Saturday, December 12, 2009

Monday, November 23, 2009

Busy little Capras!

I can't even begin to describe the tremendous amount of stress that I've been under the past couple months or so! Gone are the good ol' days when I was actually able to accomplish the tasks I set out to do. Challenging and meaningful tasks. These days I get excited when I accomplish even the most simplest of tasks...like exercising, taking a shower, making the bed, getting the laundry folded and put away in less than three (or four) days and maybe squeezing in two minutes to check my email every other day or so. Yikes! What is happening??!! I feel like I'm losing control of what used to be really quite easy for me to handle! Like keeping the house clean, making grocery lists, keeping the laundry in check and cooking most of our dinners at home. Everything seems to be unraveling before my very eyes and it seems impossible to get it together! What's happened to me??!! I'll tell you what's happened to me! 3 kids - that's what happened!!! I wouldn't trade my kids for a clean and organized house and life for anything in the world, but I must say...I am feeling extremely exhausted and a bit overwhelmed!! It could be because Caleb has been crawling like a maniac all over the place for the past three months...or it could be because Kristin and Katie have started fighting more than they used to...or it could be that loading and unloading 3 kiddies into and out of the car is a mountainous task in and of itself! I just can't put my finger on it, but whatever it is - I'm pooped!!!

But enough of my whining!! I'm very grateful to have my hubcap and 3 kiddie-poos! Sure they all demand without ceasing, but I'd be so very sad if they weren't all in my life! So enough complaining! It's time to get you all caught up with our crazy lives!! ;)

First of all, Kristin and I started her 1st grade curriculum September 7th. I'm not sure why we started so much later than we did last year, but it doesn't really matter I guess. We're still scheduled to finish by the 2nd week in May. I use the Calvert home school curriculum and I must say that I am SO much more pleased with the 1st grade curriculum than I was with the Kindergarten one. It's much more interesting and colorful. I've tried to include one cooking activity and one art project per week, but we've missed one here and there - since we've had so much going on lately, but we're slowly getting back on schedule.

Kristin's first day of 1st grade!!


















Kristin and her "Mommy teacher" :)














We begin each day with the pledge of allegiance and finding yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's date.


















Kristin working on her first assignment of the new school year














Katie and Caleb didn't appreciate being left out of the 1st day of school picture, so they demanded a do-over the next day. ;)














Kristin is all ready for her cooking activity - s'mores bars!














Me and Kristin get started














Kristin rolling out the graham crackers to make the crust














Katie always enjoys helping with cooking activities (and anything else kitchen-related)!














Of course the camera battery died at this point, so we have no finished product to show off. :( It ended up tasting okay, but it was a little too rich for my liking. It was apparently not rich enough - because they were all devoured within a day or so. Yikes - way too many calories!!

So for each day of school, Kristin gets a sticker if she did a good job and tried her best. She can save up her stickers to pick a place to go each week - like the playground or Sea World. She can save up two weeks of stickers to go to Chuck E Cheese or buy a new book or coloring book. Of course, she chose to save up two weeks of stickers for CEC for her first couple weeks of school. Katie and Caleb get to partake of the fun without doing anything to earn it, so they're lucky that Kristin tries so hard in school! Those little moochers!! ;)

A mean game of table hockey at CEC - Jason and Caleb vs. Kristin














Kristin enjoying table hockey...even while losing to Daddy and Caleb!














Kristin is all ready for her first science experiment...which ended up being lame when it didn't work!














Waiting for something to happen... to no avail...


















I don't think I mentioned it in my other posts, but after we got back from Jason's brother Joe's wedding back in August, Jason decided that he wanted to specialize in Anesthesiology doing Pain Management. He'd been going back and forth with the idea since he first began his residency. For some reason he finally made up his mind and began the application process. It's a two-part process. He had to apply to schools/hospitals that offer Fellowships in Pain Management and he also had to apply to the Air Force to get their permission/funding to do further training after residency. It took a few weeks to complete both applications and it was a bit stressful getting a hold of all of the documents and transcripts required for the application process. Fortunately, the stress was worth it - because he was invited to interview at Stanford the end of September. It was an unexpected expense that we hadn't planned for (yay or 0% interest credit cards!). He was only given a few days notice, so plane tickets were outrageous (which of course doesn't include hotel or rental cars). I figured out that it would cost just as much for Jason to go out by himself as it would for all of us to all drive out there together...so we ended up making it a mini family vacation. So we headed out to Stanford (which is in Palo Alto, CA) September 22nd after Jason got home from work. Yes - the drive was long and horrendous, but I did the first 10-hour chunk of driving through the night, so all of the kids slept until breakfast time the next morning. So the first half of the drive wasn't too bad (besides me being exhausted...with dark circles under my eyes...). ;) We spent one day driving all the way through to Jason's Uncle Doug's house (which is 3 hours away from Stanford). We ate dinner at a Greek restaurant while we waited for Uncle Doug and Aunt Gala to get off work and pick up their kids from school. Then we headed over to visit for a while before heading to bed. The next morning we drove 3 hours to Palo Alto to look at the apartments at Stanford (for residents, staff and employees only). They were REALLY overpriced, but they were SO nice! I don't really like the idea of moving back into an apartment after living in a house for the past 7+ years, but they were really more like townhouses with attached garages and the community felt really safe and cozy!! And you could totally tell the people who live their are all spoiled living on civilian doctor pay (we even saw a couple of resident couples outside with their kids at the playground while they had maids cleaning their apartments! Oh my goodness - are you kidding me??!! I could not imagine needing a maid for a tiny two bedroom apartment!!! Sheesh! Oh well - I guess if you have money to spare. I'm not sure what that's like, but I still don't know if I could justify a maid for an apartment even if I had money to spare!!! Anyways - I'm glad we were able to go with Jason. It was fun to look around what could potentially be our next home (for one year anyways). The training is only 1 year long and then we'd be off to Jason's next assignment - wherever that might be. It was also nice to visit Jason's Uncle and Aunt! We've never been out to their house before - all of the other Capras live on the East Coast (besides Uncle Jim and Aunt Shelly in Dallas). They've always lived so far away from everyone - that we've never have a chance to visit them. So after looking around at the apartments and surrounding area, we spent the night at Travis AFB an hour from Stanford - which looks like a really nice base (at least it did at night - we didn't see it in the daytime). This was the night that I dropped our camera and broke it. :( I was taking pictures of Jason in his first suit (another reason the 0% interest credit card came in handy). He was so excited about it. The only other suit he has is the suit from our wedding!! He has only ever needed to wear a uniform, so we've had no need to buy him a suit. Anyways - I was really disappointed about breaking the camera - because we have no pictures to show for our trip (except for iPhone pictures - which definitely aren't as good). :( The next morning, we left REALLY early to make sure we didn't get stuck in traffic. We got to Stanford an hour early, so we played around at the playground at the apartments until Jason had to leave for his interview. It was an ALL day interview that lasted from 10am to 5pm or so. Yikes! The kids and I walked around a lot and looked in all the different shops and grocery stores while we waited. The interview ended up going really well and Jason was really excited about it. That night we drove back to Uncle Doug's to spend one more night. The next morning we began our drive back to Texas. Only we were so close to Disneyland...with just enough time to stop by the Disneyland Hotel and eat brunch at Goofy's Kitchen!!! I just love Disneyland (I don't know why). We didn't have time or money to go into the park, but just being at the Hotel made us feel like we were in the park. We also walked in Downtown Disney the Disney store to walk around and then we pulled ourselves away and began the horrendous drive back home. We stayed in Arizona after 8 hours of driving and then we drove the last 12-13 hours the next day.
A week later we found out that Jason was accepted to Stanford!! Unfortunately we've had to wait to find out what the Air Force will say. The Board meets December 5th and we'll find out on December 16th! I can't wait to find out!! If they accept his application, we'd be moving to California July 1st. If not, we won't find out where we'll be moving until February/March! Eek! I'm anxious to find out where we'll be going and I'm trying not to worry about anything. I'm comforted in knowing that God is in control, so that makes it less stressful, but I'm such a psycho! I'd love to know now!!! :)

The kids with Mickey Mouse outside of the Disneyland Hotel


















Kristin taking her first test of the year. I don't remember being so happy taking tests when I was little! ;)


















I need to post this and move on (since I'm SOOOOOO far behind), but I must say that I'm getting so aggravated with blogspot! I don't know if it's just me and I haven't had time to figure out all the new updates, but nothing seems to be working the way it used to! All of my pictures are messed up (with huge gaps) and I can't seem to figure it out! So sorry for the mess! And if you have any pointers - let me know what I'm doing wrong!!! Argh! Hopefully, I'll be getting another story/pictures posted on here within the next day or so (if I don't pop a vein out of anger)!!! ;)

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Last days of summer...

Before I get all caught up in the new school year with Kristin, I think I'll finish writing about the rest of our summer - so I don't get all behind...again. ;)
So we really didn't do a whole lot the last month of our summer break. We might have done more if Jason wasn't always working or if we had some extra money, but what can you do? I'd love to have been able to visit Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim more, go camping, go to an Astros game and just spend some time with Jason. Alas - Jason had to work the night shift for two weeks, so he was no fun (because he was either at the hospital working through the night or here sleeping during the day). I hate the night shift!! Apparently he didn't have as horrible a time as I did because he and his colleague decided to make their 2 weeks of night float an interesting experience (or at least appear that way). Each night, they took a couple of pictures with Jason's iPhone and then Jason would then proceed to make a story about each night's pictures (turning it into a poster). So they had one poster for each night and Jason made sure to hang up all of their posters on a bulletin board in the residents' room just to make the other residents jealous of all the fun they had. Yep! That's my hubcap!

The girls and I had a chance to meet up with some friends of ours a couple of times - once at our favorite playground by the commissary and another time for tea at Mad-hatter's. It wasn't the most enjoyable experience - because we had all of our kids (my three and her three), but it was still fun!

Our final two weeks, Jason was back to his normal schedule, but we didn't have any money to do anything. Dang blast it! We always seem to use up our savings whenever we go to Virginia, so there wasn't a whole lot we could do!! We had no money to buy a tent or supplies, so we couldn't go camping. We couldn't go to Houston to take in a baseball game because we had no money for gas, tickets and a hotel. We actually could have made it to Aunt Shelley and Uncle Jim's house Labor Day weekend, but Jason's brother Mike already had plans to come down and visit us and a friend of his. Although we didn't get to do all that we'd like to have done - we still had fun doing the usual: driving around wasting gas (which gives Jason and I chance to talk while the kids are all strapped in and watching a movie on the DVD player, spending time with Mike when he came to town and enjoying an interesting evening of BBQ and karaoke with the next door neighbors for Labor Day!

I also spent a few days reading a book called Scheduling for Christian Home-Schooling Families that my wonderful friend Laura recommended to me! Thanks Laura-poo!! Then I spent the last couple of weeks trying to come up with the perfect schedule for us to use on the weekdays. It's coming along great! I definitely won't be scheduling our weekends though - that would be a bit much! I'd rather just keep the weekends open for adventures!!

This is how I was greeted at the hospital when the girls and I stopped by for a visit - by a very bald Jason. He and his colleague decided that it would be fun to shave each others heads with surgical clippers. It must have been a slow night at the hospital. Yikes!! ;)


At the commissary shopping for the Resident BBQ we hosted.


Jason and Caleb (my two bald boys) at our new favorite breakfast place - The Egg and I.


Jason and our little cutie-poo Caleb


Me and Kristin


Kristin and her friend Carol on their way to our tea party at Mad-hatter's


Kristin and Carol are ready for their tea!


Kristin and Nora


We also went out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate Jason being done with the night shift. He only has two more 1-week rotation of the night shift for the rest of the year! Hooray!

Katie and Kristin at the Cheesecake Factory


Later that night, Jason and I went out for our 2nd bowling date. Much to my amazement (and Jason's demise), I actually beat him!!! Woohoo!!!! It's the first time I've ever gotten over 120!!! Jason usually gets a much higher score, but unfortunately for him he lost the plug in his bowling ball and it threw off his game! But I still count that as a valid win for me - in my book! A couple paydays from now, Jason is going to buy me my own bowling ball, so I can work on bettering my bowling score (and start throwing more consistently)! Hooray! And I'm getting my own shoes too! Yay! No more rental shoe cooties for me!! ;)

145 to 142!! Woot woot! ;) Oh - and Jacob was Jason's new name for the day (I'm not sure what his thing is about not putting his own name on the board)... ;)



Caleb - a little over 6 months old


Aw! He's so cute!! :)



Out on our Bass Pro Shop excursion -


He's all dressed in his camo gear and reading to find some camping/hunting supplies! ;)


Cute little Kristin is always up for a photo op! ;)


About a week before we started school, my Mom decided (out of the blue) that I HAD to take the kids to Build-a-Bear and have each of the kids pick out their own bear, an outfit and shoes. There was some kind of special going on, so my Momroo deposited money in our account and forced me to go! What could I do? Even with a special, Build-a-bear is pretty overpriced...I think anyways!! The girls were overjoyed...and Caleb happily smiled at the wolf I picked out for him (just before he decided to gnaw away at the price tag until it was a useless lump of mush)!! ;) It's a good thing we went without Jason because we spent about 2 hours in there!!! I almost went crazy!! But it was still fun!

Okay - I have to jump in here for a second! I do not know what is going on with this ridiculous blog entry of mine, but for some reason I can't get any more titles on the rest of the pictures I've uploaded!! And it keeps leaving a huge gap between some of the photos! What the poo?! I've tried everything and nothing seems to be working! I'm too frustrated to keep messing with this, so I'm just going to publish it as is. Sorry! Maybe I'll be able to come back to it later and fix it.
The rest of the pictures are of Jason's brother Mike in town (while he was here visiting a friend of his from college). There are pictures of us when we went to a shooting range with Mike and a colleague of Jason's from the hospital. The last few pictures are of the kids and then of the Labor Day BBQ we had with our neighbors next door - a night full of food, drinks, cackling and Jason dominating the karaoke machine... It wasn't pretty folks... ;)

Kristin, Katie and Caleb with their unstuffed animals


Kristin getting her Hello Kitty stuffed


Kristin doing the honors (for some reason Katie was too afraid to push the pedal herself to help stuff her own bear).


She happily took her stuffed bear from Kristin


Man it's a lot of hard work being the big sister!! ;) Kristin helps stuff Caleb's animal too!


He's very excited about Wolfy (the name Kristin gave Caleb's stuffed animal)!















Kristin dressing her Princess Kitty



Killing the kids' eyeballs as I try to get them smile for the camera with their new stuffed animals in the bright sun!








Mike and Fia waiting for another round of shooting














Caleb enjoying the thrills of the BX with his crazy sisters!