Not the performer we thought he was. Well, Thomas isn't the soccer superstar that he had us believing he was going to be. He does so well at practices, but cracks under the pressure of games. First, he wouldn't even sit for the team photo, throwing a fit and crying desparately. At his team's first game he wouldn't play until he watched from the sidelines for a while. And at the second game last weekend, he was so crabby that he just pouted and refused to participate at all. That's what we get for feeling superior to the parents whose kids were crybabies at practice.
Let's hope he's not allergic. We drove down to Poteet, Texas, two weekends back for their Strawberry Festival. While they are only the Strawberry Capital of Texas, not the World, it was still a huge festival. Thomas ate tons of strawberries, had some strawberry ice cream, and we sampled some strawberry wine. They had pig races, which was really fun, and Thomas got a blue ribbon for picking out the winning pig. His favorite part, however, was the cloggers. Even Evelyn enjoyed them, and tried clapping, which she wasn't very good at. There were lots of good exhibits, including from San Antonio's Drum and Bugle Corps, Revolution, which I didn't know existed. There was also a great equine rescue group, whose name I can't remember, so I'll add the link later.
Another big one. The most fun news is that Thomas and Evelyn have a new cousin! Tyler is Maddie and Gabi's new little brother who was just born a month ago. He was a huge newborn, about 10 pounds, and is the only Abdalla kid so far that favors his mom. It's nice that Thomas won't be the only boy cousin, although usually he has to work hard to keep up with Maddie, rather than vice versa.
Baby in a bucket. With the weather so pleasant lately, we try to get outside as much as possible. We took the kids to the park today and Evelyn got her first ride in a swing. I don't know what she enjoyed more, swinging or watching Thomas swing. She was very entertained by Thomas whooshing back and forth in the swing next to her. Honestly, she seemed more interested in eating the swing then anything else, but as long as she's happy....
Gaining altitude. Evelyn has been standing quite a bit lately. She will stand up and grin at you as if to say, "Hey, look at this! Where's the applause?" before she falls back on her bottom. She'll do this several times in a row until it's obvious that you're getting bored with it. She's been cruising a little, too , and even has tried to take a step while standing on her own, but mostly still gets around crawling. She's gotten pretty efficient, although she still keeps one knee up when she crawls like Thomas did.










