Halloween Costume Time!

Beauty in the Common Things: people rallying together for the Rangers. Looking for another win on Friday so we can rally some more!

Listen In: "Life" on the Discovery Channel. Daniel is recording it on DVD for class to show them some clips. What a great series!

View from the Kitchen Window: Who cares, its almost bed time!

Earlier in the week, my sister and I took our babies to a local pumpkin patch for some costume pictures. Grant was a train conductor and Vivian was Snow White. They had a great time and we got some great shots.

He loves being a 'big cousin'!

Vivian in her stylish fall outfit

He couldn't decide where to start!

I had to bribe him to keep that hat on. It worked, I love it!

Now Starring: October!

When October 1st rolled around, I did a mini-dance. To me, October means the beginning of cooler weather, holidays, activities with people you love, and shopping!

Daniel's family came in the first of the month and I thought it'd be a great time to carve some pumpkins. I did one with Grant last year, but he just sat and watched me. This year, I was thinking how much he'd love to play in the slimy gunk of the pumpkin carving process.

So, it turned out I was wrong. Grant got all excited to help me out. So I got everything set up, started pullling out the gunk and I see him gagging...repeatedly! We had to run him out of the room! Daniel brought him in later just because he thought it was funny and there Grant goes gagging again! So much for family fun. However, Daniel did join me and we ended up making some great looking jack-o-laterns!

Grant just decided to dance and entertain us from the next room...away from the smelly gunk!
I made the cat, and Daniel made the "Trick or Treat". Not bad!

Our HS football team isn't doing so hot, but the bright side of this is that we can sit where we want to because the stands are empty! WOO HOO! We got to sit next to our friends! "Toot and Boogie" got bored for awhile and began playing on our iPhones. It was hilarious, looks like they are texting!

Like I said in the previous blog, we got to go to a family reunion today, located in Hutto, TX. Apparently home to the fighting Hutto hippoes. HAHA. They had them ALL around town. Looks like Grant doesn't know what to think!

Grant had fun seeing cousin Fletcher and even made some new friends! I loved the sign on the swing set.

What a great looking clan! The result of 11 siblings...and this wasn't even half of it!

Sister in law and our newest addition, my beautiful niece!

I was told to be silly, but no one else followed this rule. My siblings and I.

Best Mom ever...hands down!

They were all sitting on this swing and Fletcher was telling them a story as I pushed them. It was pretty adorable!

Fall on the Horizon, Bye Bye September

Beauty in the Common Things: Seeing family. Went to my first family reunion today on my Dad's father's side. It was nice to finally put faces with names that I've heard for 20 some odd years. Wish I could have had more time to get to know them.

Listen In: Grant reading to his giraffe and elephant. Grant and I read his favorite books every night now before bed time, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and "ABC with Dr. Suess". Cloudy was one of my personal favorites that I bought for his first Christmas, so I'm excited he's taking a liking to it. The ABC one (which we somehow have 3 copies of!), we both have basically memorized by now, so that's what he's reading to them. Smarty pants!

View from Kitchen Window: A dogless backyard. Honey and Rowdy have escaped for the last time...they are camping out at MiMi and PawPaw's until we get a new fence. It is frustrating all the way around!

September seemed to go by so fast. Daniel and I have been busy with school, getting the Interact club back in full swing, getting Grant back into children's day out, and just life in general. Right now, there is no free weekend for quite awhile! I guess I should have plenty to blog about!

Of course, the weather has began to get cooler and therefore nicer, so we've been spending more time outside. Grant got a sandbox for his birthday in April, but we finally got to fill it and and let him have at it. I think there are almost as many toys as there is sand in the box, but thats ok!

I'm continuing to work on my masters and will finish in 8 months! I now have a few friends that are in the same program, so we've been working hard together. I was cracking up at Christine and I in these heaphone/mics that I borrowed from school for a project. "Welcome to Wendy's, can I take your order?"

One Saturday morning, we made an impromtu visit to the Dallas Zoo. We recently became members, so its all free to us....this is a good thing since it poured down rain once we came into Dallas County! We decided to get some ponchos and brave it anyway.

This is Dallas Zoo's new exhibit that I had yet to see.
Some of the animals were hiding from the rain, but not the lions. We walked up to the glass and there was about 5 of them hanging around. I noticed a small lion looking like he was ready to pounce, and he was glaring at my son. I punched my husband and told him to take a look, and as soon as I did, that lion took off running toward Grant. Now of course we are on the other side of this thick glass, but I grabbed Grant up and Daniel stepped in front of us. Gran just laughed. This lion turned fast and then began trying to dig to get to Grant. The large female lion slapped this one on the behind to make him stop, there was roaring back and forth. Grant was just laughing. Then this lion, as you can see by the picture, began pawing at Grant on the glass. At that point, I thought, "OH! Good, this thing is just playing, not trying to eat my son. Phew!" The zoo keeper was standing there and said the lion was 2 years old...haha just like Grant (but much bigger!)


The male lion of the pride just enjoyed the rain, I guess. I thought this was a cool shot.

Like I said earlier, we got some ponchos with our gift shop discount and I laughed most of the time at Grant with that poncho on. It was way too big and to me he looked like E.T. in the scene where he is dressed as a ghost for Halloween.
The rain wasn't letting up, so we decided to go eat lunch somewhere and head home. But of course we had to hit the merry-go-round first! Check out those dimples on Grant and the chest on the gorilla (haha!)

Oh no, someone caught me making that same face my mother does! EEK! Grant didn't want me holding him....

Another afternoon, we took a visit to my friend Vanessa's house. She has several horses and let Grant 'play' with them. He loved sitting on Faux Pas. She's about 8 times older than Grant!

He also got to brush Penny and make her coat shiny! Thanks Vanessa for letting us come over! We'll have to do it again soon!

Dora and the Lions Den

Beauty in the Common Things: Grant made it through the entire high school football game Friday night, and even cheered on the lions as they made their way to victory. Now we had to walk around a few times, even to see his girlfriend Shelby (also his babysitter), but we made it!

Listen In: Grant is sleeping, Daniel is working in the yard, I am waiting on laundry to finish. sounds like what we did all summer!

View from Kitchen Window: Grant's sandbox that we finally set up! He got it for his birthday months ago, but its been too hot to let him use it!

School started and we all got back into the swing of things. Daniel is teaching Chemistry and Chemistry Pre-AP again and I basically have all brand new classes. I'm tackling Sports and Entertainment Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Keyboarding, and Principles of Business, Marketing, and Finance. I'm enjoying them very much!

The weekend after school started, we went on a family outing with some friends of ours. We went to see "Nick Jr. :Storytime Live". We were the coolest people there with our homemade shirts.

Daniel went for "Dora the Explorer, Grant went for "The Wonder Pets", and I went with "Ni Hao Kai-Lan" .

Here is Corbin and Grant walking into the theater. Corbin's family all wore matching shirts.

It took Grant a minute to figure out what was going on.

When he did, he yelled, "Hey, that's Kai-Lan!"

"This is Sewious!"

Corbin and Grant had a great time. We had great seats on the front row of the balcony.

Like I said earlier, we had our first home game on Friday. Every year, I've gotten a picture of Grant with our mascots, Samson and Delilah. Look at the progression....or I guess lack there of!

Grant about 6 months old. Not a happy Cabbage Patch!

Grant at 1 1/2 years old. Crying for his life, or crying because Delilah is topless?

Grant, 2 1/2 years old at present day. He actually asked to see them, screamed bloody murder, then asked to see them all night. Oh my...

Grant learned to throw up his 'L' pretty well!

But we are still working on his 'Hook Em'

And of course, his favorite part was the band.

School Projects

I've been busy with teaching my new classes and taking a new graduate school class. Here are a few of the projects I've done thus far:

This one was practice with Windows Movie Maker. The beginning sounds so cheesy, you may get sick to your stomach, so beware!



This one is actually Christine's (friend/study buddy) but I narrated it and I'm in some of the pictures (good and bad!)



This one is mine, and again, soo cheesy!

Wrapping up July

Beauty in the Common Things: Not having anything to do or anywhere to go. All summer, our family has been coming, going and back around again. It was nice today just to be lazy and love on my son.

Listen In: Honey barking outside. She is inside for the week being spoiled. She got 'fixed' and has to rest inside until she heals properly. She occasionally barks outside, I think to let Rowdy know she's still here.

View from the Kitchen Window: A lab mix looking depressed. Rowdy apparently is a sensitive soul. He literally looks sad that Honey is not with him. I remember when he was a puppy, our other dog Daisy got hit by a car. Daniel  buried her in the pasture next to our yard. Rowdy sat there for hours just staring in the direction of the buriel. We'd call him over to us and he'd just give us those sad puppy eyes.

Dinner Plans: Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

My nephew came back and stayed an entire week with us. It also happened to be the week my sister in law stayed a week with us. It was a fun, but tiring week.

We took a visit to see my niece, Vivian, who Grant now paid more attention to. He loved on her and was so happy to feed her. Here he is helping feed her and looking so happy to help me.

My family. It took a while to get us all together, and some of us are STILL not paying attention!

Fletcher and Grant had a great time playing the entire week. Grant would wake up every morning and immediately say, "Mimi's house?" , which is where Fletcher was staying. Here they are helping MiMi with some watering after playing in the pool.

Here, we are going to see Daniel at the ballpark. I made them hold hands whenever I could just because it was so darn cute!

Also, this week happened to be Vacation Bible School at our church. Daniel and I were both teachers and my mom and sister in law even got in on it. Here are some of the ministers helping the kids with one of the songs. It was only 4 days long, but it sure wore us all out! But I was definatley glad to be reminded of the Fruits of the Spirit.

Daniel and I, along with being Bible lesson teachers, were called on to be puppets. The one on the right cracked me up.

Grant was a little too small to be in a class for VBS, but joined in the action anyways. Here he is, of course, singing!

Here is my sister in law, Erica and my nephew Fletcher. Fletcher was in Erica's group for VBS. By day 2 he was absoluetly in love with her. Looks like he already has roaming eyes....haha.

Every day we did something different after VBS. One day we went to Hawaiian Falls, a local small waterpark. Grant and Fletcher loved it!

Here are all of us after enjoying the water.

Here is Grajt spraying his Daddy. Daniel then tried it out and sprayed a bunch of pregnant women. Whoops!

Grant is didnt know where to start when he got there!

Here is Fletcher spraying Erica. I tried to tell him that wasn't the way to get a woman!

After all the family had left, Daniel and I took Grant for a day trip to Glen Rose, TX to see the Fossil Rim Wildlife Park. It is a drive through safari. We were blessed that it was cool that morning, unlike this week being in the 100s.

Grant loved being able to get out of his car seat and roam around the cab to see the animals.

Here is Grant feeding some deer. I loved how the deer would come right up to you that you could pet them. Too bad hunting isn't this easy!

I loved it when we finally saw the giraffes. The herd was running with several zebra. Grajt yelled "Dinosaurs!". Indeed, they looked like dinosaurs running with their long legs and necks.

This rhino got my "So glad you're behind this fence" award. We got pretty close and he looked sweet, but I definatley wouldn't like to make him angry!

The ostrich got the "Thanks for making my husband flinch" award. This sucker was hungry and let you know it. Daniel was very hesitant to roll down the window.

rajt loved also being able to pretend 'drive'. Almost every time we get in the car he asks to drive. Boy, will we have our hands full in 14 years! Hmm, maybe they will raise that minimum age by then!

Lastly, we had to stop and see the dinosaurs. Glen Rose is also known for its Dinosaur State Park where there are footprint fossils and Dinosaur World where they have life size dinosaurs. This one was on the way out of the wildlife park. I'm sure glad they are extinct!