Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Into everything

How's the baby?  
"He's into everything."  
But how's he doing?  
"Fine - into everything."  

           Yes, I have an adorable 10 month old who makes me indescribably happy.  And yes, he is a blessing from God.  I know that.  But. He. is. into. everything.

          I must have forgotten about this stage.  The Momma-can't-do-anything-while-baby-is-awake-b/c-baby-rules-the-roost stage.  He is constantly on the go and for lack of a better set of words (forgive me) into everything.  He loves TV remotes, loves the speakers in front of the entertainment center, loves the Wii equipment, loves Nintendo DSis, loves iPhones, loves dog food (dog food?  yes.  keep reading.)  Yes, we are good parents and put these things out of his reach but I do have 2 other children who may forget occasionally a lot.

          He love to be right in the center of the action.  Especially the dinner table.


         He tried dog food the other day.  I was cleaning the kitchen and I thought I had my eye on him.  He showed me - I dug 3 pieces of dog food out of his mouth!  Don't judge me- we've all been there!  


            For a week or so, his new fascination was with the stairs.  I follow him in there and watch him attempt to climb them.  At one point, he tried to go back down forwards and tumbled his way down into my arms.  That was enough to scare him.  For now.  

         
             He followed Daddy out to get the paper on Sunday.  And didn't want to come in.  I can't blame him.  It was a gorgeous day.  

            Each morning, after the kids leave for school, Bubba and I have a routine.  I get my cup of coffee, put him in his exersaucer, and I get a little computer time in.  Most of the time, he is happy playing in it, looking out the window, and jabbering away.  Not today.  I watched him lean wwwwaaaaaayyyyyy over and slide right out of it.  He didn't hurt himself.  He happily crawled away as if he was escaping the horrible captivity I put him in.  Great.  There goes the last place I can safely put him in to get something done.  Nice.

            But hear me out, I am not complaining.  I know, it sounds like I am.  I think I forgot how busy these little guys can be.  How you have to be so vigilant and with them 24/7.  I love to see him explore and check out new things around the house.  I am with him, watching him, letting him touch stuff, letting him learn.  I love it.  How could I not with this precious face?


         Hate to cut this post short- he's on the move again.......



Friday, March 26, 2010

Spring Break Day 7: A Big Hike!

             We finally did it!  After talking about climbing the rock for 2 years, we finally hiked up the 423 foot summit last Friday.  Dad took the day off and Grandma took care of the baby, so we were off!
            Enchanted Rock is an enormous pink granite hill that is in the middle of the Texas Hill Country.  Folklore of the local Apache and Comanche tribes ascribed magical and spiritual powers to the rock, hence the name, Enchanted Rock.  There are lots of "legends" surrounding the rock, from if you spend the night on the rock you will become invisible to it is haunted by an American Princess who threw herself off the rock after witnessing the slaughter of her people.  Hmmm....
            Really, Enchanted Rock is named after the unexplained creaking & groaning, which geologists attribute to the rock's night-time contraction after being heated by the sun all day.  Can you imagine that sound waking you up in the middle of the night??
       We started our trek to the top and with only a few stops to catch our breaths take some pictures, we made it fairly quickly.
        This is such a popular Texas attraction that you have to get their early before they close the gates once they reach capacity.  You can see the line of cars waiting to get in.
Almost there!
Once at the top, we set about exploring and found lots of fun rocks and crevices to crawl around it.
And took some fun pictures....

       
This picture doesn't show how high up we were, but look closely at the tiny people in the crevice below.

         We hardly ever get out as a family and enjoy the the State Parks, so I am so glad we were able to climb and hike and take full advantage of the day together.  It was a great way to end Spring Break 2010.


Wednesday, March 24, 2010

I'm a Pepper, your a Pepper, Wouldn't ya like to be a Pepper too?

            While in Waco at the zoo last week, we took a quick trip to the Dr Pepper Museum.  Dr Pepper was created in 1885 in Morrison's Old Country Store in Waco, Texas by a pharmacist, and no, his name was not Dr. Pepper.  It was Charles Alderton and he made it out of 23 unique flavors.  What are they?  The museum never tells, as it is supposed to be a secret.  However, my little friend Google shared with me that some of the 23 flavors are vanilla, black licorice, carrot, rum, and yes, pepper.  Most people think that it has prune juice in it...nope, not a drop!
           And why was it named Dr Pepper?  They are a lot of rumors out there that involve young love of a girl with the last name of Pepper, but none have been proven.  As the museum says, "we don't know the true origin of the name, Mr. Morrison came up with it and it stuck."
            It was a great little museum that had the history of the bottling plant, showed the deep well where the water was brought up to make the original Dr Pepper.  It displayed lots of the old ads.  Do you remember this one? Just a catchy little tune that I used to sing as a child.
             Now the original Dr Pepper was made with Imperial Cane Sugar, not the high fructose corn syrup that is used so much today.  You can get a Dr Pepper in the soda shop at the museum, made the original way with the syrup and carbonated water mixed together.  It has the real sugar in it and it is yummy.
         Other things we learned that day?

Around 1950, the period was taken out between Dr and Pepper.  They wanted to take the "medical connotation" away form the soda.  Never realized there wasn't one there until they pointed it out to me.

The Beatles originally named their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band as "Dr. Pepper's" but had to change it based on the U.S. soda owning the name.

Many people like to drink hot Dr Pepper, made with lemon and boiled on the stove.  Hmm...i don't think so.

Dr Pepper is the oldest "major-brand" soft drink in the United States. Coca-Cola did not come a long until 1886 and Pepsi was invented in 1898.

        So what do you think Bubba Boy?  Was the Dr Pepper museum a hit?  Considering I told you all you need to know about Dr Pepper, consider yourself as having been there.  But being a native Texan, the Dr Pepper museum is a must.  It's a part of our pop-culture history!


Monday, March 22, 2010

Spring Break Day 5: Sunny Weather!

           We had beautiful weather on Wednesday of Spring Break, so we headed up to Waco to the local zoo.  It is a great little zoo with fun animals to see and it really was the perfect day to go.  Please excuse the picture overload here - there were so many great photo opportunities!

marveling at all the turtles at the zoo - really guys, there are many more exotic animals to see!
like Texas crocodiles
and scary komodo dragons...
and crazy kids hanging around like monkeys. Oh yes, that's my boy.
we got some great "grandparent-time" in too.

Bubba loved his PaPa.
And Brody loved to find things to hang on.....
Where was Sissy?
she's way too cool for that!  


Sunday, March 21, 2010

Spring Break Day 3: Let's Try it

           We didn't travel this year for Spring Break and we had company in town, so we decided to try some fun activities at home this year.  As you read on my last post, we had so much fun at the Zilker Park Kite Festival, that the kids wanted to try to fly some kites themselves.  Luckily, we had a blustery, chilly March day on Monday- perfect weather to get some kites up.

a little help from daddy.....

success!

what is half her size looks so tiny when it's flying up high in the sky!

even Bubba enjoyed the kites!

perfect kite flying weather!


takes lots of concentration to fly a kite this well!



Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Spring Break: Let's Go Fly A Kite!


       Nothing says Spring Break better than a fantastic kite festival in Austin!!  It was a perfect day for one as well- in the high 70s with a slight wind to lift all these kits up...and there were kites!!!


         Sis and her friend tried to get a little kite up, but for some reason, it just didn't want to fly.  It was one that was given to us and the parents suspect it was given away b/c of it's lack of flying abilities!



        But that didn't keep us from other fun activities at the festival:



Brody rock-climbed



Sis got her face-painted


And the Baby-boy just looked around in fascination.

 He had a prime seat!


          Afterwards, we tried a pizza joint in downtown Austin that has been recommended to us for years- Homeslice- uh, let's just say we didn't care about healthy eating that day- we were in heaven!!!!  It was a perfect family day.  And a great Spring Break Adventure!


Monday, March 15, 2010

A Fun Start to Spring Break


         I like to celebrate the start of Spring Break - oh, who am I kidding, I like to celebrate everything.  So, in honor of a week off from school and the beautiful sunny weather, we hosted a "St. Patrick's Day Photo Scavenger Hunt" at the local park.  Inspired by our sweet friends, The Linebargers (Christie can be found at Pop Rocks for Breakfast), who have thrown very fun adult photo scavenger hunts, we thought it would be a fun kid activity.  And it was!

          The kids really got into it - we had fun looking for every color of the rainbow, searching for a leprechaun, and finding "gold".  These kids were creative!

       The kids got a list of fun things to find in the park - and had enough time to find them all.  Normally, as adults we assign a point value to the different things we had to find, but for the kids, I just told them to be creative and they were!! There were no winners, but everyone walked home with a goody bag of "Lucky Charms"!
"Catch a mom taking a drink from the water fountain"




"make your initial with your body"

              Even the baby enjoyed being outside and watching the kids run around.  It was a great way to start our Spring Break off!!


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