Why Oh Why?

Why are tires made of rubber and air? Alright, so probably a stupid question, but honestly last night at 9:30 p.m. I walked out of church to find my fourth flat tire this year. It was flat to the rim. I'm pretty sure the place where I get my tires patched installs magnets inside the tire tubes they seem to attract every metal object on the road.

Luckily there was one person left because there are no light in the parking lot. Her little daughter thought it was cool to learn how to change a tire. We let her take the lug nuts off (which were put on pneumatically last time and it took everything I have to loosen them). So today I am off to get one more patch job at some shady tire shop. Happy Friday!

Expressions

It was a pretty slow weekend. A cool front actually made it down here so it was mid 70's all weekend, a welcomed relief from the spring heat. We spent most of the weekend watching the broadcast of the LDS Spring General Conference. We watched as they sustained the new prophet - Thomas S Monson. It was an awesome conference, lots of good speakers and things to think about. For those who missed they already have the mp3's ready to download at www.lds.org.

Eliza is teething so she was cranky all weekend. She was really ornery at supper tonight, the loving parents we are, we just sat there laughing and taking photos. Five minutes later she was happy as a clam. The kid loves the tub.


Erin on the other hand has been camera shy lately, wish I could say the same about her mouth. Tonight we had cheesecake and she said "Daddy hurry up and eat your cheesecake before Mommy eats it." I asked her why she thought I would eat it and she exclaimed "because you are a big scary monster".

Then later she was brushing Jared's hair and said "daddy you have a hairy neck and pretty bangs and I like the hair in your ears." Its amazing how a three year old can shred your self confidence in a matter of seconds.

Here's to another week.

Smirks

Eliza is changing so much, I'm not sure who she look like, but she inherited the Fenton Smirk. And check out those new chompers. She is working on her 4th tooth.

1st Game

Erin had her first game on Saturday and it was the best entertainment I have seen in a while. The team we played was all 3 year olds. Erin is one of the youngest on her team. We had 2 playing offense against 10 and still I don't think the ball ever made it down to our side of the field. But Erin stood her ground on defense. Bt the 4th quarter most of the kids had lost interest. They would run off the field and sit on their moms lap. It had rained the night before so the other big distraction was the ditch full of water right next to the field beaconing their clean new uniforms.

I was camping Friday and didn't realize how big Erin uniform would be. I quickly took in her shorts right before the game so they would not fall off, but I need to take in her jersey also.

Suburbanites!

I am a soccer mom. One phrase I never thought would cross my lips, let alone admit. I think that is the last step to becoming an official suburbanite, although I don't drive I humongo SUV yet (nor will I ever).

I found myself staring staring blankly at the soccer section in Academy sports last week. I have never picked up a soccer ball in my life, if fact I had to google to even figure out if the socks went over or under the shinguards (for reference it is over). So Erin got her first pair of cleats, snazzy shinguards and socks that extend mid-thigh on her.

Their first practice was Friday night. We enrolled her in a city league on a 3-5 year old co-ed league. I was really apprehensive because I have heard several stories about parents getting arrested at games for disorderedly conduct, coaches coaching a tike team like a highschool team, etc. We just wanted Erin to have some fun. But to my relief, the first practice went smooth (as smooth as a group of 13 tikes get :) Her coach is a local Methodist minster and seems really laid back and the parents we met seemed relaxed.

Erin was the one on the field watching the butterflies as people ran around her. It was hilarious to watch them play. Everyone wanted to be goally because there was a big dirt patch right in front of the goal and they all like playing in the dust patch. The whole practice was mayhem, at the end the coach called two asst. coaches just for help with crowd control. Practice is once a week and her games are on Saturdays.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Erin was so excited this year for the Easter Bunny to visit. She spent all week contemplating if the EB was gray or pink. She got finger nail polish, lip gloss, body glitter, a new kite and some odds and ends. Eliza got a new cup, a 5 lbs bag of animal crackers and a new rubber ducky.

We went to church and then had a big dinner at our house. I cooked my first ham, or I should say I warmed it up :) Pre-cooked meat is a beautiful thing! We had 14 adults and a herd of kids attend . Erin & her nail polish Devious Eliza

This is how a whole tube of lip gloss was used...

Back To Nature

This is Fint. Fint has been hanging around all month, yes he is a rock. Erin heisted him from our neighbors flower bed one day when visiting. I find him in clothes baskets, at the dinner table, and sometime even in bed all safely tucked in. It makes me wonder why I buy toys.

Wiki-How Failed Me

For the first time Wiki-how and Google failed me. I typed in "how to remove pennies from a car CD player" and I got nothing. We are getting ready to put our dodge dakota on the market so I spent the morning detailing the inside. Eliza was sleeping and Erin was hanging out in the truck with me. And then I noticed the stack of pennies in tray was gone. I think the first line says it all. I spent an hour with a pair of scissors and a utility knife attempting to jimmy four pennies out of a 1/4" slit, who knows how many are still in there. And just in time to sell the truck.

Tour De Houston

Lunch on City Hall Mall

I'm not nearly as active and I use to be (comes with having kids). I started running after Eliza was born and it just was not working for me. So I picked up an old Trek on Craigslist in January for $100.00. A group of us started riding Saturday mornings. Houston is not a bike-friendly city, if fact riding on anything with two wheels is considered a suicide mission here.

This is the 4th year the City has hosted the "Tour de Houston". Its a ride through the city. You can choose the 20mile, 40 mile or 70 mile loop. My though was, if I'm paying $25.00, you better believe I am going to ride more than 20 miles, but I have a mountain bike so 70 is probably out of the question so I settled on the 4o mile ride.

My friend Jed and I got up early and headed downtown where we met 5,000 riders. I didn't even know that many people owned bikes in Houston. But out of them I probably had the crappiest bike there. The ride started at city hall, journeyed through a "historic neighborhood" which was more like the ghetto where we were the main attraction for the day. It was one of those place where the only thing that went through my mind for 20 minutes was "please don't let me get a flat tire". Then we got on the hardy toll road, which they shut down for several miles so we didn't have to compete with traffic, went east and ended up on a golf course in an upscale development. And then back again.

The last 3 miles I was feeling the burn as we have a very strong headwind. We ended up back at city hall, where they had lunch on the mall and an excellent live band. The weather was beautiful and it was great to see the city at a slower pace. The whole event was very well organized, we had a great time, maybe next year I'll shoot for the seventy.

Rest stop on the Hardy Toll Road

The Final stretch back into downtown

Bike shorts do look flattering on anyone, me included.

Downtown Houston

CRaZY dAYs

musings

hmmm, whats new.... Eliza is all over the place. Her knees are all calloused from the wood floors so now she can move fast. Last week she took her first tumble down the stairs. I was cleaning carpets and put her back in the office and told Erin to keep an eye on her and to let me know if she crawled out into the family room. I turned around to see Eliza crying on the landing and Erin at the top of the stairs saying "mom, I want you to know that Eliza fell down the stairs" - always the informer.

We went out and bought Erin her soccer cleats and shin guards last week. She was so excited she came down the next morning sporting only her cleats, shin guards and a pink pair of underwear - I told her this was soccer, not rugby. Practice starts on the 17th. I am pretty sure I paid $60.00 so my kid could eat dirt and pick flowers on the side of the field, but I hear the 3-5 year old are hilarious.

Jared started a new job today - same company, different department. He is now with FDM. Its more of a management position, which I think is hilarious since Jared really isn't a people person, but its a good career move for him and he is excited to try something new.

Friday night I attended a youth sleepover with 15 teenage girls. I have finally become a cranky old women because at 1:30 I couldn't take it anymore and went out and told them to shut up and go to sleep. Then we were really mean at woke them up at 7 am and made them go on a walk :).
Friday we got our tax return and Saturday we think we broke a strut in our car so I am patiently waiting the damage report - happy tax return spending for us!

Thats life!

Happy 8th Anniversary!!

My parents have been married 32 years and just celebrated their 8th anniversary on Leap Day. Check out Big E's husky chops! Congrats and we love ya!

This Rocks!

Someone sent this to me as an email forward. As I watched it, I thought this is cool, but would be rockin if it was truly authentic, like the email stated, and not digitally designed. So I dug a little and found out that this was filmed without any digital enhancements or trick photography. The trick was filmed in two segments because the studio was not large enough. It took over 600 takes to get it to run. The engineers that built the contraception dismantled two hand-assembled pre-production hondas - there are only six in the world. Over all cost - 6 million and 3 months to complete. So here is to people who have way too much time on their hands....

On the Move

I haven't had much time to write lately, life has been crazy busy. But we are all alive and doing well. Eliza officially started crawling today and is quite good at it. The little monkey can move.

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