Dallas Arboretum

Barrett and I went to the Dallas Arboretum last week with a friend of mine and her daughter.  This place was INCREDIBLE!  It was just gorgeous and so festive for fall!  We took lots of pictures of Bear with all the pumpkins!

Oh yeah, I saw a squirrel running around digging for food too!  Pretty cute.

Neil drove an hour to come hang out with us for a little while too!

Seriously, the Pumpkin Village was so freaking cool!

I've never seen so many pumpkins in my life, they were everywhere!

They had a little petting zoo too.  Barrett gets so excited to see animals.  I think this lamb was his favorite.

We were lucky enough to go to the gardens while the Chihuly exhibit was still there.

They had at least 10 more Chihuly pieces that I didn't get pictures of.  There was so much to see there, I really wish I could've stayed longer.

The Stock Yards

Last week, the three of us drove to Fort Worth to go see the Stock Yards.  Apparently this is where "real cowboys" hang out.  As you can see, these fellas are riding their horses as I'm driving next to them (well, Neil's actually driving).

They do a cattle drive down the middle of the road with their long horn cattle (I think that's what they're called).  This is Bear watching the cattle drive.  You can't see the cattle as I was much more interested in watching Barrett's reaction to them.

Barrett got to ride a long horn- he wasn't as excited about riding one.

He was really into this pony though!

This is by some stable type things.  Animals don't live in these ones right now I guess.

We were really glad we were able to make it there while we're still living here in Texas.

S'mores

Last weekend, me, Neil, and baby Bear went to our apartment's club house and made s'mores.  S'mores are one of my favorite things in the whole world and I could eat a million of them!  Since the weather was still in the 80's I could only stand to be by the fire for so long and I only ate 6 (that's probably a good thing).

 Here's Neil roasting some marshmallows.  We obviously don't have real marshmallow roasting sticks, so we had to use these little shish kabob sticks and that made it even hotter since we had to be so close to the fire!

Bear had fun because he got to eat graham crackers for the first time!

Now that it's (occasionally) cold enough that Barrett needs to wear socks and shoes, he thinks it's the funniest thing to take off his socks and eat them.

Hall Pass

Neil is a huge fan of Olivia Munn (she's famous in case you didn't know).  One of his friends just happens to be Olivia Munn's little brother and he got this poster signed for Neil.  

This isn't the greatest picture of the poster, but she wrote "Mr. N. Johnson- Hi! One Hall Pass"  Neil was so excited when this showed up at work the other day!

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's allowed to give Neil hall passes, but whatever...

Admiration

Bear LOVES looking at himself (really though, who doesn't love looking at him!?)

He also loves waving to himself and kissing his reflection.

Can ya blame him?

Fruit Salad Friday (on a Wednesday)

We occasionally get together with my play group to have "fruit salad fridays" (apparently they still call it that even if it's on another day of the week). It's just hanging out, feeding the kids fresh fruit, and playing with tons of toys.

Here's Bear, Anthony, and Fint.

Here's Anthony, Bear, and Fint again (and Allison and Irie in the background).

Bear loved playing in Anthony's motorcycle walker thing.  Irie liked pushing him around in it too.

I'm so glad I found this group of stay at home moms that need to get out of the house and play as much as I do!

Skeletor

Barrett got a very exciting letter in the mail the other day.  Pops and Lala sent his this cute skeleton card.  He was so excited when I pulled it out of the envelope!

He's been having such a fun time playing with it.

And it's a great addition to the 1 other Halloween decoration we have here!

Until Bear pulls it off the fridge to play with it.  It is his though, so he can do what he wants with it.

Thanks for the great toy/card/decoration Pops and Lala!

Baby Signing with Miss Joy and Bebo

While we've still been going to our usual library story time on Mondays...

We've also added a baby signing class at another library on Fridays.

The first week we got there too late and the class was full, so we just played out with the books and some of our friends.  

This is Helen, her baby Ziva, Arabella and Barrett.

Arabella, Bear, and Ziva.

The next week we got there extra early to make sure we'd get a spot.  Bear was so interested in all the kids I couldn't get him to look at me for a picture.

He also loved Bebo the bear.  Miss Joy uses Bebo to help teach the signs to the babies.

We went again today and Barrett had tons of fun as usual.

And he got to play with Bebo again.

Bear doesn't really care about the sign language, he just likes to play with the toys and the other babies. This class has been really interesting and fun to go to.  I think the most interesting thing is that we are definitely the minority when we're there.  There's been 1 other white mom and baby in 1 of the classes, but each time we go, all the other families are Asian or Indian.

Oktoberfest

Last weekend we went to Southlake for their Oktoberfest celebration.  Every year we want to go to an Oktoberfest and it's just never happened.  This year, we finally went to one, in fact, we went to it twice!

The first day we went the weather was so perfect!  Here's the family.

We only saw one person dressed up, I don't know if people generally do this for Oktoberfest, but she was rockin' it!  I wish I could've been sneaky enough to take a picture of the front of her.  She said something to me about how I should"surprise my boyfriend" when she walked past me.  She's a spunky one!

The second time we went it was FREEZING cold weather- we had to get all bundled up!  Bear looks unhappy, but he actually had a good time.  There were millions of dogs that he really liked watching.

Neil got a disgusting Bratwurst with sauerkraut- I didn't try it obviously, but looking at it made me want to puke!  I made a better choice and bought deep fried oreos.  Nothing German about them, but holy crap, they were GOOD!

Thunder Onesie

Neil graduated from Thunderbird when I was about 6 months pregnant with Barrett.  He was super excited for the baby to wear this Thunderbird onesie one day.

Here's me and the onesie when we were in Arizona for his graduation.

Here's Barrett at 10 months finally big enough to wear this odd fitting onesie.

Neil was pretty excited!

Leapin' Lizards!

Remember how I said we get lizards in the house sometimes?  Well, I saw one last night and took a picture.  I know it's not a great picture but I didn't want to get too close in case he started running at me!

Can you see him?

They're really small but it still freaks me out having them in the house!  Neil was going to squish it (YUCK!) but I had him catch it in a cup and take him outside instead.

We're getting excited for Halloween around here!

Fidelity Fair

Yesterday, Barrett and I went to West Lake to visit Neil at work.  Fidelity was throwing a little fair type thing and wanted families to come too.  They had balloon animals and face painting for kids and a guy dressed as spiderman.  It wasn't particularly fun and the food was really disgusting (except for the popcorn).  Oh well, now we know and we can skip it next time!

It's a Christmas Miracle!

After 25 days of being in the hospital, Shelley was released from St. Mark's yesterday and was at home when her kids returned from kindergarten. 
She's been able to eat a little, but her stomach is sooo small and she's as weak as a kitten. 
She says thanks to everyone for their support and prayers and sacrifices in her behalf.  
It'll take months to regain her strength and this may prove to be a recurring problem for her, but for now there is much celebrating and tears of joy at the Young house.