Loving Texas

For anybody who lives "up North" I would like to apologize in advance for what I'm about to write. Sorry. :)

Texas has such BEAUTIFUL weather! It is the ninth of November and it is 77 degrees at my house! The boys and I spent the morning outside playing on the trampoline and exploring the woods and riding tricycles. We were wearing shorts. Henry got so hot that there was sweat dripping down his face. We made lemonade. Yesterday we went to the park and collected pretty fall leaves.

It's just so unusual for me! The last few years living in Montana were wonderful--it is a beautiful place. That being said, I just don't like being cold. And as pretty as it is, it freezes so early that there is no "fall color" in the leaves. They just freeze and fall off the tree green. A typical day up there would have been capped off by hot chocolate, listening to a chorus of "But my hands are still so cold, Mommy!"

So all in all, this is really pretty heavenly to me!

Homecoming

Yay! Sam comes home today! He's been gone hunting (in Montana!) since last Thursday! The boys have missed him so much--Henry's favorite line this weekend, especially if caught doing something he shouldn't be doing, "It's just because I miss my daddy, so much!" And my sweet little Jonah . . . . . Everytime the door opens, he goes running to it, screaming, "Dadddddeeeeee!" Heartbreaking. All this to say, we're all very glad he's coming home! :)

Another day, another trauma...

I've already posted this blog once (last night) and it disappeared for some reason. So here goes-I'll give it another shot!

The boys had a rough morning. Jonah had to leave the breakfast table to go back to bed-he was just too tired! Later Henry decided to run away from me to avoid a spanking. . . .and he ran straight into a laundry basket-with his face. He split open both his upper and lower lips and had a bloody nose. He is fine, but there was a lot of blood. And Henry was very concerned that I wouldn't put a band-aid on his lip. He's not convinced that it wouldn't stick if we really tried. Turned out Henry needed an early nap too. The boys woke up just in time for lunch. After lunch they went outside to play. . . .and found some fire ants! They came up to the porch screaming-I met them at the door. Henry was barefoot, and Jonah had on socks, but both of them had their feet covered in ants. I quickly noticed they also had ants crawling up their legs. So I stripped them down and ran them inside to the bathtub. They even had ants under their underwear/diaper. Yikes! And it was only 1:30 in the afternoon.

At this point I really just wanted to go crawl in my bed. However, my busy boys had plans to go to a friend's birthday party and also to their cousin's orchestra concert! Our day wasn't over yet! I'm happy to report that the rest of the day actually went very smoothly! The party was at the science center (my boys' favorite place of all!) so it was very fun. And we went from there straight to the orchestra concert. Henry was so excited when he recognized his oldest cousin up on the stage! We all enjoyed the music and I was very impressed with how well they all did! Such talent.

We left a little before it was over (due to some restlessness from Jonah) and got to bring the youngest Smith cousin home with us. The kids each had a helium balloon to entertain them on the way home-very fun! After a late dinner, they brushed their teeth and headed straight to bed. It was an early night for the boys, but they didn't even protest! They were very tired after this full day!

Looking forward to a more restful, uneventful day today! :)

It must be the weather...

I love carving pumpkins. It's one of my favorite parts of fall (which just happens to be my favorite season!). So that probably describes why we usually have more jack-o-lanterns than people at our house. This year is no exception!

I know that once they are carved, they don't last very long. What I didn't know, is that apparently they don't freeze here. In Montana it's always pretty cold this time of year and the jack-o-lanterns would sit outside and kind of wrinkle, but nothing else. The cold weather must have kept them from doing what they do down here....which is grow extremely large amounts of fuzzy, stinky mold!

The pumpkins were starting to look pretty wrinkly, so I went to put them in the garbage can this afternoon. I was not so pleasantly surprised to find that the ones on the ground had sort of melted into the concrete and all of them were completely covered inside with black mold. Yikes! I even had to bring out a scrub brush to clean up the concrete. Lesson learned, I guess! :)

Where's the map?

Henry loves maps. Every time we go to the zoo, he has to have a map. Even though we HAVE to walk the same route every time. Even though we know the EXACT location of every animal. Must have a map!

It is a pretty cute thing, because he hasn't figured out exactly how it works yet. He'll point something out on the map, trace a path from some random place to where he wants to go, and then fold it all back up. "Let's go," he says, "follow me, I know the way now."

The picture above is from the Dallas Zoo, where we don't actually have the entire zoo memorized. Henry decided we were "lost" because we couldn't find the kangaroos that are "on vacation" according to the sign. So he parked himself down in the middle of the path so he could spread out his map and find our way. Such a great little helper!

Be Prepared!

Blanket? Check.

Camouflage Jacket? Check.

Pants hiked up on one leg? Check.

Lunch Box? Check.

Silly Hat? Check.

Just add some crazy red rubber boots, and Jonah's ready for the day!