Julia Musketeer

Julia got the Barbie movie Three Musketeers for Christmas.   When she watches her movies she likes to get in character.  As a musketeer she puts on boots, a skirt, and a hat.  Her pink bandana is her cape and she usually gets Brayden's swords out so she can fight along with them.  She thinks that only girls are Musketeers and gets very upset when she is told otherwise by her brother.

How to eat a banana

Blake likes to eat bananas but he already has his own way of eating them.  He will only eat it up to the point that I have pulled down the peel.  If I try to take it and pull it down more, he gets upset and throws his banana.  So I try and pull it down as far as I can, but still giving him room to hold on to it.

A friend

Brayden is a teaser.  He likes to move from person to person and torment them by rhyming their names, touching them,  and grabbing stuff away from them.

But sometimes he lets his sensitive side show, and it is so sweet.  After school Brayden got in the car and told me that he was talking to a girl in his class while waiting to be picked up.  He said she doesn't have many friends because she is mean to people.   She was crying because she broke her hat.  Brayden was talking to her and telling her stories to help her be happy.

He told her about Logan, a boy in his preschool class in North Carolina, who was sad because he didn't have many friends.  Brayden gave him a hug and said he would be his friend.

Gardening

Brayden came home from school excited to show me what he had pulled from his garden at school.  He wanted to know if we could eat them for dinner.

The garden is in the middle of the school in a courtyard.  According to Brayden there are 3 spots for each grade.  His class grew broccoli, radishes, tomatoes, and carrots.  When their class gets 10 tallys they get to go to the garden.  You get a tally when you are "super good" like walk quietly in the hallway.  

Blake wanted to get in on the picture taking.  He does the crooked cheese smile that Brayden used to when he was that age.  

10 years+...

It actually started 18 years ago when a Senior girl and Junior boy had Trigonometry together.  There were study dates (the girl really couldn't concentrate to study with the cute boy but it was a good excuse to get together), lunch dates, church dances, Prom, movie dates, and lots of hanging out.

First Date October 26, 1991

After many years (almost 8) of letters, phone calls, visits to see each other in Utah, Colorado, and El Paso they were finally allowed to get married after he graduated from the Air Force Academy.

June 22, 1999

Soon after they got married he started Medical School in San Antonio.  He missed his white coat ceremony so they could have a honeymoon.  Medical school was filled with many nights of studying, test taking, and practicing patient exams.  

        

First day of 3rd year 2001

University Texas Health Science Center Graduation - May 2003

He finished Medical School with 2 children Kylee and Brayden.  He was chosen to do his Internship and Residency training in Ophthalmology at Wilford Hall Air Force Hospital.

 During residency Matt doing surgery in Honduras - 2007

Internship and Residency required overnights in the hospital, pages in the middle of night to go into the hospital, late evenings finishing up clinic, and many missed family dinners.  During Residency another daughter, Julia, was added to the family.

Residency Graduation - 2007

He decided to continue on with his training and do 2 - 1 year fellowships.  He was accepted into the program at Duke with the first year of Occular Pathology and the 2nd year of Cornea and Refractive Surgery.  During fellowship little Blake brought the child total to 4.

Fellowship Graduation - June 2009

Matt has spent these first 10 years of our marriage in training.  I am so proud of him working so hard through Medical school, Residency, and Fellowship.  He has been very dedicated with his studies, he has spent many late nights at the hospital, and he is very concerned about his patients.  He takes the time to talk to them even during a very busy clinic.  I love to see him excited about his crazy eye stuff.  He really enjoys what he does.  Our step now is... his 13 year payback to the Air Force.

This post has been in draft mode since last summer.  I originally wanted to post after finishing with his training, but I kind of procrastinated scanning in pictures and completing it.  I figure Valentine's Day (a few days late)  is a great time to express my appreciation for my Valentine and all he does for our family.

Valentine cards

         

Matt made me this Valentine card 18 years ago.  We had just started dating a few months before.  We were spending Valentines day apart because I had a Regional swimmeet in Lubbock and Matt had a State wrestling meet in Dallas. Matt started a tradition in our relationship which would later be  incorporated into our family.  We have a couple binders full of cards we have made for birthdays, Valentine's day, Mother's day, Father's day and any other special occasion that needs a card.  

With Valentine's day not one of the listed parties allowed by the school, we received several notices saying that candy was not allowed to be added to the valentine cards.  So, we decided it would be more fun to make the kids cards to hand out.  We checked out the Family fun sight to get ideas. 

Kylee chose to do a foot card (shaped like a heart)  with jewels for the girls, and a heart monster for the boys.

Brayden wanted to make alien cards that fold out into a heart.  Pink for the girls and green for the boys.

Kylee also decided to make a fancy heart bug card for her teacher.  Brayden inspired by her decided to make a similar card for his teacher.  It was fun spending a couple of hours during the week working on the cards.  The kids were excited to give them to their classmates.  

Bleeding Muffins

I am a lazy morning mom.  I love breakfast food, but I usually make it for dinner.   I like to make a simple breakfast on the weekend.  On Saturday I made a strawberry muffin package.  Julia saw her muffin and said,  "Oh, I got a bleeding one.  I don't like that kind."  After explaining that was the strawberries she gobbled it up.

On and Off

Lately Blake has had a fascination with turning the lights on and off.  When I pass by a light switch he grunts and points until I stand by the light switch so he can flip the switch.  Today I showed him how to put a little chair under the switch and he can get up and turn the lights on and off when he wants.  For the next 15 minutes all I heard was a little red chair being drug around to all the light switches, and then hearing and seeing the lights turning on and off.

The Crazy Club

Recently Brayden has been talking about this "club" in his class that he refers to as the "crazy club".  He explained that they "act crazy" and have "crazy hair".  There are a few kids in his class who are in the club and apparently have behavioral problems.  He explained  that there is a rocket chart that keeps track of points they get for good behavior, and at the end of the week they get a prize if they have enough.  Recognizing that there were certain rewards for kids in this group who were able to behave, he innocently explained:

"I wish I could be a little crazy and not control myself a little bit.  You can't get into it (the club), you have to be crazy to start.  If you go into 2nd grade and act crazy they already know because you weren't crazy in 1st grade.  I wish I could go back in time and be crazy to start."