Creative Playscape in Georgetown

This morning we did a little family outing to the Creative Playscape, about 25 minutes north of us in Georgetown. It's a huge wooden playscape, which Texas Monthly magazine named the Best Playground in Texas! It was a lot of fun!!The place has sooooo many steps, bridges, tunnels, nooks and crannies, but I didn't really capture much of that in these photos! Of course there were the standard playground items, swings and slides...Carter tried out walking the tightrope...Courtney *loved* this little wobbly bridge, she spent the majority of her time walking back and forth across it!They both had a go at the zip line...
There were some fun (and loud!) chimes to play...Carter even found a train to climb on!All in all, a very happy morning!

Puddle Hoppin'!

Today was a dark and rainy morning here in Austin. It was the most rain we've seen in a LONG time! By afternoon the rain had stopped, and it was just gorgeous outside. I love walking around after a good, spring rain, everything looks so green and lush! Carter got some new rain boots, so we decided to put them on and go searching for puddles to jump in. Carter LOVED it!!Basically, splashing around in new boots ROCKS! Don't you agree, Carter?

You know your baby girl is really sleepy when...

A Monday at Zilker Park

Joel's company gives employees Good Friday off from work. Joel, however, was in Idaho on a business trip on Friday, so he chose to take today (Monday) off instead. It was a beautiful, sunny day here in Austin, so we decided his day off was a good day to head down to Zilker Park! First we went to one of the picnic table areas, where we grilled some hot dogs and played for a while. Courtney was excited to get to run around with the football.Carter and Daddy played frisbee. Carter needs a little more practice with his frisbee throwing - notice where the frisbee is headed, and where Daddy is standing...After lunch we headed over to the playground area of the park. Courtney had fun exploring the playscape. The girl has no fear, I had to keep her from stepping off the edge to a few foot drop several times!She thought this part was pretty interesting (and I liked that, because there was no fear of scrapes or broken bones...)Daddy and Carter were off exploring the bigger-kid playscape.Next we went to the area with really cool xylophones to play. Courtney wasn't quite sure how it was supposed to work.No worries Courtney, Carter didn't quite get it either.Carter sitting on a dolphin.Courtney and Daddy.Courtney and Carter playing together in the sandbox.Carter concentrating on his sand project.Another fun day in Austin! When we got home, I did a little yard work - FINALLY got my tomatoes in the ground. I'm probably too late, we'll see if we get many tomatoes this year. According to the planting guide on the Travis County agricultural extension office website, I have until the 15th to get them in. So, just under the wire with two days to spare... we'll see! :-) Thanks for stopping by today!

Easter Morning

Carter did his usual EARLY morning wake-up on Easter. He typically walks out into the livingroom in the morning, sits in a chair and starts calling for me or Daddy. Easter was no different. I went out there and we laid down together on the couch for a while. It wasn't until MUCH later that he realized that there were some goodies for him and Courtney sitting on the table! I had also hung a "Happy Easter" banner up across the window, next to the table. Carter said "What's that snake with letters on it?". Silly boy. So here's Carter with his goodies - he was very happy about the candy.Courtney was most interested in the grass.Eventually Courtney realized there was a new stuffed bunny in her basket. She loves stuffed animals, and especially bunnies! Here she is with her brown bunny she always sleeps with, as well as her new pink bunny and a tiny white bunny that was inside the egg in her basket. Carter and Daddy put together a little puzzle the Easter Bunny left in Carter's basket.I didn't think to take any photos (darn it!) but later in the day we had dinner with Aunt Laura, Uncle Brad, Uncle Jon and the other "uncles" Scott and Joe. Carter ate his hard boiled eggs he had colored the day before for both breakfast and dinner! He now loves them - we'll see if he loves boiled eggs in the future when they haven't been dyed! Overall we had a nice Easter - I hope you did too!

Eggs & Bunnies

This morning was the annual egg "hunt" in our neighborhood. I say "hunt", because at this age it's just a bunch of eggs in a field, and a free-for-all for the kids to pick them up and put them in their baskets.Carter getting ready to collect eggs.Courtney had a lot of fun picking up eggs.I love her sweet Easter dress this year!She was off and running - most of the time away from the eggs, and kept having to get re-directed!The kids also got to meet the Easter Bunny!! Courtney loves bunnies, so this was very exciting. And Carter actually posed with him, an improvement over last year. Notice there's a real bunny in the Easter Bunny's lap, too! Courtney was pretty preoccupied by it!There was also a little petting zoo set up for the kids.Once we were back home, Carter decorated some eggs! In this photo he's waiting for the little color tablet to dissolve.Carter was so careful picking the eggs up out of the color and putting them in the carton.He was very proud of his finished eggs!Have a wonderful Easter weekend, I'll be back tomorrow with more photos!

My Future Chef?

Yesterday I had the TV on, mostly for background noise, as I cleaned the kitchen while Carter and Courtney napped. Carter woke from his nap and wandered into the livingroom. Usually if I have the TV on during the day, it's tuned to CNN or MSNBC - news - and as soon as Carter sees it he begins his usual chant of "I wanna watch thoooooomas!" Well this time I had on the Food Network. He didn't say a word and just plopped down on the couch, intently watching Guy Fieri whip up a "family-style fiesta". Carter loves cooking scrambled eggs with me, the one thing we cook together - and he loves playing with his pretend food and his kitchen, where he's always whipping up his special "birthday parties" - perhaps there is already some passion for cooking and I could have the next Food Network celebrity chef on my hands??? Hmmmm. :-)

Hangin' with Flat Joey

As you may remember, growing up my very best friend was Karla French. Karla and I drifted apart in high school, and I hadn't talked to her in ~20+ years - until recently! Karla (now Karla Mancini) found me via a website called Facebook. It's been really great catching up with her and seeing photos of her family. Well - her six year old son Joey is doing a 1st grade class project based on the book Flat Stanley, about a boy who is made of paper. Joey, who lives in Michigan, needed to send "Flat Joey" to another state for a visit. Apparently Joey loves Texas, because Sandy on Spongebob is from here too (who knew??!). :-) So Flat Joey came for a little visit. He arrived like this:Of course he needed to be dressed up in proper Texas attire, so I turned Flat Joey into a true Texan with a little cowboy outfit:Today Carter and I took Flat Joey out to see some of our favorite things around Austin. A visit to Austin in the spring would not be complete without a photo in the bluebonnets!!Next we took Flat Joey to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library & Museum. It's a really nice museum, and best of all - it's FREE! :-) First Flat Joey posed with LBJ himself (in bronze):Flat Joey got to see a replica of LBJ's desk in the Oval Office.And he hung out in the Green Room of the White House for a bit.There's currently a very cool space exhibit at the library called To the Moon: The American Space Program in the 1960s. As both a Senator and then President, Mr. Johnson did more to facilitate the rapid progress of the space program than any other American leader. Flat Joey got to see the actual Mercury 7 space capsule:He also went to the moon!In addition to the museum, the building is also home to all of the documents Lyndon Johnson kept during his political life. And there are lots and lots of them! Carter's Aunt Laura works where researchers come to view the documents. She also helps when documents are being declassified and released to the public. She's even gotten calls from Brian Williams' staff - he happens to be quite an LBJ buff! (Laura correct me if I'm getting anything wrong here!) Here are some of the boxes you can look up at while you're down in the museum:Thanks to our insider tourguide (Aunt Laura!), Flat Joey was lucky enough to see one of these boxes up close and personal - maybe he jotted down some notes for an LBJ memoir he's been working on? (ETA: Since Flat Joey is *not* LBJ, I suppose memoir was a poor choice of word here, oops!)After all of this touring at the library, Flat Joey was hungry! Carter took his new friend to lunch. He can't visit Austin without going out for some tex-mex, now can he??We had fun spending our morning with Flat Joey - tomorrow he's headed back to Michigan so Real Joey can hear all about his adventure! Thanks for stopping by today!