Snake surprise

This morning the boys and I went to our front porch to water some plants. As I'm about to water the top plant on my plant stand next to the front door I see this. Look closely at the right side of the pot.
Now do you see it?
See it's little head from this angle? It just didn't want to let go and get down from it's perch on the plant stand. I keep trying to scoot the stand away from the wall and scare him down with the tip of the shovel that was still on the porch from the last time we worked in the yard.

I finally pestered it enough (with my shovel) to get it to slide down. This picture makes it look big as it slithered off the porch but it wasn't.
When it finally got off the porch to try to escape I whacked it's head off with my shovel. (Sorry if there are any snake lovers out there but I'm not one of them.)
See, it's not all that big. The boys thought it was pretty cool how it kept moving around and opening and closing it's mouth while it was dying. When I couldn't stand looking at it anymore I tossed it into the uncleared side yard where I'm sure something will gobble it up. All in all the snake was probably only about 10-12 inches long. I have no idea what kind it is - all snakes are scary to me and must die. I'm only glad it wasn't bigger because I'm not sure I could handle a big one by myself without crying and/or wetting my pants.

Soccer day

This morning was a great soccer day! I don't know which team would have won because they were pretty even but both Alex and Zachary scored goals! (I don't count the two Zachary scored for the wrong team in the last two games.) Here's a peak at what goes on at our soccer games.

I tried to upload a video with both of the boys in it but it was too large.

Yard workers

These guys love working in the yard but are just too slow.

I think I'm going to hire professionals.

Weekend at Mimi & PaPa's

This weekend both of my sisters were going to be at my parents so the boys and I (and the dog) loaded up and headed that way after their soccer game Saturday morning. We were very glad to see that my cousin and her little girl were there too. Lisa brought her S'more maker and it was a hit! There's nothing like ooey gooey marshmallows.
Lisa and Tyler got into the hot tub with the little boys at the end of the day (the girls were gone). My boys loved it but Owen though the water was too hot I guess. He preferred to sit on the ledge by Pa Pa.
The boys before church. They are all eight months apart in age - Alex then Zachary then Owen. They look like such big boys here to me. Something about long pants and nice shirts instead of t-shirts & shorts.

We'll see you all again at Thanksgiving!

A full day

Yesterday was a busy day for me and the boys but it was a good one. First the boys had their soccer game. The game went so much better than the first one. I think we would have won if the score was kept. Neither Alex or Zachary scored a goal (well, Zachary did score one for the other team - oops!) but Alex kicked it right to the goal line and a teammate tapped it in. It didn't matter, it was still fun. The coaches know that Chris is gone and sweetly volunteered to video the games for him. How nice is that?
I know that this picture is of another player but check out Alex in the back. He looks so determined and his eyes are on the ball. Good job!

A friend invited us out to lunch and to the San Antonio Children's Museum in the afternoon so as soon as we got back from soccer we had to get cleaned up and out the door. We met for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. It's such a fun place. We just had to order the volcano dessert but even with the five of us there was a lot left over.None of us had ever been to this Children's Museum before but I thought it was a good one. The airport and airplane were an especially big hit with my guys.
Alex told me he was going on a vacation to Iraq. I told him I didn't think that was a very good vacation spot and suggested Hawaii instead.



There was a really great grocery store sponsored by HEB (that's a grocery chain down here). The boys went through it several time, sometimes being the shopper and sometimes being the checker. There were about three teenage/college aged guys that worked in that section of the museum alone restocking the shelves every time a child was finished with a cart. I wonder how many hundred times a day they do that? With our three boys alone we had to have gone through at least 10 carts/baskets!



There was a "milkable" cow. It had rubber milking parts and the pail underneath had some water in it. It didn't work for us though. The boys got a kick out of it. Zachary had to check it out up close.


We had a good time but were worn out at the end of the day. Zachary fell asleep in the car before we'd even made it out of the parking garage! I think we'll have to make the drive to San Antonio to go there again sometime.

Family photo shoot

Just before Chris left we decided to take some family pictures. We've only had one professional one done before and although it turned out O.K. we were with a large group of people at the time and it was all done pretty quickly. This time we got to take more time and even change clothes. I talked Chris into taking some pictures with the boys in their uniforms which I love!!! We tried to take some of the boys in their new soccer uniforms but they'd had enough with picture taking by then. These were scanned in to my computer (I was too cheap to buy the disk.) but they aren't too bad.

Our soldier is gone

This past weekend Chris deployed. We had to spend the whole weekend out of town attending a last minute event (They really cut it down to the wire.), going to the deployment ceremony, and then actually sending him off. Being out of our routine and away from home, plus the stress of it being daddy's last few days with us - the boys were a little cranky. (Although none was as bad as Alex's fit at the Fair on Friday!)

So now he's gone and it's going O.K. Granted it's only been a few days but we'll make it. Alex did have a tough time with me leaving him at school yesterday and today. He was fine until we walked in the room and then he got very clingy on my arm and whined about wanting to come back home with me. I don't know if it has to do with daddy leaving, being out of school for a 4 day weekend, or something else random. I do know that he likes school and is fine when I leave but it's still hard to walk out when he's hanging on you and you know he's sad.

We did get to talk to Chris once so far on Skype. The boys think it's pretty cool. I hope we can get good enough reception once he's actually overseas.

Just to throw in a cute picture of Zachary here he is swimming at the hotel pool.