Friday Night Lights

Before we leave Texas my children needed to experience the Friday Night Lights.  I took them to a high school football game.  Not just any game, The Wurstbowl between the two New Braunfels high schools' teams.

Our New Braunfels Unicorns

vs.
the Canyon Cougars

We wore our Unicorn blue.  Alayna worked on signs and a cheer*.  She also used her credits in class to purchase a mini #1 finger.  I was in charge of the three Ts:  Tickets, Transportation and Treats (apple slices and a roll of mints).

It was an extremely fun night.  I did a lot of explaining as the game was played.  We followed the cheerleaders' calls, we stomped, we jumped, we yelled.  Many times I would catch myself yelling, "Go, Cougars!"  After all the years I have spent as a Cougar, high school, college and as an alumnus, it is a difficult habit to break.  We were having such fun, we didn't even leave after the halftime show as planned.

My goodness, the halftime show.  Nothing like my days at the Ranch.  Both marching bands performed their competition pieces with full formation movements involving the flag teams and baton twirlers (ours were twirling 3 batons each!).  The dance teams** performed their numbers, accompanied by their band.  All lead by the drum major and at least 2 assistant drum majors.  Watch this for an example.  Not this year's, but whoa!

The Unicorn thunderstix were a big success.  The best part of the game for Alayna?  The Unicorns won 30-27.  The best part for me?  I received a number of compliments on what wonderful children I have.  Oh, and the blinged Unicorn jersey I bought.

The most anxious part of the evening was getting all three children safely back to the van.  Out of the stadium lights, it is dark and there are a lot of people and cars.  Everyone stayed close, and as we went thru the non-parking lot where vehicles were driving and parked I had Alayna wave her thunderstix to be seen, even though, as she pointed out, it doesn't glow.  We made it intact to the van and chatted about the fun we had until my heart rate had returned to normal.  By then the traffic had cleared and we went home and to bed.

* Alayna's cheer
Blue is great
Blue is bright
Let's go, Unicorns!
You know how to fight!

** The New Braunfels dance team is called The Monoceras and Mystics, complete with Majors, Lieutenants and there is even a "social officer".

Halloween Costumes

It's not Halloween yet, but we dressed up for Trunk-r-Treat at the church tonight.

Alayna as . . .

Lavagirl

Cavell as a . . .

Knight

Lex as a . . .

Monkey

Our fun kids.

Happy Birthday, Cavell!

For almost a full year Cavell has been telling us that his next birthday will be his "Go Diego" birthday. Thanks to a lucky find at Hastings and a little dedication from his Mama, Cavell did indeed have his Go Diego birthday.

Some cupcake toppers for his playdate with a friend.  Only one friend (Happy birthday to you too JackJack!) and the siblings, but they were too cute not to use all of the toppers.

Lex thought Cavell NEEDED a Diego doll.  I think he was right!

Almost all of his Diego gifts were interactive, as Go Diego should be.

The Finale was the Go Diego cake.  When asked what flavour he wanted, Cavell would always answer, "Go Diego"  We decided on chocolate cake with a dulce de leche ice-cream layer.  I made the top using a frozen buttercream transfer.

Will It Finally Happen?!?

This morning Cavell ran down the hallway towards his room. Moments later he exclaimed, "I pee on potty!"  I walked over to the bathroom and see his pajama bottoms and his discarded diaper on the floor.  Cavell is sitting on the toilet, beaming, and still telling me he peed on the potty.  And, there was pee in the potty!

I quickly created a Go Diego potty chart for Cavell to put his reward Go Diego stickers on.  He already has two stickers from this morning that he earned on his own, without any help or encouragement.  He is also making additional, unproductive, trips to the bathroom of his own volition.

Words can not express how excited we ALL are for this new step to be taken.

**Update: Cavell had only two accidents that first weekend.  After that it has been over two weeks with no accidents.  We can confidently say Cavell potty trained himself, quickly . . .  if you blissfully forget the numerous attempts I had made since he turned 3 that he didn't really participate in.

Who's the Fool

Alayna had been making a big deal about April Fool's day recently, so we decided it would be fun to plan April Fool's Jokes for the tykes.  Most involved their food and food colouring.

The morning started off with a colorful breakfast.  The Kix cereal had a surprise of yellow food coloring hidden at the bottom of the bowl.  As the kids added milk to their bowl, the milk turned a strange yellow color! This little trick went over pretty well with the kids, but things went downhill from there.

For lunch, Alayna had pink milk. Stacy put a couple drops of red food coloring in her milk to turn it pink. When Alayna came home, she proclaimed loudly that she, "doesn't like pink milk and it tasted funny." She took a sip and that was that. But the mind-taste connection would be illustrated even more later.

For dinner, Stacy worked hard the night before and April Fool's day to keep the kids from knowing what was in store, and actually prepare the tricks. Dinner was served in pajamas and the kids were told they needed to finish their cupcakes before they could have their dinner. Dinner was meatloaf "cupcakes" with blue mashed potato "icing" on top.

Stacy even tried initials in ketchup on top of the "icing".

Cavell took a nibble of the mashed potatoes before concentrating on the ketchup and ignoring the rest.  Alayna ate most of her "cupcake" and then proclaimed that there was too much "icing" and it was too sweet so she was done with dinner. Lex ate like a champ and finished off a whole meatball and potato cupcake on his own.

We had to call the kids back to the table so they could eat a dinner of "Chicken Pot Pie." That took a lot of convincing and a little threatening. From the pictures, you can see just how much they enjoyed their meal.

Chicken Pot pie was a vanilla pudding with Mike & Ike candies cut to the size of diced vegetables and topped with a pastry crust.  The kids immediately turned up their noses at the thought of chicken pot pie, but they at least had the decency to crack the crust and taste that.

They ate the crust. Alayna was the first to discover that the sauce had a sweet taste and was willing to give the innards a try.  Cavell took one bite and decided that this was just too much trouble and left the table again.  Alayna started to get into the meal and then complained that the candies were too hard to chew and there were not enough of them. She ate half of her pie and left the table as well.

Lex, Mom, and Dad cleaned up the leftovers without a single complaint.  Well, Lex complained when the leftovers were gone and he couldn't eat any more pudding.

So I guess Alayna got us after all.  We did all the work for the prank and we still ended up getting punked.

St. Patrick's Day

This morning I ran the St. Patrick's Day Treadmill 5k at our YMCA.  While I was aiming for some time between 25:30 and 26 minutes, I was quite happy with my 27:01.  I earned some Lucky Charms.

Alayna was very excited for the today's "Green Out" at the Y.

We tried a shamrock hairdo and decided to add a little green.

In ChildWatch the kids tie-dyed some shirts in green and gold, received green leis, party blowers, shamrock stickers, a hat or crown, and their own Lucky Charms treat.  Alayna had her face painted; a bejeweled, glittered butterfly on the left and a rainbow with a pot of gold on the right.  Miss Nell also painted a shamrock on Alayna's hand.  She wanted to make sure you saw it in the picture.  Cavell decided he needed to pose the same way.

Cavell Update

We made an unconscious decision to spare our reading public from the horrors of Cavell's face for a while.  It may have been out of sensitivity or it may have been because I got put in charge of the update and just never got around to actually doing the work.

Meanwhile, Cavell has continued his slow but miraculous healing process.  The swelling has gone down on his forehead but is still present.  The bruising has gradually worked it's way down his face, but still leaves a shadow.  Below is a series of photographs we took over the last month as he progressed.

Once the black bruising left his face, the red seems so much more violent.  While Cavell was in this condition, I took him and the rest of the brood to watch Stacy finish her half marathon.  At one point during our wait, it started raining, leaving puddles of water on the ground.  Cavell, being a boy, decided he needed to jump in the puddles.  Cavell, being a 3 year old boy is a little clumsy and he skinned his knee.  So there I am, in the rain with three kids wearing shorts and t-shirts.  Lex is crying because it suddenly got cold and wet.  Alayna is crying because she is done waiting for mom and wants to go home.  Cavell, my obviously abused son, is jumping in puddles, soaking wet, with copious amounts of blood running down his leg.  I have no idea how we didn't get picked up by the cops.

Satisfied with himself

That blood red eye was pretty disturbing

Aren't they cute?

The two scabs in the middle of his forehead remind me of a snake bite.

OK, which one is cuter?  Tough decision, right?

When the deep red coloring started to fade, we were left with this dirty, shadowy, mix of colors.  People knew that something painful had happened, but really didn't get the full effect at this point.

It just started to look like he had a really dirty face.

By Thanksgiving, the bruising had finally faded enough that it just looks like he has dark bags under his eyes.  As pale as his skin is already, he looks a bit overworked, malnourished, and in dire need of a nap. 

Of course, through it all,Cavell has remained his positive and upbeat self.  Part of that is due to his total lack of understanding of just how much he could have milked this opportunity, and part of it is just the kind of kid he is.

Pecans

While waiting to pick Alayna up from school today, Cavell and I noticed one of the moms picking something up from the ground . . . and eating it!  When Alayna came to the van, and I went to buckle in Cavell, I realized there were pecans on the ground.  We gathered some.  10 of them.

Not all 10 are pictured.

We got to cracking.

and cracked some more.

Then we went to work peeling . . .

. . . and peeling . . .

 



. . . and peeled some more.

This took a lot more work than expected.  Cavell kept throwing the cracked shells into the nut bowl, some did still have the nut in them.  Alayna wasn't able to get any big pieces because she kept cracking her shell, and the nut, more to try and get them out.  Not that I was able to get many big pieces either.

A bit of toasting and we had pecans for snack time.

We saved some for Papa.

Yummy!

That was a lot of work for such a small treat, but we enjoyed the experience together.

Recovery

Unless he is making a funny face, Cavell will not tolerate pictures. I haven't bothered him for one since Tuesday. Here is his funny face. He picked off another scab in ChildWatch today and this was the bandage they created since I didn't have his bandanna with me.  He didn't want me to take it off.  When I did anyway, he wouldn't let me take any more pictures.

When we got home later in the day, Cavell let me take some pictures if I held the camera the right way and let him take pictures of me.  He makes me say "Almond Milk" since I'm not eating cheese right now.

I tried to get a shot of Cavell's closed eye.  It is difficult to see (because he wouldn't hold still long enough for me to get it) but he has some green, flaking skin on his eyelid.  I think this is from all the rubbing he did to his eye when he was trying to see.

The resiliency of children is AMAZING.  Wednesday was the last time I heard someone comment that they thought he had on Halloween makeup or a mask; The Incredibles being the most common description.  The only really dramatic part of his appearance now is how quickly he has healed.  All of the puffiness is gone from his eyes.  Even the bruising is very faded.  While his skin is becoming mottled, the discoloring is dispersing rather quickly.  He still has a big knot on his forehead, but nothing like it was.  He has done such a thorough job picking at his scabs, there are only two left.