Bible Stories

Now that Luke is more interested in books (and sitting still long enough to hear the whole story) Gibi has started reading him Bible stories. When I went to pick him up on Thursday he barely acknowledged my arrival because he was so engrossed in what Gibi was telling him. So sweet!

The Best

I've said it a bazillion times before, but living down the street from Gibi and Grandpa is THE BEST! We went for a walk on the golf course and as we passed by their backyard Gibi and Grandpa came out to say hi (and Grandpa joined us for the rest of the walk).

Luke vs. Concrete

Luke versus Concrete.

Concrete won. On Wednesday afternoon Luke and Gibi were playing outside when Luke took a major tumble off the sidewalk onto the street (well, the culdesac, not really the street... but pavement nonetheless). Gibi told me that it looked REALLY bad, but when I got home and saw this I really wanted to cry! It looks SO painful!

What's ironic about the situation (and humorous, if there's humor in a toddler smacking their head up) is that Luke was asked to be a "cover kid" for McKinney Kids Magazine and his photo shoot was on Thursday. Thank goodness for his swoopy hair and Photoshop :)

I don't have any of the actual pictures to show you, but here are a few I snapped of Mr. Man before he headed into the studio. The feature article this month is about Cowboy themed birthday parties which is why he's dressed western.

Having a bite to eat before taking pictures:
Gibi fixing his hair (and trying to cover the goose egg!)

Zoo - It's like you were there!

Last week, on MLK day we headed out to the Ft. Worth Zoo to enjoy the GORGEOUS weather and see some animals. Ya'll know that I take A LOT of pictures and it's super hard for me to then go through the 200+ pictures I took during our 3 hour zoo adventure and pare them down to 5... so you can feel like you were at the zoo with us as I share my bazillion pics!

Our first stop was the flamingos:

(please excuse my childs desperate need for a haircut... he got one the next day!)

After the flamingos it was on to the meerkats... he couldn't crawl up into the viewing dome thing by himself so Dave jumped up there with him...

Almost as exciting as the meerkats was the big giant grate next to the exhibit :)

Next it was on to the elephants:

We were talking about the elephants big nose and so he had to point to his own nose (and then mine, and Dave's and the people next to us as well!) This is not the greatest picture of Luke man, but I thought it was adorable, becuase right now if he thinks something is cold he goes "brrrr" and brings his hands up to his neck :) The elephant was splashing around and I guess he thought it was cold:

If you've been to the Fort Worth Zoo then you know how much fun the parakeet exhibit is. You get to walk into the enclosed exhibit with a stick covered in bird seed. There are HUNDREDS of birds all over the place and they come right up to you to eat the seed off the stick. I wasn't sure how Luke was going to do with this whole situation but he did GREAT! I had visions of him trying to pick the bird up or lick it or something wierd, but he found one that was on the ground, crouched down and sat perfectly still for several minutes while it ate:

After the birds we headed over to the kangaroos where Luke found the kangaroo statue obviously hilarious!

Checking out the penguins: More fish (he's wearing a hat and extra sweatshirt because even though it was warm... it was super windy)

Touching the sea creatures:

Funny face!

We were looking at fish and so he made a fishy face:

BEARS!

Talking on a tin-can phone

Sweet face

(please excuse my giant MCA spirit sweatshirt :) It was colder than expected and it's what I had available. ha!)

:)
I think that he pressed the button on the pig (which made it oink) for about 20 minutes straight. It cracked me up, because last time we were here (in the summer) it scared him!
Dave's attempt at a cute picture of Luke and I...

Issue #1 - He didn't tell us he was taking a picture

Issue #2 - Could he be any farther away?!?!

Issue #3 - Why on earth are Luke and I way at the bottom of the picture???

A little bit better :)
We bought memberships to the zoo and so hopefully we'll be visiting often... I promise next time I won't post as many pictures :)

Bumblebee Boots at Breakfast

I picked up a cute pair of bumblebee rain boots last week knowing that Luke will probably be spending a lot of time in the yard with Gibi once the weather warms up. Little did I know that they'd get the HUGE reaction that they did! I really think that he's only taken them off to sleep - and even then it's because we MAKE him take them off before getting into his crib. Gibi folded them over (because I guess that's how all the cool kids wear their boots. hahahaha!) and now he can slip them on almost all by himself. Here are a couple of pictures of him eating his breakfast in his boots...

This last picture has nothing to do with boots, other than it was taken on the same morning. We were having a bib shortage (i.e. all of our bibs were either in the laundry or in the trash - because Cadence had eaten part of them) and so we had to resort to using a dish towel and a chip clip. Luke really didn't seem to mind :)

Perspective

Want a little bit of perspective this morning? Want to have a really good cry?

Go read MckMama's post HERE.

Even if you don't read her on a regular basis (or ever) you HAVE GOT to go read it.

So good.

Full of Bologna

I mentioned in a previous post that Luke has been feeling under the weather since Friday, well, ladies and gentlemen, he's definitely feeling better and is more full of bologna then ever. :) His eyes are sparkly again and he's into lots of mischief. Last night I caught him standing on his block box and pressing the buttons on the DVR - definitely more of our regular Luke than the mopey one that had been hanging on us all weekend. He's fever-free and has his appetite back. YAY! The following pictures are actually from last week (I took some cute ones of him in the tub last night, but haven't uploaded them yet), but I thought they were cute: Drinking with no hands at Lunch at PeiWei

Singing to the tables around us


Staring at the ceiling. hahaha

Being full of bologna :)

Rocked My World!

So I realize that many of you may already be well aware of the following product, but I only became aware of it a couple of months ago and it has ROCKED MY WORLD - well, in terms of cooking that is. I love to cook, but HATE chopping vegetables, especially onions. It's stinky and time-consuming and just no fun... so you can imagine my surprise when my mom asked me why, if I hated chopping onions so much, I didn't just buy the frozen ones. Excuse me, frozen chopped onions??? Why are you just now telling me about them?!?!?

I buy mine at Kroger and they're typically under $1/bag. Each bag has several onions worth in it and it's great because now, instead of chopping an onion, I just reach into the bag and pull out a handful or two and throw it into whatever I'm cooking. It's been amazing. Anyway, this post has been extremely random, but I thought that if any of you were as unaware of the frozen chopped onion as I was, that maybe reading this would rock your world, too! Happy cooking!

Feeling Crummy

When I got home on Friday afternoon Luke was in good spirits and seemed to be feeling okay, but as the afternoon wore on he got more and more crabby, lost his appetite and had a fever. He's not dealing with anything serious, just a low-grade temp and general puniness. :) ha!

We laid low yesterday and skipped out on church adn here's what we spent a good portion of the day doing... I did manage to get a quick smile here, but it didn't last long:
Sorry for the super poor quality of these pictures, I took them with my phone

Dave's home with Mr. Man today and he just told me that he has his appetite back this morning! YAY! So maybe things are looking up for our poor little guy.

Skor

If you've been to my house for any reason in the past couple of months you've probably been offered a Skor bar. My mom made these for the holidays growing up, and this year when I was looking for a quick and easy dessert to make for something she suggested them. yummmmm...

This plate was leftover from Tuesday night, and I've left them uncovered in my refrigerator since EVERY time I walk by I HAVE to have one :)

I had extras from a batch I had made for New Years and those are bagged up in the freezer for emergency purposes: Anyway, I know several of you have asked for the recipe, so here it is:

- About 35 Saltines (usually about 1 roll)

- 1 cup packed brown sugar

- 1 cup butter

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1.5 cups chocolate chips

1) Line a cookie sheet with foil and then spray the foil with Pam.

2) Make a single layer of Saltines (salt side up)

3) Put the brown sugar and butter in a pan and bring to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes... stirring CONSTANTLY!!!

4) Remove from heat and add the vanilla.

5) Pour mixture over crackers and spread evenly.

6) Bake at 350 for 5 minutes - until it's VERY bubbly (watch that it doesn't burn!)

7) Remove from oven and cover with chocolate chips, spread melted chocolate to edges (I usually pull mine out and sprinkle the chocolate chips on and then return it to the cooling oven and with the door open spread the chocolate chips under the heat)

8) Let them cool completely and then cut/break into squares.