State Fair of Texas

Hello friends!

We are exhausted and hot, but had a wonderful time at the State Fair of Texas. We saw Big Tex~ Sorry his head is cut off, he's got a cowboy hat on. But what else would you expect in Texas?We started with the petting zoo. When you have a child who loves animals so much, is there anywhere else you can start?!
We even saw a camel! Couldn't believe that they have camels at petting zoos.

We had corny dogs(same thing as corn dogs) but they have NOTHING on the Corn Dog Man at the National Peanut Festival! Adam has been talking about the fried beer for weeks. It won the most unique in the contest. It looked like ravioli...but tasted awful!!!! Ha! ;) You have to eat it in one big bite and he said it was kinda gross.Then it was ride time! We had so much fun! You know it's a good day, if your child looks like this pulling out of the parking lot. Fun day!!

Gami in DFW

Hello friends!

Adam's mom has been here and we've been super busy! Yesterday, we went to Cabella's, a free source of entertainment and an awesome place for kiddos. We fed the fish. Those fish were so hungry that they looked like salmon jumping upstream to mate. :) I wonder if they don't feed their fish that often. Sad!
Then today, we headed over to the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens...yes again. But we LOVE it and it's FREE. So that's a plus!Anderson loves the nature trail/boardwalk and we love the beautiful flowers and being outside.

This was the famous snake sighting spot! UGH!!! To Anderson's dismay, none were spotted today. But, he was giving kisses! Sweet boy! And we spotted a semi pumpkin patch and HAD to take a picture. A promptly bit the stem on the pumpkin! ;)
Tomorrow we are headed to the State Fair of Texas. I'm so excited!

Be back tomorrow with pictures with our fried beer and Big Tex!!

Books

Hello friends!
Anderson and I took a trip to the library and we picked up this little gem.Do you remember reading this book as a little kid? I do. My mom bought this book for me when I was about 3. I absolutely adored this book as a child.
It has beautiful illustrated pictures in it, which to me, as a child were better than the story itself.As a parent, I really like this book and for the same reasons I like Sesame Street. 1. It shows different color of kid than a lot of books show and 2. at the same time, it's entertaining.

I remembered this book this morning when I watched The Today Show and they were reading it kids. A really loves this book!
I've thought sometime about writing a children's book myself. I could seriously be a writer all of the books that Anderson and I look at/ read in a day;)

Other books that we love:This one reads "It's Time to Sleep, My Love" By Nancy Tillman. Wonderful!

Of course, The Polar Express!This one On the Night You Were Born is my one of my favorites and A's too. I love the last part that reads " Not ever before in story or rhyme, not even, once upon a time, has the world ever known a you, my friend and it never will, not ever again. Heaven played every trumpet and blew every horn on the wonderful, marvelous, night you were born. "

I cry EVERY time I read it to Anderson:)

Beverly

Hello friends-

Yesterday, my Aunt Beverly would have celebrated her 68th birthday. I haven't thought about her for some time now.Yet when October 5 was on the calendar, it was all I could think about. She was my mom's oldest sister and my favorite aunt.

I didn't truly meet her until (that I remember, she came and stayed with mom when I was first born) I was 14 years old. Mom and I went to stay with her in New York for 2 weeks. She was different than ANYBODY I had ever met before. She was born in Florida, but when she was old enough went to live in Miami and then later to New York City where she worked at the Playboy Nightclub as a waitress and yes, she had to wear this--This is not her, just a waitress there about the same time. She met her husband Bobby there and they got married and lived in New York City for 20 years.

She later moved to Sedona, Arizona, which is where she died in 2006.

Beverly was a wonderful aunt, full of life, a big supporter of me and just kinda wonderful.

I still get teary eyed thinking about her today. We miss you Beverly, and Happy Birthday.

300th post!!

Hello friends!

Today, I am posting a blog for the 300th time. I started blogging when Anderson was around 6 months old and for the life of me, can't believe he is 2 and a half!

We took a trip to the Ft. Worth Zoo today...yes again. We have a annual pass and have really gotten our monies worth. In fact, I think we've gotten one over on them. We usually go about once every 2 weeks.Yes, I'm aware that this is file footage(taken about two weeks ago) but our camera is STILL broken and I'm about to go CRAZY!!!! Mom sent me her old camera but I don't have the cord yet to connect it to the computer. So, when Adam's mother gets out here on Saturday. I will have my camera cord--Hooray!

Which reminds me....have you met my mom? Like read her garden blog? If not, hop over there NOW. She's the rockstar of gardening! She makes gardening cool! Click here to go to her blog 25 cents garden tours.

It's about to get pretty busy here. Adam's mother is coming Saturday and then leaving Thursday and my Daddy and Mimi are coming that next day,Friday. Anderson will be pretty stinkin' spoiled, but happy. ;)

We had some drama around here on Sunday. We were at Home Depot and I let A sit in the big part of the buggy and he stood up and lost his balance and before I could to him, he fell on his HEAD! I screamed and jerked him up and was he crying. I know, I'm a terrible mother and I have been beating myself up for 2 days now. We took him to the doctor and he said he was fine. It was just scary as hell(sorry for the language...that's just the only way I can explain it).

Hope you are having a great Tuesday and enjoying this Fall weather. It was 50 degrees here this a.m., but by Saturday it is going to be 90. Oh the joys of living in the South!

Sick sweet boy

Hello friends.

This morning Anderson woke up around 2:30 a.m. and was scorching hot and again about 5:30a.m. with a fever of 102! I absolutely hate fevers. They are simply scary. We went to the doctor and he has a stomach virus. Poor baby!

Not much happening today. A's just resting and the house is unusually quiet...except for Annabelle's snore(that's our oldest beagle) which echoes through the whole house. Anderson has let me hold him and love him a lot, which I love, but I hate he has to be sick!

Mom sent A a keyboard yesterday,among other things. YOU ARE SO AWESOME MOM! As soon as we got it out of the box. My memory took me back to when I was in junior high and high school and my friend Jessica Tedder and I used to play Heart and Soul over and OVER again. It drove my mom and dad and stepmother CRAZY! We did all kinds of fancy variations on it and really thought we were concert pianists! ;)

Sadly, that's the only song, except for For Elise that I remember how to play after 5 years of piano lessons with Renella Smith at Baldwin Music Company. She was a great piano teacher. Mean as h*#$ and that was good for me, because I was scared not to practice my weekly pieces.My first Christmas concert, I played Up on the Housetop, but forgot the rest of the song. So, I played the chorus over and over again. Ha!

I think we are gonna send Anderson to take mandolin or guitar lessons when he's a little older. Maybe he will become Ricky Skaggs. Funny side story, Adam got to hear Ricky Skaggs rehearsing one night when we lived on the square in Talladega. He was playing at the Ritz Theater and they had the back stage door open and while Adam was letting our dogs do their business, he got to hear a ROCKIN' rehearsal!

Poor Anderson, I have some pretty lofty dreams for him: famous musician, Senator, hockey player, football player. Oh well...it's good to have high expectations, right?!

Brain dump

Hello friends!

Anderson and I cleaned this morning(well...mostly I did) but he helped. I used to really like to clean, but now I'm kinda not digging it so much. Anderson is just getting so big and he can really communicate with me. Which I love! He talks in good sentences and repeats EVERYTHING we say. Not so good sometimes ;)

- We went to the Dollar Tree yesterday and seriously that is the biggest Dollar Tree I've ever been in. They even had Halloween costumes(I'm not saying that they wouldn't disintegrate after 3 minutes on your child's body) I'm just saying that they had lots of stuff. Like dinosaurs for $1 and zebras and horses too. Good for a momma whose child loves to get both and who doesn't want to pay a lot of money for it.

-We headed over to the park in South Arlington, it's not as nice as ours in Mansfield, it's just less crowded and I've had no bath today. Plus, they have an awesome duck pond, complete with fish. A played and played with the kids on the playground and I can tell you that he and I went down the twisty turvy slide about 7 times. I can also tell you that I am too old and too tall to be doing that. But, Anderson completely loved every minute of it! :)

- This little boy was fishing while we were at the park with his brother. He was about 4 and a half and had caught a perch fish. Anderson thought it was awesome, but the little boy just continued to wave the fish around(on the hook) in and out of the water. At the point where he accidentally hit the fish on the bridge, we had to bail...so the school teacher wouldn't show up:) I'm not against fishing. In fact, I did it as a kid in Suwanee,FL and I really want Anderson to have those experiences too, just felt so sorry for that fish. It's hard being the mother of a boy who loves all creatures and I am very squimish about fish, bugs and reptiles....ugh. But, A loves them, so I pretend not to be. :)