Weekend fun

With just a few more weekends as a family of 3 we are trying to plan some little fun things into our weekends. This weekend we all went to a big breakfast at Jim's, we played at the park, played in the pool and had some little cleaning fairies stop by our house to help us get ready for baby wenck #2.



At Jim's Christian had "cakes", silver dollar pancakes. He loved them. He is a total carb kid. As much as I tried and tried...he loves them.


We explored another playground near our house this weekend for a little change of pace.




Christian called this the spider house. He asked both Mommy and Daddy to come into the Spider house.

Then our little cleaning fairies stopped by to help clean the house and assisted Daddy with putting together the double stroller.

Our little fairies are Pa and Gran. Gran came in like a whirlwind and cleaned our bathroom and kitchen, like only Gran can do. Pa helped Daddy put together the double stroller.

Bad habits

This was so funny and I'm glad the camera was close. This is Christian biting his toe nails. YES! HIS TOE NAILS! Now if I'm remembering my Farrell Family History correctly...Uncle JJ used to do this same thing.

Christian has also taken to biting his finger nails too.

Yeeehaw!!!

Here are some pics from Christian's summer school portraits. I didn't know these were scheduled when we took our Independence Day pictures.

They turned out pretty cute. Although several of the daycare ladies told me he didn't want any part of the pictures at the beginning. Yes, I will be buying some, as much as Daddy would prefer I didn't, but look at them...how can I resist!?!?!

Lazy Day

Sometimes you just need a lazy day. When there are no plans and nothing required. That was today for the Wenck family. It started off lazy because I was SUPER TIRED. I woke up last night around 11:35pm, then 12:45am, then 2:00am, 3:45am, then 5:21am, then finally at 7:35am..you get the picture..it was a lot.

So we voted and church was skipped today. That is not something we do often. We like going to church, but today we thought a true day of rest was what God had in mind for us.

Christian had a busy day playing in the pool on Saturday (see previous post). He went to bed around 9:30 the night before but still woke up at his usual 7:oo am on Sunday.

Chris and Christian headed to the park and for a walk to HEB and back around 10:00, it was a long play time and walk because they didn't make it back until close to noon. Christian was asleep when they returned. We tried to transfer him directly to his bed for a nap, but that didn't last and he was out of his room in about 30 mins. So all total for the day he had a 30 mins nap. Not ideal.

We spent most of the afternoon inside, out of the heat, playing in the living room. Then I went into the baby's room for some reason and of course Christian followed. He really loves spending time in there. He likes to play with the baby's turtle that is attached to his crib. I allowed him to get in his baby brother's bed for a little bit and boy did he have fun.



When it was time to get out he didn't want to leave. After a minor melt down, Daddy let him watch his favorite Larry Boy video, Larry Boy and the Angry Eyebrows. About 15 minutes later Christian was out like a light. The weekend had finally caught up with him.



We let him nap there while we had dinner. He was still sleeping when we were done so we tried to transfer him to bed again. This time we were successful. He went to sleep at 5:15pm and has been sleep ever since.

Pool party

We had a great time at the Petty's (Krystal and Jason) this weekend. There were a total of 4 kiddos, all under the age of 2.5. Jason went out and got a great pool that was the perfect size for all of them, it has a fountain and blows bubbles...can a kids pool get any better than blowing bubbles!!!

Here are the kids in order from oldest to youngest.
Elise (Mommy ~ Leyna, Daddy ~ Todd)


Christian (Mommy ~ Teri, Daddy ~ Chris)


Aaden (Mommy ~ Kelly, Daddy ~ Dez)


Ella (Mommy ~ Gina, Daddy ~ Eric, Uncle ~ Jason, Aunt ~ KiKi (aka Krystal))


Here are all the pictures from the pool party.


A bigger pool might be needed for next summer. I am due in August with a little boy, Kelly is due in October with a little girl, and Krystal is due in December with a little boy. Hmmm, seven kids under 3.5 next summer...wondering if the grownups can handle that. Hopefully we can because it sure was fun getting together.

I LOVE SURPRISES!!!

We went to Uncle JJ's surprise birthday party today at Threadgill's. Sherri, JF Electric office manager, did a great job masterminding the surprise.

He might have thougth something was up....he didn't have any idea about how big a party it was going to be.

So HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE JJ...WE LOVE YOU!!!

Something in the Water

There must be something special in the water at my office. Good friend and work buddie Krystal and her hubby Jason are expecting....A BOY!!!! Wooooo WHOOOO!!! I can't contain my excitement. Another boy!

Yes, I'm biased. I love my girls...all my little (and the big ones too) nieces and honorary nieces. They are cute and fun and sooooo pretty....yes every single one of them is beautiful. But for many reason, that I won't go into here, I'm thrilled for Krystal and Jason and the new baby boy that will be here about 4 months after our little guys gets here.

Milestone

Well we have reached somewhat of a milestone in our house.

I haven't really been actively pushing potty training with Christian. He hadn't shown a big interest and since the baby will be here soon, I wasn't pushing the issue. But much like when he started to walk, the postive peer pressure at daycare is a good thing.

Ms. Diana, his teacher at daycare, told me today that twice this week he has gone pee-pee in the potty. WOW! I said! That is a big deal. They had told me when he started in the class that they always offer the potty to everyone, but they don't push either.

For the last month or so at our house Christian will tell us he has gone poo-poo. In the last 2 weeks we have started offering for him to sit on the potty after he tells us this. We know nothing more will happen, but it a segway for us to talk about the potty and get him used to sitting on it.

Today was the day that it happened at home. He pee-peed in the potty at home!!

We sang out little 'pee-pee in the potty song' like they did in Look Who's talking too. Christian enjoyed the song.

Now comes the really funny part of my little story. Chris is back in the kitchen and says "Well I guess he will be the one to do this, potty train himself." He had the impression we were done. He peed in the potty once, he is trained. We both laughed about that notion for a few minutes.

So now we are in the beginning phase of potty training. Baby steps. Woo who!!!

Saturday fun

Mommie has lots of plans for this Saturday. Some went well, others not so well.

The first stop of the day was a stop at Target. Target sent out a 10% off coupon for everything let on the baby registry. The deal was you have one day to use it, you can't use the coupon each time you go back to the store. I had explained my plan to Chris and when we got in the car I asked both the boys if they were going to work with me today and not whine while we were in the store.

Yes, I have to ask both the boys, CHRIS AND CHRISTIAN. A normal Target outing with both the boys is usually cut short and I leave frustrated. Chris will usually start to get anxious being in the store with Christian, worrying about his getting restless...this leads to Chris rushing me and saying we don't need to get that now, can it wait for later. This is what leaves me frustrated because I have things I want to accomplish on my shopping trip. So this time I made it clear, that wasn't going to happen today. Both boys get an A for the Target shopping trip. They don't get A+s because Chris said the words "Do we have to get that today?" to me once and Christian kept pushing off his Daddy and that meant the basket was pushed into me.

After the Target trip I come home and unpacked and put up all the baby items. The nursery is really coming together and I would say it is done, except baby isn't here yet. He will be the finishing touch.

After lunch and nap time we all headed off to Build A Bear. My idea behind going to Build A Bear was to have Chrisitan make a bear for the baby as a gift when they 1st meet. Again, I asked if the boys were going to behave. Chris has already mentioned he heard "Don't Build A bears cost a fortune?". That told me he wouldn't be able to go to the store with out seeing dollar signs everywhere. This generally gets me on edge, because I want it to be fun, but of course I don't want to waste money either. So in we go.

Christian decided on which animal he would build for Little Brother. He chose a velvet teddy bear. They are supposed to be really good for asthma. He helped the lady stuffing the bear by stepping on the stuffing machine. Then he picked out a little heart to put in the bear and gave it several kisses before putting it in. Then we move on to the clothes aisle. He is where we kept is pretty low cost. We let Christian pick out a shirt for baby brother's bear and we kept it at that. Christian picked out a yellow shirt with a RACE CAR on it..surprise, surprise.

Then we moved onto the certificate phase. Here Christian and I kept butting heads. He liked playing with the computer but it made it hard for me to enter the correct information when he kept hitting the start over button. So Daddy came thru and entered the data on another computer while Christian and I played on another one. Then we checked out. Dadddy didn't have a heart attack when we paid for it, so I guess we didn't go over budget too much. Or maybe I had made myself clear that he didn't have much of a choice, so he just stayed quiet.

Then Christian didn't want to leave the mall, he also didn't want to hold either Mommie or Daddy's hand while in the parking lot, this is not an option, so we both grabbed a hand and BOY was he unhappy.

Then we thought about going to this new old fashioned candy store on South Congress (yes, I said new old fashion...it opened in Nov. of 2007, but looked like it should be been there since 1890). It is called Big Top Candy. It is very retro. It has a cool soda fountain and tons of candy, old and new. It was fun, but Christian wanted to explore a little too much for Daddy's comfort, so all you heard was "I want that" from Christian and then "No, Christian, don't touch that" from Daddy. Of course Christian got to have some candy and he did get to pick it out himself, but he would have taken one of everything in the whole store if he had been given the chance. We each picked out some candy and we each selected an ice cream treat. But again, Christian didn't want to leave and Daddy had to carry him out of the store.

On a side note, we parked directly in front of an old fashion barber shop. Now I say old fashion here and mean OLD barber shop. I really think it is the same shop my grandfather, Paw-Paw (CL Hocker SR.) went to. I would spend summers with Matilda and Paw-Paw and I could swear that was the same shop he went to back them. I took a few pictures. The sign on the door said since 1933. So maybe it is the same store.

Here are all the pictures from the day's outings.

Belly and kitty

The title says it all.

Visitors

Uncle JJ and Sara stopped by for a visit this week. Christian was thrilled to have a new set of playmates for an hour or so. Christian and Uncle JJ read books and Sara and Christian played with puzzles.

Published?!?!?

I just heard about this from a friend at work who's daughter in law has a blog. She blogs about her family at Mayhem Mania. This software actually lets you make a book out of your blog...HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!

I am so excited to find this. I may have just found a project to complete while on maternity leave. It would almost be like a family yearbook! Can you tell how excited I am?!?!?!

I will have to do more research and see how much it costs? I will need to find a budget line-item that will expense will come from...yes the Budget will have to be consulted.

Family Movie Day!

We have successfully experienced our 1st full family movie adventure.

Christian and I saw part of a movie last fall. But we didn't make it all the way through the movie. This time the whole family headed out to see Kung Fu Panda.

Christian got his very own kid's pack, which includes some popcorn, a candy and a small soda (in our case HiC punch).

Mommy and Daddy shared popcorn and a drink. Daddy got M&Ms and he thinks that was the secret of our success today.

Christian never really got restless, but had the M&Ms run out he might have. He and Daddy shared the M&M's and they lasted the whole movie. Chris said every so often Christian would put his hand over to Chris with it open, expecting M&M's, no words were needed.

He liked the movie too, so did we. It was funny and whenever Chris would laugh out loud at something Christian would too. He narrated a little of the movie. Like "Bear, grrr" or "Mommy, tiger, roarrrr" or one time when the bad tiger went way up in the air and couldn't be seen anymore, he said "Bye, bye Tiger."

Then before we knew it the movie was over. It is a good thing because since Daddy was with us, I was hoping for a good experience...I want to go see Wall-E soon and it helps having the extra set of hands. Daddy wouldn't be so quick for a repeat had this one not gone so well.

Some Family history ~ Dresden Plate Quilt

(close up on plate on the quilt)

(finished quilt, June 28, 2008)

Here is some history on the quilt pictured above. I believe the pattern is refered to as a Dresden Plate.

The following is from an email my Mom (Sharron) sent me about the quilt: Here is a brief family tree to let you know who she is referring to in the email. Teri (me), Sharron (my mom), Grama Nita (Sharron's Mom), Grandma Pankey (Grama Nita's Mom), Grandma Leonard (Grandma Pankey's Mom).....so basically Teri's maternal Great-Great-Grandmother.

Grama Nita said the quilt pieces were saved by Grandma Leonard, Grandma Pankey's mother.

As I understand it, the material pieces were saved from all sorts of material ....feed sacks....flour sacks...old dresses, etc from the 1930's or earlier by Grandma Leonard. She saved all kinds of material pieces and made quilts to sell to help pay for food and shelter for her family during the depression. An interesting bit of information about Grandma Leonard was recently told by Cousin Lucille from Oklahoma. She said that Grandma Leonard was an excellent seamtress, she even made her own wedding dress. An even more interesting tidbit of information is that Grandma Pankey who also was an excellent seamtress made Grandma Nita's wedding dress and I, Sharron, wore the same dress in my wedding in 1960. I even got to see my daughter, Teri, wear the headband that I wore, in her wedding.

Grandma Pankey learned her quilting technique from her mother and may have helped piece the Dresdan Quilt given to Grama Nita on her 88th birthday. We're not totally sure who all helped work on the quilt except we know that the majority of it was finished during World War II(except for the binding). Grandma Leonard died in 1944 and almost finished before she died. It was passed down to Aunt Stella before Grandma Pankey died and then passed on to Grandnita when Aunt Stella was cleaning out her house.

A hill country quilter, Zell Cook, who put the binding on the quilt is also a judge of antique quilts. Zell said the majority of the material used in the quilt is from the 1930's. She said you can distinguish the difference between the sack material from old dresses because the sack material is a larger weave. One fact we do know, Grama Nita selected the binding which is a reproduction of 1930's material and I had the binding put on and made the label identifying all the participants.

Happy Independence Day Part II

Well the Neighborhood Parade has come and gone and boy was it fun. I didn't walk the entire route with the guys this year. I did meet them on the parade route and walked to the park with them. The park was really packed this year. There were so many people. It was fun to see all the decorations and modes of transportation.

Happy Independence Day

Independence Day...or 4th of July. Bless you or GOD Bless you. It is the little things sometimes that get your attention. You have to be paying attention but sometimes the little details mean something.

Last year Jennifer at Mayhem Mania posted this on her blog. And as the holiday approached it has me thinking. So I have made a sign for Christian's Wagon for the big Neighborhood Parade that says "Happy Indenpendence Day!"

Tonight we will all be busy decorating Chrisitan's wagon with flags, streamers and stars. I am hoping to help Christian makes some colorful stars to use on the wagon. We still need to find some balloons or make our way to HEB to get some really nice ones.

This will be the second Wenck entry in the Villages of Western Trails 4th of July (Independence Day) Parade. Here are some pictures from Last year.