June 30th, 2009
Yes, now that I’m on vacation, I’m playing catch-up. 
The cool thing about Mother’s Day when your kids are elementary aged is that it starts the Friday before Mother’s Day. Katie’s Montessori school hosted a “tea party” that morning. I made sure I had no meetings so I could enjoy this special time with her. She was quite the little hostess. She brought me croissants, strawberries, muffins and iced tea. I really enjoyed sitting at the incredibly small table and chairs with her. She also presented me with a present of a Bachelor Button flower planted in a little cup she had painted. It had a little craft project attached to it that was a flower with a picture of her face in the middle. It’s now hanging on my cube wall at work. I keep meaning to transfer the flower to a new pot. I’d love to see it grow and bloom.
Girls' Self Portrait
Of Course, Kitty Joined Us
It’s funny that most parents, given their utmost wishes on Mother’s or Father’s Day, would opt to sleep in and/or do their own thing and/or have some sort of retreat or spa service. But when you’re woken up really early in the morning and told your children want to take you out to breakfast, how can you say “no”?? You can’t. And I’m so glad I didn’t. Chris and the kids took me to what has now become my all-time-favorite breakfast place in the Austin area… The Original Pancake House. I’ve always enjoyed their breakfast, but this day I decided to splurge. I ordered one of their specialities: The Apple Pancake. Oh, this is no ordinary apple pancake. It’s oven baked in an iron skillet (and yes it takes up the entire skillet) with “fresh granny smith apples and pure Sinkiang cinnamon glaze.” Seriously, if you ever go there, you MUST try it. I really want to try the Dutch Baby next, but I cannot seem to NOT order the apple pancake.
Before
After
After an extremely filling breakfast out with the family, what would you do next? Well certainly you would ask your kids what they would like to do… and if they’re my kids, they would say “DONUTS!” OMG. Are you serious? Yes, they were.
Katie's Milk Moustache
William's Breakfast Dessert
Later that day we decided to go swimming. It was a fabulous time! After that we went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream cones. HA! Now that I’m writing this, it sounds more like Kids’ Day. But I assure you a great time was had by all!
Looks Like She's in Heaven
Oh Yeah!!
Posted in 2009, Family, Holidays | 2 Comments »
June 29th, 2009
While William was still in Kindergarten, Katie would walk him to school with me in the mornings. She loved helping him put away his folders… saying “Hi,” to his teacher… then sneaking behind her desk and putting a “Good Work” stamp on her hand. This particular day (I believe it was the Thursday before Mother’s Day), she put one smack dab in the middle of her forehead… and made sure Kitty got one too. Poor Kitty had just been taken out of the wash that morning, too. hehehe
I think someday I’ll make a scrapbook of everything Kitty has been through. I may have her bronzed, too. 
Posted in 2009, Katie | No Comments »
June 25th, 2009
We have always sung lullabies to our kids before we shut their lights off and say, “night night.” William’s lullabye of choice is “Rock-a-Bye William.” Katie’s has long been “Twinkle Twinkle,” except for that short stint with the Barney song. You know… “I Love You, You Love Me.” (Ha! You’re totally gonna have that stuck in your head now.)
When Katie graduated from Montessori school last month (more on that later), she decided to change her nighttime song to “Oh Beautiful”. You may know this as “America the Beautiful.” Although not a lullabye or typical bedtime song, I found that so cute & have been singing it to her.
Enter scene last night….
Mommy: Katie, would you like a song?
Katie: Yes.
Mommy: Which song would you like?
Katie: Pickface.
Mommy: Huh?
Katie: Picker face.
(Mommy looking totally confused.)
Katie: You know. From your car.
Mommy: Poker face?
Katie: Yes! Sing that!
Needless to say, Mommy did NOT sing “Poker Face” by Lady GaGa. We came to the agreement that “Oh Beautiful” would be much more soothing. LOL.
If you listen to top 40 kinds of songs, you can now thank me. If not, have fun with Barney the rest of the day.
Posted in 2009, Katie, Seriously, Shannon | 2 Comments »
June 19th, 2009
Man… I was doing so well for so long. My iPhone makes it SO easy to blog. I have the WordPress app & can just attach photos I take from my phone. Very convenient!
Except when your phone decides all of a sudden that it wants to lock… You reboot it… And it goes into recovery mode.
You know those Apple commercials with Justin Long playing an Apple & the other guy playing a PC? I used to think they were pretty funny. I guess I still do, but my iPhone has given me such great expectations over the last 2 years that when it decides to give me its equivalent to the “blue screen of death”, I became a little bitter.
Horrible part is that I lost my notes & photos that I had taken since the last time I synced to iTunes. Sad face. REALLY sad face.
Two lessons learned: 1) sync your iPhone to iTunes everyday or at least much more frequently and 2) stay up to date on your blogging so people don’t miss the awesome picture if William riding his bike without training wheels for the first time.
Pledge: more blogs coming soon!
Here is a view of what you don’t want to see on your iPhone:
Posted in 2009, Seriously | 3 Comments »