Junior Fair

My sweet pal, Leah, grew up as a country girl. She had a great childhood that included living on acreage and being in FFA. She showed animals and everything! That is something that this city girl wasn't ever exposed to, for sure. Ha!

We went to her home town to their Junior Fair to see all of the animals that they were showing. I must admit that I was a fish out of water - I had no clue what was going on! Leah navigated all of the barns and taught the kids about the animals while I tried to avoid anyone stepping in poop and puddles of who-knows-what kind of fluid. My, oh my...

My city boys sure had fun being in the country, though! It was a great adventure!






What a fun day! Thanks, Leah, for inviting us to tag along. :)

Snaggletooth...

You have no idea how it pains my heart to blog about this particular event. But... Clayton has lost his first tooth. How is that possible???

Dear Father Time,

I have a bone to pick with you. Childhood is passing by WAY too quickly for my liking! Why aren't mothers equipped with some sort of pause button for life? Or slow motion? It really and truly is not fair...

Sincerely,
Clayton's Mother

For the last several months, Clayton has had several loose tooth false alarms. He would come running up to me with claims of a loose tooth, only for me to realize that it was still firmly in place. That is, until last Thursday night...

He had me check a tooth that he thought was loose, and, by golly, it was indeed loose. I will go ahead and rat myself out: I cried the second that I realized that itty bitty baby tooth was on its way out. :( Wade was totally supportive and said something along the lines of, "Please tell me that you aren't seriously crying about a loose tooth?!?!?!"

Men.

It's just that I remember when that itty bitty baby tooth popped through the gum. I have looked at that tooth every day for the last 5+ years. I have bonded with that sweet part of his smile. And now it was going to change. Only to be followed by more teeth meeting the same fate. Life is cruel. :(

8 1/2 month old Clayton with his brand new bottom teeth

I pulled myself together and started working on a tooth fairy pillow. I finished it Friday morning, and by Friday afternoon Wade and Clayton were conspiring to pull that sweet little tooth.

I insisted on before pictures, with his mouthful of baby teeth completely intact. :)

The last picture of all of Clayton's baby teeth...

Wade went with the string method.

One little tug and that full-of-baby-teeth-smile was gone forever.
Clayton was thrilled, and I may have cried again. ;)

His snaggletooth grin is pretty cute, too, I guess...

So, so proud...

I let him help design his tooth pillow and pick out the fabric. He didn't like most of the "girly" ones that were online. Ha! He was upset, however, that I embroidered it with "Clayton" instead of "Reid." ;)

The Tooth Fairy was very kind to him, and now he is already working on the next loose tooth. Before long, he won't have a tooth left in his head and the Tooth Fairy will be flat broke! :)

Dallas Blooms

On Monday, Drew and I met my sweet friend from high school, Kati, at the Dallas Arboretum. I love the Arboretum, and used to take Clayton several times a year when we lived closer. It was just as beautiful as I remembered, and we had so much fun.

Drew was in a great mood and was so easy. I would ask, "Do you want me to take your picture with those flowers?" Everytime he would say, "Yes!" and then bounce over to where I told him to stand and smile. He's so good to his Mama...

We had a little picnic lunch by the lake. Drew wasn't quite sure what to think about Miss Hannah...

until she tickled him...

then he decided that she was pretty fun. :)

He was cheering her on as she crawled on the grass. It was so cute! I asked Kati, "Did you ever think, back in 1997, that we would be watching our babies play in 2011???" ;)

It was a beautiful Spring day filled with flowers, friends, and one of my favorite boys. :)

Spring Break Grand Finale :)

We had a fun-filled "staycation" for Spring Break. :) On Friday night, Wade used some of his hotel points to rent a room at the Embassy Suites at Sundance Square. We weren't far from home, but it was the change of scenery that we were looking for. They had an indoor pool, so the boys got to swim. They thought that was great fun!

They also enjoyed the hotel experience. We splurged on an in room movie...
and overpriced snacks from the lobby. The boys stayed up late and had a grand old time. It was a fun way to end our Spring Break.

On Saturday, we left the hotel and went to the Fort Worth Water Gardens to look around.

The boys climbed to the top of the "Mountain" and did a Rocky pose for me. Baby Owen and I kept our feet (er, uh... my feet?) planted on solid ground - no climbing for us. ;)

We had a great Spring Break! It made me sooo ready for the lazy days of summer to get here. Although, I don't know how "lazy" they will be when we add a newborn to the mix. The way that I figure it, another child is going to increase my workload by 50%. Ha!

Trip to the Zoo

On Thursday, we went to the Dallas Zoo with a sweet family from our church. I have to admit that I have always thought that the Fort Worth Zoo was way better than the Dallas zoo. But, this trip totally changed my opinion! The Dallas Zoo has done a ton of renovations and has added some really cool attractions. We really enjoyed our visit and would love to go back!

The gorilla was in rare form on this particular day. He was giving the kids fist bumps through the glass and pounding on the glass. He was staring right at us - I've never seen a gorilla act the way he was acting. I was really thankful for that thick glass divider! Drew was cool with it at first...
But he came running to his Daddy when the gorilla did this! He stood far away and started saying, "No no, Monkey! No, no!" Ha ha!
We rode the monorail and the kids really loved seeing the animals from above their habitats. We even got to see some animals that you can't see while walking. Very cool! I will say, however, that I was terrified for most of the ride that Drew was going to take a nose dive right off of the front of the monorail car. He kept leaning forward and pointing - oh, my word, I am pretty sure that I earned a few more gray hairs during that experience. I don't even want to know what my blood pressure was... In hindsight, I should have made him sit on my lap. Not the best decision on my part... Live and learn, I guess!

Clayton loved having another boy to climb on rocks with :)

They have changed all of the "Wilds of Africa" exhibits. They have an area now where you are face to face with the giraffes and you can pay $5 to feed them lettuce. The kids thought that was super fun!

Drew is such a poser!

They have a cool playground area, too. Drew said, "Awwww, egg broken..." in a sad voice when we walked up. ;)

For the grand finale of the day, the kids got to ride on a camel! That was another new attraction that they all really enjoyed. :)
I will say that there was a full on toddler tantrum when Drew didn't get to ride the camel. :( Man, oh man, it was B.A.D. - probably his worst ever! By that time he was really tired, and not getting to be a "big kid" pushed him over the edge. I had to just ignore the fact that he was losing his mind in his stroller as everyone around us stared. Parenting is so humbling at times, isn't it???

All in all, we had a really great day! The weather was perfect, it wasn't crowded at all (especially considering that it was Spring Break!), and I was very impressed with how much the Dallas Zoo has changed since our last visit. If you are like me and have written off the Dallas Zoo, give them another chance. :)

St. Patrick's Day Kid Craft

I've never really thought much about celebrating St. Patrick's Day... It was just a random holiday between Valentines and Easter on which I tried to remember to wear green. Last year, I read this blog post and realized that it is another holiday with Christian roots. I loved this activity and bookmarked it as something that I wanted to do this year with my kids.

We followed Janna's tutorial pretty much exactly and read Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland before we did the potato stamping. Clayton thought that using the shamrock to teach about the Trinity was pretty neat, and Drew loved getting to paint. Everyone was a winner! ;)

The Finished Product :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!

Clayton's Mini-Birthday Celebration

This year we opted not to do a full birthday party for Clayton. We had a long list of reasons why we didn't want to have a big blow out party. Instead, we told Clayton that he could invite a couple of friends to do something fun and then to spend the night. He decided to take his buddies to Medieval Times. They had so much fun!!!

Our section was assigned the green knight to cheer for. He did really well, and the boys were glued to the show. We had upgraded our tickets and were seated on the front row. We were right there for all of the action. It was cute to watch their little faces as they got really into the show. They all had a ball!

Drew wants to be big so bad! He followed the big boys around and did whatever they did. He cheered and waved his green flag with the best of them. :)

The "King" walked by our table and gave Clayton a high five.

Only one of Clayton's little friends was able to spend the night. We set them up on a blow up bed in the living room. The friend got scared and came into our room at about 11:45 (they were both still awake). Wade reassured him and took him back to bed. Wade waited for a minute just around the corner to see if his calming down B had worked. He heard Clayton say, "B, monsters aren't real! They are just a distraction from the devil, God made you stronger than that!" I thought that was so sweet... How many things in our life can we say that about - "that's just a distraction from the devil, God made you stronger than that." Out of the mouth of babes, I guess... :)

I still feel guilty that we didn't have a big, huge party, but Clayton really enjoyed his mini-party. And, our family and friends have spoiled him rotten with gifts and little celebrations. So far, he has had 3 different birthday cakes! He has had a wonderful birthday, indeed! Thanks to everyone who made his 6th birthday so memorable!