A little bit of busy

Last weekend we celebrated two birthdays, Aunt Sally's and 6YO neighbor Kylie's.  As you would expect, we had daily doses of *cake,* birthday songs, and presents.  We wrapped up the birthday extravaganza with a trip up to Round Rock for some baseball.  Philip loooooooves baseball, and although I'm his most enthusiastic supporter, it is a stretch for me to share his enthusiasm.  Yesterday was definitely one of those times- I really wasn't sure it was such a good idea, but I wanted to support him sharing one of his passions with the kids, so I went along.  Those of you with young ones will definitely understand this - after a busy day and chasing the kids all around Dave & Buster's (mostly Samuel - "go! go!"), I just wasn't clear why he wanted to drive up to Round Rock to do more chasing.  Also, I am keenly aware that trying to do to much with little ones leads to everyone in tears. 
However, Philip had a plan.  We took big breaks, had naps, and the night went remarkably well.  The crowd was thin, so we had plenty of room, great seats behind home plate, and Sabrina was actually interested in learning & following the action.  Samuel was happy to sit on the stairs to watch, and explored close by where we didn't have to worry.  Later we ventured to the playground where Sabrina made friends within nanoseconds.  The finale for our family was going to be after the game, when Sabrina was to use her kids' club t-shirt & run the bases for the first time EVER.
Of course, this would be the night when we get "free baseball" - Philip's phrase - extra innings as the Express dramatically scored 5 runs in the 9th and tied it up.  Whoo hoo - 2 extra innings at 9:45!  My dream come true.  Knowing Sabrina as many of you do, how do you think it would have gone over to pull the rug out from under her dream of running the bases and leaving early?  You are correct in thinking we did not choose to do this, as we had been lording this great prize over her all day.  And we wanted to live to see Monday.  However, this part went smooth as well - wha??? Yes! We found great seats by first base, Samuel was tired & cuddled up with me, then after the game (just 11pm), I recorded Sabrina running the bases.  She skipped 2nd, but who is going to judge? Worthless base. ;)  Surprisingly, she dissolved into tears at finishing.  Why???  It was too fast, and we had really built it up- especially the high five with the Dog Mascot Spike. 
Luckily, Daddy to the rescue again.  Don't worry Sabrina - you can go again.  Yes, the little kids can just keep running all the way up the stairs, around the stadium, down again, and rejoin the line.  Which is exactly what our girl did.  That completely satisfied her, and she proudly high-fived me afterwards with squeals of glee.  And a dance celebration.  Energizer Bunny Sabrina.  Here are some fun videos we have from last night...

I wish I had started recording right away, but these are pretty decent examples...

And running the bases...

Saturday back in April - never posted, oops!

Saturday was wet and chilly.  Yucky day for anything outside.  We stumbled upon the idea to go to the New Braunfels Children's Museum for all of us for $22.  Yay - plan in the making, and we headed out after lunch.  Both kiddos had such fun running around the spacious museum with different play areas.  It was very different from the Austin CM, which has a lot more science/learning/whoa "that's cool" areas.  This one had different play settings, costumes, and toys.  There was the spaceship/outer space zone, the arts & crafts, the hospital/baby nursery, Wild West, camping/fishing/cave, the bank, the newspaper place, a tot zone with soft toys, and a big train set zone.  Outside there were concrete animals to climb, a climbing wall, and a large wet water canal zone with rubber duckies and slides for the duckies.  Although there were a ton of people at the museum, it didn't seem claustrophobic at all.  We easily spent two hours there & explored everything.  Samuel had just as much fun as Sabrina, and Philip & I kept switching kids which kept it interesting & fun for us too.  It was also a great place to try out my new camera.  Had some hits, and definitely some misses!
R2D2!!

Whoa...


Mom fails to get a decent picture of kids on fake climbing camel...

Sabrina checks out the newborn baby in the hospital wing.
Samuel Jams:
First time in a saddle:
Sunday morning impromptu Rock band: Oh - the noise!  :)

Samuel's really getting

an attention span!  Last night he watched a whole movie with us (Mac & Me) - terribly long, very little dialogue or believability, basically an ET ripoff with none of the sincerity.  Anyhow, its redeeming value was its use of bug-eyed, coca cola loving, bobbleheaded aliens that our kids were  fascinated by and a truly handi-capable kid in place of Elliott.  Second redeeming point - even though "Mac" and his alien family saved the little boy's life, they did not make him non-disabled.  Somehow I thought that was a good choice, after all, he really WAS a whole, fully-functional little boy.  Why change that?  Ok, that's it for my $0.02 on THAT movie. 

I got off track, totally rare for me! ;)  This morning, Samuel & I played puzzles for a good half-hour.  Now that might not seem very remarkable, but he is only one year old, remember, so that's pretty great! He played with a basic peg puzzle for a while, then switched to the Melissa & Doug locks puzzle.  I'm going to get one of those for Bertie & Mark's little man too.  It is so wonderful for fine motor skills & fairly interesting for Mom & Dad to play with too.  Then we worked with his stacking wooden pyramid game, and he found a way to put it together using all the pieces without it being a traditional pyramid shape!  Pretty cool...and then he put it back on the shelf.  Done with that, Mom! :)

This is definitely NOT one of my most interesting posts, but sometimes I like to use this blog as a little diary just to remember some cute moments.  I love our creative little dancing man!

Last night while driving

Sabrina asked me to change the song from the sad one playing on the radio.  She said it made her think of sad things, and she didn't like that.  I asked her, what sad things do you know about Sabrina?  She said it made her think of her GG & Ddaddy going back to Mississippi & how much she would miss them.

The other day she got up from her nap and told Philip, "Daddy, I'm sorry I got mad and lost my temperature."  :)

Over Friday evening we learned a lot about our little girl -
1. She likes to tell Daddy, "I am SO much sicker than you."
2. She cannot make the bucket entirely while getting sick, but does make valiant attempts.
3. She is a very sweet patient.  She would tell us what hurt or felt bad, then cuddle up.  That was it, she didn't complain the whole time, even immediately after getting sick.  She was even patient & quiet when we needed to clean her or the bed up.  We were very impressed, though I hope we don't have to see that side of her again for a long, long time!