Spring planting

Houston loves spending time with his cousins, most often as Poppy and Nana's house-they have all the cool stuff like lawnmowers and 4-wheelers, a pool, a garden, a huge swing set, and lots of room to run and play. This was a Saturday afternoon in May when we all got together to plant flowers and the garden. Planting the garden always reminds me of my grandparents. We worked in their garden in the summers as early back as I have memories. We shucked corn, snapped green beans, hulled peas, picked strawberries, dug potatoes.....I hated it then, but love the memories now.

Houston and his BFF cousin, Barrett, riding on Poppy's lawnmower. I have a feeling these two will be trouble SOON.
This picture of dad could just as easily have been my grandpa-working hard to get the garden ready for planting. We planted everything that day-okra, squash, lettuce, green onions, cucumbers, cantaloupe, tomatoes, and corn. Yum!

Houston is planting flowers in his Nana's flower beds :)

Katie showing off her choice.....looks like poppies and daisies.

My brother showing Anna and Katie the "gardening ropes".

Backing up......

I haven't posted anything in a while, and I have lots of cute pictures to share, so be ready for several days of blogging fun! (That's the plan anyway!) These pictures go back to the weekend of May 10th when we took Houston to the ASU petting zoo. He loved it all. At first. Then we tried to get him to ride a horse. Not so much........

I thought it was cool you actually got to get in the cages with all the animals-hold them, pet them, have them pee on you. (Glad that didn't really happen! But I did leave with an unidentified substance from the pig stall.)
He did actually end up petting the lamb!

And he seemed to actually do okay with it.

Now for the horse ride. You can see the uncertainty building up on his face as he dons the cute riding helmet. Yeah, we couldn't even get him to SIT on the horse, let alone go for a ride on it. He stiffened out his legs and arms, not to be bent at any angle. He cried and reached for me...that poor horse was so patient. Maybe next year.

We finished the Walker day of farm fun on a wagon ride pulled by a John Deere around the ASU farm. He did love that part (the ride and seeing all the animals). They do it again in the fall, and we will definitely be there.

I loved it!!!!

I had a great time at the Taylor Swift concert. I don't listen to country music much anymore, but I don't consider her just country. Anyway, it was refreshing, energetic, and fun to sing along to all her songs. It also didn't hurt that we could reach out and touch her. Kellie Pickler opened for her (she had some great shoes by the-all sparkly). Check out the tattoo on the inside of her wrist-it says Pray. Guess that's one way to be reminded!

She did about 6 songs and then an encore performance with TS.
TS had a great set, lots of costume changes and great effects! She also had lots of hair flinging and arm flailing. She was all over the place!

No sparkly shoes-she was a boot girl-but she did have this fabulous sparkly guitar!

She sang almost every song off 2 albums. She got all my favorites in and then some!

Had a great time hanging with Vonda and Jenni (sorry no pic of her though!). It really was a great show and I'm glad I pushed those screaming teenagers out of the way to get some great closeup pictures!!

Easter Rewind

Ok, so I'm a little out of order here and backing up to get some sweet Easter pictures in. We actually hunted Easter eggs outside on Saturday because it was supposed to be raining on Sunday (and did, so glad we got that in!). We took pictures of the grandkids out at mom and dad's by the irises-they turned out sweet.

Then it was egg hunting time. After Houston dropped the 4th one in his bucket, it came open. He decided eating the candy in his four was much more exciting than collecting a part of the other 70+ that were available, so he sat down, ate his candy and waved when all of his cousins ran by scooping up the eggs. Oh, well. That was just less candy I had to hide from him.
Easter morning.......what's up with those real-life-close-to-looking-like-a-bunny teeth??

We had several great pictures outside.....one of my favorites.

Sharing some smiles with momma. He kept saying, "Momma, pretty." He is the sweetest thing ever!!

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter.

Mohawk Mini-fro

This is Arkansas Children's Week and Houston's school is celebrating with a different way to dress up each day. Today was crazy hair day. At first, I thought a picked out mini-fro would do the trick, but then I got brave and went for a Mohawk Mini-fro. He did not like the gel, the spray, the mousse, or the hairdryer that was necessary to create said hair design, but the end result is pretty priceless in my book. I don't think the pictures really do it justice. It did, however, look like a flock of seagulls (Chandler Bing) by the end of the day!! Oh, and the scratch. Don't worry. You should see the other kid :)

I love the zoo!

I consider myself a zoo connoisseur in that if we are in a new town and a zoo is close by, I'm there. My favorite ever is the St. Louis Zoo and my biggest disappointment is the San Diego Zoo-it didn't live up to the hype. On Saturday afternoon, we made a spur of the minute trip to the Memphis Zoo (Hugh had to cover a ballgame at 7:00). This trip now ranks up there as one of the best ever. And it was because Houston was SO into it. He pointed and jabbered at all the animals, he tried to name them, he stomped and ran and jumped. It was sunny but cool out so all the animals were active. It wasn't very crowded. We were all happy. It was a perfect day. We rode the train, got some great pictures, and just enjoyed each other.

Watching the tigers.

Houston is really in to trains right now, right down to the arm up and the air and a loud attempt at "choo-choo"!

I love how this picture catches his reflection. He is actually watching the Giant Pandas eat their bamboo snack.

A kind passerby took this family shot for us. (Hugh hates when I ask people to do that.)

A great way to end the day-my two favorite guys!

Spring Break Update and My Baby's Growing Up

I haven't been able to post any pictures from spring break because I left my camera at Eskimo Joe's in Stillwater, OK. That's a story all by itself, but it ended well. I actually got my camera back 2 weeks later when Hugh went back through to pick it up!! But, when we were traveling with Hugh for Spring Break,we hit several stops. We went to Branson, Springfield, some little town in Kansas, and in Oklahoma we went to Stillwater and Oklahoma City. We had lots of fun and fair weather. We were on our way to the zoo on Tuesday of that week and it was pretty windy and chilly so we went to the OKC Science Museum instead. We had a blast and there was actually lots there for Houston to do.

This tunnel simulates a Category 1 hurricane with winds over 70mph. Mom and I couldn't stop laughing. Hugh took Houston in it but they didn't make it through the whole thing. Houston couldn't hang, but at least he gave it a shot.

We ended our day with a tour of a pirate shipwreck. Good times!

When I got home Saturday afternoon (4.4.09) from our women's ministry meeting, Hugh and Houston were out playing. A wave of sadness and joy rushed over me when Houston walked up to me with his first bag of rocks he had collected. It was sort of his rite of passage into toddler/boyhood and away from being a baby. It was neat watching him explore and gather his treasures stating "Waaa" each time he put a new one into his bag.

This little guy is the best! I hope he always loves to explore and learn!