Team Cross

Frisbee the Elf

Friday we busted out the "Elf on the Shelf".  We got it last year after Christmas so we had to wait until this year to use it.  It comes with a story, and an elf, which Austin named "Frisbee".  The basic concept goes like this: Santa has sent this elf to our house as a scout to watch Austin (and Cody and Tyler).  Every night, Frisbee reports back to the North Pole to Santa, and lets him know whether or not Austin has been good.  If Austin has been good, the elf will return back to our house and be sitting in a different spot in the morning.  Half the fun for Austin is searching for the elf to see if he has returned and where he is located.  Friday, Frisbee started on the TV, Saturday morning Austin found him in the Christmas tree, and today he was on the shelf in the toy room.  If he is NOT found the next morning, that means that Austin was NOT good the day before, and has to be good all day if he wants the elf to show up the next morning.  As the story goes, Austin CANNOT touch the elf, or it loses it's magic.  So far, Frisbee has done his job and Austin has been pretty dang good.  If he is mean to Cody, we will remind him that Frisbee is watching, and he usually apologizes on his own!  Yesterday though, my dad was reminding Austin that the elf was watching him (he wasn't behaving) and Austin said that he wanted Frisbee to go away and quit watching him!  HA!  My parents got here Friday afternoon and stayed until Saturday night...we had a nice relaxing time.  I had a fire going all day on Friday because it was rainy and cold, and Saturday me, my dad and Austin ran errands in the morning.  In the afternoon while Cody and Tyler napped, I was able to take Austin to Chuck E. Cheese for Colin's 1st birthday party.  He had a blast, with the exception of hiding under the table while Chuck E. Cheese came over to sing happy birthday to Colin.  My parents left last night after the kids went to bed, and I stayed up to watch the score of Scott's game in Houston.  They won by about 14, and he got home around 3am.

What a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving

Everything about today was fantastic...specifically the food Scott and I made!  We were so proud of ourselves.  Scott had practice this morning from 8:30-11, and the boys and I hung out and watched the Macy's Day Parade and built a track with us wooden train set.  Scott got home and prepped the turkey, and then headed outside to finish the outside lights and boy do they look AWESOME!  We have 4 new yard items (and you thought there wasn't and room for more).  We have a blowup Frosty and Rudolph, a penguin digital countdown to Christmas sign, and a Charlie Brown xmas scene.  I bought Scott got an 11-foot pole to put up the lights in the tree this year and they look so much better!  Our tree changed colors so quickly and I just think it's beautiful right now!  The day was full of cooking for me, and luckily Austin was outside with Scott and Jeremy all day, and Cody took a 4 hour nap!  Tyler went down for his 2 afternoon naps, so I was able to pretty much cook in peace!   I made homemade stuffing (my Pop's recipe), homemade mashed potatoes, Lime jello salad and chocolate pudding pie, and Scott's turkey tasted even better this time.  Amy, Jeremy, Eddie and Caroline came to eat with us and we had a GREAT time!  We had coffee with our pie after our kids went to bed and A&J put E&C in their pjs, and later, Jeff, Julie, Andrew and Ava stopped by for coffee and pie after driving back from spending the day in Georgetown where Jeff is from.  Julie was a cheerleader at Texas Tech and Jeff played in the band at Texas Tech...I don't think they were pulling for Texas like we all were...ha!  We all had a great day full of food, football, friends and family!

Scott watching Kung Fu Panda with Eddie, Austin and Cody

Scott reading to Andrew and Ava

Julie and Caroline

Jeff and Jeremy...aren't they a cute couple?

Amy and Eddie

A Few Things I Am Thankful For on This Thanksgiving!

First of all, HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone, and Happy 84th Birthday to my Grandma!  I hope your day will be filled with football (HOOK 'EM! and GO COWBOYS!), I hope your stomachs will be filled with yummy turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pie, etc....I know mine will be!

Today, I am thankful for:

• my 3 beautiful, healthy boys and how different and special they each are.
• my great husband, who, despite having a very demanding job that keeps him away from home a lot, stays plugged in 99.9% of the time and is a wonderful father and great husband and friend.
• my parents and sister, whom I admire and love deeply.
• my 2 grandmothers that are still alive and doing well.  Not everyone can say that!
• my family in San Antonio and my Aunt Nini and Uncle Steven and their families up here.
• my cute, small house that has lasted through babies, dogs, big storms, and ridiculous amounts of Christmas lights.
• my great and functional 'bus' that I appreciate every time I drive our clan around!
• my wonderful girlfriends who have been there through every big event in my life, who never expect a phone call or email back, and who continue to love me, support me, and stick around!  I love you guys.
• my cousin Emily, who even all the way from Germany, finds a way to make my day and send words of love and support.
• my awesome neighbors and now good friends...boy did we get lucky!
• the shoes on my feet, the clothes on my body, the bed I sleep in.
• the great church that we found 5 years ago...we haven't been in a while but wish we could go...one day it'll get a little easier and Sunday mornings at church will be a reality again!

I will think of more things and post them as the day goes on...right now the Macy's Day Parade and Austin, are calling my name!

Lizard Rescue, Diarrhea & Puke--oh my!

This was an interesting day to say the least, and I think the title of today's post speaks for itself.  Austin didn't have school today so we spent the morning lying around and playing outside.  It was a beautiful day and a little chilly so I put the boys in their hooded sweaters and sent them outside.  Shortly after they got out there, Austin came running in yelling that there was a lizard stuck in his chair.  He has one of those mini folding chairs, and I know it was not out, so he must have gotten it out and unfolded it.  I walked outside and looked...sure enough, the baby lizard from the other day was stuck in one of the hinges in his chair.  This was bad because his head was stuck with his neck pinched between the hinge.  Before having children, none of the thoughts that ran through my head at the moment would've ever existed.  Seriously.  My thoughts were: please let this lizard still be alive, how am I going to get this thing out of the chair hinge, what if I try and I decapitate it, or what if I try and it gets really hurt and there is lizard blood everywhere?  I didn't want Austin and Cody to see any of these things and I wanted this episode to have a happy ending.  So, I said a little prayer, and bent down to examine this situation more closely.  The lizard was still alive, and clearly scared.  His little mouth was open because of how his neck was stuck, and he was breathing very fast as if he was having trouble getting oxygen.  I thought all my years of watching ER were going to pay off at this moment...Dr. Cross was here to save the day.  So, I decided that I would carefully 'tap' his head free.  I took my index finger and tapped one side of the lizard's head very lightly...it was working!  After about 20 taps or so, Baby Lizard was free!  He popped up, looked around for one split second, and then ran off...kind of awkwardly and sideways (there obviously was some damage) back home to the other side of our fence!  Austin and Cody cheered and clapped!  I felt like what I would THINK it would feel like to be a fireman and rescue the cat out of the tree.  I was proud of Austin (and Cody).  He could've NOT told me that the lizard was hurt, and instead taken advantage of the situation and teased or poked at the lizard...he really loves his lizards.  The rest of the day, Cody took a 3 hour nap, Tyler took a 2 hour nap, and Austin had none.  Aaliyah and Micah came over because they were bored and off school.  I had to go to Target one more time because Cody was out of diapers, and I needed a few more small items that I didn't have time to grab before Austin's school feast the day before.  When we got home, Aaliyah and Micah left and went across the street to their grandma's, and Austin started complaining about his tummy.  He had been complaining about it periodically throughout the day, and I had decided it was gas, because he would lay down, and then I would smell bad pookies coming out of that kid.  I went to put Austin and Cody in the bath and put Tyler in the jumper.  I started running the water and Austin was sitting on the side of the tub.  I walked out of the bathroom  to throw their clothes in the hamper, and came back to diarrhea running down the side of the tub.  Austin just didn't know what it was...he hadn't had the runs since he was in diapers.  I cleaned it up and he told me that is stomach felt so much better.  I thought it was over...silly me.  They both were in the tub, and the next thing I knew, IT was in the water.  I grabbed Cody (screaming and wet and mad) and ran him into our bathroom, put him down and turned our tub on, then I ran back and got Austin out, ran him in our bathroom and stuck him in our shower.  I turned around and Cody had peed on our bathroom floor.  I put him in the tub, wiped up the pee, and turned the shower on for Austin.  I cleaned Cody off, dried him, and got a diaper on the pee-bandit, and then went to Austin only to find IT in the shower, so I pulled him out and sat him on the toilet while I cleaned it up.  Poor guy.  Tyler was screaming his head off through this whole drama and I felt terrible, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment.  I finally got Austin showered, and then had to go to the original crime scene and clean the tub.  I did that, and then was finally able to tend to a really upset poor little Tyler. I put him right to bed because he was so exhausted from the whole ordeal.  Scott got home soon after and couldn't believe all the drama, and it didn't stop there.  Scott was holding Austin on the couch, and I saw Austin gag and told Scott to RUN.  He got Austin to the toilet right in time.  He threw up two more times tonight, once in the hallway, and then crashed.  What was funny about tonight, is while I was drying Austin off after taking his shower, he asked if his diarrhea was beef stew.  I laughed and told him that is was NOT beef stew, and that he hadn't eaten any beef stew in forever.  He argued with me and kept saying that is WAS beef stew.  Ok so the kid thinks my beef stew looks like diarrhea...at least it tastes a whole lot better than it looks!  Anyway, so far, he's sleeping great and I think it's over.  I don't know what happened, but I am getting extremely frustrated with all the weird sickness he's had.  I firmly believe that Austin has been getting sick like this the past 2 weeks because he has started biting his nails.  I don't know if I have mentioned it in the past couple of weeks, but it's a CONSTANT thing, and his nails look TERRIBLE.  He always has his hands in his mouth and I spend about 90% of the day telling him to get his fingers out of his mouth.  My mission this weekend is to get to Walgreens and get the stuff that you put on their nails that tastes terrible...hopefully it will work!  The pics from today are of Tyler finding his way in his walker to Cody's seat with his bibs and playing with them, and of Cody messing with Tyler.  He kept taking his paci away and then giving it back, and also decided Tyler should wear Austin's hat...I think we have figured out that Tyler HATES hats...look at his poor sad eyes from crying!  Such torture!

Tyler's 6 month Pictures!

I forgot to post Tyler's 6 month pictures that were taken last week!  Here are Austin and Cody's as well!

Big Win

This morning Austin had gymnastics and had another wonderful day!  He made it across the entire long beam without falling off which was a big deal.  He is a pro on everything else, but has had trouble with the balance beam...we all held our breath as he walked across, and he made some darn good recoveries and made it!  He got applause!  Anyway, I tried to get Austin to take a nap today so he could go to Scott's game, but the drama went on from 12:30 to 3, and I gave up.  I was actually pondering taking him anyway since I technically didn't tell him that he couldn't go unless he took a nap, but at 4:30, something happened that I can't even remember, and he wasn't happy about it and proceeded to throw every magnet alphabet letter off the fridge and onto the floor.  It took him 30 minutes (and a lot of crying) to put them back on the fridge.  I decided at that point that he wasn't going...he was way too tired.  He was upset about it this time, and when Abbey came over and I came out dressed and ready to leave for the game, he was really mad.  He was not Abbey's friend tonight.  The good thing is, maybe he's getting it and will possibly lay down for a nap when the next home game rolls around, which isn't until January 14th!  We played UT-Tyler tonight and won.  When we hit 90, the guy announced that if we hit 100 points, that everyone would get free pizza from Papa John's.  All 700 people stood up and started chanting "pizza! pizza! pizza!".  Scott had put all his bench guys in to play (which I always LOVE, and so does the crowd) and they did their best, but the final score of the game was 99-67!  Darnit!

Thanksgiving Feast and a Fall in the Fountain

This morning Austin had his feast at his school at 11:30.  Scott decided it was best to give the guys off today and just have their normal shoot-around tonight.  I took Cody to drop Austin off at school and left a napping Tyler at home with a still sleeping Scott.  When I got home we got dressed and went to Target to knock out our list for Thanksgiving.  We are hosting it this year (yay!) and I didn't want to fight crowds.  We got it done and went straight to Austin's school.  The kids came in the cafeteria and sang 2 songs that were adorable...Austin decided he was too cool to perform and covered his face with his hands during both songs...hilarious.  They had assigned seats decorated with the lovely pinecone turkey they worked so hard on, and the ladies at the church served up chicken nuggets, french fries, green beans, rolls, fruit cocktail, and ice cream.  Cody was HYPED because there was an empty chair with a plate of food right beside Austin and he got to sit down and dig in!  The turkey centerpiece that Austin made was adorable and I forsee it's appearance at every Thanksgiving in our family's future, that's how much I love it.  When we got home I put both boys down (we left Austin at school to take his nap since he doesn't take one at home anymore) and Scott and I ate lunch, then went outside to work on the lights. I went and picked up Austin, and soon after we got home, Cody and Tyler woke up and we headed to Northpark Mall to meet Scott's parents and his brother's family.  His brother, sister-in-law, and 2 kids, have been in town for a week already.  We stopped to look at a huge fountain, walked to another water thing that has real ducks and turtles, went through the "Trains at Northpark" which is a huge display of train sets that run together,  and then grabbed something to eat at the Corner Bakery.  After we ate, Scott's brother took Austin and his 2 kids to the fountain while Scott gathered all our stuff and I went to change Tyler's diaper.  I walked out of the bathroom and ran into my sister-in-law, who had Austin in tow, completely soaked.  He had fallen in the fountain.  Austin was crying and cold, and she said Scott had run to buy him clothes.  I keep an extra set of clothes for all the kids, along with extra diapers, in a 2-gallon ziploc in the bus, and I ran out to get it hoping to beat Scott back before he ripped tags off and dressed Austin.  When I got back, Scott was already dressing him, but Austin was crying because he was "comando" and very upset about it.  I had extra underwear, a shirt, and shorts for him, and he was so happy about that underwear.  Poor guy.  I asked Scott what happened and he said he was walking towards the fountain with all our stuff and he saw Kevin helping Austin out.  Ausitn was standing up in the water and crying.  I guess he climbed up on the side of the fountain and lost his balance...anyway, he was fine after getting his underwear on,  and boy was I glad I had that extra stash of clothes in the car (thanks for the tip a long time ago mom).  It came in handy tonight!  Austin told Scott before bath time tonight that he didn't want to take a bath because he didn't want to get wet again!  Here is Austin's ADORABLE pinecone turkey...I just love it...

Is Daddy Home Yet?

Scott's first road trip was a hard one because the boys really did miss him (and so did I).  They got their "daddy fix" by looking at the media guide together on the couch and finding pictures of Scott.  It was really cute...Cody would scream "DA!" and point with his little chubby finger.  Last night/this morning, was really tough.  I was up all night between Austin and Tyler.  Austin kept complaining that his legs were hurting and would cry and rub his shins.  After about the 7th time he woke up doing this, I put him in bed with me and he calmed down and went to sleep.  Tyler was up for no reason...he was just fussing, and I'd have to go in there and put his paci back in his mouth.  He woke up at 6:30 to eat, and then I put him in bed with Austin and I and we slept until Cody woke up at 8:30.  I am officially sick.  I feel like crap and am doing my best to fight it off with vitamin C,  and tons of water.  We just laid around today again, and Scott got home at 6:30...his family came by and also got here at 6:30.  The boys were already bathed and in their pjs.  The tree is UP and ready with the gate around it, and it is also is ORNAMENT-LESS!  I started to put ornaments on the tree, and Austin tried to let himself in the gate so that he could get the ornaments off and play with them.  Cody, seeing how Austin tried to get in the gate, also attempted it, and with that, I put the ornament box away for good.  I'm not even tryin' this year.  Austin also proclaimed, "I'm gonna climb that tree!" and I think that statement gives everyone a fair clue at what goes on around here.  I DO NOT have the time and energy to try and keep those 2 boys away from the ornaments and ornament hooks this year.  Scott was sad but I told him that he'll just have to get over it and come to terms with the fact that our tree is naked, with the exception of some beautiful lights.  I think it looks great. I went to put the star on top (my favorite) and it doesn't work anymore.  That thing was only 2 years old!  I couldn't get it to come on so I chunked it, and will be purchasing a new one this year.  I'll be sure to take pics of the outdoor lights as soon as they are finished after tomorrow! 

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I've caught up so scroll down!

Saturday/Movie Day

This morning Austin was up at 7am, which is pretty early considering he went to bed at 10.  The first thing he did was throw up in the kitchen.  We put him in my bed, and put the baby gate on the door to block Cody from coming in and Austin from going out.  He didn't argue at all, and I gave him a puke bowl and turned on the TV for him.  He threw up again soon after.  Austin stayed in bed and slept on and off for a good 2 hours.  Cody was all out of sorts so we put him down for a nap at 10, and he slept until almost noon.  Weird morning.  Austin eventually had some pedialyte pops and held those down, then he had a piece of toast for lunch and did fine with that too.  He started to get some color back in his cheeks, and didn't want to go in my room again.  My mom left at around 1...boo.  Austin kept complaining that he was hungry and didn't want to stop eating.  I had to cut him off because I was scared he would puke again.  We watched movies all day and laid around.  Aunt Nini and John came by later to check on us, and I fed the boys dinner and ate dinner myself while they were here.  The pics are of Cody sleeping last night and of Cody and John hanging out...Cody wanted to cuddle with John.  It was hard for John because he's in the 7th grade and at that age where he tries to be cool all the time, but he eventually couldn't resist Cody's charms...