You know you're in Texas when...

Your goats eat (and love) tortillas...

( Isn't that the goofiest thing...with the tortilla hanging out of his mouth! But they specifically requested "No fajitas!")

And you know you're in Texas when...

that rustling sound you hear in the trees by your house is...Nope, it's not the kitties...it's

Michael took this great pic last night. At least it's NOT an opposum-and it's not in the garage!

There's a floor in this closet!!

I've been on a sorta mission after reading about Spring Cleaning for Normal People. The premise of this is taking time (and making time) in short bits and manageble pieces to go through and simplify your house, springtime or not. The first phase was to go through each room and throw away trash and give away stuff that you see right away that doesn't meet the criteria to keep: "Is it useful?" "Is is beautiful to me/or my family?" I couldn't believe how much trash was around. Just pieces of stuff here and there left on a counter or on a floor, near the trash, but not quite in it.
Anyway, two days ago, I moved on. This is what the closet in Jeffrey and Josiah's room looked like. REALLY! I didn't mess it up first! It's kinda like on "Clean Sweep" on TLC when you think "That room didn't really look like that did it? Surely they've dumped stuff out of drawers to make it look worse than it really way was." Well, I guess rooms CAN get that messy. Just look what two seeminly calm and sweet boys can be do in this tiny space and in just a matter of days! I guess they were trying to prove the whole "things tend to move from order to chaos" law. Which one is that??? (If you know, post a comment and we'll all be impressed!)

Well, two hours, three HUGE black trashbags of stuff to Goodwill, and a huge black trashbag crammed full of trash later...

Yippee, the floor!! And I moved some toys around so now the window seat houses linens for people when they come to visit. I couldn't believe the stuff I found in that window seat/toy graveyard. Some of my resistance bands, my hairclip (YEAH-my favorite that's been missing for a long time), tweezers, 4 (!) paddles/spankspoons (conveniently "misplaced" I'm sure), almost an entire load of laundry of dirty shirts, pants, socks and underwear. It was crazy! And while I had the trashbag out, I headed to my nightstand and chunked a bunch of stuff AND FOUND MY ADDRESS BOOK!!!!!!! This has been lost since we moved and I gave it up as gone forever! I was thrilled! And now I'm pumped. My ruthless attitude toward the accumulation and storage of STUFF isn't diminished, it's fueled! Watch out! By the end of it all, we may be all have only 4 outfits each to wear, a much smaller book collection, an even smaller toy collection, almost no DVDs, no VHSes, very little in the realm of decor, a lot less to move come May.... and a mom with a big smile on her face!!! (And maybe a bald dog! :-) )

And the birthday just keeps on coming...

Remember when you were so young it was FUN to keep celebrating a birthday over and over and over and over....It's almost like the Bill Murray "Groundhog Day", remember that one? And it IS Groundhog day, but Feb 2 will never again be known for the rodent again. It's about these two...

Isn't that SUCH a CUTE picture. Guess what! I DID take this one. Shocker! It's cute!

Following the tournament win on Saturday, Michael offered to take the boys to Pappsitos to celebrate the win and more importantly their birthday. Granna was with us so that made it even more special. J&J had to think about it for a little bit...NOT.

So away we went. It was so yummy! Michael told our waitress that we were there celebrating J&J's birthday, so the waiters came over and sang "Happy Birthday, Que Paso" (The Pappasitos b'day song)

And the boys got to wear the hats...

Is Jonathan trying to do a Mexican dance????

Jeremy's comment was "Whatever I have to do....I'll go through the humiliation if it means free dessert!" Hmmmm, wonder where he got that from?

We left totally stuffed with fajitas with the boys so tired from the games that they could barely stay awake at the table and in the car home. I couldn't help but remember many, many trips we'd made to Pappasitos with little boys in tow who spilled chicken fajitas and rice ALL OVER the floor and COULDN'T stay awake on the trip home. Man, time flies!

We interrupt this celebration...

for a basketball tournament. We had to put some of the celebrating on hold to play in the Independent School Athletic League (which means the small private schools of San Antonio) tournament. The Patriots have had a wonderful season this year, losing only 1 game. Chances were high that they would be able to play SACS (the team that beat them) in the finals of the tournament. After winning on Thursday night in the first round of the tournament, the Patriots had a game at 11 on Sat. morning against St. George and won by two points when a guy from their team hit a 3-pointer with 7 seconds left. Talk about an adrenaline charged game!! So then they were off to the championship game. And they did get to play against SACS. It was a great game and the Patriots won by 9 points. Here are some pics from the game. Guess what?? I DIDN'T take them. That's why they're good! :-)

Jonathan (#52) swats down a ball. Jeremy (#15) is ready to help.

Jonathan brings down a rebound.

Jeremy dribbles past #12, the player who caused no end of torment to the Patriots the last time we played SACS. This time, we were ready and shut him down.

The team in a huddle.

The Patriots pose for a picture with their trophy. It was a great day!!

The birthday...part 2

What do you get when you take 10 eggs, 4 cups of milk, a pound of breakfast sausage, 4 cups of baking mix, a loaf of bread and some strawberries and blueberries??? It's the second phase of Celebrate J&J Day. As we normally do, I gave Jonathan and Jeremy the choice of what to have to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner on their birthday. Since their birthday is on Monday, they asked to have their b'day breakfast this morning since Grandpa, Lois and Daddy could all be around today. And they asked for pancakes, belgian waffles and french toast and sausage for breakfast. So, Michael and I got up and got 'er done. You can kinda see the spread of waffles and french toast in the pictures. There were also pancakes and sausage that I'm not sure if you can see. We had a few waffles left over, but that was it. Yummy!!

Josiah, Lois, Jeffrey, Grandpa, Jeremy (and Michael's hand) waiting for breakfast.

Michael and the boys in front of the goods. Josiah's trying to sneak something!

The birthday begins...

Last night began the celebration of the 14th anniversary of the birth of my two favorite teenage boys. Grandpa and Lois came into town and quickly everyone dashed out to Target to buy birthday presents from Grandpa. (It's funny how quickly everyone loads up for THAT kind of trip to Target! The grocery kind....not so much.) While we were there, Grandpa told the boys to pick out a special dessert to have after dinner tonight. Brownie and Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream (Blue Bell, of course!) got the nod. So after a dinner of lots and lots of tacos, we had the first event celebrating their birthday. There's more to come, so stay tuned.

They wanted me to be sure and tell you that they are NOT standing up, they are on their knees!

On today's epsidoe of Survivor: Homeschool...

The contestants watch tribal rituals and eat insects...

In other words, we went to the symphony and did a cool science/art project. Jeffrey and Josiah and I went to the Young People's Symphony at the San Antonio Symphony. (J1 and J2 were at basketball practice.)This season each symphony shows ways that math relates to music. Very cool idea. I think in years past they've also realted other school subjects to music (like science). This was our first time to go because the other days they've done the symphony we've had company or something else going on.

While we were sitting there listening to the symphony, I was thinking "Why don't we make a point to do this more? This is so nice!" and then we got home and I remembered why. It's SOOOOOO hard to get schoolwork done when it starts at noon and you've had a fun morning out essentially playing around. (Did I mention we stopped off at Panera for free coffee and (not free) bagels?!)

Thankfully, this afternoon, Josiah had a fun science project to do. We made peanut butter playdough (pb, powdered sugar and honey....what's not to love about that!) grasshoppers. His reader, science, and even his history this week has talked about grasshoppers, so this was the activity for today. It was a lot of fun, and made for a nice midafternoon snack. I've decided the English idea of "tea time" is right on the money. Stopping for a bit in the afternoon for a little sweet and some sit down time sounds great.

And the "grasshopper" was great! We added more eyes (i.e.chocolate chips) as we ate up the body which made it even better.

Josiah cutting out the wings.

The finished product. It didn't stand up too well.

Josiah got the first taste, and then was "asked to leave the tribal council area immediately" so he wouldn't OD on the grasshopper!