Frog Fountains

Most people who visit the Dallas arboretum spend time admiring the lovely flowers and view of White Rock lake. So, one spring morning, I dressed up the kids and took them to the arboretum. Apparently Alex was the only one in on my "admire the flowers" plan. Zoe & JR immediately dashed across a field and ran straight into the frog fountains. I chased after them with Alex in tow but was too late (see pictures below). Gratefully, my friend Natalie brought some spare clothes for her boys, so we borrowed them for the rest of the day.

Fugitives and Fire Ants

Springtime in Texas brings my favorite wildflower: the Bluebonnet. It is actually a crime in Texas to pick a Bluebonnet. I now am the proud parent of three fugitives.





Look closely at JR's head in the picture where he is trying to escape from me; before we left, he dug his hands into a jar of vaseline and spread it all over his head.


Baby Alex thought it was incredibly fun to pull huge handfulls of Bluebonnets.

The bluebonnets were also home to a colony of fire ants. By the time ur visit was done, we were running for the hills with ants crawling (and biting) all over us!

Easter Bunny Blessing

Easter was great fun for our family this year. Grandma came to visit--which was awesome. Then grandpa came to visit--which was also awesome.





Then baby Alex was blessed at church, while wearing (that's right) an Easter bunny suit (see below; and yes, John was the culprit). At his blessing, he was so heavy that the blessing lasted about a nanosecond--everyone thought that they were going to drop him. I, of course, heard nothing since the twins decided to sob hysterically as soon as he was being blessed. I am told that he is named Alexander. :)

Dying Easter eggs was fun. Oh, did I say eggs? Mostly we spent the time dying our hands. The twins did an Easter egg hunt at the Dallas arboretum.



We did a practice run at a park a few days before--it was a good thing we did that too. In our practice run, the twins (a) refused to hunt for the eggs; (b) once we got them to look for eggs, they gave them away to the other kids; (c) once I taught them to be selfish and put the eggs in their own baskets, they decided to "hide" the eggs back in the field. Finally, as a last resort, I helped them understand that there was candy in the eggs. While this minimized their disbursement of the eggs to other kids, they still thought it was more fun to hide them.

Bunny Foo Foo

The spring brought lots of smiles from Alex.

We went to the arboretum and the twins got their faces painted (JR was a dog; Zoe was a bunny, bunny foo foo to be exact). Then Zoe proceeded to hop like a bunny the whole walk to the car, making onlookers laugh aloud.

We extended the gingerbread house fun to Easter and decorated an Easter Bunny House. As you can see, the twins are quite the artists.

JR has found new joy in putting the pacifier in the baby's mouth--that is, when he wants to give it to Alex; on other occasions, he still enjoys the pacifier himself or puts it in whatever crevice a small pacifier would fit.

Sleeping Like a Baby

John and I always thought the phrase "sleeping like a baby" was strange--in our home, that means waking up every couple hours, screaming at the top of your lungs. Well, with Alex, we discovered what the phrase sleeping like a baby means. Zoe & JR think being the big sister and big brother is great.

Over the River and Through the Woods . . .

We took a trip to Austin and visited Grandma and Grandpa Reed for the weekend and as you can see, we had a blast. I'm not sure who was more excited about the four wheeler--JR (who was a natural) or John (who was so proud to see his two-year-old son cruising around the backyard like a Nascar racer). Baby Alex found a new friend in cousin Mackenzie and afterwards took a much-needed snooze in the swing.

Meet Betty Crocker and Emeril . . .

It's official: the family's favorite treat is cookie dough. I passed my fond love of licking the mixer beaters on to my children. My favorite part was when they exchanged beaters and gave each other a kiss. Most of the time they are so kind to each other (I'll save the terrible twos tantrum post for another time). We also went to Kripy Kreme to see how donuts were made. The highlight of the visit was when the jolly rotund Krispy Kreme lady approached JR with a balloon and a Krispy Kreme baker's hat. Instead of emitting squeals of delight, like the other children in the establishment, JR gave her the evil eye and had a stare down. Paralyzed by the pure enmity that was coming from my little boy, I thanked the kind worker as quickly as I could, took the balloon and the hat, and tried to project Zoe's joy over JR's glaring. After she left, JR resumed his normal happy self. I guess the don't talk to strangers lesson really got to him!