Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Fun at the Hoppin' House

This morning I took the kids down to Hoppin' House in Lakeway, a fun place with a bunch of those inflatable bouncy things. Both kids had a blast! Carter would love it if I'd take him there everyday! And Courtney had the most fun she's ever had there, she is not shy at all about taking off and climbing over everything! (Carter was never like this at her age!) Carter was playing peek-a-boo around this obstacle, making Courtney laugh like mad.Carter climbed up the verrrry tallll inflatable to go down the great big slide - but of course got to the top and chickened out. So, up I climbed and slid down with him! I have to admit, it's FUN - so we did it two more times. :-)Courtney loved practicing her walking in the inflatables - when she fell it didn't hurt one bit.I always pack a lunch when we go - they have tables you can sit at to eat. Today I brought an apple for me, but Carter claimed it for himself. This is a little bit of a milestone - he has never wanted to eat the skin on the apple before, and I have always cut it up for him. But today he said that "Spirit eats apples with the red part still on in the horse movie" and wanted to try it too (one of his favorite movies these days is Spirit - it's a really beautiful animated flick if you've never seen it!).I tried to take a photo of me and Carter, but couldn't get him to stop making goofy faces. You should see some of the other ones I rejected!!Carter took this photo of me and Courtney, pretty impressive I must say! My little budding photographer...Courtney has her fingers crossed we'll go back to Hoppin' House again soon!

Monday, January 26, 2009

Miss Mischief Strikes Again!

Apparently when I told Courtney this end cupboard was for her to play in, she took me literally! :-)

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Cabela's

For today's Sunday outing we headed to Cabela's, an amazing hunting/fishing/outdoorsman store down in Buda, about a 35 minute drive for us. While we're not really in the market for fishing poles, ammo or camouflage these days, Carter loooooves going to Cabela's for their completely amazing animal displays!! We hadn't been since Courtney was only a few months old - now she loves it too! She literally started bouncing up and down in the stroller when she first caught a glimpse of the huge center display.The scenes are so well done, it's like a natural history museum!The kids were completely mesmerized by the animals. Or maybe they were just wondering why the animals weren't moving...There's a stream running through the store, with this moose in the water on one side, and a beaver building a dam on the other side of the bridge. (We love beavers - nature's engineers. Right, Diane? :-) )Carter was most excited about the African safari section today - he jumped out of the stroller right after I snapped this picture and started running around, YELLING out the names of the animals. "an ELEPHANT!!" "a ZEBRA!!!" "Look, it's a RHIIIIIINO!"After our African safari we were hungry for some grub, so we headed up to the cafeteria. In true outdoorsman fashion, Joel opted for the bison brat! Mmm, bison!I was boring and went with the oh-so-exotic ham and cheese sandwich. :-) Ok, time to get some things done while my little animal lovers are napping. Thanks for stopping by today!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Funny Faces

Me and Carter were goofing around with the camera. What you can't see - he was trying to make sad faces, but every time he tried he couldn't do it, he'd just end up laughing. And then I'd laugh and he'd laugh even more. A very fun bit of silliness in our morning!

Inauguration Day 2009

My attempt to capture our moment in history - me and Courtney, with President Obama giving his inaugural address on the TV. Of course I couldn't get Courtney to cooperate and look at the camera (which I was holding myself for this), but this is close enough. :-)

And some of you have seen these before, but I have to show them off one more time because they were just too fun - Aunt Laura came over and we decorated patriotic cookies for her to take into work for Inauguration Day. Laura works at the LBJ Presidential Library, so they were especially impressed with these cookies. :-)

A Trip to the Zoo

This past weekend the weather was nice, so we decided spur of the moment Sunday morning to go on a little outing to the Austin Zoo. Our little zoo is nothing fancy, but it's perfect for the kids. And it's a wonderful zoo to support - most of the animals have been rescued from very bad situations. Courtney really enjoyed looking at the animals this time, which was fun! And Carter had a blast - first he wanted to see the bear, and as soon as we saw him it was on to the tigers (and we got to see two BIG tigers up on their hind legs playing and growling at each over, a very impressive sight!) and then he had to see the lions, and then the monkeys... After we had our fill of animal viewing, we had a nice lunch at a picnic table, where peacocks wandered over to say hello. Good times!

We road the train this time - which as you can imagine Carter *loved*. We had some nice Hill Country views on the little train ride, but the "scenes" they set up along the route were fairly cheesey (but very exciting to a 3 yr old!). The little engine on the train was just too cute!Courtney was soooo excited to be riding on the train!Feeding the goats in the petting zoo section - this was Courtney's favorite part, she could see the animals the best here (goats, llamas, sheep, deer). Carter wasn't super thrilled about having his hand licked.This female lion was so cool - she was running all around her enclosure chasing a ball - such a good kitty! :-) Here she's taking a break, still hugging her ball.

Boise

Joel is traveling a lot again, but thankfully not as far away as Korea! His latest project sends him to Boise every other week, where he freezes his patootie off but gets to see MOUNTAINS! So it's not ALL bad, right? ;-)

First Steps!!

January 13, 2009 - Courtney starts taking her first real steps!! About six in a row, and then she face plants. Go baby go!!!

Little Miss Mischief!

Courtney discovered a new "toy" in the livingroom - the CD changer!! She can pry the door open and pull out CDs, and thinks it's sooooo much fun! Of course I couldn't resist snapping a picture of her being a naughty girl!

Mmm Ice Cream!

Carter turned three at the end of December, so once we returned from spending the holidays in Michigan, it was time for his three year well-check with the pediatrician. Carter was such a brave big boy at the doctor's office, and since it was such a beautiful, sunny afternoon (in January! Gotta love Austin!) I decided a trip to Amy's in the Arboretum was in order. Carter had his first-ever ice cream in a CONE (because he's three now, and when you're three you get a cone, according to him!) and afterward I let him run off some of the sugar high around the cow statues. Oh and by the way, stats from the 3yr well-check - he weighed in at 34.5lbs, and was 38.5 inches tall - putting him in the 75th percentile for both. Here's some photos...

Mmm, ice cream!A goofy smile"He gets ice cream and I just get this lousy teething biscuit - it's an injustice, I tell you!"Climbing on the cowsCourtney looks like she's up to something!Climbing on the tables

Some Family Portraits...

We had some family portraits done for the holidays. I didn't think there was any chance we'd end up with decent photos - neither child really wanted to cooperate! Imagine my shock when I found out these turned out pretty good... :-)

CarterCourtneyMommy and CarterOur FamilyOur Family with Grandma and Grandpa Hickson

Welcome!!

As much as I love our Babysite, I've decided to try blogging about the happenings of the Hickson Household here instead. I'm hoping to do regular posts about our daily activities, rather than huge multi-month updates like I would do on the Babysite. I still have some maintenance to do to this site, including the addition of the blog title (help, Jon!?). Tonight I'm going to post a few things to get us caught up for January, and then hopefully I'll start blogging as things happen. We'll see how it goes...! By the way - I plan to make the image sizes small to post here. If there are any photos you'd love to have in full resolution, just let me know. Thanks for visiting us!