Rachel Walked On Her Own!

Rachel likes to walk around while holding our hand. But tonight she took about 5 steps completely on her own. It was so exciting. I was sitting on the floor in her room putting away some of her toys and she was crawling all around upstairs playing with Nicholas. She crawled into her doorway, grabbed a toy and stood up on her own without grabbing on to something to pull herself up. I smiled and cheered for her accomplishment. She got excited and just started walking towards me. I was able to call out to Stuart and Nicholas in time for them to see her last few steps before she plopped back down to the floor. It's so exciting but at the same time I see another door to her babyhood starting to close as she inches towards a new milestone. Motherhood, full of exciting (and a bit tearful) moments...

The Dark Knights Celebrate

The Dark Knights got together at Red Robin for an end of the season celebration. We all enjoyed great burgers and had cupcakes for dessert. Nicholas is so funny. He always eats the frosting first and then, if he feels like it, he might actually eat some of the cupcake!



Even Rachel enjoyed the cupcakes. Nothing better than a baby covered in sticky frosting...who then touches the table and her drink and everything else around her including you. The stickiness just sticks to everything and seems to spread like the flu!



The boys each got a beautiful trophy.



They couldn't contain themselves and had to let some of the crazies out...



Congratulations Dark Knights on a fun season of soccer.

Free Movie - Enter This Giveaway Now!

Who doesn't like getting something for free? If you like going to movies but hate the ticket prices, check out this deal from General Mills - and keep reading to learn about my prize package giveaway. Just purchase two specially marked boxes of General Mills cereals such as Honey Nut Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Trix, and Reeses Puffs. Find the special codes on the boxes and enter the two codes online at www.generalmills.com/moviecash. Print your free movie ticket certificate and take it to a participating theater to receive one free movie admission!

As part of their promotion, General Mills has given me with four free movie tickets as well as a coupon for the next time I buy their cereal. I'm excited about the free movie tickets but trust me, I can really use that coupon. With a one year old in the house, we go through a lot of Honey Nut Cheerios!

General Mills wants to provide one of my lucky readers with an identical prize package too. To enter to win, just post a comment here and include your email address so I can contact the winner. Posts must be entered by Wednesday, November 25th at noon CST. The winner will be selected by a random number generator. Good luck!

The contest has ended. Congratulations to the winner, MeLissa M! Thank you to everyone that entered.

LLELA

As Environmental Chairman for the Greater Lewisville Early Childhood PTA, I had an outing scheduled for today for the children to go on a nature scavenger hunt at the Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area (LLELA). I thought about cancelling it because it was 40 degrees outside which seemed a little cold to go on a nature walk with little children. But I talked to some of the moms who had signed up and many were still excited about going so I bundled Rachel all up and we headed out.



The scavenger hunt was awesome! Most of the children attending were in the range of 18 months - 4 years old and it was a great activity for this age group. We had laminated sheets with pictures of what we were supposed to find and dry erase markers to circle the items once we found them.



I love our trail guide because she "planted" some cool items along the trails in advance just so the children could find some really interesting items.



We found colorful leaves, animal burrows, coyote jaw bones, turkey feathers, turtle shells...



...deer antlers...



...grasshoppers...



...coyote and raccoon tracks in the mud...



...flowers...



...evergreen trees.



We saw Lake Lewisville...



...and an original log cabin from the 1860s...



I'm so proud of our group of moms and kiddos. We spent about an hour and a half on our nature walk and had a great time despite the cold temperatures.



Even though Rachel spent the whole time in the stroller, she was worn out and fell asleep on the way home.



LLELA is open to the public on the weekends. You can hike on three trails, camp, canoe, picnic, birdwatch, or just enjoy spending time with nature.

Christmas List For Santa

We took Nicholas to Toys R Us to see what he might want to put on his Christmas list for Santa. He started making his list right there. It was so awesome seeing him write out his own list!



Of course, he ended up getting so excited about all of the cool toys out there that he gave up the list writing and delegated that back to Mommy. But it was hard to keep up when the little guy got excited about everything he saw! I guess that's what happens when you don't go to toy stores very often...