A downtown basketball extravaganza!

We got notification from the YMCA recently that because Ian took basketball classes, he was eligible to get a free ticket to an Austin Toros game as well as a couple of hours of court time before the game (not to mention discounted tix for the family). So we packed up early Sunday afternoon and headed downtown with the kids and the folks for a fun-filled day of basketball! Sadly things started out a little shaky! Just as we were entering the Convention Center, Little Miss Piglet performed the most amazing face-plant we have seen in years! ON THE BRICK SIDEWALK! Ouch.

She definitely sported a lump and a heck of a raspberry on her forehead, but she was a trooper and was off having fun in no time!

Here are the kiddos hamming it up on the home court!


Ian spent over an hour on the court shooting baskets. He was about the only kid that showed up! Oh well, more court time for him!



Of course the Piggy wanted to participate as well,

but she needed a little help from Daddy!

Then the dancers came out to practice and Ainsley found a new talent! Get your groove on girl!

After playing on the court we had about an hour or so to waste before gametime so we walked over to the Iron Cactus for queso and margaritas! Well, the kids had Sprite. Once the game got started, Ian was on the edge of his seat!

Ainsley... not so much.

After the game, we headed over to Hut's for some of the most awesome burgers Austin has to offer. It was a great day, full of fun and excitement! Hooray for good days and family!

Like mother, like daughter!

What can I say, she's a rockstar, even at the ripe old age of 3!

A Day at the Fair!

Poor Linda! She gets back from Clovis on Sunday and I immediately drag her to the fair with us on Monday! It was HEB receipt day so you could get in free with an HEB receipt, SCORE! I was mainly interested in letting the kids check out the critters and go to the petting zoo. I was a little disappointed as the pigs, sheep, goats and rabbits must have had their judging last week. We got to see A LOT of cows though! And I have to admit, this was Ainsley's first time seeing a cow up close and personal and she was impressed. They had been buzzed and washed and fluffed and they were so clean and pretty, looking like new velvet! One of the nicer gentlemen stopped and let us pet his prize bovine and children were happy!

One of the big highlights of the day though was PIG RACES! OK, you have just never seen anything so cute in your life! Everyone in the audience was asked to call "SUUUUU-WEEEE!" and the little porkers came racing out of the truck and into their racing stalls. They put little velcro vests on them and set out a platter with oreo cookies at the finish line! Then they were OFF! And boy those little suckers are fast! Well, except for these guys... young pot-belly pigs! They waddled more than dashed!

We got to watch 3 races and Ainsley was the official cheerleader of Pig 2 in race 2 and since that little piggy won, she earned a package of Oreos and this horrible "pooping pig" keychain (you squeeze it and this sticky brown stuff comes out of its rear, ICK!) But of course she loves it.

And let us not forget the souvenir piggy noses!



Then it was off to the petting zoo... (and yes, it took awhile to convince her to lose the nose for a bit!)



and the pony rides!

OK, could this child BE any happier?


We then grabbed a cotton candy and moseyed over to the midway to see if I could convince my son to ride a ferris wheel. We ended up having to wait a half hour as none of the rides opened until 4, but that gave us time to walk around, look at all the nauseating rides and take pictures. This is what cotton candy overload looks like!

It's somewhere between a brain-freeze and a seizure!

And here are the kids waiting, not so patiently, to ride the ferris wheel! Yep, we convinced the boy to do it!

Here he is right as the ride is starting. He was a little scared at first, but eventually relaxed and enjoyed the ride.

Of course she loved it from the get-go!

They both decided to try the merry-go-round as well. I had to make Linda ride it with Ainsley though cuz I would have surely wretched! I managed to snap a quick shot of Piggy just before the ride started, sadly it got going before I could snap a good one of the boy. :(

We had a really great day! Linda and I were so happy that we got Ian on some rides! And I have to say, it's really nice to have someone else to share these experiences with. So often the kids and I have had to go solo on many of our little excursions and adventures, but now we have a Nana close by who likes to come and hang out with us and we're happy!

SXSW 2010

I normally don't get out very much during SXSW. It's a madhouse out, it's expensive and it's generally not very kid-friendly. However, we do try to get out and see at least one of the free concerts down at Auditorium Shores. This year we headed down to take the Monkey Bunch to see Cheap Trick! Ian was very excited to get to see a rock show! He is a big fan of Cheap Trick's signature opening song, "Hello There" which he frequently sings on Rockband. It was a great show, nice to see that those guys still rock out after all these years. Ainsley could have cared less about the concert, but was happy being passed from person to person in our group. She all about hangin' out with friends! I think they both had a great night and it was nice for Mommy and Daddy to get out too!

Then the next night, we bundled up the little buggers and headed back downtown to see our friends from Triple Cobra play at the San Jose. Too bad it was 40 freakin' degrees! The kids were troopers though and Ian really seemed to enjoy the show. Triple Cobra is a very visual band to be sure. Ainsley loved the back-up singers and insisted we stay so she could hug them both after the show!

I don't know, some people think we're crazy, dragging our kids to concerts and such, and to be honest, there certainly is a part of me that would have preferred to go downtown to party sans rugrats with my Big Daddy, but it is what it is. I think the kids enjoy themselves and I LOVE that they are pretty chill in just about any situation. Besides, I'm hoping when they're like 17 and 13 they will look back and think Mom and Dad were pretty cool! Just like the Cheap Trick song says, "Mama's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird!" How fitting!

Ainsley-isms

We had just finished taking the kids to see our friends Triple Cobra from San Fran play at SXSW. It was an outdoor show in 40* weather and we were frozen! Brady asked, "What should we do now?" Ainsley's answer from the back seat... "How 'bout we smack Ian in the head!" Not very nice little sister, not very nice! ;)

My little fairy...

It's frigid here, again, but for some reason Ainsley has decided every morning that she wants to wear one of her sundresses. She also generally asks to wear one or all of the following with her sundress... fairy wings, biker boots, flower tiaras or sunglasses. She was only donning the fairy wings in this one but Daddy couldn't resist getting a quick shot of his sweet little fairy!

Just cuz they're cute!

e mowed the lawn for the first time last weekend and I had to crazy dogs running around in the freshly shorn grass. Oddly enough, they both started turning green! So I grabbed the camera to take a couple of shots of my St. Paddy's Day pups! As it turns out the green hue didn't show up that well on the pix, but the dogs themselves were amazingly cute! See for yourself...

Nigel, the cutest little lad around!

A boy and his dog! They are inseparable!

And Penny. She's a real looker but man I want to choke the crap out of this beast!

Snaggletoothed again!

Ian lost his 5th tooth on Sunday night. It's been wobbly for awhile, but he rarely mentioned it, so I kept forgetting about it. He came to me after dinner and informed me that it was REALLY bothering him and would I please pull it. That's a first! I felt it, it seemed pretty loose, but I HATE PULLING TEETH! Sadly, he prefers my tooth extraction methods, ICK. So we marched upstairs, I got out the cinnamon-flavored dental floss (I always use dental floss because it doesn't slip as much as thread), I wrapped it around his tooth and counted to three, POP! Out it came, he was shocked yet totally relieved! That tooth had absolutely no root whatsoever, so who knows what the hell was holding it in! But we accomplished the entire procedure in less than 30 seconds and he got a visit from that rockin' Tooth Fairy!

Ainsley-isms

While eating her berry waffles this morning, Ainsley very matter-of-factly informed me, "Mama, I just thought you should know that I'm a bright, shining, star in the sky."

I could have told you that! ;)

Hooray! We got a SNOW DAY!

So Jim Spencer forecasted snow. And we laughed heartily! HA HA HA HA! Then we all ate crow the next morning. Technically, everyone in the broadcast area was getting snow except for us. We were getting slush. Lucky for us though, we have a Nana and Papa in Round Rock where they WERE getting actual snow! I was a little reluctant at first as they boy had not finished some of his school work but Brady called and basically reminded me that we only get snow in Central Texas like once every 5-8 years, so by god, pack up those kids, go to Round Rock and call it a SNOW DAY! So I did! Ian hasn't seen snow since we took him to Ruidoso for Christmas the year before his 3rd birthday and Ainsley has never seen snow at all. Needless to say, they were HAPPY! And this wasn't dry snow or slushy snow, it was that perfect snow that falls in big gorgeous flakes and is just wet enough to make perfect snowballs and a rockin' little snowman! So here are photos of the Monkey Bunch enjoying their first ever snow day!

Ainsley's first snow!

Nana and the kiddos

Me and the kiddos

The making of Edward Stickhands (he was named by Ainsley)!


Our Happy Little Snowman! We weren't prepared to make a snowman per se, so we had to make do with a cut-up Snickers bar for eyes, a baby carrot for a nose and peanut M&M's for buttons. I donated my hat and Linda donated her scarf for the cause!

Ian and Edward are pals...

And Ainsley LOVES Edward, he's just her size!

And you can't have the full snow experience without making snow angels, so here's my two little angels in the snow!

Since Nana and Papa don't have dogs, it's safe to EAT the snow there! Woo-hoo!


If you're lucky enough to have clean snow and a Papa, then you get to enjoy snow ice cream! Yum!

After lunch and snow ice cream, the snow had accumulated a bit more and how could we call it a day without a good snowball fight? I figured Ainsley would be crying within minutes, but she was a trooper and she took everything she dished! It was so great seeing them run around the yard after each other and trying to sneak up on me and Nana! In fact, I think this one was meant for Nana! Eeeeek!

Uh-Oh!

It's amazing what a little bit of frozen precipitation can do to boost your spirits! And that's what's great about Central Texas, you can get a little dusting of snow about once every 5 years, you play in it, it's super fun, it does NOT screw up the roads and it's sunny and 63* the next day! Nice.

Princess Hula Fairy

Science Day!

Ian received a crystal growing set for his birthday, BIG FUN! We spent several hours making a couple of different things, mostly stalagmites and crystal flowers. I will take pics of the product once we are able to master making an honest to goodness crystal. but in the meantime, the kids were cracking me up in their safety goggles!