Lessons in Parenting

I've learned two very important lessons from my children over the past month.

1. Hide the scissors (see below).

2. Don't take toddlers camping.

We decided to spend the Friday night of Memorial Day Weekend camping at Grapevine Lake with D's sister, cousin, and their families. We had a great time hiking, roasting hot dogs, making s'mores, and visiting around the campfire. It was really fun...until bedtime. We spent from 9-10 pm taking turns rocking O to sleep around the campfire until he finally gave in shortly after 10. One down, one to go.

Meanwhile, C was watching Care Bears with her cousins on the dvd player (real rugged, I know). I spent from 10-11 pm with her in the tent trying to get her to settle down, but to no avail. D took his turn, but also gave up after about a half hour. I went back in and by this time it was 11:30 and I was getting frustrated. An hour later, at 12:30 am, in total desperation, I gave her one of O's bottles of milk and she fell asleep.

For the next hour, O slept soundly in his carseat while the adults sat around the fire talking.

At 1:30 am we decided to go to bed. D carried O in his car seat into the tent and started getting him out. "What are you doing?! Leave him in there!! He's been sleeping perfectly for three hours!" Ignoring my pleas, he took him out to put him in the pack 'n play.

O woke up crying. His crying woke up C. C unleashed a fit of rage that could not be stopped. There we were at 1:30 am with two screaming children in a tent from which we could see about six other tents.

For about five tense minutes, we debated what we should do. When C's crying hadn't slowed down one bit, I decided to bail. I grabbed C, O, the keys and headed to the car.

D, unwilling to let our children ruin his camping trip, stayed in the tent and enjoyed a horrible night's sleep.

In twenty minutes I was home and in my glorious bed.

I miss that hair :(

So, in conclusion, there are certain things you can't do when you have a 1-year-old and 2-year-old.

Camping is one of them.

RIP, Hair

Late last night C's precious hair fell victim to the sharp edges of some ill-placed scissors. C's most remarkable feature, her hair was her trademark from the moment she was born. It will be missed dearly. The family is accepting donations in the form of bows, barettes, wigs, and headbands.

WARNING: You may find the following images disturbing. I know I do.

After the bath.


I think it's even worse.


So.

Much.


Hair.

This is what I look like after my daughter cuts her hair and I cry hard for twenty minutes. Just in case you were wondering.

You want to know the real kicker? We were supposed to get our long awaited, much anticipated family pictures taken by the talented Whitni Parker tonight and now that won't be happening.

Engaged!

Meet my brother and his future wife.

Congratulations you guys. We're so happy for you!

And thank-you for giving us an excuse to make a trip to Seattle in August. I love Seattle!

P.S. If you want the rights to this photo for your engagement picture, just let me know :)

Our Favorite Toy

It gets us through the five o'clock hour every day.

Thank you Step 2 Sand and Water Table. I don't know what I'd do without you.

What the...?

She's expanded her decorating with food talents to include cheese now too.

She left it there for a few minutes while she caught the last bit of Curious George and then came back and finished it off.

Ft. Worth Excursion

We were bored a couple Saturdays ago, so we decided to hit the road and go all the way over to Ft. Worth. Our first stop was the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens. They were really impressive. We spent an hour and a half there and only saw a fraction of the place.

The kids were little angels.

Except C kept trying to stuff pieces of nature in her pocket. I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon there, but whatever.


There's a really cool boardwalk with activities for kids. C couldn't resist the urge to run the whole thing. This picture cracks me up. Check out that form. Future runner? I think so.




O just wanted to play in the big log and who could blame him. I was half tempted to get in there myself.




For once, he's the one pushing C out of the way!

Lastly, look how cute my husband is.

After the gardens we decided to go eat lunch at Joe T. Garcia's. We try to avoid sit down restaurants with our children at all costs these days, but we were feeling adventurous and I really wanted some fajitas, so we went. The kids were good, the food was good...a perfect Saturday around here.

Sea World

Wow, I've been a lame blogger lately, but better late than never, right? We went to Sea World while my family was here almost two months ago. We had a great time even though D called me from work the day we were leaving to say he couldn't come because he had a mediation he HAD to be at the next day and couldn't reschedule. Dang. I considered not going, but decided with the help of my family, we'd manage.

We drove down to San Antonio on Wednesday night, checked into the hotel, ate some dinner, administered Benadryl to the children, and went to bed. Cl decided she didn't like the taste of the Benadryl and before I could get her a drink of water, SHE LICKED THE HOTEL BEDSPREAD! So, so gross. I still cringe when I think about it.

Anyway, the next morning we got up and headed to the park.

As soon as we got there, we decided to catch the sea lion show. O was very excited about it.
Unfortunately, it was very hot that day and the heat got to him pretty quickly.

As we were leaving the sea lion show, C got splashed big time. It scared her and made her cry. I laughed. Does that make me a bad mom? Seriously, it was funny.

TThe highlight of the day was seeing Shamu. Of course, C was even more excited by the picture of Big Bird on her juice box. She did tell us, "Shampu's my friend" later in the day.

We got in line for the log ride, but when we found out it was an hour long wait, we decided to just play in the log oustide of the ride.

My sister even threw water on the girls from her water bottle to give them a true log ride experience. They seemed to like it.

O was a good sport all day. I was so happy to discover a huge play place for little kids with soft blocks to climb on and play with.

We highly recommend the trip to Sea World and to prove it we're going back in two weeks with D's sister.

Hopefully she enjoys it as much as we did.