Dinos at the FW Zoo!

The FW Zoo has dinosaurs on exhibit they had an early opening this morning for Zoo members...Dinos & Donuts. Vanessa and Gregory joined us and the kids had a great time checking out all the very real looking dinosaurs!

what a weekend...

This is our last weekend without Collinger (we pick her up on Tuesday :) so we had planned a weekend full of lots of work in the yard and lots of work on the new playhouse, and we spent most of Saturday doing just that...but Saturday night Bryan gave us the scare of our lives so plans quickly changed. We were getting ready to leave the house after dinner Saturday night and we told the kids to go get their shoes. Bryan had just walked into his room when he heard a loud crashing sound...we ran into his room to find his chest of drawers had fallen face forward on the ground and Bryan was standing next to it and escaped with only a "booboo" on his finger. We are still not sure what caused it to fall, Bryan has never tried to climb up it, or any other furniture for that matter, and he wasn't in his room long enough to have pulled all the drawers open to make it top heavy. We have every other shelf, cabinet, etc. in the house bolted to the wall but for some reason we never got around to the chest of drawers in the kid's rooms and they are solid oak so one wouldn't think it would easily tip over. So scary because it easily could have killed or severly injured Bryan had it fallen on top of him...and we are still not sure how he got out of the way. But needless to say his chest of drawers and Emma's were moved out of the house Saturday night and I refuse to put one back in their rooms. So Patrick and his handy carpentry to the rescue...he transformed the kid's closest so that there wouldn't be a need for a chest or drawers or dresser in their room. So if you are reading this and have young kids, please secure your furniture!!!

BEFORE

AFTER

Spring Break

Still recovering from an awesome Spring Break vacation!! We headed to Galveston last Saturday morning and the kids were so excited to get in the water that they didn't even wait to get changed into their suits before they got into the sand and water!! We spent the whole day out on the beach and lucked out with beautiful weather. The water was pretty chilly but our "water baby" Emma didn't mind at all...we had to practically drag her out for dinner!!

We got up Sunday morning and enjoyed a "surrey" bike ride down the seawall. The kids had a blast sitting in front of us and telling us where to go! Patrick and I didn't realize what a workout it would be, but both of our legs felt like noodles for the rest of the day!

Sunday afternoon we headed to New Orleans and got there just in time to have a wonderful dinner at Chris and Michelle's house. Monday included breakfast at Cafe Du Monde, a ferry ride across the river, street car ride to City Park, lunch and play at the Park, and a wonderful dinner before back to the hotel to rest for another day of fun!

(The peristyle where Chris & Michelle are getting married in October)

Tuesday included another street car ride, playing at yet another beautiful park (Audubon Park), a wonderful lunch at Chris' new restaurant (The American Sector), a very moving 4-D movie on the history of WWII (adults only!), a great dinner with all our relatives that lives in New Orleans, and a trip to the casino to wrap it up!!

We had a great breakfast before we headed home on Wednesday but we cannot wait to go back in October!!

Patching...

Emma had her four month follow-up with the opthamologist yesterday and we were hoping to avoid it but we have to start patching her eye. When the doctor was telling Emma about it she started to cry but her mood turned to super excited when she saw how many cute choices of patches there are and that she could get a box with all of them and pick a new one to wear each day!! Her left eye has started to improve but the doctor felt that we wouldn't see anymore significant improvement if she didn't do the patching. Fortunately she only has to patch two hour a day so we can do it in the afternoons after school!! And luckily the kids are in LOVE with Jake and the Never Land Pirates on DisneyJr. so Emma now says she's "Izzy the Pirate" and Bryan is "Jake"!! We go back to the opthamologist in another two months so we are praying this really does the trick!!!

Bryan had to get in on the pirate action!!

He did it!!!

So proud of my little boy, he has gone 5 days in a row in underwear (with the exception of a cloth trainer at night), including a couple days at school with no accidents!! We had been working on the potty thing since he turned 2 but I was starting to back off because I knew he would do it in his own time and he is only 27 months old...but it clicked for him this weekend and I was daring enough to take him out of the house without the diapers and he did great!!! I think Patrick is more excited than I am because he washes our cloth diapers and this means no more stinky diapers to wash out!! But I'm super proud that we stuck with cloth, in the past 27 months we have not bought one single pack of disposable diapers!!

LOVE this little guy in his "undies"!!

Vday, Bdays and Plays!!

Last Friday night we took the kids to CATS to see Pinkalicious (super cute children's book if you haven't read it!). The kids LOVED it and they had a "Pink" party afterwards with pink cupcakes, cookies, cotton candy, pink nail polish and a chance to meet the cast!

Then on Sunday Emma and I had a girls afternoon and went with our friends the Crissey's to see Beauty and the Beast Junior at Theater Arlington. Emma was a little scared at first (OK she hid under her seat) but once the singing started and Belle came out she started to really enjoy it!!

Patrick and I celebrated our 29th birthdays with family parties...of course the kids had to blow our candles out!

And we had a wonderful Valentines Day...the kids got pillow pets from Patrick and I and had fun Valentines parties at school!

(super cute gift that the kids gave me, all the hearts are coupons I can trade in....they says things like "Help you with the dishes," "Let Dad put me to bed," "Play nicely in my room with my brother.")

Super Bowl 45

About a week before the big game we headed out to the Stadium to check out all the fun! The City was working on submitting a bid for the game when I first started working there, so it's been kind of cool to watch all the preparation and planning that has gone into hosting such a big event.