Computer Time

Update: Madeline's dental appointment is scheduled for the 9th. Okay so earlier this week I received an email from Mia, Madeline's friend. Her parents had set up an email account for her. She asked if Madeline could email back and fourth with her. I hadn't really thought to set up an email for Madeline, but it's a good way for her to practice her typing and write friends and family. I loved writing pen pals when I was a kid, but I did it the old fashion way. :) So Bill (Mia's dad) gave me a tip to set up a personal login for Madeline. This way I can set parental control, make sure she can't download anything and I can get a report of anything she does online. I gave Madeline a Hannah Montana desktop background and then some shortcut icons to take her straight to her email or to the interactive games I allow her and James to play.

She's been having fun checking her email each day.

I let the kids play games on PBS kids, McWorld, Barbie and Truck Town. Almost all the games on there seem to have some sort of learning objective attached. The kids enjoy it, and I'm glad they are using their brains. :)

So school starts for Madeline in 3 weeks. To be honest, I'm ready for summer to be done and Fall to arrive. It's been a really hot summer, I think we've had the worst drought in over 100 years. I know many other parts of the country are experiencing the same or some sort of weird weather. I captured this shot of Penny after she came inside from the 100 degree heat. She laid down on the nice, cool kitchen floor. 

Random Stuff

Those of you that don't know we're sort of having a mini Spence reunion here in Austin in less than 4 weeks. All 3 of Stephen's brothers families are coming out here from CA and OR, as well as his parents. So we've been scouting things to do. We already have on our agenda to do some toobing but we wanted to check out some new stretches of river that we haven't been to yet. So we checked out Pecan Park on the San Marcos river - it was only about 10 minutes from our house.

This stretch of river was so pretty, lined with big cypress trees. We even saw 2 turtles hanging out on some tree roots sticking out of the water.

Some of the trees were a little low, the kids and I told Stephen to "Duck!" but he didn't listen.

James loves being in the water and playing in the water. Can't you tell?

We started drifting by this small little rapid area where a bunch of kids were playing. Madeline and James wanted to stop and play. So I just sat and watched. :)

They were having SO much fun. Here is a video Stephen took:

It was a relaxing 1.5 hour float. Not too many college kids like on the Comal river where it is "Spring Break". There were 2 groups of college kids on this float playing some music, but it wasn't too bad. And when one of them used a foul word and saw us 20 feet behind them with kids, he yelled out "sorry!" and apologized. So that's good. Also I like that this tube rental place gives you a potato sack bag and if you collect any trash you see along the river they will give you $2 for turning in the bag full of trash. The river was definitely clean.

When we were leaving Pecan Park we saw these 2 buses staying at the campground. Now THAT is how I would like to camp. Wouldn't you?

Several weeks ago Madeline bought a Live Butterfly Garden with her Easter money. We got 3 caterpillars in the mail and watched them eat and double in size. Once they formed a pupa we waited another week until they finally became butterflies!

Here is Madeline's first baby butterfly! All 3 have come out of their pupa now. We'll probably keep them for another week and then release them.

2 weekends ago the kids and I participated with several employees at my work in a local wagathon walkathon. Our owner sponsored all of us. It was a fun event and the kids and Penny had a great time. We're on the bottom left of this group photo. And I swear James isn't naked, he just took off his shirt because he was running through the water fountains there. :)

Here you can see the kids and I walking Penny in the middle.

Here we are back home from the wagathon. My work also designed and made t-shirts for us and personalized bandannas for all the dogs.

So cute huh!?

Hope y'all had a great weekend! This is Madeline's last week of school, this Friday before Memorial weekend is her last day of school.

Sick as a dog

For the past 3 days I've stayed home from work because I've been sick. It started on Monday, Valentines afternoon. I got home from work and had the chills and felt achy. Over the past several days I've had a fever with 100+ temps, sore throat, cough and chest congestion. I've just felt sick as a dog and pretty much have been doing what Penny Lane is doing in this photo - lying around, letting the laundry and cleaning go on the back burner. Feeling a little better this afternoon, hopefully I will feel well enough to head into work tomorrow. Thank goodness it'll be Friday!

Battling Bloggers Block

I've been having trouble of thinking what to blog about lately. But with the holidays past us now, back to work and Madeline back to school, CCD starting back up again - we'll be back in the routine and I'm sure my Bloggers Block will subside. In the meantime here are a few miscellaneous photos and topics. I snapped this shot of Penny Lane last week. Hard to believe in December and Winter time it was warm enough outside to leave our back door open and Penny enjoyed some nice, relaxing, sunbathing.

The eve before New Year's Eve the kids were jumping on the trampoline out back and noticed our next door neighbor's dachshunds were poking their heads through a hole under the fence to see what was going on. Next thing we know their female dachshund, Molly, had a jail break and joined the kids and Penny in our backyard. Molly forgot though how terrified she is when Penny tries to play (run over) and wrestle with her. She started shaking in fear. LOL So we brought her inside until our neighbors got home and the kids enjoyed picking her up and holding her (they can't do that with Penny).

Molly is a little sweetheart.

I think it was New Year's day I decided to do some major cleaning and reorganizing some of our kitchen cupboards. It never fails when Stephen and I sit down to relax the kids ask for something to drink. So I decided to move all the kids dishware down below to a bottom cupboard. Problem solved. They both know how to get water from our fridge, and Madeline can even pour milk or juice if the cartons aren't too full. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner.

So for my Christmas letter photos I used a company called ArtsCow that I learned about from my neighbor. They offered tons of freebies on their site like 50 free 5x7 prints, and 2 free camera cases. Of course there was shipping charges and they were higher than normal cause the company is based in Hong Kong. Well I know cousin Mickie used them as well and all of us (including my neighbor) were not satisfied with their services. Except....I do love my camera cases. But I definitely won't be using them again in the future - shipping took too long, they printed my photos on glossy when I asked for matte, they shipped the camera cases separately and a little later. O'well you live and learn. These two pics are the front and back of my camera case. Probably 2 of my all time favorite pics: James and Madeline they day we brought him home from the hospital, and Stephen and I snorkeling in Hawaii on my high school graduation trip. I already received a compliment on it when I had it out on the table at a restaurant. The other case I got for my parents with pictures of their 3 grand kids on one side and pics of all their children and grandchildren on the other side. My mom LOVES it! Although she didn't get it until after Christmas.

Santa & Penny

2010 Santa photo...James is absent because he was too scared of the big, fat red dude. But Madeline looks awfully cute!

Today is Penny Lane's birthday!!! 2 years ago today she was born. Happy Birthday Penny girl! We love you. Right now she is enjoying a rawhide bone half the size of herself.

Our Darling Kids

This past weekend we took the kids (yes, Penny too) to have their portraits taken so I could get a photo to send out with my Christmas letters. Last year we did the whole family. This year I thought we'd just do the kids. After all family and friends want to see how much the kids have grown (they don't need to see how much I have grown horizontally :). These are just a few of the fun takes. I'm not revealing the one that we're sending out, you'll have to wait to see until you get our letter.

Our Big Boy

Well we have gone through a successful week of James wearing "big boy undies"! This is a big feat because over the past year with a couple month breaks in between we've been trying to potty train him. Boys are much more difficult than girls in my opinion. Madeline was potty trained in a few days just before her 3rd birthday. James turns 4 next month so I knew we needed to really get down and get this done. With Madeline being back at school this week that left the mornings and afternoons to fully focus on working with James. Days 1 and 2 we had some accidents but the rest of the week he's done great! Here he is pictured with his best bud Aaron, neighbor from across the street.


Madeline had a great first week of school. She likes her new teacher and worked hard at earning stickers and moving up the behavior/learning chart her teacher has for the students. She's moved up 2 color levels higher than any of her classmates and she has one more row of stickers than her classmates too. Stephen immediately thought, "teacher's pet"...but I thought, "excellent student"! We're so proud of James and Madeline this week!


Oh and I just had to stick in this photo of Penny that Madeline took this week. I love that face, she's such a good pup!

Pretty Penny

Well Check-up

This is comical. When my kids were babies and before I had this blog I was pretty good about posting about their well check-ups on their babiesonline websites. Making sure to email the family so they could read about how much they've grown and the new things they were doing. And today I caught myself asking Stephen, who took the kids and Penny to the vet yesterday, how much Penny weighed and wanted to know all the details of the office visit so I could blog about Penny Lane's well check-up! Yes she's a dog...but in some strange way (and all you animal lovers and owners will understand) she's become part of our family.

But of course I didn't get as much info about the office visit as I had hoped I would be able to share. Stephen said they didn't even weigh her, which is strange because usually they do. But I'm pretty sure she's between 40-50lbs. now and has probably reached her adult size. Doc said she looked great! And she took all of her shots very well, no crying (Madeline made sure to tell me this). But the kids were a little concerned as Penny bled a little after her shots.

New things Penny is doing...nothing really new. She still loves to play fetch with a ball. She loves to wrestle and box (she's half Boxer ya know) on the floor with Stephen. She loves to nap. She loves to be around the kids and know what they are doing. I can't believe we've had her a year and a half now! She's a great pup and the kids just love her!

12th Annual Mighty Texas Dog Walk

This morning our family participated in the 12th Annual Mighty Texas Dog Walk. Trying to beat the Guinness Book of World records for the "Largest Dog Walk" while benefiting a great local Texas Hearing and Service Dog Organization. Madeline's friend Mia had a sleepover last night, so we took her along with us.
Here we are at the start line...

Scooby Doo and his crew were even there!

Walking across the 1st Street Bridge with downtown Austin in the background.

We told M&M to do the buddy system so they wouldn't get separated or lost.

Penny Lane was really enjoying this walk, GO #2048!

A Cowboy walking his little doggies.

Taking a water break and watching the dogs passing by.

M&M had so much fun meeting and petting all these dogs! They did great on the walk too!

Only in Texas right...Proud to be a Texan.

There were BIG dogs...

And LITTLE dogs. :)

Tons of vendors giving away lots of FREE stuff and food.

M&M with all their free goodies.

We made it to the finish line and Penny got her gold medal. We had a lot of fun doing this. We were afraid it was going to get rained out, but the rain stayed away and the clouds kept it cool. We'll definitely be participating again next year!

P.S. Stephen was there too, but he was taking all the pictures.