Everyone was pretty ready for school this year. While the summer was awesome with lots of staying up late, sleeping in, travel, playing with friends, ice cream, and all that good stuff, it’s always good to get a solid routine going again.

We took it pretty easy all weekend long and had plenty of time to discuss key issues for X’s third grade year:

-how to handle difficult friends and be a better friend to others

-importance of really understanding what is being taught by the teacher-no skimming by this year since her first TAKS test will be this Spring

-lunch options that will actually be ate and not thrown away (along with the fact that NO money will be put in her school account after her ice cream fiasco last year)

We took time yesterday to straighten her hair, paint her nails, and lay out her outfit and jewelery for today.

Kids were tucked in with books read, lights out, and doors closed at 7:30pm last night.

I love that part of back to school.

This morning began for me at 5:30am with a cup of coffee and my Bible study. With the kids getting back into routine it was time to kick my butt back into as well.

X was up by 6am – but normally will get to sleep till 6:30am. I was having her ride the bus for the first day so that she could have that routine down in case we couldn’t drive her one day and also because I selfishly wanted first day of school pictures that included the school bus.

Sadly, my high hopes of cool pictures with bus in background were washed away with poor light at 6:50am.  This was the best picture I got.

I ran into the same problem last year. Mark these words – I’m not attempting the school bus pictures next year! I’m better off waiting till 7:30am when there is better light then drive her to school.

X and Grace.

E wouldn’t stand with the girls for a picture.

It was all happening so fast that before we knew it the girls were getting on the bus.

And E realized he wasn’t.

He cried, “My X…y, my X..hy!” He was so sad that X wasn’t going to his school anymore.

So we headed back to the house and I headed out for a run. It didn’t turn out to be a long one because it was already in the 90′s at 7am. Geez.

3.5 miles later I came back and we got E ready to leave for his first day as a Javalina!

At this point he wasn’t as excited. I told him he gets to ride in the Newcom school bus. He snapped back with, “It’s not a bus-it’s a car, they’re not the same thing!”

He claimed his backpack was choking him.

E rolled his eyes and asked “his Dada” why his Mama was doing that. (That being taking pictures and singing a made up song about being a big boy and going to the Javalinas)

At this point you may be wandering what on earth a Javalina is. I was.

I guess it’s this pig/rodent looking thing that are apparently found somewhere in Texas.

The big deal about the Javalinas is that it’s highest class there is before Pre-school (where he will be a Coyote).

He was quick to take a seat at a table and said, “Bye Dad, Bye Mom”.

And I was quick to take a picture while he was remotely looking my way.

The day went fast and before I knew it X was home from school chatting about how super her teacher is and how great her day was.

Thank you Jesus!

When I picked E up he was in different clothes (from a naptime accident). He ran and gave me a big hug and kiss. Usually he asks where Daddy is but today he only asked about X. Was she home from school? Why didn’t she come? Did she ride the bus? Did you pick her up?

And so the first day of school 2010 comes to an end. I think I’m guaranteed at least 14 more of them…….

Ryan and I decided to have a Back to School block/cul-de-sac party the Saturday before school starts.

I had a genius idea (in my humble opinion) for the invitations.

I bought 50 12 inch rulers and a red Sharpie from Walgreens. The rulers were on sale for $0.15/each and with my employee discount the deal became even sweeter.

I tied a ribbon through the top hole of the ruler and the kids and I went door to door hanging them on everyone’s front door knob.

Our super neighbors, Cindy & Russ, jumped on board with the party planning and provided all the hot dogs and drinks.

We reserved a Bounce house and a cotton candy machine for some entertainment.

We got to know a bunch of neighbors we’d never met before and introduced “Cornhole” to the neighborhood – which, of course, was a big hit.

And for their last late Summer night all the kids loaded up on sugar.

While the party was small (9 families showed up) it was still terrific.  We’ll definitely be making this an annual event hopefully getting bigger each year!

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that Ryan took the kids to a Jedi Council meeting.

Because the idea was humorous to me I made him take a camera (I gave him my Canon D10).

I’m so glad I did because these pictures are priceless. And since I wasn’t there, I’ll have to let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Probably not you expected for a inaugural meeting.

Yes, it was all held outside in a parking lot.

After battling it out with their light sabers they watched a Star Wars movie on an outdoor screen.

And they didn’t come home till nearly 11pm.

Last week was my last week off of work before school starts so I kept both X & E home with me.

They attended MiniTexans throughout most of the summer to not only keep routine but to keep everyone’s sanity. Despite the extra cost, it was a win-win situation for everyone. Kids had fun with their friends all day, Ryan had peace and quite to get his work done during the day, and I had time to do all the random things it is that I do during the day (cook, clean, edit pictures, errands, scrapbook, read, etc.)

I couldn’t help but feel guilty for not giving my kids a “traditional summer”. The kind where you ask the kids, “what do you want to do today?” and then you do it.

So I was excited for my week home with the kids. I had a handful of ideas for things to do but didn’t make too many set plans as I knew I was likely bound to be disappointed. We got to most things and only hit a few bumps in the road with behavior issues.

Surprisingly, I didn’t take that many pictures. Which actually, in hindsight, makes me happy that I wasn’t too busy taking pictures than I was just having fun with the kids.

Here’s my list of favorite moments I don’t want to forget:

-Playing Dominoes every morning while we ate breakfast.

-The kids requesting Michael Buble every time we got in the car

-Losing E’s tennis shoes (may have left them in Houston) and going to buy him new ones

-Swimming in the pool together

-E saying to X, “NO! Mama wants to play Connect 4 with me because I love her”

-Afternoon matinee of Despicable Me

-X & E making up a dance in the car to Michael Buble’s I Haven’t Met You Yet

-Playing Go Fish and Crazy 8′s every afternoon

-X doing her math workbook every afternoon (and getting better!)

-Ice cream every day.

-Buying E some Transformers and Star Wars boxers at Target

-E coming into my room at 6am wanting my space in bed while I went running (makes for good motivation to get up).

-X & Grace playing together tons

-Whole Foods and Costco with 3 kids. Every item I tried to buy, E asked if it had soy in it because his Dada can’t have soy.

-So You Think You Can Dance finale on Friday morning while we chilled out in our pajamas.

-X’s commericial

-My evening out with Cynthia for dinner and a movie (this didn’t involve the kids but by Thursday night I was ready for a break and Cynthia and I had so much fun!)

Last weekend we headed to Houston to visit friends and to, frankly, just get out of town for a while.

We left Saturday afternoon (because we had a small group leader training session we taught for our church all morning). We weren’t even out of San Antonio yet when the “Are we there yet” questions began.

Thank goodness for movies on our iPhones. E passed out rather quickly once he started watching his.

(That’s his Purdue blanket that is quickly becoming his favorite…G&G Newcom may recognize this – I think it was yours!)

We met up with our wonderful friends (and previous neighbors when we lived in Houston) Tom & Natalie and their kids. When I referred to them by their names E asked me, “Who’s Tom & Natalie?” because he only knows them by their kids’ names: Allie & Teo.

We had dinner at BJ’s then walked to Swirl for dessert. Neither of these fabulous establishments were in Pearland when we lived there…

The concept of Swirl was pretty genius.

One long row of different flavor frozen yogurts.

An even bigger section of toppings.

And then you pay by the ounce. Which can add up rather quickly….

Both my kids insisted on riding home in “Allie & Teo’s car”. Ryan and I were tempted to have ourselves a nice date with the rest of the evening since our kids were being taken care of.

But alas, we went to their house and I got a guitar lesson from Matteo instead.

I’m no good at all. But I am still totally dying to learn. Guitar lessons may have jumped higher on my life’s TO-DO list after that night.

We woke up the next morning to Allie & Teo making everyone breakfast.

My children better do this for me when they are 12 years old!

Our little “Jacob” (as I like to call him when he’s shirtless and wearing those shorts) was giving sour faces to Allie. I just love the natural light in their kitchen in the mornings.

After breakfast we headed to church at New Hope. It was awesome, as usual.

The kids did some swimming afterward.

In the evening we visited our friends Ricardo & Mariam (who also used to be our neighbors) and had some Pei Wei takeout and a great bottle of wine.

E didn’t want to come to Ricardo & Mariam’s house with us (since X was staying with Allie) so we had to compromise by allowing him to take his track with him to play with.

Monday morning we got up and decided to all go to the Children’s Museum. The kids all had a great time. E especially! Ryan and him spent at least 45 minutes building Lego cars to race down this track.

All of us outside the museum. (Note that E has the camera remote in his hand!)

After the museum we made plans to meet up with Angela and all go to The Aquarium in downtown Houston. The Aquarium is one of Ryan and my favorite restaurants in Houston. Add on huge tanks of fish and a Ferris Wheel and it became the kids favorite as well.

The kids did so well all day that they got a “build your own sundae” for dessert. I asked E to smile for the picture and Ryan told him to show his teeth. This picture was the end result.

E loved time with his Aunt La-La. He had to sit next to her at dinner and walk with her out of the restaurant.

If you look closely you can see X holding a water bottle of sorts. Our waiter gave both X & E one of these before we left (for free). When we asked what it was that was inside he replied to the kids, “Liquid Sugar!”

To which I replied, “Give me back the receipt….I need to change the tip amount.”

And liquid sugar it was. E didn’t fall asleep on the car ride back to San Antonio till we were already in San Antonio. That and we had to stop numerous times for potty breaks.

And finally, Ang and I. Ryan took this one as we were riding around on the Ferris wheel. Love it.

As I mentioned in my last post, X acted in her first commercial last night.

It was the randomest thing- how it came about….

Through 6 degrees of separation from daycare’s owner, Marcy, we were asked a few weeks ago if they could take a picture of X for a possibility of being in a commercial. We agreed not completely sure why they were looking for actors at the daycare but trusting Marcy.

Well, as it turns out, X was selected as the “lead” girl based on that picture. We quickly learned that the commercial was for San Antonio Sports and the commercial was for an upcoming promotion for keeping kids active (basically….I think).

We met at the University of Incarnate Word’s track for the shoot. I had to sign a waiver that read: “talent_______________” and “talent parent/guardian:___________”. It was a shame our “talent” wasn’t getting paid….

There were around 5 other “actors” there besides her. Their job was simply to run down the track towards the camera. X’s job, however, included holding her arms up in the air as though she won the race, then being congratulated by her “mom” (who was played by Marcy since I was too white), handed a water bottle (which she held up in the air after a fake drink), then finally high-fived some other children (who were excited that she won the race).

She was a total ham for the camera, director, and producer.

As you can see, we lost daylight rather quickly.

But they got the shots they wanted.

Poor X was doing all this running in size 2.5 tennis shoes. She complained of her feet hurting all night (and I told her to stop whining). Come to find out (by Target’s shoe size rug) X is now wearing size 4.

So if her acting stinks….we’ll blame the shoes.

But not that I think it will. She really did a great job. Even she kept saying so (“I can’t believe what a great job I did!”) right up to the point she crashed asleep in her bed at 10:30pm.

While E waited around for over 3 hours he found some cool ways to entertain himself. First being this run with Quinten, a world-class sprinter who was also in the commercial.

So cute.

Next we found him practicing headstands with this little boy.

It was totally cracking me up.

But then he could do it all on his own…

I can just see him spinning on his head next. He could totally be a B-Boy.

When the commercial is finished I will get a copy and figure out a way to show it here on the blog!!

Spent the morning at the pool (as I had hoped to).

After we got home I was working out lunch, showering, and playtime details for X and Grace (new neighbor girl) and E was hiding.

Naked.

Seriously? Why do boys love being naked so much?

Can you say wedding slide show?

I spent the afternoon working on Math with X and doing misc laundry & cleaning, and playing with E.

We all spent the evening at X’s commercial shoot…..more on that tomorrow!!

It’s my last week off of work while X is out of school so both kiddos are home hanging out with me all week (in lieu of going to “daycare”).

Which basically means: lots of pictures and little blogging.

Today I ran around to all my favorite grocery destinations (Whole Foods, Costco, & HEB) with 3 kids in tow (my 2 + neighbor girl who X can’t be separated from).  While it wasn’t a horrible experience, it was exhausting.

I think I’ll plan an easy day by the pool for tomorrow.

—————–

And as I promised, here’s more pictures of the gorgeous Catherine and Albert and their 2 growing girls:

Definitely one of my favorites.

Two babies. Crazy.

I told Catherine at least 10 times how much my camera loved her eyes. Like, seriously loved her eyes. Some people have eyes that are just naturally half closed but no matter where the sun was – her eyes looked just like this. Totally awesome.

Little A & A’s first trip to Paris…

I barely could take these pictures I was laughing so hard. I’d suggested it being funny but when it actually composed as a decent shot I couldn’t believe it! Catherine is standing on the bed in what I fondly refer to as “The Paris Suite” (aka guest bedroom)!

Catherine took all the crazy positions I asked her to get into with such grace until one of the girls starting fighting back.

One of those said crazy positions.

Oh, so much fun! And as a side note: all these pictures were taken either in my guest bedroom, backyard or cul-de-sac.

Thank you Catherine and Albert for allowing me to get so up close and personal and be a part of this.

And putting up with me giving extremely nonspecific directions as to where you were to move your head, arms, eyes, etc. Love you guys!

My husband and kids are at a Jedi Council Meeting.

Yes. That is correct.

A JEDI COUNCIL MEETING.

Ryan is a founding member of the San Antonio Jedi Council.

It’s quite an awesome story but I don’t think he would be pleased with me if I shared how it all came to pass (because it includes him and the church bathroom.)

Anyway…..

I should totally be in bed. I’m tired (haven’t been to sleep in 30.5 hours) but I’m beyond excited about my photo shoot I had today with Catherine & Albert.

I didn’t plan to sit down and look at all 900 pictures. But I just did.

And here’s a sneak peak of a few of my favorites!!

It was so much fun.

More to come on Tuesday…..

Have a great weekend!

1. I feel like I just celebrated New Years. How in the world can it be August?

2. I’m debating making digital scrapbooks from my Project 365 photos and not doing the traditional yearly family scrapbooks. It’s a really hard decision.

3. I like my 30′s.

4. My hairdresser found 1 (single) gray hair when cutting it last month.

5. I haven’t told a soul that fact. Until now.

6. I still like my 30′s despite the gray hair.

7. Work is extremely under-stimulating. But since it’s also completely non-stressful, I still love it.

8. Sometimes I go to the bathroom just to have something to do in the middle of the night.

9. I am ridiculously excited about spending Thanksgiving with my family (which includes Black Friday shopping with my Mom and sis) and going back to Purdue for the Purdue vs. IU football game.

10. I’m burnt out on Starbucks.

11. I would pay to Eclipse again in the theatre (if anyone wants to see it with me!)

12. I would sell my house and move into a small house if it meant I didn’t have to work.

13. My husband is amazing.

14. I’m looking forward to getting a sticker that reads “26.2″ for the back of my car.

15. I cannot wait till the 4th season of Big Love comes out on DVD.

16. I could easily become addicted to Laser Hair Removal. So easy. So awesome.

17. I would eat cereal for every meal if I could.

18. I’m ridiculous about using sunscreen. In a bad way. Like – I refuse to use anything over spf 8 so that I can get a tan.

19. I haven’t been to the dermatologist since 2006 when she cut me open and didn’t stitch me up leaving an infected hole in my stomach and now a nasty scar.

20. I promised Ryan I would go back to see a Dermatologist this fall (after my tan fades a bit)!

This was the first picture taken with my new (and super fabulous) camera remote.