Spring Break

Kelly and I both like the book The Lorax so we thought it would be fun to take the boys to see the movie. They both finally sat through a full movie a few weeks earlier at home so we figured they would do well in the theater. We read the book a few times that week before we went so they would be familiar with the story.



They both loved the movie, we all did actually. I'm sure it helped that we bought popcorn and candy to munch on.



I just love this picture, it cracks me up. Leaving the theater that day.



We had planned for months to go to Austin during Cason's spring break because Kelly had vacation that week. It was just a mini-vacation, Wednesday morning through Friday afternoon. We picked Austin because Cason talked about caves a lot last fall and he loves bats so we wanted to go to the Inner Space Caverns just north of Austin. That was pretty much the only must do activity we had so the rest of our trip ended up revolving around food. Austin has tons of great restaurants and places to eat. I spent hours searching Yelp and I made an itinerary of everywhere we were going to eat and what meal.

It turned out that Austin traffic is always crazy but spring break makes it worse. Then add the South by Southwest music festival on top of that and it made us pretty much want to avoid downtown. We had planned on hitting up Tenderland, a food truck serving some awesome pork tenderloins (outside of Iowa???) for lunch the first day but the food truck was gone. I checked their facebook page and they were downtown for the festival. Strike 1. So we went to Torchy's Tacos instead. Ehhh. Kelly liked it but the kids and I were not fans.



Next up was one of the cupcake bakeries I had picked out. I chose peanut butter cup, Cason wanted mint chocolate chip, Kelly got carrot, and Bryce loves anything with sprinkles. The cupcakes were much better than lunch.



That night we went to Salt Lick BBQ. Kelly and I had been here last October after we ran the Tough Mudder and wanted to go back. It was just as good as the first time and well worth the drive. This place has been featured on Man Vs Food and definitely lives up to the hype.



Thursday morning we hit up Round Rock Donuts, another Man Vs Food locale. We also ate here last October and told the boys about it. Bryce had talked about going to Austin to get donuts daily for over a month before our trip. I thought they were the best donuts (creme filled bismarks to be exact) that I've ever had.





After donuts on Thursday, we went to the long awaited cave. It was really cool. I was only disappointed in the bats. I thought the bats would be bigger, these were the size of chicken nuggets and barely noticeable. They were also loner bats instead of hanging out in a colony. The cave itself went on for quite a ways, I think we were in there for about an hour on our tour.







The camera on the iphone fogged up because at the end of the cave, it was 98% humidity.



Thursday night we were supposed to go eat Detroit style pizza and see the bats fly out from under the bridge on Congress Ave. But we realized that the bats might still be hibernating in March and couldn't find anything online that would tell us for sure. We didn't want to drive downtown and fight traffic if the bats were still hibernating. The pizza got canceled for similar reasons. Strike 2 and 3. The boys didn't mind though. They mostly went to Austin for the donuts.

Financial Peace Jr

Last fall, our boys started asking for toys constantly. This is back when Cason was obsessed with Imaginext (wow, kids go through obsessions so quickly!) and he would want to look at Imaginext toys on my computer every day. He would look for all of the things he didn't have and ask us to buy him any he didn't have. So Kelly and I decided that it would be a good time to start him on an allowance. We figured Bryce was probably a little young but we didn't want him to feel left out so we wanted to include him too. Kelly and I follow a lot of the Dave Ramsey ways so we thought Financial Peace Jr would be a good way to go with the boys.

The first week of January, we sat down with the boys and explained everything. We gave them each three chores to do each day. At the end of each day, we pay them for the chores they did that day and they divide up the money between "Give", "Save", and "Spend" envelopes. They caught on quickly and it has gone very well the past three months. The boys are good at putting money in their Give envelopes and then taking the money to church on Sundays. The money they give at church goes to help Josue and Isaac, two little boys in Honduras that have Cerebral Palsy. Our boys always talk about taking their money to give to Isaac and Josue, it's so sweet.

When their other envelopes start to fill up, we will take them to the store with us and they can pick out a new toy. We have done this 3-4 times since we started this system and the boys love picking out something new. They have mostly stopped asking us for toys, they know they just need to save up their money. And they are also learning that they need to work to get paid. They now have a better understanding of why Kelly goes to work, so he can make money to pay for all of our things.

This is one of the times they got to spend their money at Target. Cason picked out a small Lego set.



Bryce picked out an ambulance (complete with lights and siren of course!)

A very Mickey Valentine's Day

I'm totally back dating this blog entry so I can pretend that I didn't completely neglect my blog for almost three months. We've been so busy lately and I use my limited free time to talk to friends on text or facebook or do mobility work. But it's time to catch up.

I usually don't really celebrate Valentine's Day at all, other than buy Cason some valentines to hand out at school. But my friend told me about these cool Mickey bowls at Target and I needed an excuse to give them to the boys. Then I was walking through Sam's Club and impulse bought a Minnie DVD I knew Cason would love so then I picked up a Mickey DVD for Bryce. They were both completely obsessed with Mickey and Friends at the time. They also both talked about muffins all the time. We never have muffins ever so I thought it would be a nice treat for them if I made them some blueberry muffins for Valentine's Day. Kelly was out of town that day so he left cards for me to give the boys.





Grandma and Grandpa Gehling sent the boys cards with money in them so we took our Mickey obsessed duo to the Disney store.



They each picked out a Mickey and Friends play set.



They also each picked out two stuffed characters. Minnie and Daisey for Cason.



Minnie and Goofy for Bryce.

Trio Blocks

Cason's favorite thing to play with these days are his Trio Blocks. He got them for Christmas two years ago and was really into them when he turned three. Then he went through a Lego loving phase. Then it was all about Imaginext, and now it's back to the Trio Blocks. He builds all day long when we are home. He wakes up and starts clicking blocks together right away. All day long, I will ask him to do something and the response I get is "but Mom, I'm building something!" He will sit for hours building, as soon as he gets something built, he will change it or take it apart and build something else.

He is a good builder, he thinks of his own things to build and they usually come out looking like what he says they are. Here is an airplane he built last fall.



Then he got really into Imaginext toys and if there was a toy he didn't have that he wanted, he would just build it out of Trio blocks. Here is his Serpent Pirate Ship. It has a tail, oars, and a serpent head, just like the real thing.



This day he built the Twin Eagle, an Imaginext plane that he has.



And now that he's really into Mickey Mouse, he builds Mickey stuff all day, every day. This is one of my favorites, it's Mickey with a jetpack on. Notice the Mickey ears.







Most every day, he builds the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, complete with all of the details like the shoe garage, glove balloon, and vegetable patch. This video is him talking about his Clubhouse the other day.

Some videos

I've been trying to take more videos of the kids lately. Kelly's parents got us a great new HD video camera for Christmas that works awesome in low light and has so much less graininess. Plus, my friend gave me her old iPhone and it's SO easy to take a quick video of the kids and upload it to youtube directly from my phone with a few taps. Here is my youtube channel, you can check out some of my recent videos and even subscribe to the channel if you want. If you subscribe, I think you get e-mails if I uploaded new videos that week but I'm not 100% sure of that.

http://www.youtube.com/user/crayonsandcheerios?ob=video-mustangbase

Today was a gorgeous January day in North Texas so we went outside to play for awhile. Bryce decided he wanted to ride his bike. We gave him this balance bike for his 2nd birthday and he hated it. We showed it to him, he literally said "no!" and walked away. Today was the very first time he ever wanted to sit on it or try to ride. So I put his helmet on and helped him down the driveway. He didn't understand that he was supposed to balance on it, he thought it was a ride and kept trying to put his feet up and let me push him. So we're hanging out on the sidewalk just trying to sit without falling over and without me hanging onto him too much. Cason went inside to get something and when he came back out, the dog came out too. So a minute later, I wanted to put the dog back inside. I told Bryce to sit on his bike and try not to fall over. I put Kielers inside and when I came back, he was not only balancing, he started riding it too.



And here's another video from a few minutes later of him riding more and the boys playing.



And finally, my kids are completely crazy about Mickey Mouse. It's all they watch these days. Both of them walk around quoting lines from the shows all of the time. Cason builds Mickey Mouse stuff constantly out of Trio Blocks (more about that another day). This video is from one morning when Bryce was quoting Mickey so I got out the video camera. It's dark because it was still pretty early and Cason wasn't awake yet.

Paci Train

Bryce has been a paci lover since he was days old. We have limited him to only having them when he's in bed for over a year now but last month, he kept sneaking them out of his crib when he was playing. So I gave him a little pail and told him they have to stay in the pail when he's not in bed. He can put the pail in his crib, up high on his bookcase, or on the shelf in his close but they had to stay in his paci pail. He loved this and has been good about leaving them alone ever since. But at night, we hear him plopping his pacis in the pail before he falls asleep and I often find him curled up around it when I check on him before I go to bed.



One morning, about a month ago, I walked into Bryce's room in the morning and he had linked all four of his pacis together. He called it his paci train. He will sometimes even suck on the paci train, which looks crazy and hilarious at the same time. He doesn't do it every morning but does it often enough! Crazy, silly boy.

Christmas 2011

We had another great Christmas this year. I think I was more excited for it than the kids but they were definitely pumped up about it too. Cason had a Christmas party at school after his Christmas program, we went and saw lights at Texas Motor Speedway, we walked around and looked at lights on multiple occasions, went to a living nativity, and baked special holiday treats.

I tried to stress the joy of giving to the boys, it's hard at this age because they love to get new toys but Cason took a new toy to school to donate and I had them help make Christmas gifts for relatives. I also took each boy separately to the store to pick out a gift for each other. Then I took them to the supplement store and let them pick out protein bars for Daddy.

On Christmas morning, I waited until both boys were up and then gave them their stockings. They are both super into Mickey Mouse right now so their stockings contained a Mickey drinking glass, Mickey utensils, a Mickey movie, Mickey jammies, and some candy.







Then we let them open two presents and munch on their candy while we made breakfast. Kelly and I each picked out a present for each of the boys this year. Here is Cason opening the real model rocket that Kelly got for him.



After breakfast, we moved to the playroom and opened the rest of the presents. Here is Bryce opening the baseball glove that Kelly got him. It's too big for him, we knew it would be but it's the smallest they make and he really wanted one. He'll grow into it!







Watching his new Mickey movie, wearing the helmet Grandpa got him, playing with the trains that Cason picked out for him.



Reading one of Bryce's new books.



He loves the trains that Cason got him.



And all his new football guys.





Cason loved all his presents too. His new Trio block castles were big hits.



They both love the giant fire house from Grandma and Grandpa.



And the rocket.







On Monday, we headed to the "park" to launch Cason's rocket. The boys loved it, I added a video as well.