Piano Lessons
Adeline has been taking piano lessons from Capital Music (on Burnet Rd) for a few months. She had her first piano recital today and she did great!
They have a great program there and we adore her teacher, Ms. Catherine. Adeline goes once a week for 30 minutes of lesson then we practice about 4 times during the week before her next lesson. The school supplied us with a little player where we plug a USB drive into and it loads her songs on there. So she can play along on the piano while it plays in the background. It's also got a metronome on it so it helps her learn to keep the right tempo.
The lessons are 30 minutes..they have a little waiting room where Emerson and I usually hang out. They even have a few toys--like blocks and puzzles--that keep Emerson entertained while we wait. Occasionally we jet over to the HEB to pick up a few items. And they are totally cool with that.
We have been extremely happy with her lessons and are so excited to see her progress!
I'm attempting to load a video into this blog of her first recital. We'll see if it works!

Christmas in Austin

This year, we convinced Josh's family to come to Austin for Christmas! The weekend before Christmas we made a day trip to Houston for my family's Christmas with my two older sisters, their husbands, kids, and my parents. We had a great time driving in just for the day to celebrate--especially since we didn't have to split our time between our two families! Mitch and Kate (the oldest grandkids) got to play Santa and hand out all the gifts then all the kids were able to rip into their gifts at once! It's mass chaos when it happens but is a great sight to watch! Did I mention there were 8 kids from ages 2-10 there? We had a delicious dinner catered by one of my mom's clients, watched the kids have sword fights (no idea why my mom bought them all wooden swords..but they loved it!), and each adult received a stocking full of swizzle sticks! It's a family thing...my Grandpa traveled a lot and collected swizzle sticks. My mom said she was giving us our inheritance. Oh! We also got to raid my dad's garage to take home stuff that was his dad's!

We started off our Christmas celebration in Austin by going over to our neighbor's house, having dinner, then driving down to Zilker to spin under the Zilker tree. Our neighbors have kids fairly close to our children's ages and everyone seems to get along well. After finding parking (what a zoo!) and finding each other in the crowd (unlike me, Lydia is not attached at the hip to her cell phone so we had to locate each other old school style...by walking around!), we had fun spinning under the tree while telling the kids to stop running into others. We then walked over to Zilker Hillside where they had the stage decorated with stuff that used to be used on the Zilker trail of lights and a good tejano band was playing. I think Lydia and Hector (the neighbors) knew who the band was, but Josh and I had no clue. It was fun listening to the music while the kids rolled down the hill...again with us telling them to not roll into others! :-) Both Adeline and Santiago (Lydia and Hector's son) are in the dual language program at their school so I wasn't surpirsed when Adeline announced, "Hey! I know this song!".

The next event we had planned was Christmas Eve...church going! We went to a service geared towards kids. It was an interesting service....all of the adults thought it could have been focused on the birth of Jesus a little more, but the kids seemed to like all the skits with elves and toys dancing around. So, we came home--sprinkled our reindeer food on the lawn, drank some hot chocolate, put out cookies and soy milk for Santa, bid Buddy farewell, and tucked the kids into bed. BTW....in our house Santa has dairy issues and our Elf of the Shelf is named Buddy (after the movie Elf with Will Ferrell). Then my Mother-in-law, Nancy, and I got to work on wrapping all the presents. Presents do NOT appear under our tree until the kids are asleep. Even the ones that are from Mom and Dad. And everything gets wrapped. When I was growing up, our presents from Santa weren't ever wrapped. But now as an adult....Santa uses a specific wrapping paper for each child then Mom and Dad presents are wrapped with different paper.

Christmas morning was great! We had breakfast casserole--eggs courtesy of our chickens--and cinnamon rolls while we opened presents with the girls. Then Aunt Brandy and Aunt Courtney (Josh's sister and her partner)came and there was MORE present opening!! While the girls and Josh rested, Bill (my father-in-law) and I got to work on Christmas dinner! We made roast chicken, roasted a bunch of root vegetables--that we got from the Farmer's Market--, steamed green beans, and burnt the rolls! For dessert we had cheesecake, chocolate pie, and oatmeal cookies. I chose to do the prayer before we ate and I decided to show Linus's speech from the Charlie Brown Christmas movie. It's the one where he tells what Christmas is really all about. My dad always used to read from the bible, but I didn't think the girls would be able to sit through that. I did, however, want to remind them that Christmas is not about getting gifts!
After we had stuffed ourselves, we drove over to 37th street and Guadalupe. We parked the car and walked down 37th street and a couple of the surrounding streets. Josh and I sounded old by saying, "Man, this used the be a LOT crazier when we were in college." We realized that was 10 years ago and things do change. 37th street is still worth seeing, I think. But you definitely need to walk down the street. Driving down wouldn't do it justice!

I think everyone had fun at our Austin Christmas....it was stressful at times, but that's the norm. I was glad to be in my house on Christmas day with my girls and my husband. Maybe we'll get to do it again sometime!
Feliz Navidad!

Natural Springs Garden

We were fortunate enough to be able to tour Natural Springs Garden. Karla was a gracious host who had a lot to tell us about the vegetables they are growing. The kids weren't as into as I thought they'd be, but that's okay! It was educational for me. We are planning to put a garden in our yard so I was interested to hear what she they were able to grow, etc. The tour was free, so that was great but I do wish the kids ad been able to plant something--even if it was just to play in the dirt with seeds and think they were actually planting. I think they would have enjoyed it! But--it is a working farm, not a place for kids to play. :-)
They had a great shaded area with a picnic table so we were able to sit down and have a snack after our little tour.
You can join their CSA and get fresh veggies delivered...although I think there is a waiting list. I asked if they were at any of the farmer's markets around, but she said they weren't right now. They are thinking about setting up some kind of farm stand out in the Lakeway area.

Story Time at Barnes and Noble

The Barnes and Noble near Lakeline Mall has story time on Wednesdays. They have it at 9:30 and at 11:00. I can't seem to get there by 9:30 a.m. , but have made it to the 11:00.
The man that does the story time is great! He sings songs with the kids, always does the same little countdown routine to story time so the kids know what to expect, and he's lively while he reads the books.
He usually reads two books with a little break in the middle for getting out the kids' wiggles. He also does a great job of reading over the noise. It's never silent in there....after all you're reading to a group of children! But he just ignores the noise and reads on. :-) And then at the end there is always a little coloring activity for the kids to do.
We always have a good time. It's a great free (and air conditioned) activity to go do!

Brushy Creek Splash Pad

We LOVE the Brushy Creek Splash Pad! It's at Brushy Creek Lake Park over near Avery Ranch in Cedar Park.
Wonderful things about it:
It's a splash pad so we don't have to get out all the floaties and life jackets just to cool off in this blistering heat.
There are bathrooms!
There are a trees and a grassy area to spread out blankets so we can picnic
There is a playground nearby so the kids can go back and forth if they want.
Plenty of parking
The splash area is partially fenced in.
It's free!

Downsides:
The picnic tables that are right next to the splash area are NOT shaded.
It does tend to get really crowded...so get there early!
The bathrooms can be a little gross, but at least they have bathrooms
The playground isn't really shaded at all so the kids always complain about how hot the equipment is.

My girls love it there. I always forget buckets or balls for them to play with in the water..but other "good moms" bring them and the other kids are always willing to share! :-)

Memorial Park in Round Rock

We went to Memorial Park the other day. I had never been there before. It was really peaceful and quiet. There is a river or stream that goes through it that is really well shaded. The ducks seemed a little full because they weren't racing after our bread--but the kids still liked to try and get the ducks to catch the bread in their mouths.
They have a pretty nice play area for the kids. My older daughter (5) loved climbing the "rocks". My 22 month old didn't really have too much to do there. There were two baby swings and also a smaller play area. The smaller play area wasn't very well shaded and she kept saying the slides were too hot. But, I know that's the price you pay for living in Texas and going to a park anytime after 10 am!
The one really big downside was that the bathrooms were across the street next to the baseball field. So, when my 5 year old had to go to the bathroom, we had to put the little one in her stroller and walk a ways to get there. Luckily she's able to "hold it" til she gets to the restroom! Potty trainers should be aware of that! :-)
I heard from another mom that the park gets really crowded on the weekends. We went on a Tuesday late afternoon and there were only a few other parents with kids there. Don't forget your bread for the ducks! Oh and there are picnic tables if you want to take a picnic.

Mueller Lake Park

We went to Mueller Lake Park today. The girls always have a good time there and I like that it's fenced in. There is a lot of street parking and they have a parking lot. The bathrooms have always been clean when I've used them. They have quite a few picnic tables so taking a lunch is pretty easy. If there aren't any picnic tables available, there is a big grassy area where you can sit on a blanket.
The playground is totally fenced in so the kids can't run off into the water! The playground has a smaller playscape for younger kids and then a bigger one for the older kids. There is also a sandbox and several swings. There are quite a few trees, but they aren't huge trees so they don't give that much shade. After playing you can walk down to the water and feed the ducks. I've seen people fly kites in the big grassy area. There is also a great walking path around the whole park so you can get in some exercise too!
The one downside to this park is that the trash cans are outside of the fenced in area. That makes people think they don't need to throw their trash away! We picked up quite a few empty water bottles and other trash so our kids could play. Throw your trash away people!