What a sad Christmas season

My mom died on December 21st. I haven't blogged about it because I'm just not sure what to say. To say it has been difficult is an understatement. This is the worst pain and grief I've felt in my life. I miss her terribly.

We had a beautiful memorial service for her on December 23rd. At the service, we showed a video of pictures of her life. My sister is working on uploading that video to her website; I'll post a link as soon as it is available. I'll also post a link to the obituary when it is available. My friend Stormy wrote a very nice blog entry called "Why We'll be Terrible Old Ladies" about my friends' reactions to mom's death and her memorial service. Go to http://stormyhickman.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-well-be-terrible-old-ladies.html

We attempted a normal Christmas, and there were happy moments: playing pool in the Dixie Chicken with my kids in Santa hats on Christmas Eve, the chaos of opening presents with four kids under age four at my step-sisters on Christmas Day, cooking a yummy fajita lunch for Tom and five of his coaching buddies, opening presents from my mom.

There have also been lots of sad moments: choosing the pictures to capture her life story, cleaning out my mom's closets to make room for Linsey to move home, comforting Braden as he cried for hours, telling people who mom came across during daily life (the mailman, the neighbor, the marina people).

I've updated my playlist (at the bottom of this page) to include the George Strait song "You'll be There." This is the song that played during the slide show of mom's pictures. Mom loved George Strait.

Today is the first day of 2009--my first year without my mom. What a sad day.

Snow!!

I bet every blog that originates in College Station has an entry about the miraculous snowfall of 2008!

When we woke up last Wednesday morning, there was a light dusting of snow on the ground. Braden hopped out of bed as soon as I told him, which is miraculous in itself. I took a few pictures of the boys before school, and we were pretty darn impressed by the snow as we drove to daycare. At 3pm, the snow started up again. I let my 7th period sneak out to the windows to have a look--some had never seen snow fall before! By the time I picked up the boys at 5 and drove home, the snow had really piled up (well, "piled up" for College Station standards).

As soon as we pulled in the driveway, the boys were tugging at their seatbelts and begging to get out of the truck. We all jumped out, and while they immediately dove into the snow, I ran in for the camera. I found my truck keys, purse, phone, lunchboxes, etc. still in the truck the next morning.

The boys were amazing--they knew exactly what to do! They were slinging snowballs and creating snow angels like they'd been in snow their entire lives. While I was shivering and shaking, they were just reveling in the wonderment of it all. I had a hard time getting pictures--they just wouldn't pause for a second, not for a candy bribe, or an ice-cream bribe, or a serious threat.

Notice that Braden is wearing his black hat and gloves--he got those at an ice-skating party his friend Catelyn had. Garrett is not wearing gloves (or gwubs, as he calls them) because I'm a bad mom. He is, however, wearing his favorite "dragon hat."

Notice, too, the fabulous lights on our house. My husband is amazing!!

My friend Stormy has a heartfelt and poetic blog entry about the snow on her blog: http://stormyhickman.blogspot.com Check it out.

Garrett's newest accessory

If you recall Garrett's obsession with his sunglasses (see last February-March), you will appreciate this.

Garrett's latest fashion accessory is his Santa hat. He calls it his "christmas hat" and he has being wearing it almost nonstop for the last few days. He hasn't worn it to daycare (yet), but wears it around the house. He slept in it last night. He wore it to the student council babysitting this morning and out to lunch. People think it is very cute. I think it is a bit obsessive.

Those PJs are from Old Navy--they say "chillin' with my homies." Braden also got a new set of Christmas PJs. His say "one tough cookie" and has an image of a gingerbread man cookie. He was NOT interested in putting them on for a picture.

Halloween one month later

In the spirit of the holidays, I thought I should finally blog about Halloween.

We had a great Halloween this year. The events kicked off with a pumpkin carving party at my friend Michelle's house. Michelle and Chris's daughter, Isa, goes to my kids' daycare, and the three of them had a blast playing while I carved a fairly intricate jack-o-lantern using one of those stencil kits.

Halloween continued several days later with the annual fall festival at Sam Houston. We made the trek to Huntsville to "Daddy's ranch" for the party. On the way there, Braden told Garrett all about it and said, "last year, I was too shy to play any games. This year, I'm not going to be shy." And he wasn't! Both kids enjoyed the games, the hayride, and especially the cookie decorating station.

The third event of our Halloween extravaganza was the kids' party at daycare. I dressed them in matching skeleton shirts and black pants, much to Braden's dismay and slight embarrassment. My intentions were good: I didn't want them to mess up their costumes before trick or treating that evening. When I arrived at the daycare to help with the party, however, Braden's friends were quick to inform me that he wasn't wearing a costume, just a shirt. Braden didn't seem to mind too much, though.

Halloween evening was supposed to begin with "trunk or treating" at Keller Williams Realty with The Corleys (our friend Melina is a realtor). When the boys and I got home, though, Kyle was in the driveway cleaning fish from the previous day's offshore trip with Tom. Between the fish, the grouchy boys, and the tired mom, the trunk-or-treating just didn't happen. We did manage to get ready in time to join the neighborhood hay ride and trick-or-treating party. It was great fun!

Oh, as for the costumes. Braden's may look vaguely familiar. He was Elmo the Halloween that he was 18 month old, too. This is the same costume, just in a bigger size. The first Elmo costume was one that he practically lunged out of the cart for. The same thing happened this time. We had looked at costumes at a couple of places, and we were in Target looking at all kinds of great things--pirates, ninjas, puppy dogs, firemen, etc. Braden just HAD to have Elmo. Again. Even though he is four and hasn't watched Elmo in at least two years. The night of the hayride he got very upset that "people keep calling me Elmo, but my name is Braden." Sheesh.

Garrett was the cutest lion you've ever seen. Roar!

Braden wrote his first sentence!

This is really what made me update the blog. Braden wrote a sentence all by himself. I'm so proud--I should make it into a giant button and wear it around!

This is a computer-generated version of what it looked like:

I LiC MRCRS.

Isn't he brilliant?? (It says, "I like markers." Sheesh, can't you read?)

He was inspired to write this sentence because he is currently grounded from his markers and crayons. He scribbled on my very favorite coffee table with a red sharpie that he fished out of a drawer somewhere. I didn't yell. I didn't cry. I didn't spank him or put him in time out. What I did was much, much more effective (and maybe a little mean?): I gave him a giant plastic bag and told him to go put all of his markers and crayons in it. When he did, I brought him over to the coffee table and showed him his scribbling. We confirmed that it was, indeed, Braden who did it. I explained that it is my very favorite coffee table and that it is the very first piece of grown-up furniture I ever bought, and that his scribbling ruined it (I'm not sure he caught all of that drama). Then, I told him that as punishment, I was going to put his markers and crayons away for a week so that he would learn not to write on things.

Every day he has asked for his markers back. We then go through the days of the week and discover how many more days there are until Saturday.

So, all in all, this has been a week of learning for Braden: he learned the days of the week, he learned how to write a sentence.

Hopefully he learned not to write on anything, too!

SOCCER!

I'm officially a soccer mom! Kyle's officially a soccer coach!

Braden played U5 soccer this season (that means soccer for kids four and five). The soccer club sent out a desperate email about needing coaches, and Kyle volunteered (I made him). Most people's reaction to that statement is a bewildered, "Does Kyle know anything about soccer?"

Yes! He's a sporty guy! He actually played soccer for a number of years growing up--he says 10, but his mom said is was 7 or 8.

Observing his coaching abilities, I learned something new about my husband: it turns out that Kyle actually does have patience. And he needed it dealing with the six kids on our team. They are all very nice kids with very nice parents (are any of them reading this?) but some of them weren't really motivated to play soccer. They liked the flowers, and the grass, and their water bottles, and the jets that flew over on their way to Aggie football games. They weren't really concerned that the other teams scored three times as many points as us or that they all got in each other's way, or that they often kicked the ball the wrong way and sometimes scored points for the other team. They REALLY liked their trophy at the end of the season!

Braden turned out to be pretty good! He was fairly aggressive (for a four year old) and good on defense. Most importantly, he loves soccer!

So, three months have gone by....

Seriously? What's the deal?

A couple of things:

1) a computer is acting goofy, which means we are down to just one 'puter and it is about 10 years old and kinda slow.

2) the batteries in my camera always are dead. I never could figure out why (I always thought it was because my husband buys cheapo ones on eBay and they just don't hold their charge). I now think it is because Braden often gets ahold of the camera and takes pictures and wastes the charge.

3) I have been busy! What has happened between August 22 (my last post) and now? 13 weeks of school!

4) I've started seriously running and working out at 5 in the mornings, which means I go to bed as soon as I can. I used to blog after the kids were in bed, but now I'm in bed, too.

So, 'nough complaining from you all (mostly Linsey). Now I'm posting...