A late report on Spring Break in (?) parts

Last week (oh, sweet, sweet last week) was Spring Break for the Nockinbirds and the McKinney Cousins.  We spent a lot of time at a variety of parks (more on those another day), and took in the Butterflies in the Garden experience.  Little girls and butterflies...what could be more precious.  And who knew butterflies liked to eat rotting watermelon?  Mmmm.

Lolo had nothing but disgust for the butterfly diet.

It is impossible to get a decent picture of all four of them together.  Notice Lolo seriously studying her butterfly identification brochure.  Everytime we'd point out a butterfly to her, she immediately looked to her brochure and said, "Lemme check it."  She had a lot of checking to do.

That one above may qualify as butterfly pornography.  Sorry I didn't warn you sooner.

It was pretty common to have one land on you (me in this case).  Which posed a problem for Lolly.  Pretty much as soon as we stepped into the greenhouse, it became clear that she did NOT find butterflies magical.  In fact, they totally FREAKED her out.  She kept batting at those that came close to her and repeatedly asking if there was one in her hair.  Where did that come from?  She plays with worms and snails, but is butterfly-phobic.

We should have saved the money for her ticket and just parked her in front of the salt water aquarium, which she enjoyed immensely, thank you very much.

These two are checking out their gift shop purchases.

Everyone seemed to have more fun once we got outside.

The older girls and I took a quick turn on the boardwalk.  On one side, all of the trees, etc. were native to Texas. One the other, they were all introduced species.  I thought that was interesting.

My two junior naturalists, however, found the talking tubes much more fun.

After an exhausting day being terrorized by enjoying the butterflies, what could be better that some Panda Express?  It was here that Molly turned me on to the joys of putting them at a separate booth so we could eat relatively peacefully and with a little elbow room.  Smart gal, that Molly.

Nockinbird Mardi Gras 2012

Molly and Papa joined the good times at the Nockinbird Mardi Gras party.

 Little Miss helped design the tablescape.

The menu was shrimp and crab etouffee, king cake (of course!) and we even had a parade of floats...rootbeer floats.

Little Miss just happened to find the plastic baby again this year.  Now that I think of it, SHE was supposed to provide the cake for this years' party since she got the baby last year.  Hmm.

Even Emily got into the spirit and tolerated a couple of strings of beads, for about 10 seconds.

Our after dinner games of chance included everyone's favorite, Spanish bingo!  Molly, as usual, mopped the floor with the rest of us and won first prize.  Papa's luck was no bueno, but Little Miss, in a rare diplomatic moment did tell him, "Well, Papa, you played a good game." 

A late Valentine's Day post

A gift from one of my smarter students.  Smart enough to know chocolate always puts a teacher in a good mood for grading.

Little Miss was in good mood, too.  She's been enjoying the pogo stick Molly got her for Christmas her birthday (for Christmas, but Molly forgot where she hid it until after the first of the year).  Turn your head to the left, feel the stretch, and enjoy the video.  I forget when I have my camera turn to "portrait" that I need to turn it back to "landscape" for video.  Oh, well.

Little Miss's school had a Valentine's Day get together at the skating rink.  She got to try out the in-line skates the McKinney Bandys gave her for Christmas.  She did pretty well once we got them tightened enough.  Loverboy has the bright idea we should go skating so she can get more practice.  Let me repeat that:  we should go skating...like the whole family should skate.  I'm pretty sure we've already met our insurance deductible for the year, so we might.

So, happy late Valentine's Day to all.  I'm even too late to remind you of my new holiday:  I Love Me Day on February 15.  The chocolate is still delish, the teddy bears are still cuddly, even the roses are still fresh...and it's all 50% off!!!!  Mark your calendars for next year.  Some of the other names I considered were Cheap Love Day and Self Love Day, but you can see the pretty obvious problems with either of those...

Early Nockinbirds get the fun

In Denton, at 8:15 in the MORNING!  Dressed, ringlet-ed, sparkly make-up on, ready to go.  I am so hoping she really does want to make this her last of cheer.  And if the trophies continue to be as un-trophy like as this, I am confident she's had her fill.  But, she has liked the changes to their routine featuring her doing the splits.

Not impressed.

 I used less hair spray today so were able to get a brush through her hair.  Enough to look relatively normal for the rest of the day.  Of course, that normal included de-sparklyfying as well.  Blond and hair that will hold a nice curl all day.  So not fair.

May I tell you what an awesome wife I am?  I may?  Thank you so much!  I am a freakin' awesome wife.  We were done with the competition by 10:00, so I suggested a little family adventure to...Cabela's!  Now, I would have much prefered a jaunt to Sam Moon's for some cheap bling, but I suggested Cabela's because...well, because Loverboy is Loverboy, that's why.  A weapondry emporium.  Seriously.  You'd think he'd be thrilled right?  Not so much.  He was more like "meh".  Something about guys not liking to window shop.  Whatever.  But Little Miss liked the idea, so it was on!

Loved the aquarium and the trout feeding.

But Little Miss really was into the stuffed animals--the taxidermy kind, from when we first stepped in to the walking out the door.  She was especially fond of the bear raiding the beehive.  When we were in the Texas Trophy Room she declared this place was better than an amusement park!  Which started to worry me a bit.  She was not pleased she was unable to test fire on the archery range today.  She was very excited to find the RV Outfitters room.  Thank you Casita Kelley for that obsession...she also loves to watch Extreme RVs on the Travel Channel.  Of course she found the toy section and brought home a stuffed bear (toy, not taxidermy).  Meanwhile, Loverboy was looking all "meh" among the weapondry.  He says he was just hungry.  Seriously.  A shopping environment we could all enjoy and that's his reaction.

The McKinney cousins came down to help us celebrate Little Miss's seventh birthday.

It's so nice that she and Lolly can play peacefully together...most of the time.

This years' grand celebration was at Build-A-Bear Workshop.

The bears were selected...

and they're off to the stuffer!!

Thank goodness Aunt Cathy came and could do Lolo duty.  That kid moves fast!

And stuffing, and stuffing, and stuffing...

followed by a game of parachute.

Everyone with their new loveys, except Lolo who took off for the cupcakes.

She really rang that bell.  I'd say she had a good time.

And then came the cupcake consuming and juice box chugging.

If she sees one of these, there is no way she's not going to end up strapped into it.  She even spent her own money for her five minutes of bounce heaven.

Cupcakes weren't cutting it for our hungry herd after two hours of bear stuffing.  We needed face stuffing.

Molly must have some sort of granchild magnet imbedded, because all three wanted to be on top of her the whole time.

I'm glad we have a year to recover.

Thoughts on the weather...how exciting!

There's been fog along the river in the mornings...

and the spring flowers are getting a little ahead of themselves...but since we were still recovering from an ice storm (and our heater going out) about this time last year, I'll take it. 

Since this winter has been so mild (although not over, I know.  It is Texas.) compared to the last couple of years (we actually used all our school bad weather days for the last three years), I'm hoping this summer will be the opposite of last summer's scorcher.

Goodbye, six.

Exactly seven years ago (in 45 more minutes, anyway) she made it known that she was ready to begin the staging for her debut in this world.  Twelve more hours--and here she is!  It's funny now how I can't really remember the 34 years I lived before meeting her with much color or clarity--what did I do for fun, what is this "me time" I hear about-- but the last seven have been one heck of a ride!  Seven.  Certainly not a baby anymore.   But when she's asleep like this, I can still see the traces of my tiny, tiny baby girl that I met seven years ago tomorrow.  Seven.