Living in Munchkinland

I mentioned in my last post that Michael took the kids to Aquarena Springs here in San Marcos while I was doing the soup swap. He and my dad took the kids to meet friends there and ride the glass bottom boats. They had a nice afternoon on the boats and exploring the grounds and then ended up at my dad's house where they did pillow fights and played. My mom came home from the soup swap and made them chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. I'd say they had a pretty good day.

I hosted soup swap yesterday. This is something I've done at least once a year since 2007. It was really fun. We had a great group of women and some awesome looking soups. Hank and Sterling stopped by and offered some organic produce for sale from the garden. It was like having our own farmer's market on the back porch! We did some swapping (I drew #1. I've never gotten to go first before.!). I invited everyone to several upcoming parties. I laughed a LOT. I drank one too many gin and tonics, and probably talked too much, but didn't care about that much until I woke up this morning, when I did my usual post party analyzing. Michael took the boys to Aquarena Springs with some of their friends and then hung out at my parent's house. It was an awesome afternoon and so fun. I love my ladies and their cooking!

Every Thursday at 4PM you'll find everyone on the ranch enjoying happy hour. We take turns hosting. Yesterday was my turn. I put out some snacks, turned on some music, swept away the piles of kid stuff and opened some wine. G.G. and Gramp, Mom and Dad, Uncle Larry and Hank all showed up to imbibe, catch up and enjoy. It's a wonderful way to check in with each other, share news and connect. I love our ranch tradition.

Well. I had a craptastic week. It was one of those weeks where I just couldn't do anything right. I put my foot in my mouth a lot and seemed to alienate people and said yes to too many things and then got overwhelmed. And I had terrible lady troubles and Michael went to Delaware and when he came back he was sick etc, etc, etc. Yuck. Yuck. But this week seems to be a bit better. And even during the craptastic week we still managed to have some fun. We actually had some pretty amazing high points. We took the boys out to the Confederate Airforce Hangar and Museum. They loved it beyond measure. They didn't want to leave. Davis is desperate to have his birthday party there. Michael and I both enjoyed it as well. After the museum we headed out to Pinnacle Cheer for Rowan's birthday party. It was full of friends and the kids bounced and ran and played. We could only stay a short while before we had to dash out and head for my parents house for the Tomblin Family Reun

Michael and I took the boys to the Monster Truck Jam at the Alamodome yesterday. I love doing things I've never done before and it was certainly different from my usual form of entertainment. We had a great time. We knew the secret way to the parking lot and bypassed an hours worth of traffic. It was awesome. We had packed my purse full of snacks and warned the kids that we weren't buying anything and it actually worked! The truck show itself was fun. Those monster trucks are really, really, really big. And very loud. The kids wore noise blocking earphones and we wore ear plugs. It was amazing to watch these enormous machines maneuver around the race track and leap many feet through the air. I loved watching the boys watch the truck. And when I say boys I include my husband. He was just as enamored with the big trucks. After about 2.5 hours it got a bit repetitive and just as I was wishing I'd brought my kindle, the boys' attention waned and we snuck out, but

I haven't blogged because I've been busy! I started working as a personal assistant to my dad. I really love it. I really love spending time with him and being helpful. I've spent all my free time reading, hiding under a blanket with a fire, and catching up on old Top Chef episodes. Our weekend was cleaning, cooking, shopping, churching and spending time with our friends. But things are good. We've nailed down our trip to Europe. We're really going! I'll share all the details in another post, but in short, we're spending a week in France at the Django Reinhardt festival and another week in Italy in Tuscany and ending with a couple of days in Paris. We also made a plan for our trip to New Orleans in a couple of weeks. And that's not all. We've been filling up our calendar through the summer with many plans. This weekend we're headed out to the MONSTER TRUCK jam, so stay tuned for photos. XO! me

And now after the introspective, reflective post, I have to be super quick, because the time for blogging is over and Michael and the kids are ready for my attention. But I wanted to post about our new year celebrations. We were invited to a fabulous Beatles and Brews party by our friends Elizabeth and Zach and Stacey and Chris. My grandparents offered to let us put the kids down at their house and we were off. We had a couple of drinks at the Embassy Suites first because the party didn't start till 9, but then we headed over. It was a great party. They had lots of food and fun decor and we had a lot of laughs. Cheris and Rob came too and we were so happy to get to celebrate the new year with our little circle of friends. They had beer tasting (I could only smell them because of my allergies, but that was still fun) and then they played the Beatle's Rock Band Wii game. We only stayed for a bit of that, because I am wuss about staying up late when I know I have to get up

I can look back through the years and see how things have evolved. The years when I first had Davis and then Sam, I was totally focused on the kids. They took every bit of awake time and energy and attention and I threw myself into motherhood with great determination and passion. I was a mother with babies and that's what I was doing. Period. Then for a couple of years, as the kids got a bit older I started coming out of the baby focused mania and begin to try to find out who I was again. I needed to take stock of how I had changed since I had children and who I still was outside of them. This led to some serious spiritual questioning of why we were here on earth and then, how I could make my time on it more joyful and meaningful. (This is still an ongoing question and process). This past year, 2010, the kids continued to become more independent and while they are always my focus as a stay at home mom, I was able to continue to look around at life outside of the narrow constr