All You Need Is Love

Beauty in the Common Things: Time. I have none as of late. I am behind at home, at school, and I feel behind in sleep. Daniel has been a great help with easing some of it though :)

Dinner Plans: breakfast for dinner

View From the Kitchen Window: He's not out there now, but the other morning I had fun watching a woodpecker go after our telephone pole. I just kept wondering how that doesn't hurt him! I want to get a big birdhouse this spring like my grandmother had. I remember finding eggs underneath it one time and taking the eggs home. I tried to hatch them by putting them in a left-over Jack In the Box egg roll container and having Smurfette sit on it. I now find it odd no one mentioned how Smurfette just doesn't have that kind of heating capacity.

Listen In: Go, Diego, Go!

Last week I spent 4 days in Austin at the Texas Computer Educators Association Convention. This was my first year to attend. I was excited to go, but nervous about leaving my boys.

I'm glad I went because I had a great time. I learned some things, had a few laughs, and met a new man:
Ok, its just a dude in a robot costume, but I thought it was funny! I got to room with one of my best friends, saw my brother and his family, got a bunch of free junk, and won a $3500 piece of educational hardware. Good week all in all.

When I got back, I came home to a house full of Valentines Day surprises from Daniel. I also saw he and my son made it just fine without me. :) But then again, I already knew that. Skype was our friend!

Speaking of Valentines Day, I spent the evening with my 2 Valentines. Below is the picture I sent to family for this holiday. Red hair and dimples? Seriously...cupid who?

No Cabin Fever Here!

Beauty in the Common Things: Today is chalk full of beauty. My husband woke up early, gave me a sweet kiss, and said "Baby, its still snowing. We have about 4 inches." I said a quick "HOORAY!", then rolled over and went back to sleep. When my body finally woke up, I was super excited! More of that to come later.

Listen In: Watching Oprah. Its been pre-empted all week due to the weather, I've got to get my girl shows in.

View From the Kitchen Window: powdery snow everywhere and 2 dogs that were just let out for a potty break

Dinner Plans: I've been cooking a lot since we've been stuck indoors...sopaphilla cheesecake, chicken pot pie, pork chops, cheesy bread, sloppy joes....maybe tonight will be leftovers!

Last weekend, Daniel and I took a group of about 35 students to our college Alma mater for a tour. Bad thing about it though, one of us had to ride the school bus with the other sponsor. Grant wanted to get on, so I decided to join him. Turns out when you ride with your toddler who is super excited for his first bus ride, its not so bad after all!

He didn't sleep the entire 3 hours, but didn't begin to get crabby when were 20 minutes away from our destination. He claimed the bus was "too little" for him and he needed to get out of his car seat.

We went on the official tour of the school and showed them some of the ropes. They are only sophomores, but it was nice to see them get excited about the future.
While in town, we visited with some college friends of ours who have a daughter six months older than Grant. I found he is a little gentleman with the ladies. Right before this picture was taken, he opened the Jeep door and said, "Hey, you want to go for a ride?" Miss Avery jumped in a looked back with this adorable face.

It was hilarious watching them. When he'd drive, she'd play with the Barbie radio and when she would drive, he would try to control the radio, and the wheel. Typical couple...haha.

It was a beautiful January day, so we also got in some swinging time as well.

Grant and Avery were worn out be the end of the day. They had a nice pillow fight with their pillow pets and then watched Toy Story 3.

Thank you Suttles family for letting us stay with you and enjoy your home and family! I can't wait to see Miss Maitland arriving in a month!

This week has been so, un-Texas-like. We went to school Monday, then an arctic blast came in. Temperatures were in the teens and you could ice skate on our side walk. The ice was at least 2.5 inches thick. School was canceled for 3 days due to the ice and bitter cold. Our district, and surrounding schools, knew they may not be able to handle the single digit wind chills. I know that people up north laugh at us for such things, but this is so rare, everyone freaks out. Last night we had snow come in. We woke up to some beautiful powder.

Here is Grant and Daniel throwing snow. It was not wet enough to make snowballs nor a snowman.

I thought our birdbath looked neat with a blanket of snow on it.

Daniel was laughing at Grant. He found it hard to walk and just feel down.

7 inches total, on top of all the ice.


Daniel actually did a snow angel? He must have been really excited! He never does that!


This can give you an idea of our weather.

Rowdy and Honey did not care for the bitter cold

I am so grateful that I don't have to go into work on days like this, and even if I did...it is only about 5 miles from my home. I am grateful for my heat, 2 boys to cuddle with, and a beautiful fire in the fireplace to look at. More snow may be on the way later next week. I give props to all the Global Warming Issues:)

Happy Trails and Happy Meals

Beauty in the Common Things: Having clean language. I'm not saying I'm perfect when it comes to appropriate language but compared to a girl I had to deal with today, I am a saint! These teenagers and their fowl language is absolutely driving me crazy lately. Makes you think twice what they hear at home.

Listen In: Grant is using his Leap Frog Tag Jr. and I am catching up on Oprah. Not even sure why I'm watching this episode...its making me angry.

Dinner Plans: Homemade Lasagna. Hmm, I think I put a little too much garlic in it.

Never mind, all I taste is blood now. My son just busted my upper lip from being too rowdy. Oh my...

Besides Grant being a little rowdy sometimes, he is always very sweet and quite funny. (side note: He knew he hurt me right away and apologized). One day Grant was playing in his room and I found that someone was getting ready for another flood...apparently led by the cows. I tried to get Noah in there with them, but Grant insisted he stay seated in the school bus!


Grant and Daniel had a night together recently while I went to play Bunco. Daniel decided it was time for Grant's first Happy Meal. That was ok by me, because I didn't have to eat it...I can't stand McDonald's! But I do love both of my boy's expressions...haha!
We have some great friends in town that I don't get to see often. I used to babysit their two girls. Now they are growing up and don't need me anymore, but now they get to keep my son! They have a great stocked pond, so we thought it'd be nice to visit and fish. Grant has a pole and really just likes to throw it back and forth in the water.

I got Grant some rubber boots because I knew it'd be really muddy...glad I did! He loved his frog boots! Grant is here holding his new rubber snakes he got as a reward from going on our latest adventure...potty training! See below.


Random cute picture of Grant and his older buddy Sean. We ate at the haunted Catfish Plantation and I couldn't resist taking this.

Ok, so back to the potty training. Grant has not been interested much at all about it, but we decided to buckle down last weekend and put the plan into action. So far he's doing fairly well, but we still have a ways to go.

Daniel designed this adorable Thomas the Train potty chart. 1 sticker for using the potty and then 5 stickers gets him something from the grab jar.

The grab jar is stocked with dinosaurs, cars, snakes as well as other animals, and dum-dums. All a little boy could want!

Snow Day!

A week after the new year began, Mother Nature brought us a nice weekend surprise! Heavy snowfall came in which made for a fun day and a late start to school the next day. Extra bonus!

Grant kept looking at all the snow coming down, as did I.

Our view of the backyard with GIANT flakes coming down!

Caught in the act...
FABULOUS!
Rowdy and Honey enjoyed the snow, but not the cold!

Grant found out that the best snow was on his playset.

Our neighborhood turned into a winter wonderland.

Grant loved throwing snowballs and his Dad and I.


I kept trying to show Grant how to catch snow on his tongue. He took one look at me and put his head down like he was embarassed. I'm sure that won't be the last time!


Daniel was trying to get Grant to make a snow angel.

Look at those rosy cheeks.

We joined the neighborhood kids to make a huge snowman.

This one we made in our yard. He finally melted almost a week later.

New Year

Beauty in the Common Things: Manners. Some kids have never heard of them. Mine is still learning. We took are dogs to the vet and Grant kindly said, "Thank you doctor for taking care of my animals." Aww, so sweet and yet so random1

Listen In: Watching "Shrek Forever After". I love Gingy!

View from Kitchen Window: 2 dogs ready to come in and melting snow. Pictures of snow fun to come later.

We took a small vacation to Sea World on New Year's Eve. We joined up with my sister in law, Winonah, and my nephew Fletcher. Everything was still beautifully decorated for the holiday season.

First stop was the dolphin and baluga whale show. Here are the boys getting ready for the show. Fletcher is ready to rock out!
Dancing dolphins.

Too sweet.

Mmm....funnel cake!!!

The Shamu Show! That baby in the middle was born last January.

I did notice that none of thetrainers got in the water with the orca whales. Probably a new change since the incident this past year in Orlando.

Still a fun show to watch though! Isn't this every kids' dream job at some point?

Aww, adorable!

I wanted to take this whale home...so adorable!

Grant couldn't take his eyes off of him.

We then went to visit Cookie Monster. Winonah and Fletcher got a good picture with him.

I was happy Grant wasn't scared of him.

They had decorative snowmen all over this one side of the park. Here is Elvis:

This one is a shout out to my brother, The Blues Brothers:

Outside Shamu Stadium.

Some adorable "Happy Feet"

Grant was double fisting the cotton candy.

Otter performing on a ball? That is awesome!

The Sealion show included Santa at the end! What a surprise!

This walrus has got to be one of the more difficult to train.

After the sealion show, we ate a special dinner put on by Sea World. Winonah and Daniel went and rode the "Steel Eel" while the boys and I had some down time at the playground. Our last activity before Sea World's New Year's event was seeing "Polar Express" in 4D. The boys LOVED it! Here is everyone in their crazy glasses.

G like them better this way.

We got "VIP" access to the fireworks show at the end of the night. We sat on our Shamu blankets and waited for the show. Grant played with his new suitcase o' animals.

There goes the fireworks! It was a chilly night and a great end to a great (and LONG day).

Happy New Year!