St. Paddy's 2014

Why have I never blogged about St. Paddy's Day before?  I was asking my Mom about our Irish heritage the other day and thought it would be fun to whip up a pie (chart) in excel to show Dominic's and Christina's nationalities.  When Excel automatically assigned the color green to the Irish piece of the pie, I knew it was meant to be.  My Dad's section (orange) is a little hard to define because they've been in America for so long that things tend to get a little fuzzy.  Maybe he'll chime in and give his two cents.  Or his 2/100 of a Euro?

   

Ready for school on the St. Paddy's Day

Long Time Coming

Wow, I just haven't been very motivated to blog lately.  Maybe my kids are getting too old to be very interesting. I hope that's not the case!  A couple exciting things have happened since my last post: 1) Tony came to visit and Michelle too! 2) new nephew David Russell arrived and I've already paid him a visit! 3) Dominic scored a 4 on the dental hygiene ranking at his appointment on 2/14 (yay) and 4) Christie had her first dentist appointment.  She made a huge fuss anytime they touched her mouth, sigh.  I do realize the dental stuff isn't that exciting, but I mentioned it as an upcoming item in my last post.

Here are some pictures taken since my last post.

She likes wearing her glasses.  I think she's getting a little better about hair accessories too - meaning she waits up to a couple of minutes before yanking them out.

 

Shirt and truck from the Evans'! His play now includes carefully setting things up just so - and he's smart enough to use the table to keep his stuff safe from Godzilla.

 

New car seat for Dada's car! Christie is out of her infant seat finally.  They can use the same type of seat now, but hers are still rear facing.

Ready to accompany me on one of many freezing school drop-offs.  It's been a cold winter!

Marcos thought she looked so grown up in this outfit!

I bought a new mirror for over the fireplace. The shelves still need major accessorizing work.

 

First formation I've seen fly over our house! Maybe they were part of some SXSW event.  Are they military??

 

Twice now her teachers have done her hair like this. They probably can't stand to see it in her eyes.

 

He now does cheesy smiles when I take his picture. It's definitely better than running away, which was his thing not too long ago.

Sweet Davy. He is so cute, cuddly, and happy.  I really enjoyed visiting him!!

 

In other news, British Airways now has direct flights back and forth between London and Austin. I can hardly believe we have that kind of demand. This city is exploding like crazy. It's also a very big deal in our house because Dominic has been kind of obsessed with British Airways for over a year now.  It dates back to one of our San Diego trips when my Dad told him about the one huge British Airways plane that flies over my parents' house daily.  For weeks Dominic made me repeat every detail of the story (and there weren't many) a thousand times. "Talk about British Airways" he would tell me in his bath, at dinner, in the car.  My Dad emailed us videos of the plane which added to the obsession - planes are kind of their shared thing.  On our last couple of trips to San Diego, we have tracked the British Airways arrival so we can be outside to see it fly over.  So anyway, they now fly here to Austin five days a week and will soon increase it to seven days.  The first flight was March 3, and it got some mention in the local news.  It just so happens that I left for North Dakota on March 4 from a gate way down at the non-Southwest end of the terminal and saw evidence of a celebration from the first arrival the previous night.

The other big thing that has happened around here is that Christie started school!  Steffi is no longer watching her because the Chayrez's are moving to the Ft. Worth area this month.  I am very sad to see them go!  We've had various family come live in Austin but something always takes them away.  As far as school, Christie did half days last week and full days this week. I have not done the drop-off yet, but Marcos says she always enters the classroom happy as can be and doesn't look back when he's leaving.  I don't think it would go as smoothly with me there.  She is doing really well.  They say she has napped well this week and she's eating her food. She does seem pretty hungry when she gets home, so I have to think she's being kind of picky with what they offer.  I think that having gone to the school around the time of Robin's birth, and also going to get Dominic all the time really added to her comfort level.   Dominic had a pretty rough time when he started.  It might also be a personality thing.  I'm sure she misses her Aunt Stef.  I hope we can see a lot of them before they move!

For those not living in Texas, I have started to see bluebonnets on the sides of the freeway!  Maybe my next post will be bluebonnet pictures.  I thought they'd be late or maybe not good this year because of all the freezing temperatures we've had.  Schools were on a two hour delay 3/4 when I was leaving for North Dakota and that was less than two weeks ago.  I'll be curious to see if Brushy Creek Park has big lush fields of them this year.  It will be exciting Christie can prance around in the flowers this year. Last year she was around five months and not yet sitting unsupported.

That's all for now. I hope I'll be back soon!