Easter, Mother's Day, and all those days in between

How appropriate that my last post (over two weeks ago!) was about the lack of time in my life, since I haven't even had time to blog at all.

Let's see...

We went to Houston for my mom's birthday (on Good Friday this year) and to celebrate Easter.

 

 

In my attempt to perpetuate the boys' belief in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, et al, every year, the Easter Bunny brings one basket of goodies while we give them a secondary gift. Of course, I managed to leave their official baskets back in Austin, so the Easter Bunny had to make do with a quick run to World Market late Saturday.

 This year, the gifts from us came in basketball themed pails I bought at Target. Last year, we gave them the soccer pails. They are great storage containers for their rooms. I haven't seen any swimming or Taekwodo pails, though, so not sure what we'll do next Easter.

The boys hunted for eggs with their second cousin, Baby Ayanna. She's now 18 months old, so I probably need to start calling her Toddler Ayanna.

 

This year the Easter Bunny, in addition to bunny snacks and candy, hid some dollar bills in eggs and some LEGO guys. The boys were thrilled with the dollars and the LEGOs, and decided they like the Houston Easter Bunny better than the Austin Easter Bunny. 

Moving on... they played their last soccer games of the season, and we had parties for both teams. I missed Ryan's team party as I was in Galveston for the TDCAA Conference, but fortunately, he doesn't seem to have minded.

We had Gallery Night at Alex's school, and viewed three pieces of artwork he has created over the year. (Yes, I am still bitter that I have to wait all year to see their work. Don't. Get. It. At. All.)

We had Teacher Appreciation Week at Spicewood, where every day the child brings something for the teacher. Ryan felt left out, so he also appreciated Ms. Pam at his preschool. 

I went to Galveston, got more than eight hours of sleep for two nights in a row (thank you TDCAA) and in a blatant attempt to ratchet up my coolness factor with the boys, brought home two painted hermit crabs (new names: Hermy and Crabby) as my 'Mommy goes away gift.'  (*photos to come*) And yet Alex STILL deems me as the second best parent. Sigh...

Ryan had the Shoebox Parade at Country Home. The Shoebox Parade is one of my highlights of each year, the parade I look forward to seeing the absolute most. 

And while Ryan's shoebox was as cute as can be, he was in a pretty sour mood during it. No Smilin' Ryan was to be found.

And then this weekend, we had a soccer tournament and lived at the Town and County soccer complex. Each boy had two games per day, and lucky us, they were on completely different fields, so we got to walk back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in the nice, cool 96 degree temperatures. Miraculously, the boys played great, and didn't seem nearly as fazed at the heat as us parents on the sidelines, clamoring for shade and water.
 

 This tournament was interesting because the age divisions are for every two years, and both Alex and Ryan were in the bottoms of their brackets, ie, Alex's team of all 7 year olds played in a league of 7 and 8 teams. Both teams managed to hold their own against the older kids, and Ryan's team came out with a 3-1 record, despite having been the only 5 year old team in the 5/6 league. It was great practice for them, since most games they have to spend holding back so much so they don't have a score of 40-0. But it was interesting for us because we've been mulling over having him play up a league next year. They definitely held their own against the bigger kids, so its given us food for thought in this current debate we hold every other day.

Finally, it would be remiss to not point out that yesterday was Mother's Day. This year we returned to brunch at Chez Zee (moved to earlier time to accomodate soccer). We've done this pretty much every year with the kids, other than last year where Carl splurged and we went to Green Pastures. I love Green Pastures. Love, love, love their brunch. But its not exactly kid friendly. And its especially not Team Danger friendly. So this year we were back at Chez Zee, with the face painting clowns, and balloon artists, and the magaician who comes to your table. And it was (mostly*) a pleasant experience.  (*one fussy Ryan)

Oh, and in the middle of all this fun, I woke up one Friday morning at 3am to watch one lucky commoner become the Duchess of Cambridge.

The hats were everything I had hoped they would be, and more. I had a blast with my virtual viewing party, and Alex even joined me for most of the actual wedding. His vote for the best hat?

 
The Archbishop of Canterbury.