I Told Her "No"

Earlier today, I told Rachel "No".  I don't even recall now what it was about.

She huffed a little and walked off.  I thought she went to her room but a few minutes later she called me over to her to show me this.

She pouted out her little lip and pointed to the pictures as she said, "This is me.  I"m mad because you told me "No"."

I can't stop laughing!  

I love the little fingers and toes but the expression on her face is just the funniest!

At least she has a good understanding of how to read facial expressions.  Ha!

Goodnight Moon at Dallas Children's Theater

The Dallas Children's Theater is launching the performance Goodnight Moon based on the classic children's story book by Margaret Wise Brown.  We usually go to plays during the school week because school performances are much cheaper than the regular performances on the weekends.  However, I learned that Dallas Children's Theater will let you attend their dress rehearsal night for "whatever you can pay".  You can attend for free but they hope you will at least donate $5 per person to attend. Since it was in the evening, Stuart was available to watch Nicholas which was so great because he was not interested at all in seeing the "little kid" show.

Rachel was excited about the girls' night out.  She said she wanted to bring "Baby Rachel" (her Bitty Baby doll) to the show with us.  She and her baby doll wore matching dresses.  We read the story of Goodnight Moon before we left the house and Rachel brought the book in the car with us so she could "read" it again to her baby doll along the way.

We were the first people to arrive so we passed some time in the lobby.  They still had the Pinkalicious cutout from a previous performance so Rachel let her baby doll pose as Pinkalicious!

I love the line up of upcoming shows....Rumplestiltskin, A Wrinkle in Time, Boats (a puppet show), The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley, and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!  I think we might have to plan on some trips to DCT this season :)

We played with the puppet theater.  By then there were other kids waiting in the lobby too so there were often lots of puppets at the window.

Rachel loved just hiding behind the curtain and then peeking out to say "Boo!"  We have lots of puppets at home but a crummy tabletop puppet theater that likes to fall over.  I wish we had a cool puppet theater like this!

Rachel's favorite thing to do when we read Goodnight Moon is to find that silly mouse that moves around on the pages.  So when we saw the giant backdrop of the "great green room", instead of wanting to pose for a picture, she had to find that little mouse.

The audience is not allowed to take pictures during the show but I got this quick picture of Rachel and her baby doll as we waited for the show to begin.

For more information about the Dallas Children's Theatre performance of Goodnight Moon, you can check out my review on She Is Dallas or visit the DCT website.

Snow!

We woke up this morning to a nice surprise - SNOW!

It wasn't a lot but it doesn't take much to have some fun!

Nicholas started rolling up giant snowballs.

Rachel danced around.

There's nothing like freshly fallen snow to show you just how dirty your white van really is.

Rachel watched Nicholas making giant balls of snow and she did a great job on her own.

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There were tracks all across the front yard from making snow balls.  Neither of them really like getting hit with a snow ball so miraculously they both agreed not to throw snow.  Instead they worked together on building a snowman.

My little boy blue.

I loved watching Rachel roll snow balls.  She didn't have nearly the control over the ball that Nicholas had but she was mighty determined and didn't give up.

That is, until she realized that she could EAT the snow!

Oooohhh, yum!

Do you want some, Mommy?

They eventually finished building their snowman.  They were so proud of him.

We took a break inside to warm up by the fire and enjoy some hot chocolate.  Before we had gone outside, I ran a pot of plain water through the coffee maker so it would be hot and sitting on the warmer for us anytime we wanted some for hot chocolate.  It was nice to just come inside and mix it up.

Of course, my little ones couldn't stand to sit inside much longer than it took to drink their hot chocolate.  Now it was time to explore the back yard!

Nicholas scooped snow from the toy box and took a big bite.  Eww, I don't encourage this because I'm sure the top of that toy box was dirty but at some point I gave up on that battle.

We have been talking about measurement a lot so we pulled out a ruler to measure the depth of the snow.  It was 3/4 of an inch.

I love just letting them explore.  They always find new ways to play with old toys (and paint rollers).

Nicholas came up with a simple little snow catapult idea using a bug net.

The roof of the fort has been looking pretty bad from all the wind we've been having but the snow finally did it in.  Nicholas didn't mind though.  He thought it was cool to be able to climb up even higher!  My little monkey :)

Of course there were snow angels to be made.

Nicholas didn't want to snow to stop so he found a big stick and started trying to shake the tree branches to make more snow fall down on him.

Happy Snow Day!

Ex-Squirrel Lover

I'm officially an "ex".

Ex-Squirrel Lover, that is.

Oh how I have always loved watching squirrels dart around the yard with their fluffy tails swishing back and forth.  I even love it when they bark and fuss when they are mad about something.

But right before Christmas, Nicholas noticed a little hole in the side of our house.  It is in the siding on the corner of the back part of the house between the kitchen on the first floor and Rachel's bedroom on the second floor. It was a little hole and with the craziness of the holidays we forgot about it.

Until....

The other day I was in Rachel's room reading to her and I heard a loud scratching sound and then several loud bumps on the other side of her wall.

Eeek!  Whatever made that hole is inside the walls of our home and just inches away from the interior of my baby girl's room.

The next morning I went out to look at the hole and saw this.

Wow, that's a hole!

I got up closer to it and took this shot.  You can see that this critter has gnawed through an inch of siding and about 2 inches of wood.  Determined little booger.

It's been totally quiet inside the house so I think what I heard was the squirrel chewing through the last bit of wood and then breaking free into the innards of our walls.

Stuart and I did some research on pest companies and made some calls.  The company we chose came out and said that this is definitely a squirrel hole.  Rat and mouse holes are much smaller.

So now I detest squirrels!  Their cuteness is just a facade to lure you into feeding them in your backyard while they secreatly devise a plan to invade your home.

We have heard noises in the attic and inside our walls from time to time over the years but it is usually a single occurrence in which we hear it and then it goes away for a year or so.

So the pest control company is going to come back out and seal up this hole with metal bars embedded inside some sealant stuff.  They will put a live trap with food bait in the attic and come back in 3 days to see if they caught anything.  This will take care of the concern about sealing up the hole with a squirrel still inside.  When they come back in 3 days, they will also put 2 bait boxes outside to manage any mice or rats as well as snap traps in both attics.  But most importantly they will walk all around the roof of the house and seal up any other possible entry ways for little critters.  We have to pay for quarterly maintenance service with them for one year but during that time they will come back out to replace traps and repair any other holes that the demon creatures might make once they realize they can't get back in their new crib.

While I'm not excited about any of this, it will be nice knowing that all of the little cracks and crevices have been sealed up and at least for a year we don't have to worry about critters coming inside our home.  We'll see how it goes this year before we decide if we are going to continue their services after the first year.

Fossil Hunting along the Interstate

Fossil hunting is a little hobby of ours.  We love the treasure hunt and we love finding cool things that are millions of years old.  But we don't take it too seriously and probably go casually hunting just a couple times a year.

My Dad told me about a cool place to hunt for fossils along I-49 southbound in Louisiana.  It's called the Cane River Site.  Back when I-49 was being built, they were cutting into the land to make an exit near Nachitoches.  But as workers were digging into the land they found an outcrop of marine fossil material that dated back 46 million years ago when this land was under the ocean.

Dad has been to the site and gave me some directions since we pass right by this each time we go back "home" to visit.

The exit is about 1 hour south of Shreveport.   You will top a hill and there should be an exit there that is clearly marked as the Natchitoches exit.  There is a McDonalds and other items there. About a 1/2 mile past that exit, you will note that there was the beginnings of an exit for a rest stop but it clearly was abandoned.  If you pull over into that exit or just slow down as you go past it on the interstate, you can see in the wall of the ditch along the interstate that there is some white items showing up.  That is the outcrop of fossil material.

We easily found the spot.

We parked the car at the dead end exit ramp and walked to the outcropping.  It was kind of weird walking along the side of the busy interstate, especially with 2 bouncy kids but we only got honked at once.  

It was neat to see the ground work that had clearly been done to smooth out the land for use and the drastic end to that work where the ground was a foot or two higher. It seems higher in this picture below but most of that is just grass and vegetation.

But what was most amazing is that when we walked right up to the dig site, there were marine fossils all over the ground.  It had just recently rained and rain is good for fossil hunting because it can wash fossils out of the dirt.

All of these little white pieces are marine fossils.  Some scientists say that they are from 46 millions years ago.  Most were bivalve and that seems to be all that we picked up.  But there have been 150 different species found here including vertebrate and invertebrate - cuttlefish beaks, shark teeth, coral, etc.

We had some fun doing a really quick hunt and collecting a few ancient treasures.

For more information about fossil hunting at the Cane River Site, check out this great article on the Natchitoches fossils by Gary Stringer that appeared in the Louisiana Geological Survey.