Fun in Our Own Backyard

We love spending time outside in our own backyard. This summer has had a remarkable number of days of 100+ degree temps so we've had to stay indoors more than we would like. However, give us a "cool front" with temps in the mid-90s and we're back outside again having fun.

Harvesting our tomatoes. It's amazing. This sad little tomato plant has been so neglected this summer. I'm amazed that it hasn't died from lack of water. Yet, it keeps producing some great Roma tomatoes. Nicholas loves harvest time!



Rachel loves her outdoor swing. And Nicholas loves to push her in it and make her laugh. He's such an awesome big brother!







And of course, we do lots of swimming!

World Wide Photo Walk '09

This morning our wonderful neighbor and her daughter came over to watch Nicholas and Rachel while Stuart and I escaped to participate in the World Wide Photo Walk in Grapevine. On this day there were about 900 photo walks taking place all over the world. The idea is to get together a group of photographers in an area, have them walk a path in the town for 2 hours while taking pictures of interesting things. There is a contest for the best photos but the whole idea just sounded fun to me. And it really was. We walked down Main Street, an area that I've walked around many times before. But today I saw some things that I usually would have overlooked as not interesting or photo-worthy. I had a great time being able to photograph the sights around me but it was especially fun because Stuart and I were doing it together.

I took a ton of pictures but here are some of the highlights. Please help me choose TWO of these to enter in the contest. Just leave a comment with your vote or send me an email.

Train pictures.







Old stuff in the train yard.









The Homecoming - The statue depicts a soldier returning from service to a loving embrace.





Photographer extraordinaire.



Hand blown glass from Vetro.



Windmill shadow on a house.



A sunflower.



Water tower.



My sweet hubby - not a pic for the contest :)



Shadows.



Mannequin.



Light through a leaf.



Leading lines on an old cabin.



Carved Indian statue.



Bottles in the window of a cigar shop.



An old gas pump at Willhoite's restaurant.



Ok, so I just like to shop for shoes, even when I'm on a photo walk.



Now that you've seen some of my favorite pictures from the walk, please help me narrow it down to TWO pictures to enter in the contest. Just leave me a comment with your choices. Thank you!

The Wise Old Owl

Nicholas was in a camp this week at his Montessori preschool. The camp focused on theater. They made their own costumes, painted the backdrop, learned a line or two, and learned a song. Today they had a performance for the parents. The theme for the performance was Disney. Nicholas was in the Winnie the Pooh skit and he played the wise old owl. He was originally assigned to be Pooh Bear but he asked to be Owl because he wanted to be "someone that could fly".

They all started out marching around the audience and singing where they happened to stop. Fortunately I had a good view of Nicholas from our seats. He was so cute in his little owl costume which he made himself. He painted his wings and shirt and feathers on and even helped to make his silly little beak. But his wings were a bit of a hinderance to him when it came to scratching his nose and picking up his mouse ear hat that fell. He was nervous about performing on stage but he did great and I can hear him singing above the others most of the time. He even gave us a "thumbs up" when he finished.





After the performance, we had lunch at Chicken Express and Nicholas had to check out the train out in front of the building next door. We've looked at it before and he's climbed all over it but we can't go near it without having to stop and climb on it just one more time.



While Nicholas and Daddy were playing on the train, I let Rachel sit in the passenger seat next to me. That didn't last long. She went for the straws in our drinks and had fun trying to chew on them and ripping them out of the cups. Silly girl!

Rachel's Ready To Cruise!

Tuesday night I was sitting next to the bath tub with Rachel as I was getting her ready for her nightly bath. She started trying to pull herself up and look over the side of the tub. She wasn't quite strong enough to do it so I helped her stand up and she was able to stand by holding on to the side of the tub without any help from me. She's done this before and flopped down after 2 seconds or so. But this time she held herself up for a few minutes until she just got tired and needed to sit down. She was so excited about her found skill.

Last night Stuart got a picture of her standing while holding on to the couch. She's going to be cruising around the room any day now.



Then she decided to make a game of standing up and falling back into my arms. She wasn't just falling on accident. I could feel her push herself back as soon as I stood her up and she was just laughing her little self silly as she did it. Wheee!



She's still working on crawling. While she can book it across the room in a belly crawl position, she still hasn't figured out how to crawl on her knees. That's fine with me. Stay little, precious one! Here's her latest attempt to crawl. She now likes to push up on her hands...and her feet! Knees, sweetie. It's much easier if you go on your knees :)



I just love this little angel.

Cracker Jack

Stuart brought home some Cracker Jacks for Nicholas to try. Yummy! Click HERE for a brief history of Cracker Jack. I was surprised to learn just how long it's been around. I wonder if my grandparents ever tried it when they were little?

Nicholas was excited to learn that there was a prize inside. Along with the prize, there were two jokes...

Q: Why do sharks swim in salt water?
A: Because pepper water would make them sneeze!

Q: Why is the frog happy?
A: Because he ate what bugged him!

Nicholas has been telling us these jokes all night. This morning he said, "Let's do the joke over and over again. You just pretend you don't know the answer." So that's what we did. Nicholas asked the question, I made up a silly but wrong answer, then he delighted in telling me the correct answer. And so it continued for what seemed like 50 times.