Texas Day 3, Part 2 - More in Forth Worth

Hurricane Sandy (or was it tropical when it hit land) wreaked havoc on a lot of folks and I don't mean to belittle that. However, she also wreaked havoc on my social life. The last 2 weekends at my house were supposed to have been spent entertaining guests but instead they were spent running errands and life as usual. The first guest, an Australian friend, took her opportunity to escape the east coast with the threat of the storm and skipped her Boston leg of her travels. Last weekend, a friend from NYC was supposed to come up but due to gas shortages there was unable to get out of town.

I was really bummed to have missed both. However, dealing with the grief of losing our Oliver has been somewhat overwhelming...more so than I thought it would be. Motivation levels have been low as has productivity. So, in a way it was good to have the "extra" time to try and get a few things ticked off the task list. Somehow, catching up on my blog always falls to the bottom of the list. But I'm determined to finish blogging about our Texas trip. It was over a month ago now and I'm afraid all details will spill out of my brain come time to deal with the holiday season. So, off we go....back to Texas!

If you read my last Texas post, you've probably been sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what else we did while enjoying the sights of Dallas's neighbor Fort Worth. Or did you try and guess? Well, if you guessed the zoo, then you must read this here little blog pretty often. Yup, once again, we checked out the zoo.

I went to this zoo as a kid and I was hoping a flood of memories would come back once I saw this place. But no, there was not a one. There was absolutely nothing about that zoo that looked in the least familiar. That's probably for the best since the last time I went there was likely close to 30 years ago when zoos were not quite so hospitable to the animals.

We spent a good chunk of the day there. Saw lots of animals, did lots of walking around, had some lunch and generally had a good time (even the poor kiddos were pretty exhausted). And here are the highlights in pictures:

Cade LOVED the flamingos!
He giggled at them.

Gorillas

The orangutan would occasionally scoop up some water to drink.

This baby was jumping and climbing all over his momma.
I know the feeling all too well!

I can't remember the name of this antelope but the info sign
mentioned a special characteristic of its spine that allowed
it to stand like this. I'd never seen anything like it.

BIG Crocodile

Huge Tortoises

Dylan touched 2 different snakes.

Cade touched a tortoise shell.

Komodo Dragon (Real One)

Komodo Dragon (Fake One)

Feeding the Birds

Playing in the "Wild West"

The big cats are always favorites of ours and this zoo had its fair share of them.

Mountain Lion

Female Lion

PomPom....Er, I Mean Male Lion

Bobcat

Jaguar
(I can't say it without hearing the way it's said
 in the commercials - "Jag-U-R")

Tiger

White Tiger

This poor guy looked so hot.
I have no idea how he would survive the summer
if he was this miserable on only a "warm" day.

Elephants Taking a Dust Bath

After the zoo, we headed back to Big D. The fun wasn't over yet! My Aunt Pam came over and joined us for a pizza night. We must have been snapped out since I don't think I have 1 picture of Pam with the kids. How did that happen?!?! It's always a joy to get to spend time with her and we had a lovely evening. A very full Texas trip day 3 had come to an end. Next up, yet another long day filled with travel and family....

Cade Michael - 9 Months

Cade's now 9 months and a week old. Obviously I'm a little late on this posting. The last week's been a tough one at our house. Between already hectic schedules, there was also a huge storm that blew through upended trees, electrical lines and plans that we had. Not only that, but we lost our dear cat Oliver. So, there was also a whirlwind of emotions experienced and it exhausted us all. I just didn't have the energy to do a post on my sweet baby Cade. Now that the grief isn't completely all consuming (though still in the forefront of our lives), I want to dwell on the happiness that is our newest family member, Cade Michael!

Cade Loved His Oliver

He had a really big month with lots of new developments. Due to the delay in the post, I actually have stats on him to share. He's still rolling along the 50th percentile in height coming in at 28.5 inches and staying steady in the little peanut range at 8% weighing 16lbs 14 oz. How that boy is so tiny is truly a testament to NOT having my metabolism. That boy eats, eats and eats and apparently doesn't gain much weight. Thank goodness the boys seem to have gotten that good gene from their Dad.

In addition to nursing or taking a bottle 5-6 times a day, he eats 3 meals and wants whatever you're eating whenever you're eating it. While he loves for you to feed him his yogurt for breakfast in the morning, the rest of the day he wants to be independent and feed himself. It's been a bit challenging for us to give him the balanced diet he needs with only providing him foods that he can feed himself. Sometimes we can sneak in bites of baby food in between his shoveling food into his own mouth to help supplement more fruits and veggies. We try to give him those in solid forms as well but some cooked veggies can be pretty slippery for little hands to grab. And now we have to be careful what snacks of Dylan's are lying around because Cade has quite the knack for identifying food and eating it...baby approved or not! Here is just a sampling of the new things he tried this month - avocado, eggs, cheese (cheddar, feta and goat), chicken, cream cheese, bagel, bread, muffin, beets, asparagus, okra and meatballs.

I don't think we've had a middle of the night waking for some time but we're still staying pretty tired. Cade decided the nice morning routine we were having wasn't working for him so he went and disrupted it all but waking way too early almost every day. Looking back, it all started on our trip to Dallas and hasn't yet returned to normal. Most days, he's getting me up closer to 5 am and even in the 4 o'clock range some days. Seriously now, those are really just not acceptable hours! Most days, Mike and I are splitting the time from Cade waking to about 7 with naps. Maybe once these teeth he's cutting make it through, he'll return to the good ol' days of 6:30. At least I hope so. Momma needs a bit more sleep.

Cade - 9 Months
That's right, he hearts his mummy!

On physical skills, he's got some great new ones. We've seen him cruise a few times (walking while holding onto furniture), using only 1 hand when standing and, a few times, letting go altogether and standing for a second or so before landing on his bum. In the last month, he also started clapping and will often be seen applauding himself after he accomplishes major feats like pushing a button on the piano.

Two other skills he has quite regularly happen at the same time....pointing and saying his first word, "WOW!" I first heard the word very clearly on the 28th (9 months and 1 day old) when he and Mike were in the bedroom and I was grabbing something out of the closet. It was clear as day! So, wow is his official first word. And I caught him on video last night using it at the wonder that is the stove vent hood:

He's already had more developments in the last week but I'm going to stick to format and wait for his 10 month old post (in less than 3 weeks) to list those there.

My Sweet Boy

It's The Great Pumpkin!

Happy Halloween everyone! We've just had a great time celebrating the holiday....for the last month! Dylan absolutely loves skeletons and other "spooky things" so we've been in Halloween mode around here for some time. Dylan helped me decorate the house with all kinds of cool stuff and we've been looking at catalogues of costumes and decorations as they came in the mail. 

Some time ago, Dylan decided he wanted to be Scooby Doo. That lasted a few weeks and then he switched over to wanting to be Snoopy and stuck with that every since. I really have no clue where he came up with Snoopy since we don't really have Snoopy stuff, but once he caught Snoopy fever, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown has been played on our tv often and Dylan has been waiting for us to order his costume and then get it in the mail. Since it's arrival, it's been worn to the Boo at the Zoo event (a couple of weekends ago) and around the house multiple times. Oh, and Dylan also decide what Cade should dress up on Halloween....Charlie Brown!

Dylan's costume was obviously done once it arrived to us. Cade's costume took a little more work from me then getting out the old credit card. It consisted of an old shirt of Dylan's with a little felt I sewed on and just a bit of eyeliner on the head for Charlie Brown's trademark swirl! Oh, and Mike and I dressed up to. We were Charlie Brown's parents....

Our balloon's say "Wah woh wah wah"
Get it?

Tonight, we joined up with our neighbor friends to do some trick or treating. It was a bit of a deja vous from last year. Just a few weeks after we moved into our new house last year, there was a snow storm on October 30th that knocked out power to most of the area. It limited our trick or treating options. Well, thanks to Sandy blowing through a few days ago, we had the same issue this year. With a 3 year old's limited attention span, it actually wasn't really a problem. Dylan got his fill of trick or treating and was ready to go home.

Snoopy and Spider Girl

Trick or Treat!

Even though we've been practicing what to do on Halloween night for weeks, it took team work to get it all done. Dylan like to ring the bell, Chloe would say Trick or Treat an we would all say thank you. We could only get Dylan to say trick or treat twice but he at least always did say thank you.

We offered candy en trick or treat route to Dylan a few times but he wanted to wait until we got home. So, once home, we all enjoyed some candy (even Cade and I) and then it was time for bed (and some makeup remover for Cade's head).

Tomorrow Dylan will get another wear out of his costume when his preschool has a make up Halloween parade. It was supposed to be on Tuesday but school was cancelled because of the storm. Since half the fun of tonight for Dylan was seeing other kids in costume, I think he'll enjoy seeing all of his classmates dressed up tomorrow. 

Happy Halloween everyone and don't eat to much candy! To end this post, I'd like to borrow a quote from the wise Linus that runs through my mind very often when I'm reading facebook posts in this political season, "There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin." Too true. Too true.

Dumb Dog, Why Are You Followin' Me?

While watching Annie (the movie) this weekend, I mentioned to Dylan that there was a storm coming the same name as Annie's cute little dog..Sandy. Apparently, that was a little confusing to Dylan. I think he was expecting a person and\or animal to arrive at some point so was likely a little disappointed with some wind and rain.

Sandy has come and gone and left a lot of mess in her wake. We actually fared pretty well. Our electrician got our generator up and running just after the electricity went out at the house so we got a really good live test of it. It worked! Our fridge, basement freezer, heat, a few lights and a tv had power so we stayed pretty comfortable. Probably the biggest inconvenience was figuring out what to make for dinner that could be fixed only by stove top or the fact that we didn't have wi-fi. Our electricity came back on in the middle of the night.

Clean up at our house consisted of putting the generator away and removing a big limb from the bottom of the driveway. So basically, we lucked out.

My company closed at noon on Monday which is pretty remarkable. We rarely close due to weather. 13 years at the company and this might be the 2nd (possibly 3rd?) time that's happened. Considering we can have some serious snowfall from time to time, my company does not take closing lightly. My commute to work this morning was long and interesting because of lots of detours due to downed trees and power lines. Clean up is going to take some time.

Here are a few things I learned from the storm:
1) Generators are loud. Really loud. That sucker was outside the garage, the garage door was closed, the house door to the garage was closed and we were sitting on the furthest side of the house. We could hear that sucker churning away very clearly.
2) Being stuck with 3 cute boys isn't so bad. The boys were both complete joys to be with. And even though I love them deeply and dearly, I can't always say they're enjoyable to be around. They were awesome fun and drama free for the duration of the storm.
3) Trees look very menacing when they're threatening to blow over on your car. I tried to drive very strategically on the way home from work yesterday to avoid as many trees as possible.
4) It's really, really dark in the burbs with no lights on. Our neighbor escaped to a relative's house for the night and asked us to keep an eye on their place. Pretty impossible to do once nightfall hit since I couldn't see a darned thing outside.
5) My electric company is not as completely incompetent as I assumed them to be. I did assume our electricity would go out at some point but was very surprised that it came back on as quickly as it did. Of course, those still without power probably aren't as happy with them as I am.
6) A dishwasher makes a great drying rack. One of our dishwashers was full of dirty dishes and the other empty because it hasn't been working (and we haven't had a chance to look at why too thoroughly). The empty one held our cleaned dinner dishes nicely while they drip dried.
7) Dylan says "storm" really cute!
8) Our newer house no drafts. As much as I love the charm of an old house, it was really refreshing to see and hear the wind whipping around outside but saw not the slightest movement from our curtains. This new build stuff certainly is a lot more air tight than the century old houses I've been used to.

So it's life as usual for us. The storm was just another bump in the road to make life a little more interesting.

Texas Day 3, Part 1 - Fort Worth Water Gardens

With the fatigue of our full fair day under our belts, it was time for some rest...NOT! Come on, this is me we're talking about. Got to pack it all in! Over the years, Mike has mentioned a couple of times that he would like to see Ft. Worth. Even though Dallas and Ft. Worth are close neighbors, there is not usually any reason to cross over the dividing line which is known as Arlington (which is where Six Flags, the Ballpark and Cowboys stadium are). Since we were in Dallas for a decent amount of time and there were a couple of things there that I thought Dylan would enjoy, we decided to spend a day of our trip there.

First stop was a place that I LOVED as a kid. I just thought it was super cool and it's always held a special place in my hear. Luckily, it's not changed much and it's still super cool....the Fort Worth Water Gardens!

The water gardens are basically huge fountain installations that you can walk through and enjoy. They (as in the 3 or 4 of them) from a zen peaceful one to a rushing rapids one. The ones on either end of the spectrum are the ones we most enjoyed.

Cade Enjoying the Water Wall

Dylan Liked It Too

Heading Into The Rushing Water

It Was Really Loud In It
(Though that didn't stop my Dad from picking up a phone call down there.)

If you look closely, you can see my white knuckles.
I was holding onto Dylan for dear life!

My mom chose to enjoy the view from the top.

Dylan jumped from block to block!

Mike took a turn with Dylan too.

After the gardens, we had our set side on another attraction. Following GPS instructions, we ended up near my Mom's apartment that she lived in just after college. That was a new sight for me to see. Unfortunately, this many years after the fact, the building wasn't too impressive! It didn't age nearly as gracefully as my Mom! And what attraction would our family go to when traveling? If you've been paying attention to the Hines family travels, you know. Next up......