Some recent fun times!

For Labor Day we invited everyone we knew over for some wet and wild fun! Check out B and W on the 15ft Volcano Slide!


We camped out for a night at Buescher State Park for my birthday. We took our huge tent so that we could camp in luxury with our blow up mattresses and a battery-powered fan blowing from overhead.




Here is W entertaining himself while we made camp and B made dinner. What better use for a canoe paddle than scooping and pushing dirt all over camp?

B made awesome stir-fry dinner for my birthday.

After dinner we went to one of the fun parks within the park and had lots of fun climbing and sliding.



Per what seems to be our typical camping luck, just as we were settling W in for bed, a storm complete with lightning and thunder rolled in. The tent kept us safe and dry through the night and by morning it cleared up and even dried our tent out before we had to pack it up - best camping luck we've had in years!

We selected Buescher because it has a small lake, which we planned to use to test out the 17ft aluminum canoe we bought used about a month ago! It's a huge boat, but the Jeep can handle it (though it was a bit nervewracking when the wind was blowing on the freeway...).


I don't have any pictures of us on the lake Saturday morning because we left the camera safely in the car, just in case (our last canoe outing was also a swimming-in-the-lake outing). But I am glad to report that we successfully got everybody on and off without anyone getting the slightest bit wet! We paddled around the little lake, exploring and startling ducks. The good news is that it floats just fine! The bad news is that I am a weakling and need to have stronger arms for longer future paddles! I'll have to get to work on that...

Treats

I came home from work after dinner so W watched me eat a late dinner. When I was finished the following exchange took place:

W: "Good job Mom! You ate all your food. You get a treat!"
Me: "Oh, ok, thanks. What treat do I get?"
W: "Tomatoes!", pause, "and M&Ms!"

Yes, tomatoes - that's how much he loves those Little Cherub grape tomatoes! And who doesn't love M&Ms? So that is what we had, since of course the whole point was that he wanted some too.

Spring and more

It has been way too long. Here are a few snapshots of what we've been up to!

We had $25 coupons for the RideMakerz store at the mall - basically a free car! We brought the family of W's best buddy and they made free vehicles together (think Build-A-Bear but with cars and trucks). They loved it of course! Below is W later on at home with his car. The awesome box is the car's garage...




Easter Sunday - W could still fit his wedding digs from last summer, just barely! What a handsome boy! Inseparable from W on Easter was the Lightning McQueen car-shaped Easter basket B found for him at Walmart.



B and W went shopping a couple weeks ago and came home with a $3 kite - Lightning McQueen of course. Here they are flying it in the gusty wind right before a little rain storm...



We had American Idol on TV the other day. W was playing mostly, only noting the music occasionally, until one contestant came out with a guitar and fun drums keeping the beat. W started playing his imaginary guitar on his arm (wish I had taken a pic of that one too) and insisting I play the drums also - then we'd switch. It gave me an idea to bring out a real instrument, so I dug out my old ukulele. He was so excited even though he couldn't really play it of course. It was fun to watch him play with it (see look of concentration below).

Funny William

We went out to dinner as a family at Chili's, with help from a gift card from a good friend (thanks again J!). We ordered William's food first, and then Brandon and I took our time deciding and placing our orders - planning of course to have some time to feed him before our own food arrived. For some reason they were pretty slow... William colored, drank more than half his milk, looked at the pictures on his milk cup, named all the people on the coloring page, watched cars out the window, played blowing the crayons across the table with Daddy, and pretended to eat all the pictures of the food on his coloring page. He was being so patient! Finally, as the waitress approached and was placing the plate on the table, William bounced up and down in his booster seat and joyfully shouted "Dinner!!!" It was hilarious!

After dinner we went shopping at Fry's. Brandon took a long time looking at printers, and the sales clerk took an even longer time price matching things, so William and I repeatedly admired and counted the "shuttles" (X-38 models) and the "astonauts" as William calls them. As we were getting ready to leave, William found one of the Wiggle Racers out of the box and went for a ride. He could actually make it go, which was impressive. As we were checking out we found a stack of the Wiggle Racers behind us. William ran up and pointed to one of them and said, "I want this one! It's perfect!" If only we had a place to ride it, he might have been in luck after that cute declaration.

Snow!!!

SHOCKING BEWILDERMENT! Snow in Houston, TX!!!?

William got to check it out right before bed - hopefully some will still be around in the morning too!

Aren't Brandon's reflective earmuffs stylin'!?