The Year Has Come to An End

I really can't believe that the school year is over and Ethan has finished kindergarten.  He had such an amazing year and learned so much that it even exceeded my expectations.  I have to brag about my smart little boy for a few minutes. 

 End of the Year

 

    Beginning of the school Year

His kindergarten was a Spanish/English class and it has been so fun to hear all the Spanish he has picked up over the year.  He has such a great accent that I can't wait to hear how well he speaks after next year. I definitely can't remember back to what I learned in Kindergarten but it blows me away with what Ethan knows now.  He loves math and is so good at it.  He has started doing multiplication and can do all sorts of math facts in his head.  We were talking about something and when someone asked what 60 plus 99 was he responded quicker than Abe and I with the right answer.  He is a great reader and is so sweet to read to Taylor and the other kiddos at the house when I need a break.  He reads chapter books amazingly well.  I hope that 1st grade will be able to find ways to challenge him like kindergarten has.  I was listening to him and Taylor talk in the car the other day and the discussion turned to what they were going to do when they grew up.  Taylor really just wants a job that makes a lot of money so she is hoping that a professional singing career will work out.  Ethan decided to explain to her the differences between jobs like being a police officer that didn't require a lot of school but weren't as challenging and how if she wanted a really good job she was probably going to have to go to school.  Ethan's plan is to become an engineer and own his own company.  So he told Taylor if she wanted she could come and work for him and they could see each other everyday.  He did clarify that she couldn't just sit around and do nothing at his company that she would have to work hard.  I love how they plan things and how they want to be together (even if it doesn't appear that way on a day to day basis).  Here are a few pictures from graduation.  I love just this little boy!

 

 

 

 

I have fallen behind

Life has been busy and there has been little time for blogging but maybe I will get caught up one of these days.  Long ago, back around Easter, we had a wonderful ward Easter egg hunt.  The kids were so excited about getting eggs.  It was like watching a swarm of ants take over the park as they ran looking for eggs and destroying any small trees that stood in their way.

 We celebrated Easter with some fun bunny pancakes.  The kids love pancakes in any shape but chocolate chip eyes make it even better.

 The weekend after Easter Abe had Saturday and Sunday off so we decided to take a trip to Dallas and visit the family.  We had such a fun time, as always.  We spent Saturday going to the Science Museum in Dallas, which was just amazing.  It is brand new and so high tech.  The kids loved trying to race the cheetah (you can guess who won that one) and fly like a bird with 3-D glasses. We finished off the evening with a great meal at a Mexican restaurant without the kids.

On Sunday the kids were willing to quickly pose for a few pictures before we went to church.  All our sweet cousins were so great about showing Ethan and Taylor around at church and making them feel welcome in their classes.



 I tried to get Ethan and Taylor to take a picture together since Taylor was sick on Easter and I couldn't take any pictures then but there was no cooperation from the troops so this is all we got.

 Sunday was also Abe's birthday so we had a delicious dinner and some marble fudge cake to celebrate before we headed back to San Antonio.  No one was ready to leave after all the fun we had.  We always appreciate our wonderful family in Dallas and how great they are to us.

Canyon Lake Camping

The kids have been begging to go camping again and the weather has been nice enough lately that we made plans for a quick trip during spring break. Abe schedule didn't allow him to ask for any additional time off other than Friday so we just did a one night campout close by. But it was tons of fun and the kids were great. We couldn't have asked for better weather and it was early enough in the year that no bugs were out.

 Ethan giving his univeral "thumbs up".  In this instance I think it means "no really mom, its not too cold for swimming."  But on other occassions it means "no, that really didn't hurt has bad as it looked" or "I totally meant to do that" or "don't worry mom, this next trick of mine will end fine."

 The water was still pretty chilly even though it was in the 80's during the day.  The kids tried to swim but they mainly just played in the sand.

 The weather in the evening was perfect for hanging around the campfire and cooking some hotdogs.

 Ethan did have some doubts about Abe cooking his smores.  He can be quite dramatic when he wants to be.

The morning was a little chilly so Taylor decided to crawl back into bed.  Abe and Ethan just decided to get comfy in the chairs.  And yes it appears that Abe is a bigger wimp about being cold than Ethan is.

We braved the strong winds on the lake to do some canoeing.  It sure made for a good workout but I think I will stick to river canoeing.  Ethan can't wait until he is big enough to go out in the boat with Abe by himself.

Sometimes these two can be adorable together. It usually just last for a split second though. I love these two cute kids more than anything.

Our Newest Addition

I can't believe it has taken me so long to annouce this on the blog but we are thrilled to tell everyone that we are expecting Baby Fish #3 September 14th!  We had been hoping for this for a long time and were starting to have our doubts it would ever happen so we feel very blessed. 

Ethan and Taylor are so thrilled and are fun to listen to as they talk to the baby and make all sorts of plans on what they will teach it and what they will be responsible for.  I was going to post the video of when we told them about the baby but I have yet to get it off the iPad so it may never happen.  They weren't crazy excited in the video (not that Abe or myself get crazy excited on the outside about things either) but it was  pretty cute later that night when I saw Ethan smiling at me and I asked him what he was thinking about and he said "I just can't believe we are really having a baby."  We asked the kids to keep it a secret when we told them but poor Taylor just couldn't keep such a good secret to herself.  I think her preschool teacher and class were the first ones to find out then followed closely by her Sunday School teacher.  She did mention to her that it was a secret and she wasn't supposed to have told anyone.  And what a sweet Sunday School teacher who pretended not to know for weeks until Taylor told her it was no longer a secret.  Ethan on the other hand has decided that he won't tell any of his friends until we know if it is a boy or a girl.  He said "they are just going to want to know if it is a boy or a girl and I don't have an answer. I'll just wait until I know the answer and then tell them."  Completely logical, why waste time on unnecessary conversations Abe junior.  We do have an ultrasound scheduled for April 17th so we all can't wait to find out if it is a boy or a girl.

The first trimester is officially over and I am feeling really good.  It was definitely a hard first month with Abe out of town and me feeling under the weather all the time but we are now doing amazing.  Exciting times and we couldn't be more thrilled.

Valentine's Day

I guess I have once again gotten a little behind with the blog but we had such a fun Valentine's Day that I have to put the pictures in.  The kids remembered that last year I had made them a fun, heart shaped breakfast so the bar was set high.  This year Taylor had heart shaped french toast and Ethan had toast with an egg in the middle in a heart shape.  The kids were pleased and were surprised by the heart shaped sandwiches in their lunches.

The kids decided they wanted to make a dessert for their dad so we decided to do chocolate covered strawberries so they could do it "themselves".  We had a fun time and were pretty impressed with how good they turned out. 

We had a good laugh when later that afternoon a package was delivered for me from Abe and it contained chocolate covered strawberries.  Great minds think a like.  But we enjoyed them all.

Since Abe was working late that night and there was no chance of going out to dinner I decided to try my hand at making a steak for Abe, which is usually his favorite.  I am not one to cook red meat because I never seem to get it right but I gave it a try.  Ethan got lucky, since there were three pieces of meat in the filet mignon package and he got to be my guinea pig.  Yum, bacon wrapped steak.  Ethan was in heaven with his love of meat.  Taylor, my non-meat eater, even decided it looked good enough for a taste or two.

 

It was not a healthy dinner to say the least but I would have to say that mine was restaurant quality. 

Of course by the time I spent all evening putting this together and waiting until 8 to eat it I was exhausted.  So maybe going out is still the better option.

 



 Valentine's weekend was also when Ethan's school did their family sock hop.  Ethan had been looking forward to the dance for a long time and it was pretty cute to see all the kids playing and dancing together.  Ethan has the tough kid look down pat in this picture!

Taylor's 4th Birthday

I can't believe our little girl is 4.  She is getting so big.  Taylor had such a fun birthday this year.  It just so happened that Joy School was at our house on her birthday.  So she got to share some yummy cupcakes with 3 very sweet friends.

Taylor has not learned the art of eating cupcakes without getting icing all over your face.  I guess we need to eat more cupcakes.

Taylor chose to go to Chick Fila for her birthday dinner and since it was Tuesday she got to have her face painted while we were there.  She was thrilled. Then we came home for cake and presents.

I have finally figured out some icing that the kids can have that will sort of hold up for decorating a cake.  But it is still a little too runny for anything fancy.

Taylor was enthusiastic about all of her girlie presents.  I loved the "ohhh" gasp everytime she opened something.  She is so easy to please.

We sure do love this little girl.  She is so girlie yet so tough when she wants to be.  She is bossy and stubborn beyond belief but can also be my biggest helper and favorite snuggler.  I can't wait to see her continue to grow and learn and become an amazing girl.

While Abe was away

Abe spent three weeks in January in Houston working in a children's ER so it made for a long, busy month.  We sure do miss him when he is away and we especially hate when he misses lots of fun things at home.  Taylor's has been taking a dance class at the YMCA and they had their recital in January.  She was most excited to get dressed up and get to wear some makeup.  She is such a girl.  They didn't bring in a stage for the kids to dance on so unfortunately it was about impossible for anyone to see the little girls if you weren't sitting on the front row.  We were disappointed that we really couldn't see her without standing up but we were happy that she did the dances and had fun.

 

 Ethan's school had a science fair night during January and everyone had to complete a science project related to something they had learned out during the year.  The teacher had the great idea of giving them an example of how they could make an exploding volcano so Ethan came home with a list of all the things we would need and was ready to get started.  I tried to talk him out of the idea (out of sheer laziness on my part) but we were finally able to compromise on doing a cross section of a volcano.  Even though you can't tell from this picture he really was excited about building it and how it turned out.  We were all just tired after making lots of homemade playdough and building it.

 On the night of the science fair the teacher had a video camera and asked him to explain his project on camera.  He did an excellent job of explaining the different parts and really impressed the parents standing around.  It has been a lot of fun volunteering in his class more now that I don't have work.  The other day the teacher told me that she wished she had a class full of Ethan's.  He can be a handful sometimes but it made me so proud to hear the teacher brag on him.

 Abe did make it home in time for the First Semester awards program at Ethan's school.  Ethan was excited to get an award for perfect attendance and one for character.  I always find it amusing that the teacher always comments on how kind he is to others and how polite.  At home it isn't always that way.  He can be quite unkind to Taylor and full of sass.  We were having a discussion about his lack of empathy and concern towards others one day and I was giving some examples of unkind things he did at home.  He quickly reminded me that those were all examples from home but that he was really kind to others at school.  Why can't that Ethan come home!

 But we are so proud of that amazingly smart, funny not so little boy.