More Snippets of Conversation from 2 year olds

Heard over the monitor this morning...

R: We don't wake up in the middle of night.
R. That's what Daddy said.
R: That's bad. Don't do that anymore. We have to go back to sleep.

After a minute or two..
R: Okay, is that deal?

Then he proceeded to tell Connor all the bad things that were going to happen to him. Eaten by the fire monster, getting run over by Lightening and Mater, eaten by Toothless and a whole host of other things. It is amazing that Connor can sleep at all. :)

Maroon-Out

I wore my Maroon Out Shirt today. Or one of them. I wore one Friday, too. Today was the official Maroon Out Game against No. 8 Nebraska. And in the tradition of Maroon-Out the No. 19 Aggies (yes, they are ranked! And bowl eligible. It may be a sign of apocalypse - I haven't decided) pulled out an upset. I may or may not have shed a tear while watching the game from the comfort of my couch - the first I have seen this season. I was very proud of them. The defense was reminiscent of my own time - the '98 Aggies who not only won the Big 12 South title, but the Big 12 outright. It was also the year of the first Maroon-Out against then No. 2 Ranked Nebraska. Though it is nothing like watching the game in person, you could feel the spirit of the game and the 12th man coming through. Way to go Aggies.

It is amazing where you run into other aggies. At McDonalds. At the dollar store. Wait, that's not coming out quite right... :) There were some at Costco, too. Never mind. I will just stop now. My point was it seemed like everywhere I went I ran in to more Aggies. You can tell them by their Aggie rings - whether they are shiny and new, or wear the patina of age. I suppose it is a little like a pin from a secret society. It still amazes me all these years later the instant camaraderie that unites Aggies. A older gentleman at a nearby table at McDonalds spoke to me while waiting for his wife. We talked about the upcoming game and the season they have had thus far this year. A similar conversation was replayed at the dollar store as the kids and I shopped for Operation Homefront. Little instances like this that remind me what an amazing thing it is to be an Aggie.

The magic healing properties of Cranberry Juice

For the record Cran Cherry tastes nothing like Cran Raspberry - it is far, far sweeter. Even in the dark, in the middle of the night, with a sore throat and fever it is most obvious. Regardless I am convinced that cranberry juice must have some sort of magic healing properties. I was definately coming down with something. I had had a sore throat for a couple of days and was running a fever Wednesday night. I drank an entire bottle of Cranberry juice and I woke up feeling, much, much better on Thursday.

Needless to say I am stocking Cranberry juice from now on. And I will do the buying from now on to avoid any more Cran Cherry incidents. :)

Over Breakfast

Our conversation over breakfast this morning.

R: Mommy, you drive the speed limit.
M: Yes, I do.
R: But, Daddy doesn't, Mommy. Daddy drives too fast.
M: Daddy should drive the speed limit, too.
R: The policeman is going to take all Daddy's money away.
M: He might. But he's not going to take all your money away is he?
R: No. I don't drive too fast.
R: The policeman stopped the white car 'cause he was going toooo fast.
C: Take his money away.
C: The policeman stop Daddy.
R: No, Connor, he stopped the white car.
C: Because he was going too fast.

Skipping Christmas

I am skipping Christmas. Call me the grinch, but I am boycotting. No Christmas. No tree. No decorations. No Santa Claus. Oh wait, Santa's still downstairs from last year. Nevermind. There will be Santa. I might even dust him off. And maybe stockings if they happen to be in the top 2 or maybe even 3 boxes in the closet. But seriously that's all I am committing to.

It hit me like a lightening rod this week that despite the fact the calendar shows something like 6 weeks between now and Christmas it's an utter fantasy. In reality with everything going on there's something like 9 days left. Holy cow. 9 days?!?! How do these things keep sneaking up on me??

Halloween

So Halloween this year...

This year... well, this year Connor wanted to be Buzz Lightyear. And Ryan wanted to be Lightening McQueen. Only I have no idea how you make a kid a car. So I convinced him to go with Connor's theme. I suggested Woody. He said No. JESSIE. Ok. Fine. You tell your father that you want to be Jessie.

In the meantime I went to the store. And picked up a Buzz Lightyear in 2T and a cowboy costume in 2T. So why did I get a 2T? Because the boys are 2 1/2 and the next size up was a 4T. They walk on 3T pants, I can't even imagine what 4T would look like. So... A few days passed before I remembered to have them try them on. Of course you know where this is going, right?? Well, Connor LOVED the Buzz Lightyear costume. Only it was 2 inches too short. And it was a body suit so he had to duck to get his head in the headpiece the crotch was giving him wedgies, and the pants legs looked like capris... Needless to say it was too short. So we tried on Ryan's cowboy outfit. I couldn't even get the velcro on the chaps to fit his waist. It wrapped around almost double. And the chaps were 6 inches too long. I peeked at the size again, thinking this must be a 4T. But no. It was 2T. So one 2T was 2 inches too short. The other was 6 inches too long. I packed both of them back up and headed off to return them. Only to find the Halloween aisles decimated. I tried several stores before giving up hope.


So back to the drawing board... Or the costume tub as the case may be. We settled on "Dragon Slayers." The boys have been obsessed with the movie Dragons lately so I decided they could be ummm... like Hiccup? Sure. That's it.


Connor volunteered to the be the guinea pig to try them on. Needless to say they needed a little adjusting.

The boys practised trick-or-treating at our house. They went outside, rang the bell, and said Trick-or-Treat when Grannie came to the door. Grannie gave them goodies. Needless to say they thought this trick or treating idea sounded like a good idea...

So as soon as the sun starting heading down we got the boys dressed, cracked their glow sticks and headed out. By the time we got 2/3rds of the way home the boys buckets were so heavy they could barely carry them anymore.

Needless to say the boys made quite a haul...

Halloweens Past

As I was sorting through the pictures from this Halloween trying to narrow down which ones to share I came across pictures from Halloween's past. These were from their first Halloween.

Feeding a camel

He was just hanging out.

Then he spotted us.

And he was on a mission.

He got wind of the food and zeroed in on the bucket.

He sighed and set about eating.

Then Grannie tried to cut him off.

Meh.

Is that thing edible?

No? All right how about this one??

No wait! I wasn't done yet!!

I know the feeling...

Some days it is really hard to get out of bed...

Bayou Wildlife

While my mom was here a few weeks ago she was brave enough to get into the car with me with suitcase in hand. For another 3 hour tour… :) You would think she’d learn her lesson wouldn’t you? This one started off about the same. We had been planning to go see the Ballunivar Festival down at Nasa but at the last minute decided to hit the Bayou Wildlife Preserve instead. So we programmed the information into the GPS and off we went. A mere 38 miles…

When we arrived we got our requisite food to feed the animals in a plastic pot and proceeded to head in. With the windows down we rolled across the cattle guard right next to the animals. The very HUNGRY animals. Who proceeded to swarm towards my new car thinking they were going to get fed or maybe Connors little baby fingers if no other food were in the offering. Needless to say we rolled the windows up at warp speed as the ostriches and antelope closed in. ON MY NEW CAR!! EEEKKK! I am fairly certain someone failed to mention that part in the brochure…


Luckily with the windows up the animals seemed to take a hint. We eventually made our way to the parking lot and proceeded to park in front of the giant rodents, next to the mammoth alligator with the vultures ominously keeping an eye out for new arrivals…. No, I am not kidding. I have proof. See!!


Giant Rodents.

Giant Alligator.

And creepy vultures...

We made our way towards the pavilion as a tram departed. Deer mingled with the folks sitting down for a snack or early lunch. Ryan was even brave enough to pet one completely unprompted.

We took a quick peek at the giraffes just before the driver made her all aboard call for the next tram.

We grabbed our food and climbed in the back of the jeep. Our tour led us here and there past all kinds of animals eager to come help themselves to the food in the buckets, or in some cases the buckets themselves if you weren’t holding on tight enough. Some animals would come up and eat out of the buckets.

Others were a bit more shy and preferred the food be thrown on the ground a bit closer to them.

Ryan was happy to oblige.

Ryan was actually pretty good about throwing food to the animals. He would get a handful and hold it until we were close to them and then toss it out. Connor on the other hand would just grab fistfuls and would toss long after we had passed the animals. Though most of his "tosses" ended up in the back of jeep with us. :)

When we returned from our trek we sat down and had a snack with a very persistent deer, posed for some pictures, ran around like wild animals, then made our way to the petting zoo.

Ryan petted every goat in sight.

Connor finally worked up the courage to let go of me (with one hand at least) and touch the pig.

We made one last tour of the animals around the pavilion and then went down to check out the kangaroos, rodents, alligators, ostrich, and zonkeys before making our way to the childrens' barn for a horse ride, and glimpse of a peacock before heading out.

These were the zonkeys. Part zebra, part donkey maybe??