Botanic Bonanza

We celebrated Leap Day in style! We met Aunt Sue at the Botanic Gardens in Fort Worth.
We started out our car trip by visiting Empire Bakery for a picnic sandwich and some cookies...which were amazing.
Then we hit the road with our Veggie Tales CD on full blast.
45 short (but so long with that CD playing) minutes later, we arrived at the Botanic Gardens.

The Japanese Gardens were our destination this morning and W had a great time feeding the fish and ducks and running all over the place. Aunt Sue was a trooper - holding Wyatt, feeding fish, pushing strollers.

Examining the ducks from his perch on the bridge

Cohabitation

Feeding the fish from the bridge

Water features to play with...

After the Japanese Gardens, we went over to the Rose Garden to have a picnic. W loved running around the huge grassy area while eating his lunch. Oh, the freedom! We found some turtles and some fountains. We also found a sunburn! Ouch.

Sunbathing Turtles

Trying to catch the stick

Enjoying the "lake" with his new best friend, Aunt Sue

Making a wish...probably for more cookies.

KO'd on the way home...

Thanks for a great meeting, Aunt Sue! We had a wonderful day with you and we're now ready for an early bedtime! Everyone wins!!

Easter Sensory Box

Our regular sensory box has undergone several revisions and I'm glad to say that it is still a hit. He will peruse his items, sift the beans with sea shells, and unearth treasures for about thirty minutes whenever I bring out the box.

I thought it would be fun to give him an updated version...with Easter around the corner, the perfect idea emerged. I filled plastic eggs and put them into an Easter grass filled box. Then I ate a Cadbury Egg while I waited for W to wait up from nap time.

One of the egg fillers

What the heck?

Ewww! I don't really want to touch this grass, but I want what's in this egg...

As I suspected, the texture of Easter grass was something W didn't like. At first he said "help - help- help" because he didn't want to touch it. I showed him how to push it around to find eggs. He loved saying EGG; he repeated it about 900 times while he was sifting around.

Every time I pat myself on the back for some thing that works out well, the universe laughs.
Here is a pic of W copying the dogs - chew sticks for everyone.

This feels good on my teeth...Good call, dogs.

And finally, the old "that's not a hat" bit.

W has felt under the weather all week with an ear infection and a fever, so I was glad to have him outside today, playing. Even happier that the skill box worked out and entertained him. :)

Poor sick bug!

Sort of a Sorting Game

Working it out...

I love Mailbox Magazine and when it comes every month, I flag pages to try with W. Today's activity was a sorting game. I bought a bag of small pom poms from JoAnn Fabric for about $1.50 and emptied them into a plastic container (which he then emptied onto the floor). Then I gave W a mini muffin tin. The idea was to sort the pom poms into color groups. So that didn't work very well...though OCD boy did work hard to get all of the pom poms into the tin. We named the colors while working with them, but trying to get them into the matching tin didn't gel.
We will keep trying - as with all things toddler.

Here is what it is supposed to look like.

Here is what it actually looked like upon completion.

Wyatt, working hard to figure it all out:

Wyatt tipping it over.

Jason playing the sorting game. Leading by example...

Harry the Dirty Dog

Today we did a fun craft that involved Harry the Dirty Dog. Harry hates baths. In order to skirt getting yet another boring old bath, he buries his scrub brush and runs all over town getting dirty. But when he gets home, he is so dirty that no one knows who he is. Only a bath will do.

Okay - so, cute story.

I had Dub color a clean dog and a dirty dog from a cut out I found.
Then I cut and taped up the clean and dirty dog back to back in order to make a hand puppet.

Coloring his dirty dog.

The puppet and the book.

Putting on the puppet. It took several tries to get the point of the puppet.

What? This dog hates baths? That puzzles me. Bath time is awesome.

"Reading" it again...while sitting in a basket...still puzzled about why this dog doesn't like to take a bath. Hopefully he doesn't get any nefarious ideas...

So - it was a pretty good activity. If you're interested in hearing Betty White read an abbreviated version of Harry the Dirty Dog - complete with pictures - link up here! Very cute!

Happy Birthday, Jason!

This week Jason turned old.

We had to celebrate.
I wanted to serve up Jason's favorite things, which turned out to be really easy: Hostess Cupcakes, Pepperoni Pizza, Chick-fil-A nuggets, Shiner, Mexican Coca Cola,
and a few other processed foods.

Our sweet friends were kind enough to join us and pretend that they weren't disgusted by the fare. Jason and I had a great time. The party finally shut down around 2:30...but I am pretty sure that Jason had a reminder of the fun times all day long today.

Coca-Cola and Chocolate Milk - Jason's favorite non-alcoholic bevs

Purple - the birthday boy's favorite color

Cinnamon Toast Cupcakes - one of two things I made from scratch for the b-day boy!

Don't forget your to-go party favor. Big League Chew was definitely a hit.

Katie & Brad (it was Brad's b-day, too! Happy 30th b-day, Brad!)

Pretty friends: JP, JZ, and Keisha

Cutie-pies!

A night without Noah...pretty smiley!

Jokers!

Brotherly love!

The newlyweds!

Brothers - telling stories on each other

Thank you to everyone who came out to help me celebrate Jason's birthday.
We had a very fun time party-ing it up with you.

Happy B-Day, Jas!

Power Bars

Wyatt's new favorite thing is "helping" me cook. This means, of course, that I have to do two times the work to prepare enough things to keep him busy...and then to actually make whatever we're cooking. The prep and the mess is worth it, though, because he is really into the task at hand...and it keeps us busy for about an hour - the longest attention span grabber yet!

Adding dates to the measuring cup.

Adding the dates to the pot.

Stirring the dry ingredients.

The food processor - not quite sure about it.

Getting it in the pan and smoothing it down.

These power bars didn't work out very well - the dogs ate them instead of Dub - but the process was fun!

Cousins Weekend 2012

This weekend, Laura, Lindsay, Sarah, Katie, and I got together for a cousins weekend. Taylor was tied up with work in Colorado - she was the only girl cousin missing (and we did miss her!).
We had a very fun time stuffing ourselves like pinatas, getting our toes painted, and talking until all hours of the night.

Poor Laura, our hostess, had knee surgery on Thursday. She was laid up with her leg in a stabilizer...but did her best to party it up. She did an admirable job.

And as they say about Vegas, what happens in Tyler, stays in Tyler. :) But here's a little peek.

Snacks, round #25

Cake balls and peanut butter & jelly sandwich cookies - not to brag, but we're all pretty amazing cooks. We also had cookie batter brownies and cake batter fudge...and lipo.

Caprese Pockets by Katie

Meat and Cheese tray to offset the wine & sugar...

Things are starting to get out of hand...

Getting the mask on. It smelled real good.

A little spa time...followed by a dance party.

Awww...sisters, sisters...

Super Husband, Eric, was sweet enough to do the breakfast run - doughnut holes AND bagels!

Oh...and who's that in the kitchen mixing up some queso for brekkie?

What a weekend! Looking forward to a repeat in 2013!