Happy Halloween

What do to an elf, a candy corn, a pirate, and a lamb have in common? Not much other than they are easy costumes to create the night before Halloween. I believe the kids originally wanted to be a vampire, a princess, and a tractor, but they kindly scaled back their ideas this year given that I didn't have a lot of time to work on costumes this year due to all my travels.

Gabe didn't have an opinion, so I just recycled Elizabeth's first Halloween costume. One key difference was Elizabeth was standing without support. Gabe isn't there yet.

Elizabeth, 9 months, 2005

Despite being born on Valentine's Day, Elizabeth's favorite holidays are Halloween and Christmas, so she decided to combine the two for her costume. She came up with the idea of stripes and pom pom buttons. I suggested candy corn to Ava. She wasn't sure about it, but willing to go along with it because I said short dress and tights.

Casey has had a thing for pirates lately and I figured that I could whip up some pants and a vest real quick. Knowing that we had some accessories in our dress up box. Ryan really enjoys Halloween but had to work, which left me trying to figure out how to take the kids trick-or-treating and pass out candy. My solution was to take the kids downtown to trick-or-treat at the local shop from 4-6pm, and then be then be home to hand out candy. Only I didn't bet on two things: 1)Rain 2) Gabriel getting sick.

The rain started in the morning, and around lunch time I got a call from daycare that Gabriel was running a fever of 102 and that I had to pick him up. He was a miserable little kid all afternoon. However, the older ones were just as miserable when I mentioned that we probably shouldn't go trick or treating because Gabriel was sick and it was pouring. I tried to get their mind off trick or treating by offering to make Halloween cupcakes or have a candy hunt around the house. They really didn't buy my ideas, so at 5: 45pm we packed up the car and drove the couple of miles to downtown Fayetteville. There the kids trick or treated the three blocks of shops. It worked out perfectly. Pedestrian traffic was light because of the rain and the shops were getting ready to close, so store owners were passing out a ton of candy. The kids had small bags, to they filled them up quickly. Within 30 minutes they had amassed a full bag of candy and were cold and wet and ready to go home. Our last store we stopped at was make you own jewelry store, they were passing out goodies bags and invited us in to warm up and partake in cupcakes that had been donated by the bakery across the street that had closed at 5pm. I love small towns. 

By 6:30pm we were home. I got Gabe off to bed, and worked on homework and dinner with the kids. Casey took on the role of candy distributor to the souls who braved the cold, dark, and rain to collect their loot. Please excuse the pictures they were taken after the kids wore their Halloween costumes all day at school, and trick or treated in the rain.

2010 Christmas Letter

For those of you who didn't receive our letter in the mail (I probably don't have your address), or for those of you would like to re-read our yearly letter, here it is.

Knight 2010 Christmas Letter

“DONG. DONG. DONG. DONG. DONG. DONG.” A deep bell sound rolls down from the chapel, through Cadet area, across The Plain, moves to the Hudson, and disappears with a hint of sadness hanging in the air. Then in unison but monotone and dreary, “Six bells and all is well. Another week shot to hell. Another week in my little grey cell. Another week in which to excel. Oh hell.” In the old days, my plebe year at West Point (1997), we had formation every Sunday evening at 6 O’clock and if you weren’t in formation by the time the bells chimed you were late. The plebes marked another week down with this recitation. And now I mark another year down with this. I wish I had exciting stories to tell, or life lessons to reflect on, or humiliating experiences; I don’t. I have the daily drudge that is life with three children (from here forward to be referred to as “little monsters”). “DONG.” I started off the year leaving my wife to battle the little monsters while I spent the month in Houston on a pediatric rotation. With an odd schedule she was left doing the traveling and drove multiple times out to visit. This adventure consisted of convincing the girls that their room in the 1 bedroom apartment was the walk in closet. They each created their “beds” on the ground and loved it. At least we got to see some of the sites – I went to San Jacinto and we all hit up the Space Center and the natural history museum – otherwise known as an infomercial for “Big Oil” as it teaches all about the oil business and how great/clean it is. “DONG.” After a month home I again packed up and left Kristin with the little monsters for a pediatric rotation in Cincinnati. Being the longest time I’ve been in Cincy since moving away in 1997 I took full advantage. I got to catch up with family and friends and even made a guest appearance at a UC residency function. Joy (my best friend’s wife) is probably about now no longer sick of me. The highlight was Kristin and the little monsters coming to visit – Lizzy rode uncle Austin’s motorcycle with training wheels, Ava drove a Powerwheels Jeep endlessly, and CJ was in heaven with a real farm tractor. “DONG.” After briefly being a family again Kristin said her “Good-byes”, took off for Estonia for a month with the Marine Corps Reserves, and left me with the little monsters. It was fantastic. Kristin got to be a Marine again and I got to create two daddy’s girls and one daddy’s boy. “DONG.” I started as Chief Resident in June and this dominated my time through October. If I wasn’t working, I was working. We took some time to explore some of Texas by going through the state parks and hitting up the Hill Country. In October little CJ (barely 2½) completed a 6 mile hike through one of the parks. He may have whined, he may have tried to refuse, and he certainly needed bribing with food every ¼ mile but he made it and impressed me. Lizzy essentially ran the 6 miles and asked for more. We also found out that we would be welcoming a 4th to our crowd of little monsters - a brother for CJ. “DONG.” The fall was marked by Lizzy starting true Kindergarten at the local elementary school and Ava having to cope with the loss of Lizzy and her 1 friend going to different schools. This forced Ava to make friends and be sociable. Lizzy learned to ride a bike, is doing great with reading, and impresses the world with her fashion sense (yes, cowboy boots go with everything). “DONG.” The end of the year has ended with a flurry of activity after an overall boring year. It started with a rejection after a job interview. I’m pretty good at it by now – I applied to 7 medical schools and decorated my wall at West Point with 6 rejection letters. I love the standard lines – yadda, yadda, we chose to go with someone else, but please be ready in case something doesn’t work out because we’d still love to have you in the unit. In other words, you were, at best, second best and we are hoping everything works out so that we’re not stuck with you. My second interview went well enough and I accepted a position working at Ft. Bragg, NC. So, we are headed back to where everything started for us 10 years ago (it was 10 years ago that we found out I was going to Ft. Bragg and Kristin to Camp Lejeune). Immediately after getting back from my interview we flew out to Sedona, AZ for vacation with Kristin’s family. Opa (Kristin’s grandfather) celebrated #88 and we put some miles on the little monsters’ shoes. This included 1 mile into the Grand Canyon (and back – once again much whining by CJ) and many other trails. Now we’re back to the dredge and hoping the grey period doesn’t set in. As usual, we hope this finds everyone well. Maybe next year I can produce something humorous and entertaining for your bathroom reading pleasure. Until then, we hope to cross paths. Do you hear it? That’s the sound of the wind whisking the bells away down the Hudson.

December Round Up

After returning from Arizona, the hustle and bustle of our normal lives quickly returned. Elizabeth jumped back into school, and Ryan returned to work after almost a month off. The girls finished off their soccer and T-ball seasons. Casey continued to impress his speech therapist and gymnastics teacher. I caught up on work for my regular job, plus work for the BAMC Auxiliary, and threw a "Winter Party" for Elizabeth's Kindergarten class. Ava chickened out of our church's Christmas Pageant, but Elizabeth participated as an angel, waving at us in the audience the whole time she was on stage. Gifts were bought, wrapped, and shipped. Any hopes I had of finishing some sewing projects in time for Christmas quickly went out the window. At least, there is still hope of getting them done in time for birthdays and other holidays. I made a pathetic attempt at decorating the house for Christmas. The kids kept asking where our outside lights were, but at 8 months pregnant I really didn't feel like climbing a ladder to hang them. As part of our yearly tradition, we bought our tree at half off a few days before Christmas. The kids enjoyed doing the decorating this year. However, I wasn't sure if some of the branches were going to support the weight of a dozen ornaments, and nothing was hung above 44".

I think it looked great! No San Antonio tree would be complete without a "Go Spurs" sign. I almost forgot to mention that Elizabeth took Ryan to a Spurs game in December, since she had earned some free tickets for selling cookie dough as part of her school's fundraiser. She still loves the Bengals, but she is now a die hard Spurs fan. At least one team has a winning track record.

Ryan had to work on Christmas Day, so we woke the kids up at 5am to celebrate before he went to work. It didn't take long for the kids to rub the sleep out of their eyes, and behold all the goodies that Santa had brought. Ryan bought the family a video camera for Christmas, so we have lots of video of footage of the kids on Christmas morning, but we forgot to take any regular photos. You will have to take my word for it that there were lots of excited squeals, laughs, happy faces, and joy. Not to mention a mountain of paper and boxes all over the place. The Black Friday Powerwheels was a huge hit. Casey immediately claimed it as "his" and spent all of Christmas day loading and unloading "his" truck with all his new gifts. However, he isn't a very good driver, so at least he will let his sisters help out in that department. Ryan took off the week between Christmas and New Years and I worked half days. He and the kids made it to one of the missions here in San Antonio. Together, we took the kids to Sea World to see the holiday animal shows and the girls were big enough to ride a few rides. We also had a chance to get together with the Crittenden family who made the trek from DC to Austin for the holidays. It was great to hang out with my best friend, Crystal, and I always enjoy seeing our girls play together. New Year's Eve was a quiet celebration with neighbors, however heard it did get rowdier after I went to bed. At least I made it to midnight this year which was better than I did last year. Overall, I think we all survived the month of December without too much stress or strain. It really was a quiet and calm holiday season.

Thanksgiving

No pictures but lots of memories. My mom, Grammy, joined us for 5 days over the Thanksgiving Holiday. She easily adapted to our crazy life, starting off with picking the kids up early from day care and dragging them to the clinic to get their annual shots. Eight shots between the three kids, however Ava ended up with 5 of them. On Wednesday, I convinced my mom that she would have plenty of time to visit with the kids over the next few days and that we should drop them off at daycare and have a grown-up day. We took a road trip up to the quaint town (and birth place of Admiral Nimitz) of Fredericksburg, TX to pick up some fudge, Christmas wine, and do some window shopping and lunch. I had a really nice time away from work and the kids. I think my mom enjoyed it as well. Thursday was full of feasting. Ryan's stepmother, Gerlyn, hosted the whole family again at her place. I have to say that I have gotten off easy the past few years. I have not made a turkey, ham, pie, or other holiday dish since moving to Texas. The kids kept my mom entertained with "watch this," "come see this," "please, help with this," "read this," "come play," and so on and so forth. We were stuffed and exhausted by the end of the day. For the first time ever, I awoke at 2am on Friday morning to partake in a Black Friday Deal. Leaving the rest of the family in bed, I put on a couple of layers of warm clothes to stand in line at the H-E-B Plus (similar to Walmart) for the next couple of hours. Other than a cold front coming through and it being 44 degrees, it wasn't too bad. I met some nice people, didn't get trampled, got a great deal on a X-mas present for the kids, and was back in bed by 4:30am. After sleeping in for a few extra hours, I rejoined the world of the living and went with my mom and the girls to see the movie Tangled. It was a cute flick, but I was more impressed that Ava sat still for an entire movie. I don't think I have ever seen her sit still for more than 20 minutes prior to this event. Saturday came too soon, and it was time to put my mom back on the plane. The kids were already to go with her, and I would have gladly shipped them off for a week. Perhaps in the future.

Happy New Year!

Greetings to all, as you can see we are ringing in the love this year. The kids promise me that there will be no more fighting, whining, or crying.

Their resolution was broken about 10 minutes into the new year, but it was a nice idea anyway.

Santa Claus

Thank you family and friends for helping make the kids' Christmas wonderful. They are blessed with so many grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and close friends that there is always a plethora of good things under the tree. There is nothing like the wide eyes and bright grin on a child's face Christmas morning. Obviously, they had you all fooled, because they probably didn't deserve anything other than coal this year. There are definitely some rough days trying to keep up with 3 kids under the age of 4. Christmas week was no exception when all three kids came down sick. Thank goodness for Tylenol, Motrin, and cough syrup...and lots of it. We were able to get them a point of medicated bliss, so that they could actually enjoy the holiday.

Ava looking a little out of it, but trust me, the see-saw is one of her favorite toys. She doesn't even like to let her sister use it.

This will probably be our last mellow Christmas. Elizabeth is now at an age where she gets pretty stoked about Christmas.

Another masterpiece!

She starts her list early in the year, and loves the whole concept of Santa Claus. She was the one who called out with glee upon seeing scooters, motorcycles, presents, and a picnic table under the tree on Christmas morning. At least, she remains grateful and wants to call Santa and thank him for all the great presents. (I told her she has to write him a letter.) Ryan even heard her and Ava a few days later chanting "thank you Santa" while riding their see-saw. Next year Ava will be three and we think Christmas will be a flurry of wrapping paper and screams as Captain Destructo really gets into the action.

Despite their illness, there was still some holiday cheer. My little mermaids checked out their stocking stuffer, color changing tablets for the bath tub.

Elizabeth is still a fan of pirates. With costumes, ships, and action figures for Christmas, what more could a girl want. Casey even got into the action. He thought the fish tank was pretty cool. Actually just to bow which he kept yanking off and eating.Ava's favorite gift was pink and purple underwear. I can now say with some confidence that she is potty trained. We have been working on it for the last month and a half, and I think she finally has it. She is just so pleased with herself to be wearing undies now. That and pink glitter shoes. Happy New Year!

It is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

Yesterday, it was 76 degrees and we went to buy our Christmas tree in shorts and a t-shirt. I am not sure how I feel about this. I like being able to enjoy the outdoors for so many months out of the year, but I do like snow. There are some other big differences between D.C. and Texas. Last year, we went to buy our Christmas tree on December 24th at 4pm. The salesman seemed insulted when we asked if there were any discounts on their trees. No discount, slim pick'ins, and we sulked away with a $50 tree. Trees were always overpriced in DC, but I was still a little worries about what we would pay in DC since the evergreen tree isn't native. This year there were still slim pick'ins because we procrastinated so long, in fact the first place we stopped had closed up shop. So, we drove over to a local nursery, they had 42 trees left to be exact, but they were all half off. The original price on most was $75. We had narrowed down our selection when one of the sales ladies mentioned that there were a couple of trees up front for sale. That had been decorated and used in the background for their pictures with Santa promotion. Ryan and I took a look, one of the trees was about 4ft tall, but he other one was great. A 7ft tall Douglas Fir with lights, tinsel, some ornaments, a big bow, and fake snow all for the special price of $27. Merry Christmas, who doesn't love a good deal! You will be sure to see some pictures of this fabulous find on Christmas Day. Happy Holidays! P.S. Today it is in the 40's and very windy, so much for the balmy weather of last week.

Happy Thanksgiving

Aw, some quiet time to update this site. All the kids (including Ryan are napping), so I actually have a little over an hour to myself. As much as I would like to take a nap too, I can think of more productive ways to spend my time. Ryan has been working the night shift for the last 3 weeks (11pm-7am), and Thanksgiving was no exception. Since Ryan worked Wednesday night, I spent Thursday morning keeping the kids quiet, so that Ryan could get some sleep. Still, I had to wake him up early, so that we could make the trek to Gram and Bub's house for Thanksgiving Dinner. The Knight/Friesenhahn crowd could rival a Melink gathering. There were probably 30-40 folks for dinner. We enjoyed turkey with all the sides and about 8 different desserts. As you can see, the party wore everyone out.

Leftover Halloween Fun

A few days after Halloween I hit the thrift stores to see if I could find any discounted costumes for the girls dress up box. I had some luck and picked up a purple princess outfit, a spider costume, and a clown outfit complete with a big bow tie and face paint. The girls were begging me to let them paint their faces, so I figured the bathtub was the safest place to conduct this activity. They had a good time and we have pictures to remember it. Luckily we used up all the paint so I don't have to repeat this activity anytime soon, because I still have a red ring in my bathtub.

All clean!

Halloween Horrors and Fun

For the past 4 years I have made the kids Halloween costumes. (I did cheat one year and got Ava a store bought costume when she was 2 months old). I don't proclaim to be "super mom" and I don't consider myself that crafty, but this was my way of doing something extra special for the kids when I was working full time. Since I am a stay at home mom right now, I decided to tackle making costumes for all three kids this year. I must say that the level of stress this project brought about and lack of sleep ranks right up there with some the convoy operations that I conducted in Iraq. First, I waited way to long to start this project. Finally on the Monday before Halloween, I took the kids to the fabric store. My original idea was to make they 3 little monkey, but the store was out of dark brown fake fur. My sister later suggested that I could have made purple or orange monkeys but I am not that daring. Therefore, I opted to make them three little mice, put some sun glasses on them and they are the three blind mice. By late Monday afternoon, I had a pattern, fabric, and my sewing machine out, but I am sure many of you can relate to how hard it is to get anything done with little kids under foot. "After feeding them broth, without any bread, spanking them soundly, and putting them to bed," I was able to get down to work. Monday night I was up until 2am, and then on Tuesday night around 10pm my sewing machine broke. It wasn't the best machine in the world and I have used it a bunch in the last 5 years, but it wasn't a good time for it to break. On Wednesday, I took all the kids to Walmart to buy a new sewing machine. For those of you who are wondering where Ryan is in all of this, he was working at Fort Hood for the week, 3 hours away. Anyway, I stayed up until 2am again on Wednesday, and 1am on on Thursday in order to have all three costumes ready for Halloween on Friday. Well, I got them all done and they were absolutly adorable, both the kids and the costumes. Ryan came home for the weekend. I took the kids to their school party first, and then we all hung out in our cul de sac handing out to trick-or-treaters.

Here are my three little mice raiding the pantry at their school's Harvest Festival. (Don't worry, I will post some additional pictures of the kids all dressed up.)

Earlier in the week the kids had a Halloween party with our playgroup, since my sewing machine broke mid-week and the mice costumes werent' finished yet, I let the kids dress up in their back up costumes. Lizzy of course had a blast being Spiderman. Ava was just into "juice and cake." Casey is just one laid back dude.

Pumpkin Patch

No Halloween is complete without a visit to the pumpkin patch. The kids got to go with Gina-mom and Michael-dad over the weekend, but we still wanted to take the kids as well. Lizzy informed me that they had more fun with their grandparents and that the other pumpkin patch was cooler (since we found out that most of the extra activities are not open on weekdays). However, after bribing them with cookies they thought that this pumpkin patch was okay also.

Chillin' on a stump with cousin Reina.

Staged hayride can still bring some smiles.The girls with Ryan's godson, Luke. (By the way, Lizzy tells me all the time that she has a baby in her belly named Baby Luke) Forced photo with pumpkin, they were much happier eating cookies.

Halloween Fun with Dad

Ryan got lucky the other week and found himself with some extra free time during the kid's waking hours, so besides sharing communicable diseases around the family, he was able to do a couple of Halloween activities with the kids before taking off to Fort Hood, TX for the latter portion of October and the beginning of November.

The girls and Ryan purchased the cookie house about a month ago, and were just waiting for October to hit, so that they would decorate it. As you can see, it looks just like the picture on the box. Lizzy also requested a Spiderman pumpkin. Ryan was hoping that she would choose her other favorite idol, Batman, for ease of carving, but no such luck. However, I think he did a great job and pulled off a fantastic Spiderman pumpkin. I know Elizabeth is very pleased with his handy work.

Easter Fun

I had my family back together for about 12 hours, then Ryan headed off to a NASCAR race for the weekend. Since the girls and I are not big fans, we decided to make our own fun. On Saturday we went over to Henderson Hall Marine Base for their "Brunch with the Bunny" event with some friends. The girls had a blast!

Elizabeth really enjoyed dancing, cupcakes, and the bunny. Ava was more into scouring for eggs.