Toddler About Town

We've been pretty busy here in Sawyerville. Sawyer's swim lessons started last Monday and they go through this Friday. We had a break today because they're replacing the filtration system in the pool. We're taking the lessons at an indoor pool in Plano. Denise and Sophia are taking the class with us too. Sawyer and Sophia are the youngest kids in the class. The other kids are over the age of two.

Sawyer was enjoying the class until last Thursday when I "scooped" him under the water. I basically had him in front of me, holding him by his armpits, and pulled him under the water, scooping him toward me. He didn't cry or anything, but when we went back Friday he just clung to me and didn't want to let go. I think part of the problem was that the instructor had us float them on their bellies and backs in the same day as the scooping. I'm anxious to see how he does when we go back tomorrow. I'm hoping to get a few pictures of him in action. Our friend Laura takes her son Christopher to another class there so she may try to get some pictures tomorrow.

Last Wednesday we met Courtney, Laura (my other friend Laura), and her son Logan for dinner. Courtney had a layover in Dallas so Lorne, Sawyer, and I met her at her hotel. Laura and Logan met us at On the Border. Court had a really early wake-up call, so all we could do was dinner, but it was still so great to see her. I wish Mel could have been there too. It would have been just like old times. It's so weird to go from living with someone for four years and seeing them everyday to just seeing each other every once in a while. Our time at A&M went by much too quickly. If I had it to do over again I probably wouldn't have graduated in four years!


It was great to see Court again!


I think that there may actually be a more photogenic child than Sawyer! :)

Saturday we had Jeremy, Denise, and Sophia over for dinner. Velma brought us some gulf shrimp when they were here last weekend so I fried it up with some fried vegetable medley and I also made a salad. The fried vegetable medley is made with potatoes, purple onion, squash, zucchini, and okra diced and coated in cornmeal and fried. Needless to say we only have it every once in a while! I like to smother mine in ketchup...yum!

I'll close with some pictures of Sawyer on his Little Tykes Push & Ride Racer that he got for his birthday. He has learned how to climb on it by himself. Now if only we could teach him to push with his feet! He never tires of us pushing him around the living room.


Sawyer loves to clap!


I had to include his incredulous look.


He hears his daddy coming down the stairs.


"Daddy's here!"

Our Night Out

Lorne and I went out for our anniversary on Friday night. Our actual anniversary was yesterday. We've been married for seven years. Larry and Velma came to visit this weekend so we went out while they were here. We went out to eat at a place called Chamberlain's in Addison. Lorne won Employee of the Quarter so he won a $140 voucher for dinner. We shared some Kobe steak pot stickers and shrimp cocktail appetizers, and we each had a salad. Lorne had a steak with garlic potatoes and creamed corn and I had chicken with garlic potatoes and creamed spinach. We shared a chocolate molten lava cake with ice cream for desert. Oh yeah, and to add insult to injury there was sourdough with this amazing garlic butter. It was wonderful! I cannot get over the prices that some places charge. I guess they will continue to do so as long as there are people who are willing to pay them.


I actually put on lipstick, perfume, and tried to fix my hair. Lorne looked really nice too!

We also went to see The Da Vinci Code. We missed the showtimes for the Cinemark theaters that we used to go to so we went to a Loews instead. It was okay, just not nearly as nice as the Cinemark ones. We were the first ones there so for a while we were thinking that we'd have the theater to ourselves. A few people ended up showing up, but at least they were all quiet and there weren't any cell phones ringing.

It has been so long since I read the book that I had forgotten some of the things that happened. I remembered the ending, but I spent the ride home asking Lorne if he remembered certain parts because he has read the book more recently than me. He is also a more careful reader than me so I knew that he would remember.


I'll close with a Sawyer close-up! :)

Pool Party

Denise and Sophia came over Friday morning and we went to our neighborhood pool. The four of us are taking swimming lessons together starting Monday so we thought some pool time would be a good idea. There is a kiddie pool which is really nice. It is only one foot deep all around so it's perfect for our little ones. The homeowner's association recently added a fence and gate around it which separates it from the big pool so that's even better. My neighbor said that it's especially nice because now the kids can't run from the big pool into the little one and vice versa.

Denise and Sophia met at our house. We walked to the pool while pulling Sawyer and Sophia in the wagon. They had such a blast together. They were so cute with their hats and their sippers filled with water, hanging out in the wagon together. I tried to take some pictures of them in the wagon but none of them turned out. I'm sure that we'll have more opportunities for wagon pictures.

Sawyer did great in the water this time, especially since it was only his second time in a pool. I just plopped him right in and he seemed pretty comfortable in the water.


Sawyer scooted all around the side of the pool the entire time.


I'm not quite sure what caught Sophia's attention in this picture.


I wanted to include a picture of Sophia looking at the camera and Sawyer daydreaming.

It's a Zoo Out There!

We went to the Dallas Zoo yesterday with my friend Kristy and her girls Caroline and Cate. Kristy and I have remained friends since my teaching days at Rowlett High School. I am so glad that we kept in touch. They recently became members of the zoo so she invited Sawyer and I to come along as their guests.

We got there around 9:15 while it was still "cool" so that was nice. The zoo was also fairly empty, probably because that coolness dissipated very quickly! I'd never been to this particular zoo (I'd taken Britt and Tyler to the Fort Worth Zoo)and it was Sawyer's first experience, so I was excited to check it out.

We had lots of fun! I still can't get used to the fact that I'm a stroller-wielding member of society! I can still remember being places like a zoo or the mall and getting so aggravated at all of the strollers in my way. Now I find that I could care less if I get in someone's way...I want my son to see the gorillas, goshdarnit! My oh my, how quickly I have joined the mob mentality!

We were able to pack our own water and lunches so that saved us big bucks! The gigantic basket in Sawyer's stroller was a big help in that regard. I did have to grab some rock candy from the gift shop. I have no willpower when it comes to that sugary treat. The great thing is that these are packaged with the nutritional information so I can enjoy them while knowing the points value like any responsible adult should.


Cate, Kristy, and Caroline were so nice to invite us to the zoo.


I love the look Cate is giving Sawyer in this picture!


What a kid! He caused lots of chuckles from passers-by when they saw him lounging in his stroller with his foot propped up. He loves to sit that way!


This wading stream was part of the Children's Zoo.


Sawyer enjoyed getting his chubby little feet wet.


Sawyer had a blast on this first carousel ride! Here he is watching Caroline.


I think he was still in shock from his ride.

Sawyer is Thirteen Months Old!

I decided that Sawyer was just too cute to stop taking the monthly bear pictures. It also gives me a great reason to post which is also a plus.

Sawyer has really started paying attention to the signs that I have been teaching him. He seems to have focused in on the "milk" sign which is accomplished by squeezing my hand like I'm milking a cow. The only problem is that he's doing that sign for everything! It is so cute! We think that it means "more" or "want" to him because he seems to do it the most emphatically when he sees a water bottle or something that he shouldn't have.

He still isn't walking. It is bringing me back to the last month of my pregnancy when someone would call and ask me if I'd had that baby yet. "No, not yet," I would reply. Even though there aren't daily calls about the topic it seems to be the one about which everyone is asking. From a random lady at the grocery store to someone at Weight Watchers, everyone is asking if he's walking yet. I know it is just a natural question since that is the next step in his development. I am just trying to keep enjoying the current stage because I think that once he starts walking the idea of crawling will be a distant memory. He cruises all over the place, but when we try to get him to practice his walking his legs turn into spaghetti and he slumps to the floor and crawls to us. I tried to get him to walk to me yesterday. Instead of walking he grabbed onto one of his toys and pushed it, and himself, over to me. I guess that I should give him an "A" for invention!


If I'd known he would stay propped up on the stairs like this I would have tried it sooner. It made for some nice pictures.


I love the clapping pictures!


His tongue reminds me of the trademark from a brand of candy (or maybe it was juice) from when I was little, but the name escapes me now.


He is making the "milk" sign with his left hand in this picture.


I thought I'd include a few shots from a few days ago when the Ozarka water was delivered. He enjoys playing with the empty jugs before I put them on the porch. Apparently they make great drums. He also likes the play with the full ones once they are delivered. I think it's because they're something new.


He is pulling up and cruising around just fine, but walking, fuhgetaboutit.


He has so much fun playing with the water bottles.

Fun With Aunt Kelly (I hope!)

We had such a great week last week. Brittany, Tyler, and Jordan came to visit us. I met Jamie and the kids in Centerville last Sunday. It was a few minutes over two hours for each of us so we decided to meet there. I had a busy week planned for all of us. I felt badly for last summer when they came and we didn't plan anything since Sawyer was only three weeks old. I wanted to make it up to them this summer. I also still remember all the places Aunt Tisha and Uncle Larry took me in the summers while I was growing up. Now those times are only memories so I wanted Brittany, Tyler, and Jordan to make some memories of their own.

We stopped at the Russell Stover Outlet Store in Corsicana on our way home. I had been wanting to stop and check it out since we moved up here so I told the kids that they were my excuse. I gave them each $10 and they were like, well, like kids in a candy store. Each child got their own bag and had one snack per day. I sent them home with what remained.

We started out at Stonebriar Mall in Frisco on Monday. The kids went ice skating, we had lunch, and then we saw Cars. My schedule didn't quite work out as planned because I thought that the movie started at 11:00 so we got there at 10:30, but apparently I read it wrong because the first showing wasn't until 12:50. It actually worked out well, though. I just rearranged the order and they ice skated before the movie. It was Sawyer's first movie and my first in a theater since Star Wars a year ago in May. I was kind of worried about entertaining Sawyer for that long, but he actually napped on me for about forty-five minutes so that was nice. It brought back old times when he would nap on me all day. Unfortunately I had left all of his toys in the car so it was pretty challenging to entertain him with only the contents of the diaper bag, but we managed. I think that the kids enjoyed the movie so that was the main thing.

I took pictures Monday, but I was an idiot on Wednesday and accidentally formatted my memory card. Lorne had to buy a reader and was able to recover most of the pictures that I took. However, we lost the ones from Monday and most of the ones from Tuesday (including all of Tyler's). I should know better than to try and do more than take pictures with the thing!

Lorne took off Tuesday and we went to Malibu Speed Zone in Dallas. Brittany and Tyler got wristbands for unlimited video games and rides on one of the racetracks. Jordan got a $20 players card for the redemption games. She was also able to ride with Brittany and Tyler for free. She wasn't quite tall enough to drive, but she still had fun. Sawyer hung out in his stroller and he and I were inside most of the time. I remembered his toybag this time so that aspect of the day had much improved.


Jordan had fun playing skee ball.


Brittany got a taste of what driving is like.

Wednesday we went to the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Schulpture Center in downtown Dallas. The Nasher was especially neat I thought. Jordan had a great time there and I was pleasantly surprised. I think it was because parts of the pieces on the audio tour had a kid version which was much better than the dry "normal" version in my opinion. I even listened to that one when it was offered. The best part was the sculpture outside. We weren't allowed to touch, but it was still nice to be so close to the art. It reminded me of the Musee Rodin in Paris in that respect.


Brittany and Jordan really enjoyed the audio tour at the Nasher. Tyler enjoyed pushing Sawyer in his stroller; to each his own I decided.


Borofsky's Walking to the Sky was a site to behold. The sculpture reaches 100 feet into the air and is at a 75-degree angle.


Can you spot the statues? These figures are watching the others Walking to the Sky.


Tyler's sculpture was awesome...finally, something he enjoyed that day!


Jordan striking her most convincing "Vogue" pose in front of her sculpture.


Sawyer had fun playing in the room of 5,000 blocks...more like 5,000 varieties of germs!


I really should try and feed our child more often!


It may just look like the sky, but Turrell's Tending, (Blue), was a favorite among the kids. We actually went in twice!


I was pleasantly surprised to see a Rodin piece in the garden. Eve was amazing. I am always awe-struck by his work.


Maillol's Night was my favorite sculpture. She was full-figured and beautiful.


The DMA was a really neat place. We even got our own private storytime.

We went to Hawaiian Falls in Garland on Thursday. It is a waterpark with a few slides and attractions. It's much smaller than Hurricane Harbor, but I think that the kids still enjoyed it. Sawyer had his first experience in chlorinated water and he had a blast. I really took my time getting him acclamated. We started out sitting on the part of the "beach" where the water didn't even reach us. Slowly I would move deeper and deeper into the water. By just thirty minutes or so he was floating in the Lazy River with me. I wish I could have taken some pictures, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do that on my own. He looked so cute! Aunt Net, Tammy, and Tracy bought him some swim trunks for his birthday so I had him in those. I was putting 50 SPF sunscreen on him every fifteen minutes or so. He didn't burn a bit. I wish I could say the same thing about myself! The main thing is that I took care of all the kids.

It sure was a fun week, but I have taken a few days to recooperate. That's why I have been a deadbeat Blogger. I will try and post again soon!

Sophia is One!

I'm a little late in posting, but Jeremy and Denise's daughter Sophia turned one on June 28. Her birthday party was held on June 24 and it was a hoot! There were kids all over and it was lots of fun! Denise's parents were able to come as they were in town from Kansas. Jesse, Laura, and their kids Ryan, Christopher, and Andrew were also there. Two of Jeremy and Denise's neighbors were there too.

We were treated with a feast of hamburgers, hot dogs, bratwurst, potato salad, homemade chocolate chip ice cream, and cake. Needless to say I ate way too much, but I think everyone did...it was too easy not to!


Sawyer opening one of his gifts from Jeremy, Denise, and Sophia. They gave him the book Tails and the Little People Ramps Around Garage.


The birthday girl and Denise in their hats.


Sawyer had fun playing with the balloons.


Sophia really got into her little butterfly cake.


I think all three were enjoying the cake!


Jesse and Laura's youngest son Andrew is getting so big! He will be one in September.