Texas Pride

I am proud to be a native Texan! In fact, I got all teary eyed last year when William came home from school one day and began singing "The stars at night, are big and bright, (clap clap clap clap), deep in the Heart of Texas!" It makes me happy when the month of March rolls around and in honor of Texas Independence the schools start teaching all about the state I love so much. This even starts in preschool. If you ask her, Cicialy (and of course William) could tell you the following: The Texas State Motto (Friendship), the Texas State Flower (Bluebonnet), the Texas State Tree (Pecan), the Texas State Mammal (small - Armadillo, large- Texas Longhorn), the Texas State Insect (Monarch Butterfly), and the Texas State Bird (Mockingbird). As part of the festivities, Cicialy's preschool held a rodeo parade and concert. Her favorite part was getting to buy a stick pony. The other thing I love about March is the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. We look forward to it every year. Dan and I were able to go twice and saw Sugarland and Rascal Flatts (thanks mom and dad!), and then one Saturday we took the kids to the Livestock Show and Carnival. And of course my favorite part is always all the delicious food choices.

Cicialy really enjoyed the soil exhibit where you could plant your own sunflower seed and go digging in the dirt for worms.

The kids favorite exhibit is always the chicks hatching right before your eyes!

Only A Month Late

We went to Utah for Christmas!!! Sorry its taken me until know to write about it, but upon arriving home Dan and I were thrust full force into the final preparations for a 4 stake priest/laurel conference. Now its over, and I've got a little bit of free time (for the moment at least : ). We had lots of fun; so much fun in fact that we forgot to take many pictures. Minus out the two day drive there and the two day drive back (which is always torture), we had a blast building snowmen, sledding, ice skating, sleeping over with cousins, and just spending quality time with Dan's family. Below are the few pictures I did manage to snap:

Cici, William, and Weston in their Christmas pjs right before reading the Christmas story and then going up to see what Santa brought

Weston with his scooter from Santa

William opening his Nintendo DSi (I caved because I wanted to see this face on Christmas morning. He has now earned it being taken away with the slight possibility of it being regiven to him as a gift next Christmas, if his behavior improves).

Cicialy loved the snow. It was so cold that I didn't want to leave the house, but she couldn't get enough of it!

Cicialy and cousin Kenzli being pulled on a sled by Aunt Cari. (While we were there Cicialy found out that Kenzli had gotten her ears pierced and that Aunt Cari had done it. Needless to say, Cici now has her own ears pierced too by Aunt Cari).

Weston and cousin Sophie

Dan's brother Andrew got engaged the morning we arrived, so we are excited to be heading back to Utah this July. We will try to actually visit with all of our friends then.

Witches and Wizards and Superman, oh my!!!

Happy Halloween!!! The kids are sad that today is a Sunday, which equals no trick or treating, but they enjoyed dressing up to go to grandma's trunk or treat Friday night. William didn't even have to think twice about what he wanted to be this year. We've been reading the Harry Potter books since the summer (we are currently on book 5), and he just had to be Harry! Dan whittled his wand from a stick in the backyard, and William helped him stain it just the right color. He insists that he wants to be Harry next year as well (and if he doesn't Cicialy has expressed an interest in being Hermoine so the costume will get some good use : ). It took some convincing, but Cicialy finally agreed to be the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz. She loved having her face painted green and getting her very own pair of ruby slippers. She even perfected the line "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too!" Weston was a whole other story. He said no to every idea we had, refused to keep any costume on, so last minute inspiration struck as I noticed that he was wearing his superman t-shirt on Friday - Clark Kent (I knew he would keep his church clothes on : ). Well, I am off to whip up some witches brew, bats and cobwebs, and monte cristo ghost sandwiches for our Halloween dinner. Hope you all had a great holiday!!!

Crazy

It has been Red Ribbon Week at William's elementary school. They have had pajama day, crazy sock day, and finally the most anticipated day has arrived: Crazy Hair Day!!!

He was one excited boy going off to school today!

Oh What Fun We Had!

Our family sorely needed a vacation, so we pulled the kids out of school for a week and headed to Florida. It was wonderful (dare I say "magical" : )! The kids were in heaven, Dan got some much needed rest, and I enjoyed soaking it all in and making memories together. Following is the Packer Family Vacation 2010 in pictures:

The kids are ready for the drive through the night to get to Aunt

Shelley's house in Florida!!!

Disney World Day 1 (September 27, 2010):

Our first day at Disney World was Cici's 5th birthday!!! Since her birthday surprise was lunch with the Disney Princesses at the Norway Castle in Epcot's world showcase, we spent the morning exploring future world at Epcot. The ride " Soarin' " was a big hit with the kids, but the shocker of the day had to be the kids insistence that Spaceship Earth was their favorite ride (creating their own world and seeing their faces on the ride screen in front of them was just too cool I guess : ). The princess lunch was amazing. Seeing the look on Cicialy' face as each princess came to our table and talked to her was priceless. Late that afternoon we headed back to our resort for a short rest and then spent a few hours at the Magic Kingdom so we could fulfill Cici's birthday wish of riding Splash Mountain.

Day 2:

We spent our entire second day exploring the Animal Kingdom (by far one of my favorites). The kids encountered loads of Disney Characters (Lilo and Stitch, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Eyore just to name a few), got soaked on the river raft rides (Cici loved it more than the rest of us), traveled back in time to the era of the dinosaurs (please mention to your children that they are really not going back in time and that the dinosaurs are pretend), enjoyed participating in the Festival of the Lion King, and experienced the best ride (in my opinion) Disney has to offer: Expedition Everest. Only downside to the day was the torrential downpour as we were exiting the park.

Day 3:

By the third day the Magic Kingdom was calling!!! We spent the morning riding Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin a million times, soaring through the air on Dumbo, and hitting 2 of the mountains (space and splash). We decided to take the afternoon off and swim at our resort's fabulous pool. We stayed at the yacht club and loved it. The pool had a sandy bottom, a small lazy river, and two waterslides coming off of a shipwreck. That evening Uncle Sam and cousins Tori, Tyler, Sammy, and Gavin drove up to explore Downtown Disney with us. The lego store was amazing!!!

Day 4:

We only did about half of what we wanted to at the Magic Kingdom the day before, so we headed back over to meet with some of our favorite characters (Daisy Duck, Pinocchio, Pluto, Jasmine and Aladdin, and of course Princess Tiana), sail through the Caribbean with Captain Jack Sparrow, fly over Agra bah on magic carpets and through Neverland on a flying ship, and last but definitely not least ride the last and final mountain (Thunder). We almost didn't take William and Cicialy on Thunder Mountain because Dan felt it might have been a little too jerky for them. That would have been a big mistake. Hands down it was Cicialy's favorite ride of the vacation - she giggled the entire time! Late that afternoon we headed over to Disney's Hollywood Studios. The only long wait we encountered the entire vacation was at the new Toy Story Mania ride. We waited 90 minutes, but William LOVED it! We took the kids to see the Beauty and the Beast stage show (much to Cicialy's delight and William's displeasure) and then braved the Tower of Terror. I am proud of both William and Cicialy because they went on it twice (once with me and once with Dan) even though Cicialy was scared out of her mind. She didn't want her daddy to have to ride it alone : )

Day 5:

We were so sad it was our last day at Disney World. We decided to go back to the Magic Kingdom and then Animal Kingdom and ride our favorite rides one last time. We also couldn't leave without saying goodbye to Mickey and Minnie. The kids hope we'll see them again real soon!

Last Day of Vacation:

We spent our final day in Florida going to the beach with cousins. It was beautiful!!!

Preschool and Potty Training

Cicialy has been awaiting this day for some time now and it finally arrived ... the first day of preschool!!! Last year we participated in a mom co-op preschool, but since this is Cici's last year before Kindergarten she is attending a full day preschool run by a local Presbyterian Church (most of the preschools here are affiliated with churches). She will be attending two days a week from 8:30 - 2:30. This seems like such a long time, but it will be great preparation for full day kindergarten next year.

And what was she most excited about? Using her brand new butterfly lunchbox she picked out for the first time, wearing her new "diamond" studded puma's (you can't see them in the picture but since she needs to wear closed toes shoes she picked out puma's that have rhinestones along the sides - they are actually pretty cute : ), and getting to go to recess twice!!!! (She keeps reminding / taunting William that he only gets one recess)

This is Cici with one of her two teachers. I hope she is having fun because I sure do miss having her around already!!!

Since both William and Cicialy were going to be out of the house for several hours, I decided to spend my first day alone with Weston potty training. We dropped Cici off at preschool, went to Walmart to pick out Thomas the train underwear and incentive treats, and then dove right in. He is asleep now, but the morning session went fairly well. A few mishaps and several successes!!! I showed Weston how to potty train Cici's doll, then had him potty train the doll, and finally we had him start doing it himself (the key is to have most of the incentives be liquid so that the child has several opportunities to practice). Hopefully we just keep pressing forward from here.

First Grade and What We Did This Summer

Today William started First Grade!!! He woke up super excited and so did I. I hope his day went well. We didn't take any vacations this summer (besides the pioneer trek and girls camp), but we did keep ourselves busy at the pool. Cicialy even started swimming early on in the summer so that she could do this ...
and this ...

and of course William spent all summer doing tricks off the high dive.

Here is all of them at one of the pools in our subdivision. Weston loves the water as much as his brother and sister and thinks he can swim even though he can't (maybe next year : ).
Besides swimming we did a lot of crafts. For some reason the kids got really into creating things this summer. Below are two of our favorites.


We had a lot fun this summer, but our little family needs a vacation. In just a few short weeks we'll be heading off to Disney World!!! I don't know if the kids (or I) can wait : )