Update: Kristin and Katie

Kristin is turning 4 years old next Sunday! I can't believe it! The years have flown by so fast! She seems so much older to me now. She has known all of her ABCs for quite some time now, but now suddenly out of the blue, she just started writing her letters all on her own. I'm always pointing out letters to her, but I hadn't started encouraging her to write anything yet! She started doing this about a month ago. They're all very read-able letters too! It's crazy! Hmmm... whate else? Oh - we read Kristin's Bible every night after her bedtime story. A couple nights ago, we read about Jacob and Esau (in her new Bible). At the end of the story, there was a little devotional section. This one had something to do with what we're supposed to do when we have a disagreement with a brother, sister or friend. We confess it to God and ask Him to help us get along and be nice to one another. Then it gives you an activity to do with your family. This one was: "How well do you know your family?" It was supposed to be a guessing game - where you ask your family members what they think your favorite things are, but instead I just asked Kristin the questions about herself to see what she'd say. The questions in her devotional were:

1. What's my favorite color?
She said, "Pink is my favorite!"
2. Favorite game?
She said, "My dog game!" (Nintendogs on Jason's Nintendo DS)
3. Favorite food?
She said, "Waffles and sausage!"
4. Favorite animal?
She said, "Dogs!"
5. Favorite place to have fun?
She said, "The playground!"
6. Favorite movie?
She said, "Little Einsteins!"

I thought for sure she was going to say her favorite food was chicken nuggets, french fries and chocolate milk (a.k.a. McDonald's Happy Meal). And I thought for sure that she was going to say Sea World was her favorite place to have fun. 2 out of 6 isn't too bad right? I think I know her pretty well...for now at least!

Kristin's short soccer season has already ended. It only last about 5 weeks. She was so excited to get her first medal and certificate. She's looking forward to starting gymnastics or ballet soon. She wants to do both, but she can only do one and I don't know which one I want to put her in. Gymnastics sounds like more fun to me, but ballet seems less dangerous doesn't it?












Here are a couple of pictures that Kristin drew on her Doodle Pro:

She said, "I drew a picture of me and Katie!"

And then she said, "I drew a picture of Jesus!"


That's it for Kristin. Now onto Katie. She's going to be 8 months old in a couple of days and she's still as lazy as ever! She still expects us to feed her, change her, bathe her and entertain her. She definitely isn't pulling her own weight around the house and it's really starting to get annoying! Who does she think she is??!! ;) No seriously - she's getting sweeter by the day! Of course she's still a whiner-baby, but she makes up for it with her cute little crooked-mouth smile and the twinkle in her eye! She's so cute! I just want to squeeze her and pinch her! She's even cute when she (annoyingly) wakes me up every morning! No matter what, she's always wide awake and ready to start the day at 7am. I don't need an alarm clock - I have Katie (only she doesn't have a snooze button - dang blast it)!



She's still trying to get the hang of crawling, but she's getting there! She's mostly doing the army man crawl, but she gets her knees up there every once in a while and bounces back a forth a few times before falling over. I can never seem to capture it on camera. Here's a very short clip of her (from a couple days ago). It's not the best, but it was the best I could do! Katie is very difficult to film - she always stops whatever she's doing, so she can stare and smile at the camera. It's so funny! Jason says she was born to model. We'll see if that's true or not next Sunday when we go in to get our family picture taken. Anyways - here's the clip:



Oh my goodness! It's after 2am - I have to get to bed! Katie is going to be waking up and expecting to be entertained in less than 5 hours. What have I done?! Ugh...

Residents vs Staff Soccer Game and Jenny's Visit

Last Monday morning Jason had an Anesthesiology Residents vs Staff Soccer game. Jason was of course the captain of the Resident team. It's no surprise that Jason was also the star player. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be the center of attention - and we can't have that...now can we? ;) Has anyone noticed a recurring theme? Jason and attention. They go hand in hand. I can never seem to mention Jason's name without the word "attention" being in the same sentence. Hmmm... Does that seem peculiar to anyone else? ;)



So anyways, everyone met up at a church soccer field to battle it out. Resident doctors against staff doctors. Some might think the residents have an unfair advantage - they're younger and probably in better shape. But that wasn't the case. Most of the residents had no previous soccer experience and a lot of the staff appeared to have some noticeable skills.







It wasn't long before the residents noticed that Jason was their most valuable player. He was all over the place! Much to Jason's delight (I'm sure), everyone kept trying to get the ball to him, so he could make all the goals. I kept hearing his teammates shout, "Get it to Capra! Get it to Capra!" He scored 2 goals in the first half and one in the second. He had plenty of opportunities to score more goals, but he didn't want to hog the ball. I'm sure he wanted to hog the ball (this is Jason we're talking about), but he didn't want other people to view him as a ball hog - so he tried passing the ball to his teammates, so they could make some goals.

Midway through the game, Jason and the captain of the staff team were going after the ball and Jason heard the other guy tear a ligament in his knee when he kicked the ball the wrong way. Jason said it sounded horrible. He almost wanted to stop playing it sounded so bad. The poor guy tried to play it off like it wasn't so bad, but he was hurt. He was laying on the ground and everyone huddled around him. One of the staff doctors yelled out, "Is anyone a doctor?!" Hahaha (a little nerdy doctor humor there)... After checking out his knee, the captain limped off the field. His wife jumped in and took his place and the game continued.





After a couple hours, the game was over. Jason's team won 5-2. I was so mad though! I had the camera ready almost the entire time - just waiting to get some pics of Jason scoring his goals. Of course - the pictures came out blurry for 2 of his 3 goals and then I didn't have a chance to zoom in for his 3rd goal, so the picture looks all small and unfocused. Rrrr... Crusty camera! My lack of photography skills might have had a little something to do with my crummy pictures, but it makes me feel better when I blame the camera!





After that we headed back home, so I could finish cleaning up the house for company. My sister, Jenny, and her husband drove down from his parents' house in Dallas to visit for one day before moving up to Washington State. It was a really short visit. Too short! I hadn't seen my sister for over 2 years, so one day wasn't really enough to make up for all the lost time. But it was still fun! We really didn't have a lot of time to do anything too exciting. The day might have been a little more exciting had Jason been home and not on call at the hospital during their entire visit. Let's be honest - everyone knows that Jason is the life of the party! ;) They arrived Monday night at 8pm. We watched Spiderman 3 while we ate dinner. We talked, we cackled and then we went to bed. The next day, my sister took me by force to a piercing place and made me get my nose pierced (against my will of course)! ;) Well okay - I had been thinking about getting one for the last few months, but I just hadn't gotten up the nerve to do it. I picked out the tiniest earring I could find - because I don't want to look like a complete hooligan (just a slightly prissy one). ;) I wasn't supposed to get my nose pierced until December though. Jason's sister Rachel and I were supposed to go and get it done together, but like I said - my sister forced me to go while she was here! I'm sorry Rachel!! I'll still take you if you want to do it! I'm pretty sure though, that if Rachel and I had walked into this place by ourselves - we most definitely would have turned around and high-tailed it out of there! It seemed like a thoroughly clean and sanitized place to go (and I read some really good reviews), but I didn't care for the yucky satanic-sounding music or all of the extremely crazy piercings on all of the people who worked there. Ew! I was also scared. The last piercing I had done was back when Jason and I were engaged - 11 years ago! I'm not one to willingly volunteer for any painful procedures! Eek! I'm still not sure if I like it enough to keep it though. We'll see.

Kristin reading her book to Aunt Jenny


Jenny and Richard


Jenny and Richard w/ Katie and Kristin

Me and Jenny

After that we went out to one of my favorite restaurants, Demo's (a yummy Greek restaurant) and then for a quick stop at the BX. We hurried home with only enough time for Jenny and I to take a few pictures and then they had to leave at 8pm that night. Hopefully we won't wait another 2 years before we visit each other again - and I'm hoping it'll be for more than just one day!

Navy Defeats North Texas 74-62!

Last Friday morning (after Jason got home from being on call at the hospital), we packed the car and headed up to Jason's Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim's house up in Dallas. They're only 5 hours North of us, so if Jason ever gets a 3 day weekend (which is very rare) - we go up to Dallas to spend time with our extended Capra Clan. It's always a party at Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim's! Not only do they both work and run around with their kids to all of their sporting events and activities, but they also throw in a party/BBQ here and there on a regular basis. They've got entertainment skills - that's for sure!
Anyways - last Saturday, they just so happened to be going to a Navy vs UNT football game, so they invited us to come along. Of course no football game would be complete (as far as Uncle Jim and Aunt Shelley are concerned) without a tailgate party! It was the first time Jason and I had ever been to a football game. It was also our first tailgating experience! I never understood what all of the hoopla surrounding tailgating was all about. Now I know! It was a lot of fun!
One of Jason's many brothers, Michael, also came down from Oklahoma to join in on the fun. We got up early on Saturday morning to enjoy a yummy breakfast with the family and a few of Jim and Shelley's friends who had stopped by. A couple hours later, we were off to meet Uncle Jim at UNT (he had of course left earlier to set up his tent, grill, coolers and chairs). He also picked up some beads for all of us girls to wear to show our support for the Navy team. ;)

Jason, Me and Katie, Aunt Shelley and Cousin Rissy


Aunt Shelley, Rissy, Me and Becky


Becky, Me and Rissy


Uncle Jim and Aunt Shelley


Uncle Jim made hotdogs, sausages, wings and cheeseburgers on the grill. And what party would be complete without chips, dip, beer and soda?! So we ate, talked, cackled, played, took pictures and ate some more for a good 4 hours. All the while Aunt Shelley was on the lookout for any Navy fans who might walk by now and then. She'd yell out different variations of, "Woo Navy! Go Navy!" She finally rubbed off on the rest of us and we all started to join in with her. She's so silly!

Mike and Jason


Becky


Aunt Shelley


Katie enjoying her first cheeto


Jason and Aunt Shelley even paid tribute to Jason's brother, James (who's stationed in Germany), by reinacting a risqué move that James and his friend made up and are now somewhat famous for on youtube. Here's the clip of Jason and Aunt Shelley's tribute. It won't make any sense to those of you who haven't seen James' video on youtube. If you haven't seen it, you can find it by clicking on my link for "Jason's movies on Youtube." James' movie is called "Fruth."



Finally it was time to head over to the stadium. On our way over, someone spotted a pull-up bar. The Marines had a recruiting booth set up by the stadium entrance - complete with pull-up bar. It didn't take much persuasion to get Jason to go over and challenge one of the Marines to a pull-up bar competition. Surprise surprise - Jason loves attention! ;) Here's the clip of Jason. I'm sure he could have done more - if he hadn't gotten a kink in his neck halfway through his "show." Poor Jason - he couldn't look to his left or right for 3 days...



The Marine didn't accept the challenge though. He said he was too weak from doing pull-ups all day long. Sure... A likely story. ;) We also saw some Naval cadets wearing cowboy hats! Supposedly they were allowed to wear them at the game as long as Texas was their Home of Record. I tried to take this picture without them noticing, but judging by all of their smiles - I think they spotted my camera. I guess I'm not very good at being inconspicuous... ;)



So the tailgating party was a lot of fun, but I was still unsure as to how this whole football game thing was going to work out. I've always preferred watching games in person rather than on TV (I love watching baseball and basketball games in person). But I had never sat through a whole football game on TV (let alone watch one in person), so I was nervous about how the girls were going to handle such a long game in such cramped seating arrangements. But both of the girls were great! And the game was so much more fun to watch than I would have ever imagined! It was so much fun, I didn't even realize that we had been sitting there for 4+ hours! I don't think Jason and I would have had as much fun at just any game though. I think this game was more interesting because we were rooting for a military team. Yeah - Jason's in the Air Force, but we would support any of the military teams...unless of course that military team was playing against the Air Force team! Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim's son, Doug, is a cadet at the Naval Academy and Uncle Jim used to be in the Navy, so we had a lot of reasons to root for the Navy team!

Here's to you Doug! :)


Me and Jason




We enjoyed watching Navy's mascot - a very enthusiastic and entertaining goat. I liked how his costume had built-in muscles. I guess a weak-looking goat wouldn't be a very good representation of a military team, so the muscles gave him that extra umph! ;) He reminded me of Jason for some reason... ;)



This game ended up setting a major-college record. The teams combined to score 94 points in the first half and 63 in the second quarter to set two bowl subdivision records. Both teams finished with a combined score of 136 points. Navy defeated North Texas 74-62. A week before this game, Navy had beat Notre Dame 46-44. In this game, Navy and UNT had more points than that by only halftime, when UNT led 49-45. It was an intense game! What a great game to watch for our first football game experience!

After the game was won, the band played the Navy song. It was funny to see all of the football players, cheerleaders and their goat mascot standing at attention during the Navy song. But that's what you're supposed do when you're in the military! ;)



After the game ended, the school put on a great fireworks display. It was even better than the fireworks we had here for 4th of July! It lasted forever! After a while, I started hoping it would come to an end, so I could bolt to the bathroom!! Afterwards, we went back to Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim's house to relax and visit before dropping into bed. It was a long day!!

Sometime after breakfast the next morning, we had an intense soccer game in the front yard complete with ipod music playing in the background. It was me, Jason, Becky and Micah against Michael, Mark, Rissy and Big Blue (I don't know his name - he was a friend of Micah's). The wager: Losers buy McDonalds. It was a close game, but much to my disappointment - we lost to Michael's team 11-10. Rrrrr...there were a lot of bad calls - that's all I have to say about that!! ;) So off to McDonalds I went. Sniff sniff. :(
We headed back to San Antonio an hour later. We stopped at Ikea along the way to pick up a couple of little things for the house...and eat some of their infamous meatballs for dinner! Yum!. I don't think we ever go into Ikea without getting meatballs. Mmmm...with little red potatoes and yummy lingonberry sauce on the side. I love that place! Mostly because of their meatballs...if they didn't have meatballs, Jason would probably never take me there! I miss having an Ikea 15 minutes away (like we had when we lived in Maryland). It's probably better that there isn't one close by though. Who knows what damage I might do??!! ;)

The Returnaholic

I don't know what the heck I've been doing lately! I've been running around like a crazy person for the past month! I started Kristin's birthday shopping (her birthday is a couple of days after Thanksgiving) and Christmas shopping (for both of the girls) about a month ago. I'm so exhausted! Shopping shouldn't be this tiring!
First, I should start by mentioning that if I buy something - there's a 97% chance I'm going to return it. My friend Laura is the only person who knows how truly crazy I really am when it comes to returning things. I think I have a problem. I'm serious! There are shopoholics - and then there's me...the returnaholic. I think it's because when I see something I think I like - I don't want to go home and think about it (which is the sane thing to do) because if I go home and decide to come back later and buy whatever it was...it's not going to be there when I come back. Make no mistake - that's what happens to me if I hesitate to purchase something. So if I like something, I'll buy it, take it home and think about it, then most of the time I'll choose to take it back. It makes me feel so much better. It gives me time to think without worrying about whether an item will be there when I return. Within a day's time, I usually figure out that I don't need whatever it is I purchased. So then begins the vicious cycle. I take the item back to the store to return it. Then instead of turning my greedy little hiney around to head out of the store, I find myself reluctantly moving further into the store to look around. Why do I do it?? I KNOW I'm going to see something else that I'll think I want or need (or as of late - something Kristin or Katie would like). And I know that as soon as I buy whatever it is, I'll be contemplating its return even as I'm walking out the door to my car. Now is that crazy or what? You can be honest with me. I won't cry (or at least you'll never know about it). ;)
To make matters worse, I try to avoid this whole back and forth nonsense by spending a great deal of time at the store trying to make up my mind. But it's useless. Even after spending forever trying to make up my mind, I still usually end up buying stuff and then coming back to return it. It's no wonder Jason hates going shopping with me! Poor guy! That's why I've been out mostly by myself this past month (trying to run around crazily by myself while Jason is at work). This makes it even more difficult - because I have to haul around my two little cuties all by myself. And it takes just that much longer! Did I forget to mention that all the while - I'm also trying to keep everthing hidden from Kristin (trying to keep her distracted, so she won't look at what I'm buying her? Ugh. I need help! Kristin just asked me this afternoon, "Mommy, why are we always going to so many places everyday?" I felt horrible! Of course I told her the truth - that I was out looking for her birthday and Christmas presents (this only briefly comforts her). Poor little Kristin! I love going birthday and Christmas shopping for her because we don't get her any toys the rest of the year. Whenever she sees something, we always tell her "Maybe for your birthday or for Christmas if you're good." She always seems content to hear that and we never have any problems with tantrums in the store. I wish her birthday and Christmas weren't so close together though. She has to wait 11 months between Christmas and her next birthday, so it's a big gap!
I was out shopping for winter clothes for the kids today and I spent hours and hours returning and buying things all over the place. I spent 2 hours in Gymboree alone! How frickin' ridiculous! It was mostly because I had a 30% off coupon and I wanted to make the best of it. I was in there forever picking stuff up, using my calculator, putting stuff down, picking more stuff up and on and on the vicious cycle went! I just about went insane! At least Kristin didn't go insane, she loves going to Gymboree to watch their TV and play with the other little kids. She saw many kids come and go tonight - that's for sure! I almost popped a vein when she got upset and didn't want to leave!
So in conclusion, I am a psycho when it comes to returning things! I've returned so many things this past week that I've honestly lost count. As if the holidays weren't busy enough already! Add a touch of craziness and you've got one exhausted Tricia!!! I'm pooped. I think Kristin was pooped tonight as well. She fell asleep on the desk playing Elmo's World. Hang in there Kristin! Your crazy Mommy is just about finished!



This post is way too long! And it's all about how crazy I am! I'm not sure I feel comfortable about everyone (besides Laura of course) knowing how insane I can be - especially around the holidays. Eek! Oh well. Years from now, I can look back at this post and see whether I've gotten any less crazy...or worse. I'm hoping it's not worse! We'll see...

Last weekend, Halleluiah Night and Starbucks

So we didn't really do too much last weekend. We drove out to a different part of San Antonio that we hadn't been to before. We were looking for a place (that I thought was going to be some sort of vineyard) called Water 2 Wine. Well, it was slightly disappointing. It ended up not being a vineyard at all. They did make wine though. It was a little place located in a rundown old strip mall. They made wine in big plastic barrels. How's that for classy and refined? The owner who helped us was really nice. We tasted several of their best-tasting wines, but they all paled in comparison to the wine we tasted at the Sister Creek Vineyards the week before. We ended up buying a bottle of their most popular-selling wine (just to be nice), but it still wasn't anywhere near as good as my favorite wine from Sister Creek!

That night we went to the bowling alley for our weekly bowling competition. And no competition would be complete without beer and hotwings! Mmm hmm... ; ) We played two games and - surprise surprise - I only got a 102 and a 104. Why am I so bad at bowling??!! It's so frustrating to never get any better! What the heck??!! I'd really like to take bowling lessons!! Of course, Jason got his usual average of 160. It just isn't fair I tell you!! But he has an unfair advantage. My Dad taught him the mysterious ways of the bowling ball back when we lived in Oregon (during college). He taught him all these techniques and gave him pointers on how to bowl the right way. Where was I you ask? I was there, but I was too busy talking with my Mom and Aunt Karen! Yes I enjoyed the talking, but man - I wish I had taken more of an interest in all of those bowling lessons! Especially now when I hear that my Dad is in a bowling league playing in tournaments and getting scores like 256!! He's bowling in some league with my Grandpa Yingling...and yes my Grandpa bowls good too! Rrrrr... Why didn't I inherit the pro-bowler gene?! Dang blast it!! ;)

Onto less upsetting things... We took Kristin to "Halleluiah Night" at our church on October 31st. Or as Kristin calls it "Hallelula." She and Katie both went as Tinker Bell. They were so cute! Kristin loved her costume, but Katie didn't seem to appreciate the rough material scratching her oh-so delicate baby skin. Poor kid. I paid $20 for that dang thing, so I made her wear it anyways! I'm such a mean mommy! ;) First we bought some tickets to use for the food and games. Then we waited in the horrendously long line for the Candy Walk. Of course Kristin loved going from trunk to trunk getting candy from people. Each candy-giver dumps a handful of candy into each kid's bag and each car is only a few feet apart from one another, so the kids don't have to work very hard to get their candy. It's the lazy Christian alternative to trick-or-treating! It's great! ;) Next, Kristin went to the bouncy house obstacle course (her next favorite thing to do). Then we took a break to go get some food (hot dogs, sausage-on-a-stick, Frito pie and soda) while we listened to a Christian rock band playing close by. Kristin jumped in one more bouncy house and then she used the rest of our tickets to do the duck-catching game and then we headed home with her bag full of goodies. It was a fun night. The only thing Jason and I are going to do differently next year - is dress up ourselves!! I was thinking that only kids would be dressed up, but there were a lot of adults dressed up too! I'm disappointed for not having thought of it before! Oh well - I guess I have something to look forward to for next year's Halleluiah Night...picking out more costumes!! Woohoo!! :)

















Hmmm...what else? Yeah, so we didn't do anything big this weekend either. I ordered an Insider's Guide to San Antonio book from Amazon last week and I'm just waiting for it to come in, so we can start using it to help plan our weekends better. So this weekend, we're just doing the usual. Going to Costco to walk around and look at things we can't buy while we eat their yummy samples (who can resist those things?), going to Starbucks, going to Barnes and Noble, going out to lunch and going to Sea World for a couple hours.

Speaking of Starbucks - here is a picture of Jason after we went through the drive through at Starbucks today. He was quite pleased with the compliment he had just received from the guy who was working the drive through window.



What was the compliment you ask? Well, when Jason reached out for our order, the guy said, "Man, you've got big arms! What do you do to get them that big? Do you lift weights? Do you work in construction?" Jason (who's obviously embarrassed and slightly uncomfortable) sheepishly answers, "No, I'm a doctor. It's just a little hobby of mine." As we drove away, I think Jason's head grew 10x bigger before my very eyes! When I brought that to his attention, he grinned with his embarrassed crooked-mouthed smile and said, "I don't know what you're talking about Tricia." Of course he says this while flexing his bulging bicep. He was clearly happy to hear that his hard work at the gym hasn't gone un-noticed. That's my bighead boy!! ;) Sometimes when I think of Jason, I'm reminded of Gaston from Disney's Beauty and the Beast (you know - that big brute of a man)... I'm not sure why though... ;)