Brennan is 10!

Brennan wanted to keep his birthday simple this year. He wanted to go to Build-A-Bear to get a new stuffed animal, so we did that before they returned to school from Holiday Break. He got a "red raptor" that has now been named Chompie. 

We also met Ryan for lunch afterwards. We went to Red Robin, where he drank two root beer floats.

On his actual birthday (Wednesday), he specially requested that Dad make him an omelet for breakfast. We NEVER make hot breakfast, so this was definitely a special occasion. His favorite is a variation of the Denver omelet - green pepper, onion with smoked gouda cheese. 

I got some fun cookies for his after-school snack. 

For dinner, he wanted Nana's potato soup with singing and cupcakes afterwards. 

Fortunately, he didn't want to have friends over, which is good because our Covid numbers are skyrocketing and there's a new more contagious strain in the US. As such, I've implemented a "no friends inside" rule at our house, so a no-friend birthday fit the bill. 

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Brennan has had a great year. I have been able to substitute in his class many days, and it is a joy to see him with his classmates. He is SMART and very hardworking. He is always on task and organized. He also has a wonderful sense of humor and devious smile, so the other kids just want to be his friend. 

Last year he wouldn't try out for the school spelling bee, but this year I was his sub the day of tryouts, and I may have threatened some home consequences. Anyway, he did amazing and ended up as his class's runner-up. Runner-up was the perfect spot for my stage-fright prone 4th grader, since now he doesn't advance to the school-wide bee.

His favorite subject is math, and he is finally in the gifted & talented program at the school. He doesn't love their bridge-building project in Challenge Lab, but I'm grateful he is getting some extension work now. 

He is a wonderful sketcher, and we love his little drawings around the house. Often times they are sarcastic and make us laugh. He is a very good babysitter to Ethan & Katelyn, always coming up with a game or activity to entertain them. They love to play hide-n-seek. Just this past week, he started a new after-school art class that meets weekly. He was insistent that the class not just be craft-making, but real instructional drawing, painting and clay, and he's excited for this new extracurricular activity.

He does sometimes have a short temper that results in violence, but he is getting better about managing it. He likes to sometimes escape to his bunk bed with a book and his stuffed animals to keep him company. It's a good way for him to take a break from his siblings, which we all know we sometimes need. 

He is definitely my homebody boy. He'd rather be in pajamas at home than anywhere else. He still plays Minecraft constantly. He also spends a lot of time watching Minecraft tutorials on YouTube. We even had a tablet-free week before Christmas to help them to manage their time better and explore their other hobbies. It went well, and I will continue to establish tablet-free weeks.

Happy 10th, B!

3 weeks of Christmas Break

The kids had a more-than-three-week Christmas Break this year. Due to COVID stress, our school district decided the week before Break to use some academic overage minutes ("Snow Days") as teacher work days to allow them some catch-up time. These days elongated our Break. 

Break started celebrating Collin's birthday. Friends over after the half-day, trampoline park with Dad and the park (Raymond Russell). More on that in his birthday post. 

The week before Christmas, I took the kids to LegoLand again. Now they have up a Lego Christmas tree and mini-San Antonio is all decorated with lights, Santas and trees. We were able to design our own mosiac to build too. 

Collin - Boba Fett helmet

Brennan - Pikachu

Ethan - Pichu

Katelyn - candy cane & tree 

We also spent an evening at Six Flags to wrap up the Christmas spirit. We even went to dinner at BJs afterwards. 

On Christmas Eve we did our traditional family bowling in the morning. Ryan and I both broke 100, which is some kind of miracle. The boys did quite well too.  

Christmas Day brought us a wakeboard for the jet ski and a new laptop computer. Collin's favorite gift was an MP3 player, so he can't hear the swearing on the bus. Brennan's favorite gift was his Grogu stuffed animal. Ethan's favorite gift was a huge Ninjago lego set. Katelyn's favorite gift was her Olaf stuffed animal. I got a new Kindle Reader, and Ryan got a 1000-piece Lego minifig puzzle. 

Unlike Thanksgiving, we are used to spending Christmas with just our little family, except for bowling, so Covid didn't seem to disrupt as much this year with Christmas traditions.

The day after Christmas, we took down all our Christmas decorations and clean, clean, cleaned. That evening, the Davis Family (Kim & Rich and their 3 girls arrived). We were so excited to see family! It has been almost two years since we saw them (Feb 2019), and more than a year since we've seen any family. 

We had a great week together! The kids picked up right where they left off, and it was seriously the best week. 

On Monday, we gave them the royal tour of San Antonio - San Jose Mission, Alamo, Iron Cactus dinner and Go Rio boat cruise. The boat cruise was particularly neat after dark with all the Christmas lights. So gorgeous! They were definitely impressed with our new hometown. 

The next evening the adults went to dinner (Rudy's) and a movie (WW85) while the kids stayed home. It is so nice to have children old enough to watch themselves now and not need to pay and schedule a babysitter. 

On Wednesday morning, we headed to the coast. After stopping at Land & Sea (delicious food despite hideous building) in Corpus Christi, we played at the jetty until our check-in time. 

It was warm and sunny, and the kids weren't supposed to get wet. Haha. 

Our rental house was beautiful and perfect! It was filled with bunk beds and had two master suites, as well as a 3rd bedroom that Brennan and Collin shared. We had plenty of bathrooms (3.5) and kitchen table/bar space. We loved it! 

The first day was cold and WINDY. The dads took the kids to the heated pool, but it was way too cool.

Kim & I took the oldest kids on a drive along the sand in their rental car, a Jeep. We ventured out into the cold only a couple times and found some seashells. 

We were supposed to do "drive in fireworks" to celebrate New Year's Eve too, but they were cancelled because of the high winds, so we had fabulous "lazy kabobs" on the grill.

Instead, on New Year's Eve, we played a charades-ish game altogether. We each added 3-4 words to the bowl, and depending on the round, we used clues, no words, and one word to guess that word. It was some of the kids favorite part of being at the beach house! 

On New Year's Day, we bundled up and met a Sandcastle Instructor at the beach. He worked with us for 2 hours, and the wind died down and the sun peaked out at times. We had a great time learning how to create this masterpiece! He was really knowledgeable, good with the kids and our large group, fun to chat with and a perfect fit. 

That night, we were able to see the postponed fireworks and watch Ohio State in their Bowl Game. They played GREAT and have now advanced to the National Championship yet again. 

Saturday meant packing up and hitting the road again. 

After some souvenir shopping, we took the ferry back to the mainland and wandered on the Corpus Christi jetty by the giant ship. We had lunch at Pier 99 - one of our favorites - and enjoyed our drive back home. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and they had to leave on Sunday afternoon. Tressia and Katelyn really didn't want to say goodbye, and Katelyn actually walked hand-in-hand out to their car saying, "I'm going home with the cousins!" We truly had a great time together. 

This week has brought dentist appointments (no cavities but the doc said no more blanket-sucking for Ethan) and park days (Kinderpark & Norman Vestal). 

The last day of Break, I took Brennan to Build-a-Bear and out to lunch with Dad to celebrate his birthday. More on that in another post. 

Whew, three weeks is one LONG Break, but I feel like we made the most of it. Don't you?