It's started......

Football is back. Tanner had his first practice last night, they both have practice tonight, Thursday, and Saturday (same time different location). We begin our juggling act. Mason has always had a really good football experience, all sports for that matter. The coaches are there for what is best for the team. They don't play a lot of "dad ball". Tanner, bless his heart, hasn't had the most positive experiences. I already have a bad taste in my mouth after one practice. He has the same coach he had last year. This coach said at the end of the season he wanted to play Tanner as quarterback this year. Tanner was very excited about this. Then last night at practice he stated he is letting the kids try out for new positions, which is a good thing. He then named three kids and their positions. His son and one other coaches son were two of the three kids named. I just hope he really means what he says and gives everyone a chance. I just want Tanner to have a good time and feel successful. I was hoping he wanted to play baseball this fall instead of football. It is less stressful.

My Little Helpers

Yesterday my friend Kathy called and said she needed me and the boys to go on a mission for her. Her husband has been out of town and while he was away she discovered a 3 foot water moccasin in her yard. This freaked her out just a tad and was deep in her memory. Anyway, her kids wanted to go swimming and when they went outside their little pool was gone. I guess with the storms on Thursday it blew away. She just knew the pool was behind her fence in the field by the bayou. Perfect snake territory. Being a little freaked out by the friend she found in the yard, she called the Holmberg's because we are so brave! I asked the boys if they would go and look for her pool. They asked me what they would get. Which made me go into the spill of.....you don't always get something, you should just help out because it is the right thing to do and we help out our neighbors blah, blah, blah.......... They both took off (notice I am such a brave mother and sent my kids into harms way without me) and about 15 minutes later Kathy called and the boys had completed their mission successfully. I walked outside and saw them coming home and I was so proud of them. They were all smiles. Then the sweetest thing happened. Tanner pulled these squished purple flowers out of his pocket for me. I could have just eaten him up in that moment. Maybe there is hope for my boys after all. The flowers were in such bad shape I had to cut them off at the stems and let them float in water.

Later that evening we were sitting at supper and I told the boys to tell Brad about their adventure that day. Mason proceeded in telling Brad they rescued the pool out of a snake pit and it took them at least an hour, and guess what, Mrs. Kathy was bringing them a little something for helping them out. Which again made me go on and on....... you need to be grateful for whatever she gives you, whether it be a penny, a nickel, or whatever it may be blah, blah, blah, blah.... Can you believe that woman gave them $3 each? They were thrilled!! Thanks Kathy!

Bummer

I bought some beef cutlets on sale this past weekend and decided I would make chicken fried steak. Feeding my children is a real challenge. They are really picky. I am sure they are what I have created, but I have deep feelings about forcing kids to eat things they don't like. That comes from my step dad, childhood scars. Anyway, they actually like steak fingers. I made the steak, rice, green beans, ( Pioneer Woman style) and the cream gravy. I have only made this meal a handful of times, because I can't ever get the gravy right. Guess what, it didn't turn out good tonight either. It was eaten up, but it didn't taste anything like my moms. Don't you just hate working so hard on something and it not coming out right?

Be Very Careful

America has a new soldier. He will kill you with cuteness. Brad bought the boys these BDU's the other day. One of the kids favorite things to do is run around the neighborhood with their friends and play war. They make teams, build forts, and run terrorizing, I mean playing all over the neighbors yards. It reminds me of the good old days when kids could run around and play without all the worrying. Doesn't that make me sound old? I do still worry about them, but they can't live in a bubble and I figure if someone decided to take them, they would return them really quickly. I mean who else could afford them?

We are so proud!!

Today Mason's baseball team played for 3rd place against a team that is rated way higher than our boys. We started out slow and were down 7-0 at the beginning of the third inning. The boys came alive and we scored 9 runs against them. One of the boys hit a triple with the bases loaded. The boys were so excited. The final score was 11-10, we didn't win, but the boys proved they are a force to be dealt with. You should have seen the parents. I think we were even happier than the boys. It was such an exciting game. We have sat through some really long and painful games. They earned their first tournament trophy for fourth place.

Busy weekend

This week is we have been driving to League City for the World Series. Mason's team is playing. League City has a complex called Big League Dreams. The fields are designed to look like major league parks. They have Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field, Finway Park, and a few others. Mason has been dreaming of playing here for a long time. The fields have turf throughout the entire infield. We had the opening ceremonies Wednesday, played a game Thursday morning at 9, Friday morning at 9, Saturday morning at 9 and 1, and we play tomorrow morning for third place at 9. It has been a long few days.

On another note, Kyle is having a party here tonight. I put Brad in charge of this and I am going to dinner with my friend Kathy. I don't know how much trouble a bunch of mormon kids can get into, but I will let Brad hold down the fort. I figured if I stay I will just get nervous they are going to get something on the carpet. I'll let you know how it goes.

Nephrologist

I took Mason to his nephrologist today for a check-up. He is doing great! We have been in remission since December. This is the longest we have ever gone. He used to relapse at least at least every two months or so. I count my blessings daily that he is staying so healthy. I am almost scared to type this, because I don't want to jinx it. The doctor decided to keep him on all the medications he has been taking. I have mixed feelings about this. Is the medicine just a band-aide keeping him in remission? When we go off the medicines, or start weening him off will he relapse? We can't keep him on them forever. The medicines taken over a long period of time can cause lots of damage to his kidneys of all things along with other long term complications. What is considered a long period of time? We have already been taking all this crap for three years. For now I am just going to be thankful that Mason is beginning to look like himself again. He has almost lost all the weight the prednisone made him gain. He is on such a low dose of that, you can hardly tell. It is crazy having such an active athletic boy that seems perfectly normal, but I always have that nagging little reminder that it can change in an instant. The doctor told me today they have a camp for kidney kids this summer and wants Mason to go. I wonder if he would like it? They will have a range of kids with different kidney conditions. I don't know how he would react to that. I am letting him decide what he wants to do. He is concerned he will miss football practice or a baseball tournament. Something tells me he won't be going.

I'm Back!!!!!

What a wonderful trip. We left Sunday morning around 7:30. It was a 10 hour drive. It was me and three other women in the car. We spent the whole trip talking. We didn't turn on the radio once. The drive seemed to go by really fast. The reason we went to Kansas was for a Love and Logic conference. It was really good and I learned a lot. I learned so much more about how to be a good parent and teacher. I even got to use a little of my new skills one of the nights we were there. Brad called and told me he had a problem with Kyle. He wanted a help trying to figure out how to handle the situation. I coached Brad and he handled it very well. You know parenting a teenager is new territory for us. The attitude is just about enough to send me over the edge.

The best part of the trip was the evening entertainment. It was so much fun spending a week just thinking about me. Doesn't that sound selfish? We played a game called left, right center on Monday. I was planning on winning, but ended up losing every game. It was fun anyway.

Tuesday night we were suppose to go to a baseball game, but we got rained out. We went to a movie instead. After the movie we went to Sonic for some ice cream. We sat outside at the tables so we could all place our own orders. While we were sitting there this car drove up with a group of ladies. The lady asked us how to order? We got a great big laugh at this poor ladies expense. I told her, "Just push the red button," but she kept going on and on about how to order. We asked them if they were first timers and one of the ladies said, "Yes, I don't eat this kind of food." Well, she doesn't know what she is missing.

Wednesday night we went and saw the Wichita Wingnuts baseball game. We had so much fun. People in the crowd kept coming to us and asking us if we would please come to every game. We were hooting and hollering and having a blast. We sang happy birthday to a 70 year old lady. Remember there wer 23 of us. A little while later two little girls came up and asked us if we were professional cheerleaders. They wanted us to sing happy birthday to one of them. They were too cute. Of course we sang to her. They had the biggest smiles on their faces when we were done. Those poor people didn't know this is what you get when you let a bunch of ladies out without our husbands and children. We just don't know how to act. The beer might have had a little to do with it too.

Thursday night we went to a dinner theater. It was Breaking Up is Hard To Do. The food wasn't that great, but the musical was excellent.

That was the end of the trip. Great fun was had by all. My family grew while I was gone. Mason was given a hamster by his cousin. He named it Abigail. The girls in the family have now tied the boys. It is me, Penny (dog), Cleo (cat), and Abilgail (hamster) against Brad, Mason, Tanner, and Kyle. Bad news is Abigail doesn't help with any of the household duties. One of the jokes we had on the trip was how nice it would be to have a sister wife. We would have someone to share all the household chores, how bad could it be? LOL I sure could have used that sister wife when I got home and had to spend all of Saturday trying to put my house back together and get it cleaned up.

Time for fun

We just got back from out trip to my mom's. Every year my mom gets the boys Schlitterbahn tickets for their birthdays. So we decided to make a little mini vacation out of it. We stayed at mom's house. She lives about 25 minutes from New Braunsfels. They are in Colorado at their cabin, so we had her house to ourselves. We went up Wednesday morning and stopped in San Marcos. Brad has a canoe he has really been anxious to use. We took our first trip down the San Marcos river. When we got in the canoe was rocking back and forth and I just knew we were all going to get dumped in. I wish we could have had a picture taken of us. It was me in the front, the boys in the middle holding Penny, and Brad in the back. I think I have been twice in my life. Once was at summer camp. It wasn't very successful. We just kept going in circles. I went with my brother once about 20 years ago and we did pretty well. Needless to say, I forgot how to paddle. Brad kept telling me to paddle right. I eventually figured it out. It turned out to be pretty fun. We stopped when we came to some rapids and let the boys swim and play in the water.

That night we went to Gruene for dinner at the Gristmill. We love to go there. The next day we drove into New Braunsfels to eat lunch. We stopped in at this little cafe/antique store. I found a church pew I have been looking for, for my entry way. I was so excited! Then we went and did the tube shoot and floated the river. It was really fun. We met my brother in San Antonio for dinner. It was nice seeing him again.

We went to Schlitterbahn on the 4th. It is the first time Brad has been able to go with us. We had so much fun. We stayed there the whole day. The only thing we were sad about was we didn't get to see any fireworks this year. By the time we got back to mom's we were really tired and I wasn't sure where to go and see any. We got home this afternoon. We hadn't been home 30 minutes and Mason was asking what we were going to do the rest of the day. I guess he expects the 24/7 fun to not stop.

Tomorrow morning I leave for a week long trip to Kansas. I have mixed feelings about this trip. I have never left my family. I know people that are always going away on a little trip with just their husband or away with friends, but I just haven't done it. Well, I take that back. I did go away one weekend about 4 years ago on a retreat with our church and one weekend to my grandmother's funeral. I love spending time with my kids and husband and anytime I go somewhere they are with me. I am looking forward to the week with only adults. It is a work related conference and about 20 of us from work are going. We are planning on doing some fun things in the evenings. Of course Brad is not going to be taking care of the kids by himself. They are going to spend a few days with Mimi and then she will bring them back here for the rest of the time. I am sure they will be really spoiled by the time I get back.