Dearest Alex,

Happy 4th Birthday!

We can’t believe that you are turning 4 years old! It seems like you were just a little guy toddling around yesterday – and now here you are learning your letters, singing songs and negotiating everything.  We are so proud of you!

May your love of fun, laughter and learning bring you another amazing year!

With Much Love, Mommy and Daddy

Baking with Alex!

Take a rainy Saturday, a mildly sick Alex and Mommy, provide superhero cookie cutters and what do you get?  An afternoon of cutting, baking and eating Superhero cookies!

Alex was a fabulous baker, and cute too! He helped roll out the dough, cut the cookies and place them on the baking sheets.  It was like playing with play-doh that you get to eat!

We didn’t get around to icing the cookies this time – see note about sick Mommy.

But we had a great time!

Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a low-key Thanksgiving at home spending most of the day cooking up sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, roasted parsnips, carrots and onions and devouring a BBQ turkey breast from Pok-e-Joe’s. Well, it was our first Thanksgiving in Texas – so it was almost mandatory that we gave thanks for all of our blessings and our new Texas life with BBQ turkey, right?

The weather was perfect and we spent much of the long weekend going for walks and tricycle rides around the neighborhood.

During the week before Thanksgiving, Alex’s preschool hosted Thanksgiving lunch for all of the families. It was quite a feast and so fun to get to have lunch with Alex, his classmates and their families. And we found out that Alex does not like Pumpkin Pie. That’s okay, I can think of yummier desserts to eat during Thanksgiving too.

In preparation for the big feast, Alex’s class learned about Native Americans and made rainsticks (bean-filled decorated paper towel rolls), headdresses and decorative vests (paper bags).  Each student was given an honorary Native American name by their teacher which was painted onto their vest.  Alex was proudly named “Mighty Lion”.  SO appropriate!

I only had the chance to snapped one picture amongst the chaos of the feast, but it’s a pretty happy one:

Halloween 2011

Halloween 2011

You didn’t really think we skipped our usual Halloween festivities this year, did you?  In fact, we did more activities and had more fun than ever!

The weekend prior to Halloween we attended a mom’s group party where Alex got to paint pumpkins, eat treats, play with other kids and their toys and even get his picture taken as Spiderman.

Alex revealing his secret identify to the paparazzi.

We also drove out to Marble Falls for a spectacular, yet slightly warmer than anticipcated, trip to the pumpkin patch with Aunt Lu.  We got a couple of beautiful pumpkins and some decorative gourds.  Alex also got his face painted just like Spiderman.  He was very cute sitting in the face painting chair trying so hard to hold still and just so excited to look like his favorite super hero.

Alex’s version of the Spiderman song: “Spiderman, Spiderman, doing good, Spiderman friend” 

The Friday before Halloween, Alex’s school put on a Halloween show with all of the kid’s dressing up and singing a song.  Alex wasn’t really keen on performing this particular day, but he managed to stay on the stage with his classmates.

The Sunday before Halloween was superb.  We decorated construction paper bats, pumpkins and ghosts, carved our pumpkin, watched a family movie and made a spider web apple pizza.

  

And of course we encountered this year’s cousin of Sandwich Slug – The Stromboli Slug!

These photos prove that this year’s slug was as terrifying as ever.

   

This year’s slug recipe used Whole Foods fresh pizza dough stuffed with fontina cheese, crimini mushrooms and black olives – served with a side of fresh basil and tomato dipping sauce.  Delish! A recipe to re-visit for sure.

And finally, for Halloween night, we invited some friends over to go trick or treating in our neighborhood.  This was Alex’s first year trick or treating as he was sick last year and we didn’t really live in a “neighborhood”.  Though timid at first, Alex caught on to the idea quickly and loved ringing the door bell and getting candy with his friends.  He even managed to mostly remember his “Thank You’s” amongst all of the candy chaos.

Hope y’all had more treats than tricks!

Happy Halloween! From Spiderman!

Summer 2011

My goodness time flies, especially when you are too busy (or tired) to blog!

First for an Alex update. Alex is now in Pre-school and has been doing great! He really thrives at school with the other kids and enjoys all of the stations that his classroom has to offer. His classroom now has a much big library, a computer station and more advanced manipulation activities to help build those finger and hand muscles for writing. So far Alex really seems to enjoy the math, computer and life (dress up/pretend) station, and anything involving puzzles. He also gets to play outside on the shaded big kid playground and ride the big kid trikes around the yard several times a day. Alex regularly gets compliments on how helpful he is serving lunch/snacks and how great he is getting at sharing and taking turns with his classmates. We’ve turned this into an opportunity to have Alex help us “set the table” (i.e. set out napkins), put away silverware, and a few other chores at home. He also regularly participates in show and tell at school which is really helping him learn to express himself and describe items in detail.

As for extracurricular activities, we have still been taking in the sights of Austin, but we’ve slowed it down a notch. I don’t know if you know folks, but it was HOT out here during the summer months. And we decided to take a few weekends to relax and enjoy the A/C. We visited a trampoline park with my mom’s group one weekend – and yes, it is as fun as you’d imagine. They had a great mini trampoline park setup for the little ones and it was quite bouncy.

Oh, and we did finally go see the famous Austin bats – from a boat.

Activity 5. Watch the bats

Activity 54. Take a cruise without packing a suitcase with Capital Cruise

We would highly recommend this sunset cruise to anyone – especially if you don’t have a tired and squirmy preschooler who is up well past his bedtime. The breeze on the lake kept the 100F temperature very comfortable and the bats were in full force the evening that we visited (early September). Even though we brought hats (yup, I’m always thinking) we ended up in a covered boat which was great because we were able to get really close to where the bats were exiting the bridge without getting “rained” on. Ewww!

   

One weekend we went bowling with some friends. They have the neatest contraption now to let the little kids “bowl”. It’s basically a ramp made out of metal tubing that the kids just place the ball on and off it goes down the lane. Alex even got one strike! With his 6 mile-per-hour ball.

We finally were able to go boating with Jason, Tonya and Kayleb on Lake Conroe in late September. We had a great time! Alex enjoyed riding on the “tube”-raft-thing and even got some air…as he bounced up 3 feet from his seat. Luckily, Uncle J and momma were holding on tightly to Alex’s lifejacket or he would’ve gotten to test his swim skills. Michael also enjoyed riding the “tube” and Tonya seemed to enjoy driving the boat and trying to knock him off the tube. Michael went 3 commendable and hilarious rounds on the tube. Kayleb also seemed to enjoy himself while boating, enjoying cheesy puffs and clapping for his daddy’s accomplishments. Yay!

The first weekend in October, we had a short getaway to visit Amache and Atache Etchegaray and Great Grandma Yudin in Las Vegas. We had a wonderful time relaxing and enjoying their company. Michael and I even had a date night to go see the Lion King performance at the Mandalay Bay which was just gorgeous to watch.

Sprinkle in some birthday parties, twice a week swim lessons, trips to the splashparks and indoor playgrounds to get the wiggles out, and we conclude that we had a busy and satisfying summer!

Nursery School Graduation!

Alex graduated from nursery school today!  We are so very proud of him.

Alex starts Preschool on Monday in a new classroom (Green Room) with some new teachers.  His classmates will mostly remain the same as they are all moving up together, so we are anticipating a smooth transition.

Congratulations Alex!  We love you!

Austin Ice Cream Festival, Playdates & Stubb’s Gospel Brunch

We started off Saturday with a quick stop at Torchy’s Tacos (UT location this time) – see previous blog post.  We are loving the tacos.

Activity 76: Cool off in the summer heat at the Austin Ice Cream Festival

And then we head off to the Austin Ice Cream Festival at Waterloo Park.  We arrived early attempting to beat the heat, but did not succeed.  We enjoyed lots of tasty ice cream samples, a few kiddie rides, and Alex even got balloon giraffe named Henry (I named him Henry ).  Not sure we’ll be going back to the festival in the future, but sometimes it’s just nice to say “we did that!”.

   

Saturday evening, Alex and I invited some new mommy and kid friends over for pizza and movie night.  About half way through the movie, the kids got their second wind and spent the rest of the evening playing tackle ball and tee ball in our backyard in the warm summer air.   It was wonderful.

Activity 6: Stuff your faces at Stubb’s Gospel Brunch

Aunt Lu joined us on our outing to Stubb’s Gospel Brunch on Sunday.  We were seated on the upper floor near the bar, almost looking down over the stage.   The music started about 30 minutes after we sat down and boy was it lively.  It was quite loud, but even Alex got to swaying and clapping and really enjoyed watching the band up close.

The food was very good – especially the spinach enchiladas, queso migas and crispy bacon.   Funny enough I don’t think any of us cared for the BBQ too much, and we would definitely not recommend the dessert.  But I do think we will be going back, perhaps requesting a quieter seating area.  Any visitors coming out our way soon? 

Here’s a cute pic I took of Alex this week:

Mommy Date, More Breakfast Tacos & Liz Carpenter Fountain

What a fun weekend!

After a productive morning of swim lessons and (boring) furniture shopping, Alex and I went on a movie date to see Kung Fu Panda 2.  The movie was a bit intense in parts for such young eyes, but Alex did well in his seat and was a perfect gentleman sharing his popcorn and slurpee with me.  

Sunday morning brought a visit south to Torchy’s Tacos in the South Austin Trailer Park & Eatery.  First off, the “trailer park” isn’t as unappealing as it may sound.  The first (yes, first) one we visited on Saturday was basically a nice lot we ample parking, matching picnic benches, and an indoor area with tables, restrooms, and fans.  Apparently you can have parties here.  Now the food options are basically spiffied-up versions of food trucks – some quite gourmet sounding.  I don’t know if this is a new trend or has been going for a while, but apparently there are quite a few of these “parks” in Austin.  Now to the tacos…  Amazing!  We tried a small variety of tacos, some breakfast, some regular.  It was grub.  We joked about stopping by again for lunch later that day.  I highly recommend the Migas breakfast taco, Michael loved the “Democrat” – a barbacoa beef taco, and Alex was quite content with his bacon, egg, and cheese taco.  Definitely better than Rudy’s breakfast options (see last week’s post), but also 18 miles further away.  We may need to move south… 

Following the taco feast, we headed to Liz Carpenter Fountain.

Activity 16: Get soaked at the Liz Carpenter Fountain at Butler Park

The Liz Carpenter Fountain is in Butler Park (formerly Town Lake Park), which is right next to Lady Bird Lake. There is a gorgeous view of the downtown skyline and the lake from the fountain area.  Alex had a fun time running through the fountain and soaking up the sun.

The day was getting pretty warm as we finished up at the fountain.  Michael suggested that we get some snow cones before heading home.  Great idea!  Snow cones or shaved ice are pretty popular out here.  There are “ice cream trucks” and entire free-standing businesses devoted to shaved ice.  This is how we happened upon our second “trailer park” of the day, enjoying shaved ice at Frigid Froggy’s Shaved Ice on South Congress.  Michael went for the classic cherry cola ice, while Alex was more adventurous with a “Spiderman” ice – blue raspberry coconut with cherry.  Both were tasty.  I tried a Sweet Tea Slush which was a delightfully refreshing drink (no spoon required) and allowed me to more closely monitor the food dye explosion that Alex was wielding.  Haha!

Hope your week was as fun and tasty as ours!

Breakfast Tacos & Barton Springs (Activities 13 & 22)

And we’re off on Alex’s 99 in 2 !! Activity 13: Pick up breakfast tacos and spend a morning and your favorite park We started off our Saturday loading up on Rudy’s breakfast tacos and heading to one of our favorite Austin parks (Zilker) for some morning playground time. First off, Rudy’s rocks. Not only do they have great BBQ, but their breakfast tacos are delish too! We may be repeating this activity in the future as we still have more tacos and parks to check out in the area. We have been to Zilker several times before, but today we scored THE best parking spot and a lunch table. It probably didn’t hurt that we rolled in before 10am and beat the crowds. Here is some photographic evidence of us grabbing some grub at Rudy’s and Alex inhaling his taco pre-playground time: Activity 22: Swim at Barton Springs Once we got all hot playing in the morning sun, we headed over to Barton Springs for some swimming. Barton Springs is actually in Zilker Park. Now, momma didn’t really do much research on this before we headed in, but to find out more go here. Apparently the spring is, as the cashier informed us, “69 degrees year round. ” Well. I was certainly glad that we came on a hot day, as that gave us a fighting chance to warm up after our refreshing dip in the spring. The “pool” is a bit weird – the floor is fairly slimy and slippery in some places, which made walking through the water while carrying a toddler a bit hazardous. Luckily, there was a shallow end where Alex could walkabout on his own. There are grassy areas along both sides of the spring where we’ve seen hundreds of people laying out basking in the warm Austin sun – it wasn’t quite that crowded during our pre-noon excursion.

This is a photo of Barton Springs as we saw it:

Here is (a tiny) Michael and Alex on the “shore” near the shallow end:

Alex and momma staying cool in the pool (brrr!):

And Michael Phelps Whisman even dove off of the popular springboard:

So, we are off to a pretty good start to Alex’s 99 in 2. Stay cool! -The Whismans