Anticipating Fall

We had another delightful and low-key weekend around here. The beginnings of the fall season are appearing now in Dallas, with cooler temperatures (finally!) and pumpkin patches sprouting throughout the city. Our neighbors have started decorating with their fall decor for Halloween, which is my cue to get our decorations out of the garage and get excited about the change in seasons.

To support my initial attempts at eating healthier and supporting healthy food options in our area (another story for another time), the kids and I made our first trip to the Dallas Farmer's Market this weekend. From what I could tell from my research, Dallas has a well-established market with lots of local fruit and vegetable farmers. I have been wanting to check it out for a long time, so off we went to downtown Dallas on Saturday morning. The market itself was fun (we bought pounds of fresh veggies and fruits!) , but what was most fun for the children was the pumpkin patch located on the outskirts of the market that we visited before leaving. I allowed Amelia and John to each select one pumpkin to take home, and they enjoyed browsing around the stand to see which pumpkin would be their favorite.

I know John looks bored in the shot below, but it doesn't reflect his mood while we were at the market at all. John loved this part of the outing and was so excited about climbing on the bales of hay to reach the pumpkins. Isn't this an enormous pumpkin? I think it was priced at $40 (we didn't take it home).

Amelia was all over getting her photo taken with the pumpkins. An appropriate caption for this would be, "Mom! Please take my picture while I sit here with these cool pumpkins!"

Last but not least, this last photo deserves mention. Along with fall and pumpkins comes the preparations involved with getting the kiddos outfitted for Halloween. I typically procrastinate on this task and am left scrambling towards the end of October for appropriate costumes, which is no fun. So this year I decided to instigate our preparations early on to avoid the rush, and thus on Saturday afternoon the children and I ran errands to secure provisions for their costumes. The outing was actually pretty successful, but unfortunately I was also a sucker for unecessary items by giving into the kiddos' demands for random stuff that they wanted while we were out shopping for costume essentials.

Below is a photo of John sporting his cowboy hat and Buzz Lightyear slippers that he scored while shopping out on Saturday. Neither item is a component of John's Halloween costume, yet mama couldn't say no and admittedly let the kid have the accessories he desired while out shopping on Saturday.

I think he looks adorable. Definitely worth it!

Parks

We took it easy around here this weekend. I don't know why we didn't have any big plans on the calendar, but that was OK by me and we all enjoyed living at a bit slower of a pace this weekend.

Below are a few recent photos, and actually this first one is from earlier in the week when John enticed me to create green scrambled eggs for him. John is my egg eater, and thanks to his grandmother (who I believe is the one who turned him on to scrambled eggs), he often asks for them. A few weeks ago John's class spent a week talking about Dr. Seuess (which got me thinking about green eggs), added to the fact that breakfast-for-dinner is one of the children's favorite meals, and VOILA!, here we were on a Tuesday night making green eggs. John was so proud that I let him stir the eggs.

Now to the weekend. Our only significant outings this weekend were to local parks. The weather in Texas has finally ventured into the outdoor-friendly activity range (no more summer highs near 100 degrees!) and we took advantage of this. On Saturday while Scott was dealing with some household issues I took the kids to a park for a picnic and playtime. Below is Amelia getting eaten by the hippo. Just kidding on the getting eaten part, of course!

Amelia and John had a great time playing together at this park on Saturday. And then tonight -Sunday - was Amelia and Scott's first Y Princess meeting of the year. So while they were off enjoying the evening together with ten other dad and daughter pairs, John and I were hanging out together (gladly!) at the sorority park next to SMU's campus. John has been asking to take his bicycle to the park for days now, and since Amelia cannot ride her bike until her cast is off, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get John on his bike at full speed without restrictions.

John and I had a great time! John rode laps around the park (while I followed slowly on foot - I should have taken my bike to the park as John is much faster than the last time we tried to ride together!) and then he played on the playground. John is a fun kid overall, and often he is even sweeter and more delightful when you get to spend time with him alone without him having to compete for attention from his sister.

Great weekend! So happy fall is around the corner!

The cast

Amelia suffered a small bone fracture near her elbow this week. The accident occurred during the recess program in aftercare at school. According to her description, Amelia was running in the gym, tripped over another student, and slammed her elbow into the cinder-block wall of the gymnasium. Ouch. Poor girl.

The accident occurred on Wednesday and Amelia did not appear to be in much pain that evening. However, after awakening twice during the night complaining of pain we decided to take Amelia to the doctor on Thursday to have her arm examined. After consultations with three different doctors in two offices and nearly five hours spent in waiting rooms and doctors offices (yes, our health care system is broken!!), the orthopedic specialist determined that Amelia must have a thin fracture in one of her "growth bones" near her elbow. The solution to heal the fracture (and also to minimize the pain) would be to put Amelia's arm in a cast.

Amelia was a good sport during the examinations and during all of the waiting time. We read several stories and played lots of hangman that day. When it came time to select the color of her cast, Amelia did not hesitate one millisecond in selecting pink. And let me just say, it is one bright pink (think the color of a pink highlighter) cast!

So the only amusing part in this story was Amelia's behavior after the cast was on her arm. We finished our final doctor visit on Thursday afternoon about 30 minutes prior to the elementary school's dismissal. Since I had pulled Amelia out of school tht morning at 9:15 and we had not been back yet, I wanted to go back to the school to pick up her things and also to consult with Amelia's teacher as to any work she missed that day.

We arrived at the school just as the children were lining up for dismissal and Amelia immediately became the subject of attention. The children couldn't help but notice the neon pink cast, plus the fact that she was in school briefly and then left for the rest of the day led to dozens of first graders asking, "Amelia, what happened to you?". Amelia was very shy at first, hiding behind me, trying to shield her arm from the stares of the children. But after explaining to a few kids that had approached her that she did not have a broken arm (the most common inquiry) but that it was "just a fracture of one of my bones", Amelia started to gain confidence in explaining the situation. By the time she was asked what had happened by some of her teachers, Amelia was a pro in describing the injury. And by the time we got to John's school later that afternoon and the teachers there asked what had happened, Amelia was almost sassy in the way she stated, "I have a small fracture in my bone, but it will be fixed by wearing this cast for three weeks. Not a big deal at all!"

Below is a shot of Amelia with her cast. I vote that she wears that pink headband for the next three weeks since it matches her look so well.

Beauty Parlor

Amelia and John play really well together for the most part. Despite being two and a half years apart in age and their difference in gender, they usually can come up with an entertaining game to play while we are at home. Most often they play imaginary games, such as teacher/student or zookeeper with their stuffed animals. It's pretty cute to watch.


I don't know whose idea it was, but I caught Amelia and John playing "beauty parlor" on Saturday. Amelia set it all up, complete with nail painting and lip gloss for both children. Amelia even went so far as to put newspaper in the ground beneath her work area - what a good girl! - and they asked me to set the kitchen timer for a few minutes so they could let their nails dry before getting up.

I know that Scott will be mortified by this evidence of his little boy having glittery pink nail polish applied to his nails, but I think the scene is so sweet that I wanted to share it anyway. John was so proud of himself for following Amelia's directions and for having shiny nails. And Amelia was a great big sister by being patient and sweet with John and for sharing her polish with him. I've shared stories about the kiddos' adventures in dressing up together before, and this event reminded me of the (more rare now) dress up days. John loves playing with Amelia so much that he will pretty much do anything to get her attention.

Below is the final product. Amelia's foot is on top and John's foot is on the bottom. Note the upside-down Cowboys helmet on the newspaper below their feet, which is appropriate evidence of Dallas and it's Cowboys-crazy fans. I like the contrast of the masculine football helmet and the more feminine pink nail polish. Especially on my boy's feet.

South Carolina Vacation

We had a wonderful time on our vacation to Garden City Beach, South Carolina!

Our family was completely spoiled this summer with three (yes, three!) week-long family vacations. Our first trip was to Steamboat Springs, Colorado in June, the second was to the beach in Fort Morgan, Alabama in July, and the third was to Garden City Beach, South Carolina at the end of August. We were blessed to have so much time off together to spend as a family, and we were especially fortunate to get to spend a week with each of our extended families on the two beach vacations.

We created many wonderful memories in South Carolina. We enjoyed some fun in the sun nearly every day on the beach. A favorite activity for the children was running through the tidal pools left on the wide beach everyday during low tide. The tidal pools were perfect for splashing and jumping and for getting wet without the impact of the waves.

We had fun eating ice cream on a warm afternoon in Charleston.


And John even turned into a pirate!
But the highlight for all of us was enjoying time with the Wilson family. Scott's mom and dad, brother Nick and his fiancee Sandra, and brother Shawn and children Abby and George all traveled north from Miami to South Carolina. Amelia and John were thrilled to play with their cousins, both on the beach and during our excursions around SC. Here are the cousins enjoying the water taxi ride in Charleston harbor.

Amelia was thrilled by the bouncy trampoline at the trashy corner amusement park!

And John was not quite as thrilled with his first time driving the racecar at the racetrack. John actually did great on his first few laps around the track, but he got frustrated quickly by the difficulty in driving while barely reaching the pedals.

We loved our time on the beach. Much fun was had by all!

Baseball game

We finally made it to a minor league baseball game in Texas! Though it has been on our want-to-do list for years, we could never find the right time to journey up to Frisco for a Frisco Rough Riders minor league baseball game. However, that perfect time hit us this weekend when grandma and grandpop were in town for a visit. Having attended dozens of Durham Bulls minor league games when we lived in North Carolina, we were eager to see how the local minor league experience would compare with the good times we had in Durham.

Our seats were located far along the first base side just in front of the warm-up bullpen for the opposing team. We arrived at the game early, and grandpop noted that there was a baseball in the empty bullpen. He encouraged John to run in and get the ball, which he happily did. Below is John looking so grown-up retrieving the ball from the bullpen. The baseball player strut is present already.

Grandpop and John with the souvenir bullpen baseball!

Amelia and John were well-behaved during the game, and their attention to the game itself lasted four or five innings. The junk food snacks probably helped, but I think they have both seen enough baseball on TV to ask understand that they were attending a game. Amelia especially was curious about a lot of things - e.g., what do ball and strike mean, how does the team get an out, etc. Below is Amelia enjoying the game before the boredom kicked in.

And what to do once the boredom settled in? Go to the children's play area of course! The engineers behind the family-friendly minor league ballparks knew what they were doing by installing nice children's playgrounds behind the seating areas. Though we spent more time watching the game than playing on the playground, Amelia and John definitely enjoyed this aspect of attending the baseball game.

First day of school

I love the first day of school! The nerdy academic in me always gets so excited about the new beginnings that come with each school year.

Amelia has been (somewhat) excited about the starting first grade for a few weeks. She was happy to select a new lunch box and talked about how much fun it would be to see her friends every day once school started. But Amelia woke up today a bit ambivalent about the whole process. Perhaps Amelia was a bit nervous, or perhaps I was overly sensitive to just how excited I wanted her to be. I felt like before school it was a struggle to get her to pose for photo though I finally managed a small smile.

And even though John doesn't begin his new class year until next Monday, he wanted to pose for the first day photos with his sister.

By the time we arrived at school and she saw her classroom, Amelia walked happily into the room, gave her new teacher a hug, and jumped right into her morning work. And below this is finally a truthful and happy smile for the day.

Amelia had a great day and enthusiastically ran up to me when I picked her up exclaiming, "Mom, today was great! First grade is so much more fun than kindergarten!" I hope this is the beginning to another wonderful year!