Sunday, November 28, 2010

Violinist

Hunter was watching Sesame Street yesterday, and there was a portion on the violin that he was really interested in.  After it was over, he looked at me and said, "Mommy, I want a violin."  So I told him that if he still wanted a violin in a year, I would buy him one.  That obviously resulted in protest and a whiny, "but I want one noooooow."  So I explained that violin's cost a lot of money and he'd have to take lessons, so we'd wait and see if he's still dying for one in a year.  Miraculously this seemed to appease him and he disappeared into his room.  About 2 seconds later, he came running back into the living room with these...
 
He said, "Look Mommy!  I'm playing the violin!" 

He's so resourceful.  And smart.  And cute.  So he must be a musical prodigy too, right?  My son is totally going to be a genius with the violin one day.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Gaylord ICE!

My mom took all of her kids and grandkids to the Gaylord for their ice exhibit, and it was so fun...and cold....and hot.  I knew they gave everyone parkas, but I was still a little concerned about what the kids would wear, so we all (except my ever-hot-natured husband) bundled up in layers. 

Pretty much every portion of the exhibit requires that you wait in some sort of holding area.  The first several were actually really warm.  By the time we had our parkas on, I was sweating, which y'all know I loved. 

As usual, Hunter wanted nothing to do with posed pictures, so there are several of our family of 4, but only 3 of us are pictured.  Here's the first one while waiting in line...

The grandkids (minus Hunter) in line...

I decided to get a candid shot of him so we'd have proof he was there...
Hunter loves his hat and mittens.  He asked to wear them on the ride to Grapevine and again waiting in line, even though both places were pretty warm.

Vanesa is always so helpful with Charlotte.  She is one of the few people that Char will actually willingly go to when I am around:)

We finally let Charlotte stand on her own after much effort to keep her in our arms.  I was afraid she'd try to walk all around (we were stuck in this one spot for about 15 minutes), but she just stood by this post sweetly...

The boys waiting in the same spot...
As you can see, H pulled off his hat and mittens from the sauna-like heat.  We took off Charlotte's coat too, so she wouldn't suffer from a heat stroke.
They are so sweet.

We finally made it to the last room before the exhibit, and they handed out our parkas.  I didn't know if they'd have one for Charlotte, so I brought her heaviest coat, but they didn't fail her...
She was for sure the bulkiest of us all.  Hysterical.

They mentioned that you couldn't go down the slide if you didn't wear a parka.  Hunter didn't mind the parka too much (at least at first), but he had a big protest of the slide (before he even saw it)...
 

We're almost there!  Doesn't he look thrilled?  That's what waiting for nearly a century will do to a 3.5 year old.

After a required group photo, in which our son is crying real tears, and one more line to wait in, we made it to the ice!
Isn't that amazing?  It's all really ice. 

They had these ice slides in the second room, but everyone in our group except for Vanesa opted out...  

Yeah right, y'all.  It's 9 degrees (literally) in there. Why would I slide down ice when my body is already on the verge of frostbite? This girl has to keep moving if I'm going to stay happy....and that, my friends, is proof that Hunter is my child...in case you ever doubted.

Finally a shot of all 4 of us...


Poor Charlotte was soooo bulky...

After about 10 minutes inside the ice exhibit, Hunter started begging me to take off his coat...
Apparently, he was a little too bulky too.  So like any right-minded parent, I distracted him with the Snoopy house...

And with perfect sibling timing, Charlotte began to cry as soon as her brother's tantrum was under control...

At the end of the exhibit there was this tunnel...
That ice on the wall was so cool, but my picture doesn't do it justice.  Y'all know photography is not one of my strengths.

The tunnel lead you to one more room before you exited.  I was really surprised at the last room.  It was this nativity completely out of ice, and there was a tape of a man talking over the speaker telling of Christ's birth.  It was beautiful...
 
 I was so excited to show Hunter and remind him what this season is about.

After we thawed out a little, we went back into the hotel to look around.  They have so much fun stuff...lots of trains, which Hunter loved...



Charlotte liked them too...

There were also several gingerbread houses.  This one was made out of real candy...

...or at least had candy glued to it:)...

Thanks so much for such a fun afternoon, mom!  We had a blast and can't wait for next year!

Monday, November 22, 2010

Growing Up

I've said it a million times.  My kids are growing up so.dang.fast.  It's such an interesting phenomenon to me that the older you get, the quicker time moves. 

This weekend we bought Hunter a booster seat to replace his previous more sturdy, convertible carseat with a five point harness.  I know it's shocking.  He's only 3 1/2.  How is it even possible that he's out of the 5 point harness?!  But you have to remember, my son is closer in size to a 5 1/2  year old than a 3 1/2 year old.  By the way, it's very important to note that he is three and a half...don't you leave off that last part, because he'll quickly correct you, which is also shocking.  how is he already old enough to care about the and a half

Anyway. 

The point is he's a big kid, and when I looked into the combination seats that started out with a 5 point harness and then transition to the booster, H was already within the weight limit for the booster without the harness part.  So we bit the bullet.  We bought that booster seat and as frightening as it was, we put our son into it. 

And y'all, he loves it.  He is such a big boy now...
Clearly Charlotte doesn't see what all of the fuss is about.

But we get it.  This was a BIG day...
Everytime we get in the car now, his face lights up, and he says, "Oh! Look at my new carseat!"  He's so excited, I don't know how he forgets about it in between car rides. 

He is also always really excited to unbuckle his seatbelt.  Sometimes a little too excited, I'm afraid.  There have been several panicked, "don't unbuckle your seatbelt!!!!!" moments as we are driving down the road.  And Sunday after church, James went to put Charlotte in her carseat, and the seatbelt that was supposed to be strapping it onto the bench was no longer buckled.  I'm just going to tell myself Hunter unbuckled it after we got to church.  Much better than believing we drove 20 minutes with our 16 month old completely unattached to the car.

Charlotte is also growing and learning a TON lately.  Her newest word is "up", and the girl says it all the time.  Up now means several things in our house, from up to out to in to most other prepositions in the English language.  She is also insistent on brushing her hair everynight after I'm done brushing it.  And she loves to walk around and snuggle with any of her baby dolls or stuffed animals...also with kitchen towels, clean laundry, and as sad as I am to say it, dirty laundry.  She'll hold whatever she has chosen to snuggle with up to her cheek, lean into it and scrunch her little nose up.  It's so sweet.  Except for when it's the dirty laundry, when I'm certain that the nose scrunching is for a completely different reason.

The last couple of nights, she has pulled out Hunter's Buzz Lightyear wings from Halloween and insisted that I put them on her...


Precious.  I am so blessed by them.

Monday, November 8, 2010

San Antonio

We went to Austin on Saturday for a family baby shower in honor of my friend, Joni, so we thought we'd make a little trip out of it and head to San Antonio after the shower.  We had a great weekend, but naps did not happen, so my children were exhausted and cran-ky by early Sunday afternoon, which gave us some interesting moments at Sea World.  Fortunately, everyone's kids throw fits at Sea World.  It made it much less stressful for us knowing that there were at least 2 other screaming kids in the same vicinity as us during Hunter's many whining fits.

We were all really excited to get on the road for Austin on Saturday morning.  Hunter even posed for a picture on the way down...well, sort of posed...

After we checked into our hotel in San Antonio on Saturday, we got cleaned up and headed to the riverwalk for dinner.  It was already past the kids' regular dinner time, so we opted for the first Mexican restaurant we passed, and it turned out to be pretty good!

As you'll soon see, I didn't get the best pictures we've ever taken on this trip.  Partly because it was way higher on my priority list to manage Hunter's outbursts than to take pictures and partly because it's just becoming a beating to take pictures of my sweet children.  Anyone that comes around Hunter with a camera is quickly told that he does NOT want his picture taken, and Charlotte has developed a new disappearing skill where she runs or crawls out of camera shot nearly every time I take a picture.  This leaves me taking about 4 pictures for every shot I want.  I'm hoping this is short-lived.  I've actually started telling Hunter that when he's older and sees only pictures of Charlotte in our family albums, he's going to feel really sad.  Yes.  I've started the guilt-tripping alreadly.  Let's also hope that one is short-lived.

Here's the first photo failure of the trip...
 But I did get Hunter with a smile on his face, so I couldn't bring myself to delete it.  Maybe I should consider carrying around a bag of chips and some salsa with my camera.  Hunter always smiles when he sees that combo.  It's his favorite snack.

After dinner we quickly walked down the riverwalk where I realized how different it is to be there with your 2 kids than it is to be there with only adults.  The walkway is really narrow and there are a lot of people smoking.  Very stressful combo y'all.  I had to stop and try for another picture with sweet H to calm my heartrate down a little...
That would've actually made a great picture, but the flash helped us to see the huge water stain on Hunter's pants.  I promise that's not urine...he spilled James's cup of water at dinner:)

We finally made it to the elevator where there was no threat of drowning or developing lung cancer, so we were all smiles...
 ...but Charlotte was still insistent on avoiding the camera at all costs.  Clearly, trapping her in her stroller doesn't help make the perfect picture.  She'll just look away...
 Both times...

We finally made it back to the hotel, and after some Daylight Savings confusion, ended up at Sea World right when they opened at 12 on Sunday.  Our first stop was to feed the fish, turtles and alligators (who had zero interest in our fish food, even when we were able to land it right by his super sharp teeth).  Then we found this fun playground...
 Charlotte spent her entire time ruining her shoes on the slides...
And H ran all around, but his favorite thing was the little red microphones.  At least I think they were microphones?  Hunter thought they were showerheads, though.  He's really into imaginative play lately, and I heart it!

Outside of the Shamu Story show, we saw these flamingos, and thought it was a great photo op...
 Charlotte wasn't thrilled.  (It was waaaaaay past naptime at this point).
And photo #2 was even worse.

Hunter and I loved the Shamu shows.  Hunter actually loved all of the shows.  He had this look on his face the entire time...
 (Yes, my daughter is picking her nose in that picture.  Constant battle y'all.  She either has her finger up her own or someone else's nose.) 

After the shows were over, Hunter would smile really big and say, "That was so fun!" 

I was really moved by the Killer Whales.  Y'all know I don't want animals anywhere near my house, but I do have a heart to love them...just from a distance.  These animals are so beautiful.  It was amazing to watch them...


 And they always posed perfectly for my pictures:)

Charlotte was not so fond of the shows.  She'd usually last 5-10 minutes, and then one of us would take her out so she could walk around...

Toward the end of the day, this sweet family offered to take a picture of us, so of course we took them up on it.  I think the picture is perfect for the day...
We really did have a great time!  I love those 3 people more than anything and can't wait for our next trip together!