Home grown tomatoes...

Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What'd life be without home grown tomatoes?
There's only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes!

Remember the tomato seeds we planted last week? Look what Carter found this morning... I think the photos say it all!

Mmm donuts!!

Last night before bed, Carter asked if we could go for donuts in the morning. We've had a pretty rough week around here - I mentioned Carter's strep throat in the last blog post - well just as he was getting better Courtney developed an ear infection! They did a strep culture on her too, thankfully it was negative. So... we went for donuts this morning, to celebrate making it through our rough week and everyone being back to good health, and to make our weekend with Daddy gone to Korea a little more fun. Needless to say they LOVED the donuts! Carter ate two whole donuts, and Courtney ate one. "Whole" is the key word here - usually they just want to lick off the icing, so this was a big improvement! And since Courtney just had her birthday party last weekend, she still has cupcakes on the brain - she kept calling her donut a cupcake and even started singing Happy Birthday to Courtney. Too cute! Here are some photos:

Seeds!

After our fun party on Saturday, we've had a couple rough days around here. Carter came down with a fever Saturday night. When it still hadn't gone away by Monday, I decided to get him into the doctor. There we learned he has strep throat!! Boo! Yesterday wasn't pleasant, but I'm happy to report that he woke up today feeling MUCH better. So much better that we decided to do a little seed-starting project! It's actually a little late to be starting seeds here in Austin, but we're giving it a go anyway. Here are some photos...

Carter is so happy to be planting tomato seeds! We got some mixed cherry tomatoes - red, yellow & orange.Putting seed starter into the cups...After putting in the seeds, Carter sprayed them all with a little water...We put the seeds in the window so they get lots of light. Carter was very proud of his work!He asked me to put a chair next to the seeds so he could sit with them for a bit...Any guesses at what he was saying to the seeds? That's right - "grow little tunafish!" :-) Now let's keep our fingers crossed that they actually do grow!

Courtney's Birthday Party!

Courtney turned two back on February 4th, but her birthday party was today! We went with a Sesame Street theme this year, right down to Courtney's cute little outfit (thanks again Aunt Laura!). As soon as Courtney woke up today she was saying "Happy birthday to Courtney!" and "I'm twoooo" - she had been looking forward to her party and was just a little excited. She had a great time, and before I put her down for nap I asked her if she had fun at her party, and she replied "Yes, I ate a cupcake! I'm two! Happy birthday to Courtney!" Yay! Success! Here are some photos:

Mmmm I love cupcakes!The cupcakes were Elmo and Cookie Monster!The entire birthday crew.Courtney and her future boyfriend Derek.Cute little Dylan from Courtney's class as school.Sweet Natalie, a friend from our neighborhood.And another Natalie, who is in class with Carter.Can you tell Nathan is Natalie's little brother? Look at those eyes, they both have the same gorgeous dark eyes. Nathan is in Courtney's class at school too.Carter's good buddy Aaron.Grammy helped me put together a cute game - she painted a clothespin to look like Oscar, complete with Slimey the Worm on the side! The kids took turns dropping the clothespin into the "garbage cans" to win a prize. Thanks to my Twitter friend @paperbatty for helping me come up with this idea!!Carter was such a great helper with the prizes, he let everyone pick a toy from the bag.Time to open prezzies - Courtney sat with Grammy, and Carter very much wanted to "help". (ie, he wanted to do ALL the opening himself...)Courtney in the CUTE garden hat from Aunt Laura!Courtney LOVES dollies and dressing up - check this out - she got a Princess Aurora dress from one friend, and a matching Princess Aurora baby doll from another friend! What a cute matchy-matchy coincidence!!Here are the goodie bags the kids were sent home with... mmmm COOKIES!And some of the food - since the party was brought to us by the letter C (for Courtney) and the number 2 (for her age) - I cut out some of the cheese with cookie cutters!And I cut sandwiches into shapes - triangles, circles, hexagons, squares. Seemed kinda Sesame Street-y! :-)Courtney loved her party, and the other kids seemed to have fun too. YAY!

Austin Nature & Science Center!

Yesterday Carter saw something about paleontologists on one of his shows, and decided that he wanted to go digging for dinosaur bones too! And where's the perfect place for a kid to dig for dino bones around here? At the Austin Nature & Science Center!! I thought I had heard something about this place, but had never checked it out. What a dummy I am!! This place is completely up Carter's alley!! Not only did they have a super fun dino pit for my little paleontologist (aka a huge sandbox with replicas of dinosaur bones buried and waiting for discovery!), but also a bunch of rescue animals on display - a coyote, a bobcat, a red fox, a VERY STINKY skunk and more, as well as a building with aquarium animals (fish, turtles, frogs, tarantulas) and an area with big beautiful birds (hawks, lots of owls...). Actually, we saw some "real" nature too - it was dinner time for one of the owls, he had a big mouse hanging out of his beak. Carter found that VERY interesting! And if you're thinking, "well, ok, animals and dinos, but it isn't EVERYTHING Carter loves, because there are no trains!" - I'm happy to report he got to see the Amtrak going down the middle of Mopac on the way there, so our morning was complete. :-) Here are some photos from our dino dig...
In this final photo, Carter is saying "Look at the elasmosaurus I found!!" Which I later read was a mosasaur. What can I say, Mommy is NOT a paleontologist - but I do know more about dinosaurs now than I did four years ago! HA!

So this was a fun place, and we will probably be back often. I still cannot believe I didn't know about it. I am now wondering what other great places are around here that I just don't know about!! I didn't even mention the best part about this place - it's FREE! And, it opens at 9am, which is nice. A lot of places we go don't open until 10am - it's nice to get out and do something even earlier!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Playdate with Rachel & Derek!

Our good friends Rachel and Derek came over for a playdate, yay!!! We don't see them much anymore, now that our preschool time is on opposite days. So it was GREAT to have some time with them!! First we did some playing in the playroom, mostly building tracks on the train table, but that quickly deteriorated when a certain child who will remain nameless (but hint, he was not one of the sweet, well-behaved guests!) decided to keep destroying the tracks instead of building them. Sigh.So next I got out the paints! Paints are always a great distraction!! And here are our cuties painting...That distraction lasted for about 15 minutes. So then I got them to all sit on the couch and watch a little bit of Mama Mirabelle while I fixed their lunch. Here are all the cuties lined up on the couch! Notice a little hand-holding going on to the left of the photo!!! SO SWEET!!Thanks for playing with us Rachel & Derek, we hope you'll come over again soon!