Best Buds

Tuesdays have become one of my favorite days of the week.  Natalie, Luke, and I stay home, and some of my favorite moments happen on these days.  Natalie would likely follow James over a cliff, so she almost always plays with him when he is home.  But when he is at school, she and Luke have a different kind of play--much more of a sweet, little play led by Natalie.  While James is busy doing this (at a friend's 40th birthday party)

or this (at James Thomas's house before baseball)

 
Natalie and Luke get to have some quieter time together.  Well, somewhat quieter.  Luke is talking up a storm, so while he use to sit patiently at a tea party like so

he now says "mine, mine, mine" during the tea party and does NOT wait patiently (excuse the laundry in the background)

As a result, Natalie packs up her tea party and leaves

In addition to being forced to play tea party, Luke also makes a very good patient, sliding partner, and can even help organize Princesses into a proper receiving line

I often feel guilty that so much of Natalie and Luke's days are spent in the car shuffling James between school, practices and games, so I try and do nothing but let them play on Tuesdays.  However, they never mind a trip to the new HEB grocery store.  Much to my delight, Natalie has taught Luke to yell, and they only play this "game" at the grocery store.  I don't know what it is, but I swear every time we pass the cheese and yogurt aisle, these two start yelling back and forth.

Luke calls Natalie "Na Na", which thrills her.  I second guessed naming Natalie Natalie, mainly because I didn't want people calling her "Nat".  But "Na Na" and "Jame" have become the sweetest sound around the house.

I know sometime in the all too near future, James and Luke will likely bond over their love of all things superheroes and sports to the exclusion of Natalie.  But for right now, I am going to relish these slow Tuesdays spent with just these two.  And yes, apparently our Tuesdays are spent being naked (kids) or in pjs (yoga pants for me).

A little lagniappe: here are few of my favorite pictures from the past week.  The first one proves that, on this particular day, Luke loved the swing.  Most days he does not enjoy swinging, but he does LOVE Thomas the Train.  He is very content to go in the living room by himself and play with the trains and Hot Wheels.  The last one is from this morning--I was doing a morning yoga sequence, and James and Natalie joined in.  

EagleFest 2015

James's school had their big fundraiser last Friday--EagleFest, which is part auction part Field Day on steroids.  I remember Field Day as being a kick ball game and a three legged race.  Not at Second Baptist.  This involved water slides, a rock wall, water bumper boats, Chick-fil-a, a huge trampoline bungee, a water bubble thing-y that is similar to a bumper boat, and so much more.  Being 5 years old is a blast!

Second has a neat tradition whereby the entire school parades onto the field, or in this case the gym due to the rain.  The Seniors carry the pre-k/bridge kids and wear the shirt where they will be attending college.  A lot of Baylor shirts at this good baptist school :) James never looked so small.

Notice that James is holding his BFF William's hand.  These two are joined at the hip (he lives in our neighborhood), and according to James they are going to live together at Alabama.  Guess we will see in 12 years.

James's class, again looking so small, is in the front of the Senior class.  Apparently they are saying the Pledge, and my son is the only one with his hand not over his heart #momfail

Each class competed against another in some sort of game.  I'm not sure what game they played, but James dominated it!

And what better way to end the day than with a Ninja Turtle snow cone!  James has two other "James" in his class, and this is James Thomas.   Sweet friends on a sweet day!

Everyone is getting older

This past week we celebrated two major milestones: Brad turning 33 and Luke no longer crawling!

Brad's birthday weekend was so fun-hectic, but fun.  He and I had drinks and dinner Saturday night, and it was a long overdue date!  We had a blast.  This is us at Local Pour (my new favorite place for a drink)

I didn't get a picture at dinner, but we went to our go-to: Liberty Kitchen.  The rain held off, and we were able to enjoy our lobster mac and cheese and deviled eggs topped with fried chicken and bacon jam outside!  Delicious!

I had planned breakfast in bed Sunday morning, but the kids gave Brad an even better gift by sleeping until 9:15!  Monday, the actual birthday, James helped me bake a cake and Natalie put all 33 candles on it!  We all loved celebrating dad!

Last Wednesday Luke decided that he was fed up with crawling.  We have waited 18 months for this cutie to decide to walk, and he has not slowed down since doing so.  He is walking everywhere and climbing ON EVERYTHING!  His new trick is trying to get out of the bathtub.  I didn't realize that he could climb stairs until Natalie called down one morning saying "Lukey is upstairs!"  Can't turn my back on this kid.  He has moved up to the next class at school and is even sleeping on a nap mat.  No longer a baby :(

Kind of a sad day.....

A Wonderful Easter Weekend

This was the first year that we have been home for Easter, and we had such a fantastic weekend.  Reet Reet and Papi came to visit, which is always a fun time!  I think they got away with only one trip to Target.  The weekend was spent eating pancakes (Papi's speciality), going to the movies, and lots and lots of egg dying and hunting.

This picture is small, but all three kiddos loved cracking the confetti eggs!

Thanks to my cute and creative friend, Amanda White, we did a glow-in-the-dark egg hunt one night.  James and Natalie were  deliriously sleepy, which added to their excitement.  Natalie, however, got so mad at Brad for throwing away her glow stick---I have never seen the child so upset.  You couldn't help but laugh. 

  

One of my favorite holiday activities is dying Easter eggs.  We always did it with my three older cousins, and then later with their children.  The Wall kids never missed a year of dying eggs, and it's safe to say that the Nix children love the activity just as much.  We will just need to work with Natalie on dropping the eggs in the dye--most of hers were cracked :( 

About half way through this activity Papi showed James how to dye the eggs so that they were two different colors.  James then proceeded to re-dye all of his eggs! 

Luke was a bit confused and simply wanted to eat the boiled eggs.  He spent most of the time in this position:

Our church had an Easter festival, and as much as Natalie loved the Easter bunny the week before, she was not having it this time!  She did, however, love the petting zoo and talking to the animals.

We hosted an Easter brunch after church, and Natalie helped me make a "tarrot take"--this is actually the first attempt that stuck to the pan.  You can see that the second one turned out much better.  I didn't get a picture of the entire spread, but Brad was quite proud of his Bloody Mary and mimosa bar.

And I must add that the Bushes were in church, and dad swears that he got a nod from George and Barbara.  

We had such a fun weekend and loved spending it with family and friends!  Easter may be one of my favorite holidays.