Date night

Last night Knox and I had an impromptu date.  Stephen is on his third and final week of travel (can I get an amen?), so we took advantage of the time with just us.  We headed up to Collin Creek Mall, which is less than a mile from our house.  It used to be my hang out in Middle/High School, and though it's changed quite a bit, it's still the same in so many ways. 

One way it has changed is with the new play area.  We don't get there too often, as it's mostly really crowded, but we decided to give it a go and it did not disappoint.  We went around 6:15pm, thinking most kids would be eating dinner and it wouldn't be crowded.  Wrong.  There were still a lot of kids, but it worked out nicely for us. 

He played and played, and boxed out all of the other kids from taking his Jeep.  We're working on it, promise.  

He started getting hungry, so we pushed all of the buttons in the elevator and finally reached the second floor and Chick-Fil-A.  While eating, I spotted Amazing Jake's.  I've never been inside, but have heard from others it's sort of like Dave and Busters.  I thought it had the potential to be a fun adventure before we had to leave for bedtime, and it did NOT disappoint.

There were two levels.  The bottom level was a food court and movie theater, and the top level housed a go-cart track, bumper cars, two carnival-esque rides for the littles, a carousel, and a lot of games.  A lot.  

By far the best part:  Knox has no clue that he's not really playing.  He would push all of the buttons and the lights would go crazy and he thought it was the coolest thing.  And it was all FREE.  So fun.  It might be our new summer (air conditioned) hang out when there's nothing else to do.  I literally had to drag him out of there, kicking and screaming.  He cried all the way to the car...he loved it!

Putting some pennies from the bottom of my purse in the machine.

Admiring the games with trucks and beep beeps!

Fireball.  This was his favorite, mainly because of the music.  

Really...he loved the music:

I can't wait to go back with Stephen.  And maybe we'll drop $5 to see Fireball in action.

Foraging for leaves...

Knox is obsessed with being outside, and he loves to get dirty.  He wasn't always this way.  In fact, he used to be so afraid of touching the grass/dirt/ground with his hands, he would make me pick him up if he fell.  No lie.  Now, he loves it.  Wants to walk barefoot, wants to get his hands dirty.  I love it.  He's a boy...it's a rite of passage.  

One of his recent obsessions is rocks and snails.  He will keep up with a particular snail for days.  We'll be wrestling on the couch and I'll notice he's clutching a snail.  Seriously.  

Dad's been out of town and he's getting particularly sick of me.  We needed to do something this morning where he could be independent.  For some reason, a little creative project popped in my head and we were off...foraging for leaves, snails and rocks.  And even a piece of mulch.

He.was.in.heaven. 

So proud of his rock.  And the helicopter was his "co-pilot" the entire time.

"See the leaf, mommy?"

His most prized possession.

Our loot.

We then came inside and made our art.  I started by drawing a trunk.  He colored within the lines really well...

For a little while.  And then I had to add two more trees :)

I wouldn't recommend using a glue gun.  All of you calling CPS right now HOLD THE PHONE.  I made sure he "dropped" the leaves on the glue, and I scalded myself pushing it into the paper.  Elmer's is on my Hobby Lobby shopping list.  And yes, I have a Hobby Lobby shopping list.  I'm a nerd.

He loved placing the leaves, and was really excited about the rocks and snails.  But because I'm OCD, I made sure the snails, rocks and mulch were at the bottom of the tree.  I know, sucking the artistic freedom right out of him.

Our finished product.  So cute.  Love his art!

Ally Elizabeth

One of the main reasons I headed back to Austin after girls weekend was to see sweet baby Ally.  She is so precious:  cuddly, loving and a great baby.  She rarely cries, and as a third child this is something to behold.  Her brother and sister love her to pieces, and she fits right in like she has been there all along.  

I loved getting some quality snuggles, and can't wait until I can get my hands on her again.  One night mid-week we decided to head to Jeremy and Lindsay's for dinner, and I took the opportunity to do a little photo shoot.  I loved getting to take pictures of a baby that doesn't really move.  It was a serious contrast from trying to snap pictures of Knox.  What a treat to take pictures and not end up sweating!

Here a few of the sweet babe...enjoy!

I made her little onesie, too.  Isn't she to die for?

Buzz the Monkey

Once our girls trip was over, I headed back to Austin to have a little visit with my parents.  Stephen was out of town for work all week, so it was the perfect time.  We had so much fun, playing with cousins, swimming, playing with Gigi and Papi, and getting some loving from his favorite lab, Lexi.  These trips are always too short, but I'm so thankful we're able to do it.  

The reason I'm so late in posting all of these fun things is that when I tried to leave Austin my car died.  And by died I mean "STOP ENGINE NOW!" warnings going off and my car being towed to the dealership.  The story is a lot longer and more complex, but let's just say I rented a car and made it home 8 hours after I intended to.  My car is still in Austin being worked on.  Crazy stuff.  

Now, back to the fun.  My brother Jeremy and his wife Lindsay had to leave town on Monday to attend her grandfather's funeral.  With them they took Ally (their 4-week old), but left the older kiddos with my parents.  That meant that all three cousins were "living" together for a little while.  They did so good, and napped when they were supposed to.  It was fun. 

Monday morning they woke up and headed to the park with Gigi.

But on the way they heard Papi's truck and turned around.  These kids love riding in the back of Papi's truck...

They played and had lunch, then went down for their naps.  What Knox and I didn't know was that Gigi had promised Mackenzie that she could get a dog at Build-A-Bear.  She had already decided to name him "Copper," and Conner was excited to get one, too.  Since we'd never done it, we decided to join in on the fun!

(we had a stop in Nordstrom's because Gigi ran into an old neighbor.  These boys laughing at each other kills me...love it!)

He picked out a monkey and was adding the heart here.  They ask you to do all of these things with it, like "rub it on your ear so your monkey can hear you well."  Knox took it all so seriously!

Mackenzie was so excited to finally have Copper in her possession!

If you've never been to Build-A-Bear, it's nuts.  You pick out, stuff, and love on your new pet...but there's HUNDREDS of accessories and outfits to pick out as well.  They are all optional, but once your kid sees them it's kind of imperative you follow through.  I gave Knox two choices:  A Texas Rangers monkey or Buzz Lightyear monkey...he went with Buzz.

There were so many things to play with, though, that Buzz kind of took a backseat for a while.

Poor Buzz monkey. 

All was right with the world once we put him in his house and headed home.  

We had so much fun...but this will be our only "buzz monkey" for a long time.

Girls Weekend

This past weekend some girlfriends and I headed down to ATX to spend a little time away.  I haven't ever taken a girls trip since Knox was born, so I was really excited.  We all were able to find babysitting arrangements so that we could leave Thursday night, which gave us an extra day.  After all the stress of planning, we were so excited when Thursday rolled around.  We texted the entire day, counting down to the trip.  Love these girls...

Thursday night we spent the night at my parents to avoid an extra hotel night.  We woke up to cloudy skies, and it rained for a little bit that morning, but it was still a peaceful setting.  Love waking up in Austin.  And that's a bird getting a drink in the pool...pretty cool.

Since it was cloudy (and we couldn't check in until 3pm), we decided to head to a movie.  It's nice to be child-free and have the luxury of sitting through a movie again.  We snapped this cute shot before leaving:

After the flick, we headed downtown.  It was (unfortunately) ROT weekend...Republic of Texas Bike Rally.  There were "hogs" everywhere.  If we never hear a loud motorcycle again we'll be fine.  In all honesty, though, once in the hotel we couldn't hear a thing.  Getting downtown from Westlake was a different story.  Due to the rally, all major downtown streets were shut down.  It took forever, and once we were in our hotel we all needed a little cocktail.  Enter these cute cups.  My mom had them made for her friends, but once we had made some slight adjustments, they were perfect!

Our view from the room was great...we could see all of downtown without any major eyesores.

We headed out that night for some grub at Guerro's on South Congress, then headed to bar-hop on West 6th.  We had so much fun dancing the night away...enough fun that we were pretty low-key Saturday, just laying by the pool and relaxing.  

We headed to Abel's on the Lake for dinner Saturday night.  It was a beautiful night to eat on the lake.  We had another relaxing meal, where we weren't stuffing our faces as fast as we could so we could tend to the kiddos.  It was great.

We decided at dinner that we were all beat.  We headed back to the hotel and decided we needed some proof of the motorcycle mayhem...and some guy with a light-up bike was happy to oblige.  This picture cracks me up...alien eyes and all!

We had such a blast, but were all eager to get home to our munchkins.  Thanks for such a great weekend, girls!  Can't wait till RHOR Reunion 2013!

My little man

I have a confession...I really hate leaving Knox.  Whether for 3 hours or 3 days, I'm not very good at it.  Stephen and I are heading out of town for a few days, and even though I can't wait, I have a sinking feeling the closer it gets because I know I have to leave him.  

It's in my DNA.  I'm positive my mom still feels this way, and we're all grown and married.  He's so woven in my being that I feel like something is missing when he's not there.  I'm so thankful that we have people in our lives excited to watch him for us, so I have to really allow myself to let go and have a great time.

So, in the spirit of sappiness...I took a few pictures of my little man.  He's growing so fast.  He still loves cars, trains and planes, but he also loves dinosaurs, books, and stickers.  He's a complete talker, and doesn't stop chatting with me all day (wonder where he gets that?).  His most recent thing that cracks us up is that he refers to us as guys.  Like, "Hey guys, I want breakfast."  Or "Hey guys, what are you doing?"  It's pretty funny.

He's a lover, not a fighter...though he has problems sharing his own toys.  He loves to dance and listen to music, and gets crabby if you don't do things with him on his time frame.  He adores his daddy, but has been on a mommy streak here recently (swoon).  

Every day is a new adventure with a two-year old, and I wouldn't change one bit of it.

This morning, he really wanted to wear some stickers on his arms and hands.

I love that he still has the chubby'ish baby hands and arms.

He loves trying on daddy's shoes.  

And feeding his dinosaur to his "big dinosaur."

Since Daddy was working from home this morning, he grabbed his Mater laptop and did so as well.  Just closing deals.

Love that boy.

It was bound to happen...

I can't remember the last time Knox was sick.  Really, I thought about it and the last illness I can remember was 10 months ago.  Sure, he's had a cold or two, but nothing big.  

Friday night we had a little happy hour with friends, and the kids played and had a great time.  Knox was fine, enjoying the time, and even sneaking a little recliner to watch some outdoor tv.

(p.s. all pictures are from my phone, so I apologize for the haze)

The next morning he was content and happy, eating a little squeezie and pretzels.  

We made our way to soccer, where things got a little shaky.  He whined a good amount of the time, but to be honest, that's kind of his go-to when he doesn't want to be doing something anymore.  There was a new teacher, and he had a lot more "down time" during the class, so I figured he was just bored.

That afternoon we had a little swim party/cookout for the dad's softball team.  They won the National Championship in their softball league, so we were excited to celebrate the victory.  He awoke from his nap in a great mood, was happy at the start of the party and then 15 minutes after getting in the water, he kept saying "all done." We got him out of the pool, and he was shivering.  In this heat.  We knew something was up, but decided to feed him and see if that helped.  He was acting so strange, lethargic with a blank stare on his face.  This is the only picture I have of us at the party (no judging), but you can see his tired gaze...

He acted so tired and sad.  I thought he felt a little warm, so he and I packed up and we headed home.  Once I got him bathed and put his jammies on, I checked his temp and it was 102.  I gave him some Motrin and then took advantage of his snuggles!

Once Daddy got home, we gave him another dose of medicine and then put him to bed.  I'm kind of a nervous nelly (surprise, surprise!) so I made sure to wake him up in the middle of the night to check his temp and give him more medicine.

By the morning, he still had a fever but it was much lower.  The fever (99 or so) hung around all day and into the night.  The weirdest part was there were no other symptoms.  No runny nose, no cough.  Nothing.

He didn't really have an appetite with the fever, so we were doing whatever we could to make him eat.  Vanilla won!

Not the most nutritional meal, but at least there was some dairy, right?

He was feeling a little better after dinner, and was trying to delay bedtime.  He kept saying he needed to kiss and hug the dogs before he could go to bed.  Since it was raining, Gracie was freaking out and sticking pretty close to Stephen.  Knox took full advantage and gave her some snuggles.

After checking out the hail and rain, he headed to bed and slept soundly.  Today, he's fever free and back to his normal self.  So strange.  It was bound to happen though.  I'm just thankful it didn't require a doctors visit, or worse-a stomach virus. 

Here's to another 10 months without incident :)

And I need to get my "big" camera out more.  These phone pics aren't going to cut it!