By-doh Speak

Driving in the car Bethany says, "A pokey-pine spindle bit my pinkie toe." Translation.... she stepped on one of those spikey gumballs in the yard and it cut her little toe. James and I couldn't help but giggle over her terminology!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Whew, what a weekend! James has a April 23rd birthday while mine falls just 3 days later on the 26th. It always seems to be such a whirlwind with them so close together.

What is it with my kids and puke??

We're sitting at Chili's having a nice family dinner. Hope is done and playing with the baby sitting in her infant seat. She goes in for a kiss as she often does and what does Katy do?? She throws up in her face! Literally, Hope starts yelling, "ew ew ewwwwwwwwww!" Stands up and puke is dripping from her nose to her chin! Seriously?? Why do my kids find it hysterical to puke on each other and how the heck is Katy picking up this little family trait so quickly?? Must come from James's side! hehe See Evil Karma for past puking experiences. These are some sick sick kids I'm raising!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

This year we kicked off the evening of daddy's birthday with a surprise "party" I pulled together for the kids on my way home from work complete with presents, cake, and balloons. We had discussed taking the kids to the movies earlier in the week as a special treat and it had fallen through so he decided to go ahead and take us all to see Hannah Montana the movie for his birthday. We got our 50 cent popcorn.... still holding tight to our Indiana Jones bucket for those 50 cent refills!.... and candy and drinks and headed in to get out seats just as the movie was starting. As luck would have it we were the ONLY ones there! What do you expect on a beautiful spring Thursday?? It was great, perfect really. Everyone enjoyed the movie much more than we expected too. Kathryn did fantastic at her very first movie. And the girls were so cute running down front and jumping around screaming during the concert scenes. Heck we enjoyed just watching them! It was really a great evening! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES!!! You're the best dad in the whole world!!!

Kathryn's 4m Stats

Katy had her 4m checkup with Dr. Grossberg this morning. And drum roll please...........................................................................................................................

Weight: 11lbs even - that's the 10% percentile!!!!!
Length: 24 1/2 inches - 55%
Head Circumferance: 39cm - 10%

This is the first time Katy has made it ON the growth chart and she did so in a big way with a 4 week growth of 2 lbs!! Way to go Katy!!!!! She is meeting all her milestones and doing just beautifully right now.

On a funny note.... when the doctor went to check her length she stretches her out on the table and draws a line at her feet and at her head then measures that. Well, the original measurement was 24 3/4 inches and while that little quarter inch may seem insignificant it actually means the difference between the 70th percentile and the 55th. She was only in the 25% at her 2m checkup so that was an incredible jump! Determined to verify that the doc remeasured her about half a dozen times.... she was wiggling a lot, and doc got confused on which lines were which. That was cracking me up enough, but then on the last measurement she was flustered and went to measure at the top of her head and marked ON her head instead!!! LOL She felt awful and kept apologizing and swore she'd never done that in all her years of practice. Of course, being the reserved person that I am I laughed till I had tears in my eyes! LOL I can see where a lot of moms, especially first timers would be appalled by this, but me.... I just found it hysterical! LOL And Kathryn, well she didn't make a peep, just gave her this look like, "Aw man, seriously? You wrote on my head!" which made it all the worse for me! LOL

Day 2 in Texas

Well this morning we were supposed to sleep in and take our sweet time heading to Austin. James gave strict orders for no one to wake him up. So why is that Katy and I woke up around 6:30am and by 7 James was up, showered, dressed, suitcases waiting by the front door and waking up the kids to go! LOL Who's more excited to see those Sammons??? I'm not real sure today!

We did stick around long enough to head down to the hotel lobby and enjoy some breakfast. Over practice I pretended we should do something on our trip other than going to Austin. "So, who thinks we should head back to the beach today?" no takers "hmmm..... how about we go to Dallas instead?" home of the Cowboys?? NO WAY! "Who wants to go back to JSC today?" no one "How about the aquarium you all wanted to go to?" nope, nada For awhile I wasn't sure there was anything they'd rather do than go see Josh and Madison, but finally I began to crack them all with their weaknesses...... "Hope, how about we go shopping today? No limit, buy anything you want as much as you want. An unlimited shopping spree!" that was met with an almost violent heading nodding till the boy roped her back to team Austin and B reminded her they could shop anytime. The boy's a tough one seeing as how Josh is his best friend and all, but after awhile I got him to falter too.... "Why don't we head south and go into Mexico for the day?" oh you could see the struggle on his face then finally a "I guess Josh could wait another day, okay, but then straight to Austin!" Bethany fussed at him and he too changed his mind. "Bethany, how about we take advantage of Texas and spend the day horseback riding!" no hesitation at all... forget Austin we're off to see the horses! Sorry Josh and Madison horses beat all! hahaha Of course daddy stepped in and whined that he wanted to see Mr. Jason so we all agreed to stick to our plans and after breakfast we loaded up the van and headed for Austin. Roman took a bezillion pics in route!

Once we got to Austin we found the Sammons house with relatively no issues..... Angie sucks at directions! LOL Since Josh and Mad were still in school we met there and sprung them. Having been 2 years since we last saw them it was cute and downright hysterical at moments watching the dynamics our children with the Sammons. As Josh walked out with a huge cheesy grin on his face he stiffened up a bit and sorta looked around as the girls ran and hugged him and he sorta patted them on the back. Then he ran full force to Roman and for a second we thought they were gonna jump in the air and chest bump or just grab each other in an obnoxious frat boy style hug, but no at the last second they both stopped and just looked at each other with this sudden flash of 'oh crap, it's not cool to hug another guy in public'. LOL For a second there I thought they might even shake hands, but no they just stood and grinned at each other, then started talking and as usual it was as if they had never been parted. Madison was different too. She ran up and hugged the girls without hesitation, but got a little shy and backed off with a cute little smirk when she came face to face with my boy. Wow are these kids growing up, all 5 of them! Of course, once off school property and in their home, all bets were off and it was just 5 little goof balls loving every second of being together with the occasion, Bethany did this, and Madison did that, and Get out of my room girls!

Everyone in life should be blessed with at least one true friend they can be 100% themselves around and despite distance, or time lapse, or life changes, that friendship holds tight and as if you just saw them yesterday, as if picking up in mid sentence even, life rewinds and erases all obstacles. I have been truly blessed in my life with 4 absolute friends... or 2 friends then Angie and Jeni, my sisters of the heart. It warms me to the core watching Roman and Hope and even Bethany to a slightly lesser degree (she's everyone's little sister!) develop and grow this type of lifelong friendship with Josh and Mad. It is an amazing thing to have in one's life. It is even more amazing to watch it develop in your children's lives! And I can not begin to put into words the enormity of having it come from just 1 single family! The Sammons will always be treasured by us Trettels and we are so happy to be able to spend this week with them!

The Honey Mustard Mystery

On our way back to the hotel we planned to stop for a nice family dinner at Cheddar's to see what exactly Kari and Kermit rave about. As we arrived I went to pick up the baby's seat and underneath it was a big blob of dark yellow mustard looking something. It actually looked like someone dumped honey mustard out of one of the little dip containers onto the seat. Roman went in for a closer looked, smelled it and said, "Yup, it's honey mustard alright!" The quick thought was I had sat the seat on a dip container.... Hope investigated the bottom of the seat and confirmed it was all over the bottom and that "Yup, it's definitely honey mustard!" Problem with this theory as I quickly pointed out..... we hadn't picked up any food since we got the van! Where did the honey mustard come from?? So James went in for a further peak. It wasn't honey mustard at all, it was POO! Kathryn pooed and it blew out her diaper so massively that it covered the bottom of her car seat and dripped through the seat belt loops plopping onto the seat below. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! I spent half the night cleaning her infant seat and we felt incredibly bad about the fact that she crapped more than her weight in poo and no one even noticed!

Day 1 in Texas

Today Katy awoke bright and early at her usually 5am, which means in Texas it was only 4am and being that we didn't get to bed till after 2:30 this morning, I was EXHAUSTED! Fortunately she ate and went back down. At the real 6am Bethany woke up ready to start the day.... remember they had all slept 3 hours on the plane, I had not! Somehow I convinced her to go back to sleep. At 7:30 Roman awoke and I gave up! Of course James slept through it all! Men!!! SHEESH!!!!

We waited around a bit to see if anyone else would get up and a little before 8 decided we'd sneak down for breakfast. The mere mention of the word and Hope shot out of bed quickly. LOL She woke Bethany who in turn woke Katy. And of course getting 4 excited kids out of the room quietly was impossible and soon daddy was up too. So at 8 we all headed down for breakfast. It was a nice buffet with make it yourself Belgium waffles, and hot foods like sausage, eggs, and fresh biscuits on top of the normal continental breakfast fare.

After breakfast we all got ready and headed out for Johnson Space Center. I thought ahead and bought tickets online at half price and printed out directions from our hotel to JSC. The roads and highway system was a little confusing at first, but once we made a U turn or two and got our barrings straight we found that the roads are layed out very logically and easy to follow.... not at all what we're used to back home in VA, hence why were we so confused at first! LOL We finally got off in the right direction, following the print out from MapQuest we get to a point where we can see the space center grounds and the directions tell us.... "Now make a U turn!" LOL Must have been to another gate we assume, but it still cracked me up. We found the visitor lot on our own without issue and walked right in with no wait for tickets and all.

JSC is nice, but tiny compared to Kennedy Space Center which we did last year. We took the tour of the original mission control center and sat in on one of the shows that did a video of actual takeoff and slight simulation (nothing compared to KSC) and then discussed in detail the current missions and what's going on in space. Roman enjoyed it but I was surprised at how much Hope Elizabeth got into it! Space Center Houston is definitely geared more towards kids, so that was nice. We had a lot of fun! There's an enormous 2 story playground that the kids loved. There was an entire section of hands on kid fun. Things like lunching a shuttle simulator by muscle power, lifting weights on various planets, scales to see what you would weigh on different planets, a wind tunnel, and there was a simulator seat to try and dock a shuttle at ISS but Hope and I couldn't get it to work.... yeah we felt like retards, but whatever! We found one section where they mined for gold, searched for items with little metal detectors and piloted a submarine camera, stuff like that. Roman and James flew full motion simulators. And everyone tried to land a shuttle with a video game simulator.... Roman actually did land successfully on his very first try! James did too, but the girls crashed and burned. They all tried an MMU trainer which is sorta like a hover craft that moves around in this contained area. You can maneuver it with hand controls to go up and back or spin around, and there's a board hanging over head with different tasks that you have to complete while on this moving chair of sorts like pressing buttons and cranking things in circles and whatnot. James got on and did pretty well - the chair kept pulling to one side and away from the board, Roman did great, then Bethany took a whack at it.... she was really too small and was hysterical to watch. She actually drew quite a crowd with her determination! Then Hope stepped up and must have taken notes from B cause she used some of her tricks and knocked it out faster than anyone I think! Overall everyone had a great time at Johnson Space Center and we were kicked out at 5:30 after being told they had closed at 5. LOL Oops!!

Being 5 o'clock, having eaten a late lunch at JSC, and having some warn out babies, we went for a drive and ended up in Galveston. Katy and Bethany were long gone and fast asleep. So we drove for awhile looking at the hurricane damage still painfully clear and in awe of the accomplishments that have clearly been made since last fall! Eventually we ran out of road and came to the beach. They have parking right up next to the beach so James parked there and stayed with the sleeping ones while Roman, Hope, and I went out on the beach and stuck our feet into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time (yup, even for me!). We collected a bunch of pretty shells for B, chased some birds and just enjoyed the beach. It was really pretty and relaxing. I think we could have spent the entire week there! But we had other things to do..... so back in the car and headed back to Houston. We were going to stop at Kari's favorite restaurant - Cheddar's - on the way back, but that didn't exactly work out and worth a full post of its own! So we picked up Jack in the Box through drive thru and headed back to the hotel for a picnic dinner, baths, and some silly family time before calling it an early night!

So far we're off to a great vacation!

Everything's BIGGER in Texas!

Okay I just have to post this.... Last night when we arrived at Alamo Hope really had to pee. So she goes to the bathroom while we're signing the papers and she comes out jumping around and all excited. "Mama, you're never gonna believe it.... you know how our bathrooms back home have the 2 toilet paper rolls? Well here in Texas they have 4!!!!" I refrained from laughing in her face, and all I could say was, "Well, honey, everything IS bigger in Texas!" LOL

We're in Texas!!!!

The Trettels are finally in Texas. Yesterday was one VERY long day. Nothing seemed to go right in the morning, but somehow we managed to finish packing and get everyone to the airport by 2pm for our 4:15. That was awesome! Anyone who knows us knows that's also a miracle. LOL The staff at Airtran in Richmond, VA are incredible! Everyone we met along the way of this trip was pretty great actually. We started off being greeted by Miss Hope at check in. She quickly identified our little Hopey. She also let the kids weigh themselves on the luggage scale. The good thing was our large suitcase that I had overpacked and said screw it at the last minute and planned to pay the over weight fee and be done with it, weighed in at 49.5 pounds!!! There's a 50 pound weight limit. Yikes! No suveniurs to be packed in that one for return! We then made our way through security with relatively little issues.... James got randomly pegged for a full body scan, Roman actually read all the little signs one of which apparently says to take off glasses, so they all did. Hope dropped her tray and when we came through security her glasses were not on the other side. They had bounced away from the rest of the stuff and she hadn't noticed. The guard found them for us, but not before they were stepped on. They are little bent, but fortunately no major damage was done! Katy's formula and bags went through with no issues and I was complimented by the guards on being an insanely great packer.... as in they couldn't believe how much stuff was crammed into that diaper bag and how much formula one person can squeeze into a standard lunch box! :) After we boarded we were informed of a 20 minute ground delay due to delays in Atlanta, but otherwise it was an uneventful flight. One of the stewardesses was a Katie and the kids have been on the look out for "Bethany".

Once in Atlanta we had a 3 hour layover, so went straight to dinner without checking our status. After blowing a good hour and a half we mosied over to our terminal only to find another plane there. Check the status board and we were at a different terminal and delayed till 10pm. We were suposed to fly out at 8:50. We took up camp on the floor and the kids kept busy playing video games and talking with other passengers. One girl in particular was a college student heading home for Easter in Houston and all 3 of the big kids took to her quickly and pretty much harrassed her all night! She was apparently the oldest of 6 and used to it so was very sweet and good with the kids. They got a little rambunctious here and there, but a walk for ice cream and multiple trips to the trash can and bathrooms also kept them busy. Overall I am so so so proud of my kids! They were FANTASTIC, never really complaining, no fighting, a little bickering maybe, but nothing serious. They were just awesome. We got so many compliments from the passengers. Especially about Katy who was a total trooper through it all. In the end our flight took off around 11pm EST. It is roughly a 2 hour flight so got us in Houston around midnight Texas time. The kids (and James) slept the entire way. Not a peep out of any of them!

Once in Houston Hobby the kids woke up quickly and were practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. They LOVED the airport there and were thrilled about everything little thing from the NASA photos on the wall to the new marble floors, just everything. It was too cute! We found our luggage quickly but also discovered that the Alamo desk at the airport was closed, so caught the first shuttle we could find and were driven to the offsite Alamo dealership. They got us through fairly quickly and painlessly and we were soon off in our new Caravan trying to find the hotel.

It was after 1 before we checked into the SpringHill Suites Marriott. James had fussed a bit over me going with a suite instead of a "regular" hotel until we walked through the doors and now I'm not sure I'll ever get him back into a plain old hotel or motel! LOL The man at the desk greeted us by name (well a butchered version of it, but close enough!) and had everything set to go. James was surprised at the space when we walked in and the kids loved it, except that they said it smelled like and old person's house. LOL Just a little musty and they got over that part pretty quickly once we turned up the air for better circulation. No cramming into beds or splitting girls and guys as we've done in the past. James and I had our own bed, the girls shared the other bed and Roman slept on a pull out couch while Katy spent her first night still sleeping in her carseat.... they're bringing a crib in for her tomorrow.

It is now roughly 2:30, the kids are starting to settle down, and we're all heading to bed after a VERY long day!