She's ours

Today we got a tag for Flower. Her official name is now Flower Savannah Gracie Ariel Lula Star, but the tag just says Flower with our phone number. The girls still go outside all the time to play with her. Since she is an outside only dog my feelings vacuolate between-poor Flower is outside all by herself, to poor Flower Gloria is laying on her again. She is soooo good with the girls, though we had to stop them from picking up her front paws to dance with her. She will go in the tea party house with them and sit on the table. I have also been walking her in the evening as Caleb is putting Lydia to bed. Its great, I am not alone yet I can be totally alone with my thoughts-no little mind needing to be engaged :) Every day or so the girls and I go on Poopoo Patrol (which Lydia calls Poopoo control) and so far no one has stepped in any (which was one of my biggest annoyances of living in apartments).

If you would have asked me if I was 'ready' for a dog, I would have probably said no, but now I am really glad we have her.

Camping!

Our campsite. Lydia & Caleb in one tent, Gloria & I in the other-a marriage counselor probably won't be impressed but we needed sleep! The creek was on the other side of the green.
One of the four dams in the creek built in the 30s by the (socialist) CCC. Caleb and I joked that after he got off his socialist job, checked the socialist weather reporting, we drove down the socialist road to the socialist park and complained the whole time that we wanted the government to get out of our lives.

Gloria loved touching the fish Caleb caught.

The last time I went camping was when I was 8 months pregnant with Lydia. She has been camping once with her dad & grandpa. Caleb took the half day off Friday and we were off to Lockhart state park (McKinney Falls was FULL!). It only has 20 camping spots and is rather small but still just 40 minutes from home.

We had a wonderful time. Down sides-poison ivy, lack of sleep, redneck invasion, burn ban and billions of burs in my pants.

Upsides-tons of family fun, seeing huge snakes, a turkey, a hawk with a mouse in her mouth, walking along a creek, catching a frog, hearing a waterfall, climbing and looking at an overlook, Caleb catching some fish, hearing the girls giggling in their separate tents, time for Caleb and me just to talk after they finally fell asleep, watching fireflies, eating lots of great food, enjoying a new twist on S'mores (let chocolate covered cookies melt in the car then top with marshmallows-see pic above to see if Gloria enjoyed them), splashing in the pond with our water shoes and finally hearing Lydia say that camping is awesome. Gloria also enjoyed showering in the bathroom and didn't want to get out.

Friends

When Mommy guilt attacks (which my mother said didn't exist in the 80s) because I am not crafty or cook that well or have taught Lydia to read yet...I remind myself that God has filled my life with friends instead of (not sure the right word here-talents, stuff...). This past month has been packed with people!

The Friendship International Food Fair is always a blast. The girls and I dressed like Texans and we sampled food from around the world. Pictured is Connie (Korea) & Amy (Hong Kong) who are in the citizenship class that I subbed for twice.
Then we said goodbye to Rachida who is going back to Morocco for the summer. Pam & Imane came over to visit too-I made a potroast. Lydia took the photo :) It has been so wonderful to have Rachida as a friend this year, we only speak in Arabic and I feel like in a small way I am being able to pay back the generosity of the Omanis who took me into their lives. Imane will be here this summer and I am hoping to teach her how to drive!
Saying goodbye to Remy who is returning to Taiwan for the summer. We got gelato from Central Market. I LOVE Gloria's face. We also walked around the pond and saw the turtles. It has been fun to be friends with Remy this year as well, we met through the UT program.
Lydia's friend Nita came over to spend the night, they giggled so much that they only slept from 9:45-5:45. The next day they were tired so they rested and practiced camping in the fort.

My bumper sticker

I have a new bumper sticker. I think it is funny. It is polite yet sarcastic (which my generation loves-think Colbert, Stewart and Stuff Christians like). It doesn't attack one side as much as promote what my side has to offer. It is magnetic so it can be taken off when we go visit my in-laws (I think enjoying time together is more important than discussing politics but C always brings it up anyway). Caleb joked that we would get kicked out of our church (we go to the largest most conservative Baptist church in Austin). I joked that maybe people will pray for us because they don't think we are saved yet; or it might help attract visitors by showing we aren't all cookie cutters. But I really hope it does make people think that wow, someone might really love Jesus and not totally agree with me on every political issue.

When we went camping the bumper stickers around us were extremely rightwing and the people around us were large, white and loud (I am all three of these things too!) As well as driving through Lockhart surrounded by huge trucks gunning it at every light, I realized that I do really enjoy living in Austin.

I could go on about politics (esp with Obama's new speech about Israel & borders and how then our preacher's pm service tonight was entitled Why I Support Israel-I didn't attend but Caleb went) but I'll save that for facebook......

Mother's Day

Lydia & I went up the tower three times, Caleb and Gloria (pictured) twice. They enjoyed looking at their shadow, doing hand puppets and waving to others below. And of course they pretended to be Rapunzel!!

To celebrate Mother's Day we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center after church. Going is a yearly tradition, this year we were a little late so we missed the best flowers, though there really weren't that many bluebonnets anywhere this year due to lack of rain. But we enjoyed the turtles and snake in the pond, our picnic in the shade, going up and down the tower and the children's area where the girls colored, read books, and played. I got a Nile Hibiscus tea drink.

Pool!!

The pool is open for the summer (right as it has gotten overcast and a little cooler). Laura came with us for the opening day. We've been twice and are looking forward to a summer full of pool fun.

Cinco de Mayo!

We got an email from a community group about a Cinco de Mayo Feista happening. Happy for something to do close to home, we went. Mostly seniors were there but one family from the neighborhood who has a daughter Lydia's age. We watched Ballet Folklorico, ate Bill Miller's BBQ, played with confetti eggs and were happy for Gloria to have a chance to wear the dress from Mexico we bought for Lydia while I was pregnant with her (Lydia also needed to wear a fancy dress so she picked purple velvet!).

Salado!

Caleb had a weekend field trip so we escaped to my parents. With all their fingerpaintings.
We played outside pretty much the whole weekend.
Mom had saved snowballs from the winter and got them out for the girls to play with. They melted quickly.
We brought Flower along for the fun!

Easter in Beaumont!

Like normal tradition we spent Easter with Caleb's family, this year in Beaumont. The girls had a wonderful time at their grandparents. After we first got there Lydia and I went shoe shopping and she got flashy silver princess sandals (and loves them). The kiddos used a whole bucket of chalk drawing on the sidewalk and Lydia drew herself including the sandals.

Dying Easter Eggs after playing in the sprinkler

With Gabriel and Abigail
All dressed up in their Easter best including gloves! The cat is in the neighbors' house.
Returning from church. Gloria went to the nursery, while Lydia wiggles beside us. And don't worry we didn't miss singing Oh Happy Day even though we weren't at our church, we still sang it!
With Matt's kids-Sophia, new baby Gracie, Xavier & Zoe. Yes adults were there but somehow didn't make it into many photos.

The Easter bunny came while we were at church so after Easter lunch the kids at their chocolate bunnies.

More Eggs!

We did four egg hunts total and some were better than others. A Del Valle church plant had a huge one in our local Austin park. Caleb was at a meeting and it was hot, crowded (good for the church) and lots of lines. We had snow cones and the girls sat in a fire truck. When they lined the kids up, I realized that I needed to prep Lydia because there were so many kids. I told her she might not get that many eggs but that was okay because she was going to get to do more hunts and this might be these kids only one (yeah mom I should have talk about it 3 hours before the hunt instead of 3 seconds). My prophetic vision came true, Lydia only got 4 eggs and was not happy about it! Why do we put ourselves through all of this in the name of fun?!?!?
The next day was our church's hunt at the Quarries, it also involved playing by the pond, a picnic with tons of friends and younger kids hunt on the tennis courts. Both girls got full baskets and tons of melted chocolate.

Finally with all the cousins in Beaumont we had our last egg hunt. Really full baskets this time and the great thing about being with family was some only had one jelly bean it. A fun time was had by all.

Passover

Our family enjoys celebrating Passover using a Messianic Seder. Usually we invite friends over but due to crazy schedules we did a low key one with just the four of us and read quickly! We watched Prince of Egypt that morning, had Shepherds pie (this was a stretch-Jesus is the good Shepherd and the Israelites were shepherds!), drank tons of grape juice and enjoyed singing songs in Hebrew. The for next year is to host one for three Sunday school classes-I'll keep you posted!

God's Little Princess

We have a Gigi God's Little Princess book and it is cute, so I got this one (I receive free books from Thomas Nelson by blogging about it).
The book goes through various topics of dressing, being a friend, manners and more with cute drawings, quizzes and suggestions.

Good things-both of my girls were so excited to see it because it had a crown on it. They love princess stuff and Lydia really enjoyed doing the activities. There were lots of good thoughts on how being God's princess is more than looking the part.

Down sides-once you do an activities, its over which is not so great for a book to refer to. A lot of the topics were over my four year olds head.
Neutral-some I think might be bothered by the silly topics of making sure your tiara fits your face shape, but I thought she did a nice job of covering fun and serious matters. I am not sure if my girls will still be enthralled with everything princess once the topics are more applicable to them. But I do plan on coming back to it every so often for reminders. And of course because I am Queen Elizabeth.