Monday, September 28, 2009

Soccer Mistress

Most Sunday's, I head off for a couple of hours to burn off a little accumulated rage. I have been with Havoc FC for a number of years. Last year we finally had a team's worth of players over the age of 30, and moved out of the open division and into the "BenGay and ankle braces league" also know as Over 30. I took a couple of shots at the game yesterday.




We are the team in black.


This is the look of a team that is losing in a bad way.


That is how you pull a hip flexor in the Over 30



Just another beautiful day to kick around.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Another Busy Weekend

Sarah's parents were in town for the weekend. We had a great visit and are sorry to see them go home, but they will be back soon enough, once the twins are born.


Sawyer helped Grandpa Wehr put together his new grocery cart.


"Actually Grandpa, I think it goes like this."


The finished product...oh what fun.


Shopping for kids clothes....I can't think of anything more fun....oh, wait, I can.


Sarah and her mom debating the importance of getting the correct shirt. Which is more important - trucks or hammers - oh what the hell, lets just get both.


I figured I would take this opportunity to get the picture for our upcoming Christmas card, thank goodness all of the department stores have had their Christmas stuff up since July 5th.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Sawyer and Friends

This is what happens when you let me dress Sawyer. I honestly thought that the outfit looked good, but I was quickly corrected.



Sawyer went out for some Mexican food with his good friend Lilly. They were kind enough to bring their parents along. The funny thing is that even at this age they know each other by name. When we ask Sawyer if he wants to go see Lilly he always says "Yaaa" and sometimes will try and and say Lilly which sounds more like LLLLLLLaaaaAA




"Look over there"




Going in for the sweetness


"MMMMMMM, I don't know about all this kissing"


Just a couple of troublemakers looking for something to get into.


Pretty Girl


I like this shot of Lilly.


Boys and their trucks


The new cigarette inspired Oreo cookie treat.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

My New Work Home


I started this school year by taking a new job in Round Rock Independent Schools in the position of Academic Dean at Bluebonnet Elementary. I know what you are thinking, "WOW" that sounds really important, but the reality is something a little less lustrous. As the Academic Dean, I am essentially the campus administrator (i.e. principal, asst. principal) responsible for working on instructional improvement. I have thoroughly enjoyed my new position because it has me working with teachers and students more and doing mindless paperwork less. I have been blessed to work with a wonderful group of teachers and an awesome leadership team.

Yolanda runs the office (and school) and is the person who gets things done.


Margo is the assistant principal at Bluebonnet. Let me tell you a little about my good friend Margo. First, she is going to kill me for putting this picture up. Second, when we moved to Austin 7 years ago, Margo was Sarah's mentor teacher during her time at Berkman. Margo inspires me and I love working with her.


Lucy is the principal. She is a true professional and I am constantly learning things from her. She is a huge Georgia Bulldog fan and she has a dog named Peaches she has taught to read.

I am so excited about this school year, and look forward to going to work everyday.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Multiple Mess

Last Friday Sarah, Sawyer and I went out for a lovely evening on the town. We went for dinner at Hyde Park. Sawyer was great as usual, he seems to enjoy eating way to much to be a stinker. Following this delightful dinner, we made our way to south Austin, to the AMOM (Austin Mom's of Multiples) semi-annual garage sale. Here are my thoughts on the experience.



1. When holding a massive sale that requires a gym in order to contain all of the stuff, make sure that you have it at a location with more then 25 parking spaces, or at least neighborhood street parking. We wandered around for 20 minutes trying to find a place to park, and eventually settled on illegally parking in an apartment complex nearby.



2. When having an massive sale, where you know a couple hundred people are going to be attending, try and have more then 2 people at the checkout. The line to check out wrapped around the room. Some couples upon arriving just sent the husband to stand in line, in order to check out an hour later.



3. If you didn't want your crap, there will always be somebody who would be willing to store it in their house. I am all for resale, Craigslist, and ebay, but some of the items I saw at this sale was complete and utter crap (which I am sure somebody put into their cart and then promptly waited in line for and hour and a half, just to take home and store in their garage, only to be sold at future garage sales.)



4. WARNING: If you are a parent of multiples this may offend you, or just confirm what you already have suspected. These people are weird. Maybe it is just the group in Austin, but these people act like they are in a little cult. I am sure there are quite a few normal parents of multiples, but at this "Garage Sale", if you weren't flying your freak flag you were the weird ones.

Big Changes @ Bakers in TEXAS

It has been a couple of weeks since I have posted anything, and as many of you have realized, Sarah hasn't posted anything in a while. I will give you a little insight on that particular issue. Sarah hasn't been blogging in a while, because she has been trying to think of a new and clever name for the blog, and until she finds something clever she just hasn't been motivated to post. WELL, I think she has officially made up her mind on what she is going to do. She is going to post a sister blog to tell her side of the stories. This hopefully means that we will often blog about the same things, but from different perspectives. So in the next couple of weeks look for an brand new and shiny blog with a heavy dose of estrogenic (is that even a word) perspective. I know that I am excited to see what is to come.

In order to speed this process along I am asking that people submit potential names for the new blog. Here are a couple that I have brainstormed.

My Life in Potty Jokes (my life in a house full of boys, both big and little)
Yankee Chick in the ATX
Bakers in TX - the real story

You get the idea, so have at it, we need Sarah to come off this writing block.


Here are a couple of pictures from the last couple of weeks, and yes that is rain, and like most kids, Sawyer loves to play in the rain.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Dinner at the Drakes

About once a month we get together with a group of friends and have great food and fantastic home crafted beer. Annie and Kelly always have everybody over and we just sit around and eat and catch up on each others lives. Sometimes we play cards or other games, sometimes we get into lively discussions about politics, and at Easter, we have the most competitive egg dying competition I have ever seen (people are already talking about the eggs they are planning for next spring.


This picture really doesn't do it justice, because there is so much food each and every time, we always leave feeling stuffed.


Sawyer always wants to play with the yard games, especially when they involve balls.


Annie, our wonderful cook and host.


The Solan's kicking back by the pool, while the kids are swimming.

Getting Old

The Labor Day weekend is finally coming to a close and tomorrow we head back to work. Sunday the highlight of the day made me feel very old.....we went to the opening of a new grocery store. This place was tailor made to create a crabby husband in about ......oh......3 seconds, and it would have been less time had they not been offering generous sample sizes of the coffee. The place was packed with people, most of whom came just to take a look. We met the Gunther's there. If you thought the husbands could get crabby, just try bringing a couple of kids less then 3 into the place. Sawyer had a solid dinner of licorice, sour patch kids, and vinegar chips, just to keep him from grabbing all of the gluten free products and throwing them on the floor. I know, I know, parents of the year stuff.


Heading in to the craziness. (Sarah told me not to take pictures from this angle for a while, so this shot has been tastefully edited to make it blog worthy)


Sarah and Jess discussing what new and exciting form of torture they can inflict on Keri and I.


Keri with the "I had better not hear any complaining about golf next time look"


I sure as hell didn't see anybody selling anything out of the back of a truck, so I am pretty sure that you can't call yourself a farmers market.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Backyard revival

As a number of you can attest, our backyard would be best suited for Feed the Children advertisement. I can promise we, I mean, I will be undertaking the task of making it a place people will be safe dog poop, weeds, or wild animals feeding on the compost pile.

With the help of good friends, we have the phase one up and already in use. Last weekend I helped a friend move a play-scape they had bought on Craigslist to their house. It was actually a little more involved then that (we had to take the thing apart to even move it out of the other backyard) but it only took us the morning to move it.

Now that the Solan's have a bigger and better play-scape, they were kind enough to give us their small one. Sawyer loved it right away, and has been using it almost everyday. Thank you Solan's.







Still loves that lawnmower...Sawyer can spend an hour just pushing that around the yard (aka Feed the Children backdrop)


Sawyerland in all of its glory...we aren't so sure about the swings, but we love everything else.


For some reason Sawyer prefers to go down the slide on his stomach (that is on all slides, not just this one)

Peek-a-boo

Storm + Dog = Balance

From Dog

We haven't had many rain storms down here in Austin in like.....oh.....forever, but when we do the dog has discovered a new safe-place. The psychology of Sabine is very interesting, I often wonder what Cesar aka "the dog whisperer" would say about our very eccentric girl. I expect it would go something like this "there are 2 ends of a leash, and we are going to spend quite a lot of time training one end (that would be the end that doesn't poop in the yard and steal cookies from babies".

With two more babies on the way, Sarah has taken it upon herself to get Sabine whipped into shape. And by that, I mean breaking all of the old habits Sarah originally allowed her to start. Here are a few examples:

Sabine as slept at the end of our bed since the first night we brought her home. That first night when the cute little puppy was crying in the middle of the night, Sarah said, "Lets just bring her into bed, it will be fine." Me, being the voice of reason, stated "Just let her cry", well, as any husband smart enough to know that you just do as your are told at 3am will attest, the dog got into bed with us, and went right to sleep. The rest is history.

Fast forward to when Sarah is gestating not one baby, but two, and suddenly that dog causes more bedtime unhappiness then jalapeno sausage roll right before bed. So now the dog has taken to sleeping in her "chair" until Sarah is asleep and then promptly jumps up in bed. It is really funny to watch, because the dog will just sit in the chair and watch Sarah until she is sure that Sarah is completely out and then hop up and assume her usual spot.

We, and by "we" I mean Sarah, are waging similar wars on the couch, nursery chair, and at dinner time. I am not going to hedge my bets yet, but Sabine is going to prove a very stubborn adversary for Sarah, who is equally stubborn.

From Dog