Living, Loving, Learning, Sharing: October

We started our October with a trip to Corpus Christi. We met up with most of O's family to attend the yearly dedicated mass in his Dad's memory. It's always nice seeing everyone at one time. The girls are now old enough to actually play with their older cousins too so they had a blast. I also celebrated my birthday this month. K happened to be in school that day so Omar took the day off. We ate out for breakfast, then lunch and last we checked out the Texas History Museum downtown. That was a last minute decision and we couldn't go skeet shooting as planned because it rained. I guess I didn't get any pictures of the day.

We spent one Saturday morning at the local pumpkin patch. It was nice and cloudy--perfect for me to practice using my DSLR. Karina my reserved and cautious one was initially afraid of the pumpkins and wouldn't stand by them. She cried every time I tried to sit her on the pumpkins or around them. A lolipop finally did the trick.

After much anticipation Elena started Suzuki violin lessons. She had been figuring out songs by ear on my former childhood keyboard and we thought we should foster this interest in music. She looooves her violin class and will already be playing in an upcoming Christmas concert at Dell's Children's for the patients there. While getting Suzuki trained for the Suzuki method, I also observed a Suzuki music class for ages 0-3. Karina and I sat in for a class and we both loved it. She's started off being timid as you can tell by the picture but she loves it and is really opening up more.

The stars finally lined up for me and I was able to go on a school field trip. Siblings are not allowed on field trips and Omar has been out of town on past field trips so I haven't been able to go, but he was here to watch Karina while I joined Marisa's class on a field trip to the Elgin Christmas tree farm. It is a great place to take your kids if you're near by. There's a petting zoo, a hay ride, a maze and play area. I loved spending this time with Marisa. It was one of many firsts for her, her first school bus ride and field trip.

I'm still working on my professional development hours so I went to the TABE conference again this year. While I attended the conference in San Antonio, Omar was busy being Dad of the year. He watched the girls for 2 nights and 3 full days ALONE, while working!! It was really a nice break for me and I had great company by a fellow mom friend who also wanted to work on her hours. She has 3 kids too and her husband also works from home and watched their kids so I guess I should say there were 2 dads of the year. Our last night we went out and listened to a band play fun New Orleans jazz style music. It was a great ending to our trip. Is this what a traveling job is like?