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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Homecoming Parade and the Zoo

As we've established already, I suck at blogging. So I hope you understand that these two events have no connection except that they are two outings at which I took pictures and wanted to add to the blog. Also, the formatting of the pictures is ridiculous because Blogger is awful. Bear with me.
On Friday afternoon we braved the (kind of) cold to watch our town's homecoming parade.




Landon and his buddy Tucker trying to keep warm

My sister-in-law Chelsea and precious niece Evelyn joined us!


It was a super long parade and very, very windy. Also, people need to learn how to act like they actually want to be on a float. Some people are lame-o! But we had fun anyway. :)
Hey, look who we found! (That's Matt in the middle if you missed it.)
Aw, they love each other. And don't worry, I was stopped when I took the picture.
Then on Monday we went to the zoo with lots of friends!
 
I always take pictures of the giraffes. I can't help it.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Our Favorite Kids Books

 I love finding tried and true kids books to add to our collection. Books are one thing that I think you can't really have too many of, but that may just be the English teacher in me talking. Here are our favorites!

Jesus Storybook Bible: We got this Bible for Avery's birthday after reading some of the stories in my niece's copy. This is by far the best kids' Bible I've ever seen. The pictures are so cool and the wording is perfect for little ones without being dumbed down, but the best part about it is that it connects every single story (even Old Testament) to Jesus. I can't say enough good things about this book to do it justice. It's a must-have for every family.


Board Books

Little Blue Truck: This precious book tells a really sweet story while using colors, animal sounds, onomatopoeia, and repetition. As a bonus, the illustrations are really pretty and the fonts are awesome. And if you know me at all, you know that I'm a font girl.





Peek-a Who?: This is a great baby book. It's super short but fun. Just be prepared to read it over and over. And over.






The Very Hungry Caterpillar: No explanation needed. We love this book in our house! (Also note, this is not just a board book.)






Goodnight Moon: How could I leave this one off? Landon requests it every night before bed.



Preschool Books
(actually, most of these would be considered collections now that I think about it)

Anything by Dr. Seuss: I realize that this isn't really one book, but you just can't go wrong with Dr. Seuss; his books are classics for a reason. We love the whimsical illustrations, silly words, and fun meter. I have to admit though that I'm really glad Avery is over her Fox in Socks obsession. That book is hard to read! She's currently loving Wacky Wednesday, which makes me so happy because that was my absolute favorite Dr. Seuss book when I was a kid.





Tag reader: This is also not really one book but a reading system. We bought the regular (vs. the junior) version for Avery when she turned 2, but it took a little while for her to really start using it on her own. She loves reading books with it now, and it's perfect for road trips. (Side note: we bought the regular Tag because you can also read the Junior books with it, but you can't read the regular Tag books with a Junior reader.) We have...

Fancy Nancy: If your little girl likes all things, well, girly, she will love Fancy Nancy. And you will love the cool vocabulary it teaches. This whole series is lots of fun.





Curious George: Avery has memorized most of the stories in this collection because we read it so much.



The Monster at the End of This Book: Ah, another classic. Matt and I both loved this book growing up, and the suspense still kills us! Our copy is seriously falling apart.





The Paper Bag Princess: Not your typical princess story! The ending is fantastic.






Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: We actually don't own this one, but we need to!



The Remarkable Farkle McBride: Since Matt's a music teacher, it only makes sense that this would be a favorite in our house. The illustrations are awesome and it's a fun read-aloud.


The Berenstain Bears: These were some of my favorites growing up, and Avery loves to check them out at the library. She has a copy of the Spooky Old Tree that she's already memorized.


I know I've missed some great ones. What are your favorites???

Friday, October 19, 2012

State Fair 2012

We go to the fair every year (mostly because we get free teacher tickets), but we didn't think we were going to make it this year because every Saturday was busy (except the one Saturday we had free, which was Texas/OU weekend, no thank you) and Matt couldn't find a good day to take off work. 

We finally just decided to go on Monday night and let the kids stay up late. Risky, yes.

So we packed supplementary dinner items (supplementary because who goes to the fair without eating a corn dog?!?) and headed out to Fair Park! 

(Can you believe I've lived here my whole life and have never ridden the iconic ferris wheel??)

The fair at night is much different from the fair during the day, and most of the exhibits/activities we would normally do were closed by the time we got there. We did make it to the petting zoo, car show (my favorite!) and the light show, plus we got some corn dogs and cotton candy. The kids were awesome, and we had a good time just walking around together. 

And oh my goodness, I'm so glad we saw Big Tex one last time before his untimely demise today! 

We had lots of fun, but we'll definitely stick to daytime fair attendance in the future. RIP Big Tex (1952-2012).

Family Zoo Day!

Matt's weekend schedule has been ridiculous lately. If he's not working, he's had some kind of church commitment. So when he had a free Saturday last weekend, we snagged him and headed to the zoo!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love our zoo membership? We have gotten WAY more than our money's worth, and it's a really fun (virtually free) outing with kids. When I take the kids by myself we usually just go to the Giants of the Savanna and the children's zoo, but we see the whole thing when Matt goes!

The wagon was a nice change from the stroller. Aren't they cute??

Avery wasn't even going to try to save me...
The monkeys were extra active that day
Roar.
Me and my girl!
Stop growing so fast!
Playing at the children's zoo
 




Gosh, I love these kids!

Green Meadows Farm

Since I'm super behind on blogging, I figured I'd take a break from the sewing machine today to post some of the fun things we've been up to! 

Last weekend was a busy one. On Friday the kids and I met up with some friends at a petting farm to see lots of animals! Avery's a little more hesitant in unfamiliar situations, but Landon was IN LOVE with every animal he saw.

Catching the show with friends
Landon ADORES Ms. Iris!
Karen and Tucker (Landon's BFF)
Sweet friends! Lily, Avery, and JoJo
Getting a good pumpkin picture was next to impossible. At least I caught a smile from Avery!
Landon had this exact smile pretty much all day. He was giddy.
Look at Avery getting adventurous! (Seriously, this was a big deal.)
Why pet the animals when you can play with sticks?
Taking a break from chasing the geese
 

I love to be able to do things like this during the week (thanks, Matt!); it is seriously one of my favorite perks about staying home with the kids. Also, yay for fall! Well, almost. Texas has a hard time deciding what season it actually is, but petting farms and pumpkins mean fall, so there.