StoryTime

Luke's new favorite obsession is books. As obsessions go, it's certainly not a bad one to have. Cody loves books too, and I caught them reading together after naptime the other day. Stories are so much more fun and exciting when shared with big brother!

Luke's Haircut

Right before school started, we went to get Cody a haircut. I intended to get Luke's hair cut then, too, but he screamed and cried at the lady and refused to sit still, so we skipped it and figured we'd try again later.

Well, over a month has passed. Here he is at the State Fair last week. The caption for this one is: "Look Mom, a hair salon. Please for the love of all that is good and right take me there immediately. This flyaway baby mullet has got to go."


So on Thursday, we took another trip to Cool Cuts. I talked it up bigtime beforehand, even snipping a tiny bit of hair off him myself to show that it didn't hurt. We focused quite a lot on the delicious lollipop he would get once his haircut was done.

To my surprise, he did GREAT! He sat still while she sprayed water on his head, used the scissors and even the clippers a bit over the ears, AND blew his hair dry at the end. He rocked it.

He looks completely handsome. And at least a year older. I can't believe it. He went in a baby and came out a little boy.


Cutest little boy ever (ok, tied 3-ways with his brothers)! :)

State Fair 2009

It's the end of September, and that means it's time for the State Fair! We had such a wonderful time last year that we couldn't wait to go back.

We started off with face painting. Last year, we made the fatal mistake of going to the fair the day before school pictures, and Jacks had a full green and black snake painted all over his face. So despite much scrubbing, he looks like he's wearing black eyeliner in his first grade class picture. Well, not this year, mister! We have more than a week before picture day. No problemo!

Jacks went with a scary scorpion.


And Cody liked last year's dragon so much, he got another one. :)


You might think that Luke got his face painted with CUTE, but nope! No paint here, folks! He was born that way!


Then we headed over to the boys' (including Daddy) favorite part, the car show. And just like Cody hoped and dreamed and had been talking about for weeks....BUMBLEBEE was there.


This was the official "Bumblebee Edition" of the 2009 Camaro, and it came complete with an Autobot badge and awesome Autobot tires.


Cody could have driven this car all day long. He LOVED it.


Basking in the Bumblebee afterglow. :)


Then Jackson went on this cool swing ride. He tried out a couple of kiddie roller coasters, too. It's so funny how cautious Jacks is about most things, but how much fun he has on "scary" rides.


It was pretty difficult to find a ride that Cody wanted to go on. He doesn't like anything that goes up or down, anything that turns, anything that's bumpy...I could go on. But as we were coming back through the rides on our way out, he spotted this little animal train. It goes around pretty slowly on a little track. Perfect! And the best part was that Luke could ride it, too.

Then we found these boats. At first, just Jackson and Cody were going to ride, but Luke was not about to be left out. So he rode in the middle, and Jacks held on tight to him. What a good big brother! And it was so great to see how much fun Cody had. He rode in FRONT (which is very brave for him) and he SMILED! Those of you who remember how much "fun" he had while doing the bungee trampoline over the summer know the face he wears while he's scared spitless but trying to enjoy something anyway. Here, he actually looked happy.

The weather was beautiful and Anthony has to travel later in the week, so it was great way to spend a family afternoon. Unfortunately, we didn't try out the fried butter...but there's always next year. :)

Do Your Best

It's the Cub Scout motto! Doesn't Jacks look so handsome and official in his uniform? I've got to tell you, he was one proud little peacock putting it all on tonight. I think we might finally have found his "thing." :)

Go Orioles!

Jackson is playing baseball again this season. He enjoyed it so much in the spring that he jumped at the opportunity to join another team. And he gets to play with several of his good buddies from school, too, so that's another big draw for him.

We are still working SO hard on keeping our eye on the ball. Jacks loves to bat and has a great swing, but he tends to watch the pitcher instead of the ball. But we have made a bunch of visits to the batting cages and even had a private lesson with a high school player, and Jacks has really improved a lot. Yesterday things seemed to click more than ever before, and he hit a bunch in a row at the batting cages (which, in my opinion, is harder than hitting his coach's pitches because they're 35 mph). I think he finally found HIS stance; he bent his knees a little bit and went into more of a crouch. He looked Major League, baby!

And because baseball can be sweaty and dirty, I just have to share this story from last week. Jackson had a cub scout meeting that was going to run until almost bedtime, so I had him take a shower before he left. He showered, then came out of the bathroom in the same dirty clothes he had been wearing all day. I suggested he wear clean clothes on his clean body, and Jacks summed it all up for me thusly: "Mom, boys like dirty, girls like purty." Ha! How can you argue with that logic?

Balloon Festival

We headed out to the Plano Balloon Festival this afternoon. It's been a few years since we actually went in; usually, we just find a good spot to watch the balloons drift overhead. But we decided to get up close this year and really watch the whole process.

Of course, the process begins with FOOD. Luke really enjoyed his corndog. :)


The next part of the process involves bounce houses and slides. I have no idea what that has to do with balloons...they're all full of hot air? Haha. Anyway, I had a sneaking suspicion that these were the main reason the boys wanted to go IN to the festival rather than watching from a little further away.


That is, until the balloons actually started taking off. This was about as close as you could get without being part of a balloon team, and even with the chainlink in the way, we had a great view.


One of the balloons that the boys were most excited about was the penguin you can see here, still lying on the ground. It took a long time to get him full and ready to launch!


There's the penguin, about to liftoff!

This is such a great event, and we're already looking forward to next year's. :)

Meg's Birthday

The boys helped me celebrate in style on my big day. They prepared me a birthday breakfast feast of pancakes and bacon, took me shopping (we ended up getting baseball cleats for Jacks but it was the thought that counted LOL), and made me wear a sombrero while the patrons of Pappasito's sang to me. And, we all got to enjoy the beautiful cake below. It was a great birthday!