Ice Cream Truck

Our neighborhood has an ice cream truck that comes by every afternoon around 4:30. Whenever I hear it, I try to distract Nathan and Charlotte...I don't really want to get in the habit of getting ice cream every day, plus it's totally overpriced! But on this day, we were actually playing outside when we heard the music. They got SO excited! So the good mommy I am, I ran back inside to scrounge up some money. They were lucky because I usually don't have cash on me. I thought if worse came to worse, I would raid the piggy banks! It was kind of neat to see all of these other kids come out of their houses and surround the ice cream truck. 

It's always fun to see little things like this make them so happy :)

Brave Nathan

Nathan went to a bowling birthday party at Main Event. the bowling part was really fun, and Nathan actually did a great job! He didn't use the ramp and ended up getting the highest score out of his group. It was so funny to see him just walk up, roll the ball without any aim or strategy, and get strikes and spares! A natural!

After bowling, the kids got to do a Gravity Ropes Course. We have never done this before and didn't think we would actually get to do it this time. There is a height requirement, and several of us knew that our kids were just under it so we were going to do putt putt instead. Well, they ended up letting all of the kids participate. Nathan was a little nervous but had the peer pressure of seeing everyone else do it, so he went right along. They strapped a harness on him and a rope that has a big metal ball at the end. The rope and ball gets attached to these tracks all over the ceiling, and there are all sorts of obstacles up in the air. Once the ball is attached to the track, you can pretty much go wherever you want. Nathan was so brave! He went all over the place and never got scared. There was one section where you walked on a narrow plank and had ropes hanging down from above that you could hold onto. But since Nathan was a little too short, he couldn't reach the ropes above, so he just balanced and walked across without holding onto anything! Afterwards, he said that it was so much fun, but his brain was kind of shaking from being scared :)

Arboretum

While Carrie and Pearce were in town for the Bon Jovi concert, we went to the Arboretum for the day. I was watching my friend's little boy, Trevor, that day because Alison was out of town, so he went with us too. The three of them had so much fun running around together. And the jacket that Charlotte has on is the one that I made with Mama. It was so cute on her! I made Pearce's too...although I guess I didn't get a great picture of it. It was a denim jacket with little truck applique's. Very cute too!

Bon Jovi

Last Wednesday was a big girl's night out! Meredith, Marla, Carrie, and I went to the Bon Jovi concert! It was so much fun! We went out to eat first and then headed to the American Airlines Center. And we ended up getting a tad bit lost. We were in the vacinity, but downtown can be so confusing when you're not used to it. There are so many one way streets and we were coming from a different direction so it was a bit of a mess. Marla was driving her mini van and wound up turning onto a street that was for the DART rail train. These cops stopped us, and we asked for directions to Bon Jovi. One cop was nice, but the one talking to Marla was a smart ass. When Marla told him we were trying to get to American Airlines, he said, "Well, this street certainly isn't made for cars...its for the train." And Marla said, "Obviously, I know that, but how do I get to American Airlines?" So the nice cop took over and told us where to go. 

We ended up getting there in plenty of time and loved the show. He sang all of his oldies plus some of the new songs that I didn't know. Everyone made fun of me because I took a short power nap...Mommy had one too many drinks! But I perked up afterwards. We went to another bar and had a few more cocktails. Thank goodness my neighbor offered to walk Nathan to school the next day!!!!

Charlotte's Haircut

Mama has gotten us into the habit of getting Toni and Guy haircuts from Mr. Anh, who she goes to. I go to him now too because mom and Charlotte's hair always looked so great! He does such a good job on Charlotte's hair, and Charlotte just LOVES the whole process! Mr. Anh treats Charlotte just like she is a grown up client. She sits in the chair (on my lap) and he looks at her hair and talks to me about how to cut it. Then he puts a robe on her that swallows her up and takes her to get her hair washed and conditioned. And then he meticulously cuts it. I love that he is so precise with her hair even though she is only 3! But Charlotte is so good that it makes it easy for Anh to work with her. The only thing she won't do is sit in the chair by herself. But that's ok...she said when she was 4, she would sit by herself. Anh cut her hair a little shorter this time, and I just love it! She loves it too. She calls her new haircut her mermaid hair :)

Austin with Carrie, Meredith, and Chrissy

Two weekends ago, Charlotte and I went on a road trip to Austin with Meredith and Andrew and our college friend Chrissy and her little girl, Sydney. We stayed at Carrie's house, and Pearce had so much fun with his little playmates. Nathan stayed home with Daddy and had a weekend full of fun too. Nathan went to the Dallas Aquarium with his friend Jake, then spent the afternoon with Mama helping her be brave while she got her flu shot. The next day, Wayne and Nathan went to a football party at Lauren and Trevor's house and then to Jake's birthday party...he was one busy boy!

Charlotte had never met Sydney, but the two of them became friends quickly. And Charlotte and Andrew always love playing together. We all rode in my car, and everyone had fun watching movie after movie and eating snack after snack.

When we got to Carrie's, we played for a while and then went to the kiddie amusement park we went to a while back with Nathan and Charlotte. They loved it! The next day we went shopping, got ice cream, played at a park and had a night out eating pizza. We also went on lots of walks looking at all of the "spooky" houses in Carrie's neighborhood. All in all, in was great to be able to catch up with Chrissy and Meredith and reminisce about college and also to see our kids together. 

These pictures are from me using Carrie's fancy, expensive face soap and having an allergic reaction to it! My eyes were SO SWOLLEN! And my skin completely dried out. It was crazy! I used it Sunday morning and this is what I looked like Monday morning. Nathan said I looked like an alien...poor mommy. It's been two weeks, and my face is still a little dry, but so much better. This happened a while back when we went to Springfield. But I thought it was from her eye cream, so I thought, "I'm going to stay away from that stuff!" Well, I stayed away from the eye cream, but it turns out the face soap was the culprit, which I used in Springfield as well. I will stick to my cheap drug store soap from now on!

Sewing with Mama: Charlotte's New Jacket

Mama has been giving me weekly sewing lessons, and I've already made 3 things for Charlotte: a pair of pants that were really cute but Charlotte doesn't like them, a red corduroy dress...she likes it, but I need to get her a pair of silver shoes to wear with it, and a jacket that's in this post. She likes the jacket and there are better pictures of it in the Arboretum post that I haven't gotten to yet. Sometimes I'll go over to mom's house while both kids are at school and sometimes I'll take Charlotte with me. When Charlotte goes with me, she and Mama have tea parties, make bracelets with buttons, and when Papa gets home, he takes her on golf cart rides to the pond. On this day, Mama was making a quilt, and Charlotte helped to put the squares together.

After mama finished the quilt, Charlotte brought it home for her babies...Nathan played "babies" too with Charlotte, except he used his Angry Birds and Super Mario toys.

Nathan's Volunteer Project

Nathan's school is asking that all children participate in their "Act Local" volunteer project. The kids are supposed to come up with a project that shows an act of kindness towards the community. It can be as big or small as you want it to be. They have to submit their proposal to their teachers and make a power point presentation to present to the class. At first it sounded a little daunting, but it has been a really neat experience. Nathan formed a group with 3 other kids from his class, and they (with our help) decided to make greeting cards for a local nursing home. There are 200 residents so each child made 50 cards! They decorated the front, the moms wrote simple messages in the middle, and then the kids signed each of their 50 cards. Since my house is right down the street from the school, we met here for the kids to play, work on the cards, and have a snack. It was so much fun for me to get to meet some of Nathan's classmates (2 of which live right in our neighborhood!) and meet the moms. They were so cute together and really had fun with the project. Now that we are all finished, we are going to deliver them one day next week. 

Aidan is one of the boys in our group who also lives in the neighborhood. Before we even started this project, Nathan talked and talked about Aidan and how they were best friends at school. So we also had a playdate with him. The two of them had the best time!