look like a SYTYCD modern dance diagram? I couldn't stop giggling and sent this picture to McKay. I am a terrible person. In my defense, this was after three hours of lecture. Later, I was trying desperately to find a good picture of decorticate posturing. This is how it is supposed to look:

But google image search kept giving me this cat:

Tuesday: McKay's day off! We had a delightfully lazy day at home, until McKay took Jamie to get hot dogs at the new Hoffman's down the street.

Soooo delicious. They also hit the library and the Dallas BIG Idea exhibit.

McKay picked up Tyler from school, only to discover that Tyler had had a pen explode on his shirt at school. The rest of that afternoon and night was spent by Cindy and I learning a new  life skill, how to remove ink stains from clothing. (Hairspray and hand sanitizer! Then wash HOT on a double rinse cycle)

 Later that day McKay and the kids drove up to Plano to Kevin and Cindy's to pick up our new-to-us grill! We haven't inaugurated it yet, but we are super excited. Tyler spent the majority of the afternoon there playing "Golf Ball" with Uncle Patrick in the backyard.

Wednesday: Jamie and I had a playdate at Northpark Mall With Sarah Jane, Tori, and Ada, which was a great morning. We visited Bookmarks, the library right there in the mall, and played with the ducks and turtles in the pondby Tiffany's.

 It was an early pickup day for Tyler, who had ANOTHER ink soaked shirt, blurg (hand sanitizer, hair spray, rinse, repeat).  We ended up not going to Legoland that day, because we had all been up the previous night with Jamie's Hulkie nightmares (no more Avengers in our house EVER).

Thursday:  Donut morning!

After dropping Tyler off, Jamie and I cleaned the house all morning. Well, I cleaned while Jamie reacquainted herself with the Toy Story trilogy. Bronx whiled the time away following me from room to room, chewing on my toes while I cleaned. 

 At 6, I dropped the kids off at grandmas, and we left for the Fun concert! We had upgraded to pit tickets earlier this year, and after trying to sell the tickets (unsuccessfully) we ended up giving the first tickets to some friends. We didn't get to see the friends during the concert, but by all accounts, they had a good time as well. The opening act was Teagan and Sara, who I had never heard of before, but I have been making up for lost time this week.

The show was so, so awesome, and we had such a great time. One of my favorite things about McKay is how much he loves DOING things, getting out and going to shows, concerts, festivals, fairs, events, whatever, he just likes to get out and have fun (punny!).

(thanks for the tip!)

 Unfortunately, I lost my license and debit card, and $20 from my pocket at some point in the pit. We picked up the kids at 12:00, and we were in our beds asleep by 1. Phew!

Friday: Jamie had school again, and this turned out to be a really great day! She hardly cried when I left, and the teacher let me know she was very happy all day. Myself, I studied for my class from 9-3. Blech. It was a very slow afternoon for everyone recovering from the night before :)

Saturday: We held a yard sale with our friend Eve (mostly her's), and I made $14! Wooo! It was just a purge of our clothes, and helping a friend out. Then we went to the bank to get new debit card, a quick trip to Costco, and more studying once we got home.

Sunday was a lovely, nice, leisurely morning. At church, I just let my class watch an animated scriptures movie, and we had Raspberry Turnover Bites for snacks. Tyler gave the scripture in Primary.

So grownup!

The second we walked in the door after church, Bronx flopped on his back with his paws in the air, looking at us with a very, very guilty look on his face. It didn't take long to figure out what he had been up to:

Oh, Bronxie. Poor Merida.

I needed to study more (test in less than 24 hours panic was setting in), so McKay took the kids to the Pride Parade that was rolling through the neighborhood. Looking back, I guess their Sunday clothes were the more distracting and abnormal outfits :)

 
 Monday: I had my test, and its OVER! I'm all done studying those chapters, and I could not be more happy :) McKay and I switched cars that morning, which turned out to be a very lucky thing because he got a flat tire! I can't even think of what I would have done if I had been driving that car. I have zero tire changing skills. I probably would have just abandoned the car and ran the rest of the way to school! As it was, he was late to work :\ After my test was over, followed by a two hour lecture (UGHHHH) I rewarded myself. Parisian Eggs Benedict at La Madeleine for me!

I made a special snack for the kids after school to apologize for being an absent mother the last few days, Chocolate Chip Dip with graham crackers. Tyler decided to do his entire homework packet for the week that night to surprise his teacher. I love that this is his idea of being mischievous :)

McKay and I are officially training for the half marathon now! Five nights a week, with varying distances. We are already excitedly showing off our calf shelves to each other :)

Funny things from the babies

• During all the ink removing, Tyler kept calling it "hannitizer".
• Since Tyler's teacher went to UT, she is doing her best to indoctrinate her students to love all things Longhorns (this school has a very heavy emphasis on college, starting from day one of kindergarten, which I love) As a result, Tyler has been making the hook 'em horns sign at us lately, saying "the eyyyyyyyyes of Texas" as he points the horns at our eyes. It is all very funny.
• When Jamie was in diapers, whenever she had a stinky diaper, we would playfully call her Mrs. Poops. Gradually, this has become the height of insult in our home, and we frequently hear Tyler and Jamie calling each other Mr. or Mrs. Poops, respectively. 

• Jamie has been doing goofy Dory impressions this week. She looks you closely in the eye, asks you "Do you have a problem? Do you? Do you? Do you?", getting closer to your face with each "Do you?".

See you next week!

September 1-8

I am about 95% sure that making any sort of blogging resolution is just shooting myself in the foot, but here goes anyway:

New resolution!

Weekly updates!

McKay has been keeping a pretty faithful journal for the past year and a half, and I love looking back and remembering what he captured. His sister Kendy (perseverance must run in the Hinckley genes) writes pretty regular weekly updates and mails them out, and then prints the PDF file out to be put in a book at the end of the year. What a treasure that must be!

Computer issues notwithstanding and forbearance pending, here is our weekly update for September 1st, 2013.

General:

Our biggest news this week: we are official annual passholders of LegoLand! Each year, we pick out a new location to buy a family membership to. Last year we chose the Perot Museum, which was super close to us, right in the middle of downtown, but it didn't turn out to be too exciting for the kids. I thought it was great and educational, but educational doesn't always translate to a fun time :) So we looked a little further away from home, and decided on LegoLand on the recommendation of some good friends. It has been quite literally the best decision we've ever made (at least in our kids' eyes). We've been four times so far, and nothing even approaching boredom has happened yet. We've decided to make it a weekly event, going on Wednesday afternoons (Tyler's early release day from kindergarten).

Jamie has been to her preschool for two weeks now, and it is sort of getting easier. She still cries each time I drop her off, but the teacher let me know that she has stopped asking for me every 15 minutes during the day. Progress! She really misses her old preschool, but everyone who was part of it has moved away, and since it was a co op, that sort of kills it. I did find that packing a little baggie of cookies in her backpack each day to be disbursed at especially bad times helps her out a ton. Also her teachers :)

Tyler has lost two teeth now! His first fell out a few weeks ago, and we still haven't found it (we're pretty sure he swallowed it!) This second one was the first he was able to put in his tooth pillow for the tooth fairy. He had so so so many questions about the logistics of the tooth fairy. It took a long time to go to sleep that night.

I've started school as well, but my one class, Pathophysiology, is just Monday mornings. Since Jamie is in preschool twice a week, this gives me a nice long morning to devote to studying, which I am figuring out I will need to do much more of than I am used to. It used to be a two semester, 8 credit course, but it has been compressed into one semester, without dropping any curriculum. It is seriously like drinking from a fire hose! I've finished applying to the nursing program, and I find out in November if I've been accepted. I'm trying my best to be patient :)

McKay and I have gotten back into running, and we are on course to run a half marathon this winter! We are in week 2 of training, so we haven't run any crazy long routes just yet, but they are coming! I am feeling less bloated, more awake, and just stronger generally. It is always a good feeling to be running again. McKay went into handyman mode this week and fixed a number of things around the house that needed fixin'. I joined in the fun, reupholstering our dining room chairs. Again. Sigh.

McKay and I went on a date on Friday night, the first in a while! We dropped the kids off at Kevin and Cindy's, went to Australian Outback and to see World War Z. Steak and zombies are the best date night :) We had a long overdue fun night together, thank you grandma and grandpa! McKay's birthday was the next day. The kids and I treated him to LegoLand for the day (lucky daddy!) and that night, after McKay got home from practicing a musical number with some friends from the ward, McKay discovered his birthday present from me:

30 reasons I love him, with the last four being the operas he will be seeing this year, as an annual member of the Dallas Opera (we were hemorrhaging money this week!) He was so happy with his present, and I was so pleased he was happy.

In other news, Bronx got his cone off for the first time in about 6 weeks. He had a bout of fleas around the 4th of July that led us to discover his severe allergy to fleabites (it's like poison ivy to him), which then led him to the cone to stop him from devouring himself. After a round of steroids and antihistamines, he is back to his happy chewing-on-things-that-are-not-him self.

Weekly:

Last Sunday: We had a Fast Sunday dinner at Kevin and Cindy's with the whole Texas Hinckley clan to try out their fancy new smoker. We brought dessert, as usual. This time it was an Apple Vanilla Custard Pie, a Pinterest find:

Monday was Labor Day. McKay had to work, but the kids and I went to buy our memberships:

Tuesday was McKay's day off, and his handyman day.

Wednesday: Jamie and I had a playdate in the morning with Sarah Jane, Victoria, and Ada, and then we Legoland for the afternoon after we picked up Tyler from school. Tyler took a silly picture of his Igor smile.

Thursday:The kids and I picked up special cookies from Whole Foods to celebrate Tyler getting "green" all week on his behavior chart at school.

Friday: Study day for me, and date night for us!

Saturday: Bronx back to his cute self, and McKay's birthday!

 See you next week (I HOPE!)