This and that

A few more pics from spring break week. I am loving it that my friends have such great cameras...and jealous because now I want one too. But for now we'll settle for stealing their pics...:)

Rodeo time!

Ok, so the first picture isn't from the rodeo, but it's cute, and he thinks he's on a tractor, so I thought it could count. :)

The week of spring break was filled with adventure around here! We brought home Georgia -- who will now probably grace many pictures as well -- still leaving Todd and I behind the camera rather than in front of it I'm sure. We also took a trip to the Houston rodeo and to the Aquarium for the first time...all kinds of family fun! Needless to say, there are many pictures...I'll try and catch some highlights...

First stop, petting zoo. It took a while for the kids to get warmed up -- in fact, Elyse never did want to actually touch anything. But Will had a blast after a few minutes. Then he had to touch every animal and point them all out to us -- over and over and over. We are STILL hearing about them...



Then we moved on to "fun on the farm." Will really got into this -- must be that midwestern blood. :)

Planting onions...


Picking oranges...


Picking corn -- he thought long and hard about this one -- it's in his genes I tell ya!


Then at the end you have to "sell" all your goods. I thought for sure we'd have a meltdown because he wouldn't want to give them up. But he was quite the little farmer! Here he is checking out his crop cash -- times are tough it looks like. :)



The kids get to use their earnings to purchase a snack at the end -- here is Will with Elyse enjoying their juice and crackers they bought -- it was a good year for the crops I guess!



After that it was on to mutton bustin -- which Will LOVED. He laughed and clapped the whole time. I of course nervously pondered how many years I have left before he's going to want to actually do it...yikes!



Then we were off to the pig races. "Pigs go fast!" is now a popular phrase around here...and I had to include this pic to show sweet Elyse's reaction. She couldn't decide what to think about everything -- she kept clapping and saying "yea!" with a grimace on her face -- it was hilarious!



This is my favorite pic of the whole day. Doesn't he look like a little cowboy??



It was such a fun day with a couple of our favorite people. Who knows -- one day Elyse may be Will's little mutton bustin cheerleader!

It's a girl...

Dog, that is! Meet the newest member of our family, Georgia.



For some reason still unknown to even myself, while I was browsing the internet this morning I decided to look up rescue dogs in our area. This is something I have done many times before, and I always see sweet dogs, but nothing ever comes of it. Todd has wanted to get a dog forever, but we keep pushing it off as not the right time. But for some reason this morning all the planets aligned -- I saw Georgia, Todd saw opportunity. Next thing I know, we are calling the rescue program, Annie's Angels, to make arrangements to meet her. Here's her story...

An 80 year old woman who lives on a ranch in Laredo, TX has made it her mission to take care of all of the stray dogs she is seeing in the area. She even hired a ranch hand just to take care of them. One of the strays was pregnant and when she had puppies the woman rescued them and made sure each of them got a good home. She couldn't find enough homes for all 8 puppies, so she drove them here, to Annie's Angels, who have foster homes for dogs in the Houston area. Georgia had two siblings that made the trip with her that have already been adopted. She has been living with some wonderful people in Manvel, TX for the last two months. We went to see her today and it was immediate -- Todd was filling out the paperwork as soon as he could. Will was super excited -- he wanted to carry her -- and she didn't mind him trying, which pretty much sealed the deal.

We will be officially making her a member of the household next weekend -- I asked for the week to prepare the house (and my mind) for our new addition. Our spring break starts next weekend, so we'll be able to devote a little more time to getting Georgia acclimated to life around here. Be on the lookout for more pics!

Spring???

It's the last weekend of February and we got our first taste of the potential of spring! I know that all of you reading this in the midwest are not all that impressed with our whining, but it has been unnaturally cold here this winter and we're tired of it! If I wanted to have to wear a coat and be stuck inside, I would just move home! :)

So first, a few pics of one of Will's favorite pastime lately -- see how bad we need to get out?

Lately Will seems to think every time he sees a camera that he needs to say "CHEESE!" and smile as big as possible. Super cute, but doesn't exactly lead to me capturing the moment I was attempting to when I got out the camera. This time was no exception...



Sneaky Pete here has figured out how to get around the child latches we installed (read: broke them) on the doors that he was interested in and can now get out the pots and pans. So if I'm in the kitchen, the natural thing to do is to "cook" with me -- which means each and every pan MUST come out of the cabinet. Here he is caught in the act.



What, Mom? Is there a problem?



This weekend was the annual Rodeo Run here in Houston that kicks off the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo that takes place most of the month of March. It's always a lot of fun and raises tons of money for scholarships. Saturday was perfect weather and I ran in the 10K race while Todd and Will cheered on all the runners at the finish line. It wasn't quite the same without Amber here to run with me, but it was a great run nonetheless. And our friend Becky ran the race too -- her 1st 10K! We were all so proud of her and celebrated with brunch after the race.



Woohoo Becky!



Another sign that spring is near -- baseball! The Rice Invitational is always at the beginning of the season and Nebraska usually starts their year with an appearance. Since it was so nice out, we decided to go and take Will to his first official sporting event. Added bonus -- when we were headed to the box office to buy tickets, a very nice Rice fan (and in our experience, they are few and far between -- the nice ones that is) gave us some tickets! They were great seats -- right behind the Nebraska dugout. It gave Will the perfect spot to watch "ball" and give us a play by play -- "throw the ball, catch the ball!" I'm sure the fans around us got a little tired of him letting them know what was going on, but he didn't want anyone to miss anything. :)

The guys taking in a little baseball...



A Nebraska fan gave Will a baseball when we got there -- maybe not the best choice since he then wanted to throw it -- and we tried to prevent it from rolling off the dugout and on to someone's head.



Ever heard of a glare delay? Apparently when you have a ballpark in the middle of a city, this is a problem. There is a Hilton hotel high rise that overlooks the park. At a certain time of day during a certain time of the year, the sun hits it and there is a glare in the batters' eyes, so they delay the game until it's gone. It takes about 15 minutes or so and then things start back up. Here are the guys playing around while we wait for the action to get going. We knew it was time to go back and pay attention again when Todd got hit in the leg with a foul ball. :)



Here's Will letting me know what's going on in the game...



It was a great weekend with a much needed taste of spring. Can't wait for more days like these -- they'll be here before we know it, right???

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January odds and ends

Where did January go?? We had so many exciting things happening, I lost track of time! So here are a few of the highlights to keep you posted on our busy month.

I ran another half marathon this year -- in Phoenix this time. Two friends and I met in Phoenix for a girls weekend and to participate in the Rock and Roll half marathon. There were some injuries (not to me, thank goodness!) that didn't let the running part pan out like we had planned, but the rest of the weekend was great. It was so much fun to get the chance to hang out with faraway friends and not be distracted by those little things like kids...husbands...jobs...

Of course we were so busy having fun, that we forgot to take any pictures! This is literally the only one I got. Mary wasn't able to participate in the run because of an unexpected foot surgery, so we celebrated early with a few Marathon beers instead. :)



The next weekend two of our favorite people came to visit -- Amber and Justin! Amber will always have a special place in our hearts and home after living with us a few years ago and we always love the chance to hang out. She has quite the fan club here in Houston, so we invited a few of those people over while they were here to catch up...they hadn't been in town since Will was born!



There are a few more kids added to the party now -- wow how things have changed since Am lived with us. :)



Not quite everything is different though...Todd and Justin are still up to their late night mischief. This trip it came in the form of tabletop football. Yep, the game every middle school boy learns to play. And apparently secretly still wants to play as grown men -- just with the addition of some adult beverages at their side. :)



Then the last weekend of January we had the opportunity for Nebraska winter, take two. We flew up to Nebraska for a quick weekend for a very important person and event -- Mom graduated from college! It was very special to get to share this experience with mom. And, as an added bonus, we got to see quite a few of the people that we missed during the holidays due to the storms.

Here's the graduate!



Whew! What a month!

Christmas -- continued

The final hours of our Christmas break are coming to a close and it's time to get back in the swing of things around here -- and none too soon if you ask me! But before we move out of the holiday season, here are a few more updates from the rest of our trip and festivities.

There was more snow! And more, and more, and they got hit with even more after we left. It was quite a sight. It did warm up enough to go and play a little more before we left.

Here's Jess showing us the massive pile/drift at the end of her street. We of course climbed it when we got there -- Todd had never seen so much snow!



A cute pic of my Texas boys -- I don't think they knew what to think, but they are still smiling!



On Monday we were able to get out and meet our friends Andy and Nicole for dinner -- yeah! They have twins that are just a few months older than Will, so it's always an interesting dinner with three toddlers. They were all very well behaved considering we were attempting to contain them at the table. And we always have to try and get a picture together...



Once we got back to town Todd and I put a call in to Santa's people and let them know Will was home. Santa brought a little something by while Will was at Miss Wanda's house on Wednesday. We'll try and get some video of his skills up for you to see -- don't reserve your basketball tickets quite yet...I think he got ALL of his parents skills at the game. :(





Then of course we had to watch the Nebraska game! Here are my guys sporting their jerseys -- Will now has one compliments of Grandpa. :)



On New Year's Day we got together with the Tones crew to celebrate once everyone was in town and available. As always, the challenge of the evening was to try and get a pic of the boys together -- hah! Although we did get a little closer...



Here they are trying out their new (adorable!) rocking chairs from Nana and Grandpa...



Apparently Uncle Craig had the inside track on Will and what he wanted this year -- here he is sporting his new Astros shirt he insisted on putting on immediately along with his fancy new toolbelt (complete with safety goggles). Nice work Craig!



And here is the true story of the evening -- empty toddler chairs. They were much to busy chasing each other, the dog, or anyone else that would get in the action. Whew!