Lone Star

I've been working with Travis to take over more things with Aiden and I can already tell it's making a big difference in Aiden's willingness to approach him.  Aiden used to come to me for everything and would throw a fit if Travis did it.  Travis' opinion was 'he doesn't want me, he wants you.'  Yessss.  But I need help!  So I forced him.  Travis was annoyed at first, but now that he's reaping the benefits, I know he appreciates it. 

As an extension of Travis taking on more with Aiden, I'm going to try to save grocery shopping for the weekends when Travis is around so I can go without a child.  It's so much easier on me and it gives Travis and Aiden some alone time.  We've done this in the past, but not frequently.  I went to get an oil change and bought groceries on Saturday without Aiden.  When I got home, Aiden was still awake.  Travis was having trouble getting him to fall asleep for nap time.  Finally, he just went in there and laid next to him on the floor.  Then he proceeded to take a nap of his own for an hour.

After nap time, Chris came over and we all headed to the Galveston Lone Star Rally.  Aiden loves motorcycles.  He points at every single one we see on the road.  His daycare is right near where the rally was, so there were lots of motorcycles driving and parked when I picked him up Friday evening.  We stood on the street corner and watched for a while.  He didn't seem to mind the noise, and really enjoyed just standing there watching, so we figured we'd take him to the rally during the day.  I've been at night in the past and it's definitely not for kids.  During the day it's a little less crowded, but it's still loud with all the bikes.

We brought Travis' ear muffs, just in case, but Aiden absolutely refused to wear them.  He was fine with the noise though, so I didn't worry about it too much.

Chris owns a bike so he wanted to peruse the bike parts tents.  I like going over there because they always have the really fancy bikes set up for viewing.  Aiden enjoyed it as well.  After that, we headed back over to the chaos and watched the continuous bike parade.  They set up a path down the Strand where anyone can ride their bike to show off.  There were some interesting people, let's just say that.  Here's a view down the Strand:

Both sides of the street are lined with parked bikes.  I read there were 400,000 bikes on the island this weekend.  I believe it.

Towards the end, we met up with Nadya, Alexey and Kate.  Kate was really nervous with all the loud bikes, but she said she wasn't scared and she didn't want to go home.  It was pretty cute.  She and Aiden caught up:

A common sight: Longhorn helmets.  Only makes sense as it was the Lone Star Rally.



Tex RenFest 2011

This past weekend we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival north of Houston.  It is always so entertaining seeing all the costumes. The group I went with this year decided to dress up.  A couple of us went as fairies, there was a forest nymph and three Star Trekkers.

This guy's wings opened occasionally.  He was very gargoyly...

Aiden stared at these giant boat swings forever.  Linsey and Zach took Luke over to go on the swing.  We asked Aiden if he wanted to ride the swings and he said yes.  Since I'm fighting some serious "morning" sickness this pregnancy, the last thing I wanted to do was rock back and forth in a giant swing.  So Daddy and Grandma took him for a ride.  He seemed really into it, right up until the point when they climbed on board.

He cried like that the ENTIRE time.  They didn't stay on as long as they could have, but it was probably a good five minutes of swinging fun.  Travis was giving me the stare down the entire time for putting him through that.  HA.

After the swings we saw Hagrid!  Apparently Luke watches Harry Potter with Zach and his favorite character is Hagrid.  Luke spotted him before any of us did and ran up to give his knees a hug before we even knew what was going on.  Luke was quite the hugger that day.  I'm pretty sure he hugged every costumed person there.

A few of the girls from work:

Aiden has never been big on dancing.  All of our friends' kids love to dance, but Aiden has always refused to  dance at all.  A couple months ago we put him in a dance class once a week at his daycare.  He has recently started dancing all on his own and I think it is adorable.  Luke and him started dancing as we passed a Renaissance band.  Aiden sticks his elbows out and pivots at the hips.  It looks something like this:

Michelle the Forest Nymph

I'm pretty bummed that you can't see how detailed her face paint was.  It was impressive!

At one point we stopped to look at the elephants.  Every time one stopped to load people, she would sniff us with her trunk.  When Luke came over, the trunk startled him and he accidentally dropped his pacifier inside the enclosure.  The elephant quickly grabbed it up, tossed it over in her trunk, then ate it.  The whole time I was trying to get someone's attention, but none of the keepers would look over at us.  When one finally did come over, he was pissed thinking we had fed the elephant the pacifier.  Who would do that?  Luke kept saying, "Give it back!  Give it back!"  I have a feeling he might have elephant issues from here on out.

Steampunkers:

The knight and his father

The semi-pirate and his father

Festival and a Museum

Only two weeks behind on photos.  That's not too bad for a working mom who had family in town for seven of those days, right?

I'll start with forever ago.  So long ago that I can't even remember the date.  Somewhere mid-October, Aiden and I went with the Yeager's to Luke's daycare's fall festival.  They had plenty of stuff for children big and small.  Unfortunately, Aiden wasn't up for participating in the majority of the activities.  Luke was right at home at his daycare though.  

The first thing Aiden decided to partake in was the pumpkin decorating.  They had various sticker faces you could choose from and then apply to a pumpkin.  Aiden chose the Frankenstein face.  I gave him the piece and told him what it was, then let him put it where he thought it should go.  Amazingly, it looked like a face at the end.

After the pumpkins, we went over to ride the pony.  Aiden refused the pony ride and opted for the pirate themed playscape that the pony walked a path around.  Luke, however, thoroughly enjoyed the pony ride.

After meandering through several other stations, we decided to cool off with snow cones.  I let Aiden pick which color he wanted and of course he went with blue.  Purple would have been less staining, but what are you gonna do?

Before the festival, when I was getting what I needed from the car, Aiden stared out into the empty field next to the road and said, "Mommy look!  A dinosaur!"  He proceeded to see two more dinosaurs on our walk to the festival.  When we walked back out to the car afterward, he stood at the side of the field asking where the dinosaurs went.  I have NO idea what he saw.  Sometimes I wish I could see things through his eyes.

Move forward to not as forever ago: a couple weekends ago at the Houston Children's Museum for Landry's birthday party.  The birthday girl's favorite spot was the funky magnets!

Big brother Logan went as his new favorite character, Mario!  And Aiden was a partial pirate.

I say partial because he only wore part of his costume.  I drew a mustache and goatee on him while he was sleeping in the car, and put the parrot on his shoulder far enough back that he couldn't really see it.  But he refused to wear his head scarf and rag bracelet.

The biggest hit was the water play.  Landry REALLY wanted the blocks that were in a particularly hard-to-reach spot, but she managed to finagle a few out on her own.

Later on fairy Skylar gave it a try.  Seeing as she is a head shorter than Landry, she was not as successful.  I think she still enjoyed just walking around, as walking is a new experience for her.

After the kids had played for a while, we sat down at the picnic benches to open presents.  When I asked Sara what Landry likes to play with, she said she always plays with Logan's toys.  She remarked that she could probably use some more girl toys and she always has room in her day for puppies.  "But no real puppies."  So we got her a baby doll and a walking plush puppy.  Aiden was enthralled with the baby doll, which was very promising.

Princess Landry on her Gift Receiving Throne (playing with her Aunt Brittany):

The Grand Kids Festival

This past Saturday Zach and his mom, Merri, got Luke out of the house and met Aiden and I at a kids festival in downtown Galveston. Travis was working and Linsey stayed home with Kenley. Of course, the first thing we noticed when we walked in were the pony rides. I always feel so bad for those ponies, but I knew Aiden would really enjoy it. Merri treated us to the rides and Luke rode the pony right in front of Aiden's.

As the pony trotted along, Aiden slowly tilted to one side or the other, then I would center him back on the saddle. There were a couple moments when Aiden whimpered. I don't know if the ride was painful, or if he was afraid of falling off, but then the moment would pass and he was thoroughly interested in riding this animal. Of course, when it came time to get off, Aiden started crying. I was having flashbacks to the Houston Rodeo Carnival.

It was only $5 to get in, but Zach and I were laughing that everything that interested the boys the most were the free things. They loved the petting zoo, although it wasn't as neat as the one at the Rodeo. These guys were coralled separately and you had to feed the animals through the fence. That meant you couldn't reach some of the animals, some were usually being fed by another child already and the rest were full. Aiden still enjoyed it. I think enjoying facing fears was the theme of the afternoon. Neither of the boys wanted to get very close to the Nesquik rabbit, but they both were interested from afar. After growing accustomed to the large strange bunny, they were willing to give him a high five. Then Luke kept going back for more staring from a distance.

They had various simple things for the small kids to enjoy: a sandbox to play in, banging pans (see below, Zach is touching base with Linsey)...

... and of course the bubble station was right next to the sandbox. Aiden kept touching the bubble wand to his mouth, so he was a sticky mess by the end of this exhibit. At least he had fun!

After walking around and collecting free hacky-sacks from another exhibit, we settled down for a moment to eat corn dogs and watch some extreme bikers. Then we headed to the Strand to cash in on a buy-one-sundae-get-one-free coupon for the Nestle store. I have not been in there since they opened, so I was pleased to see they offer a sundae with a fresh baked cookie (you choose the flavor) at the bottom. Ugh, makes my mouth water just thinking about it again!

Again, it was Merri's treat. It pays to have grandparents in tow. ;) We shared our sundaes with the boys, and sadly Merri dropped her cone on the ground the second she stepped out the door. At least she had a fresh baked cookie to turn to!

Aiden ran all the way from the festival to the Nestle store and back. Needless to say, he was rosy-cheeked and worn out by the time I plopped him in his car seat for the ride home. A little girl stopped us just before we got in the car and offered her flower balloon to Aiden. It was so sweet! I was ecstatic to have something to entertain him with the crankiness quickly approaching.

When we got home, I let Aiden play in the water outside while I watered the plants. Then we went inside to give him a bath. We still have the windows open, so it was a little warm in the house. I let Aiden run around in a diaper while I went through the goodie bag from the festival. I wish I knew how to load videos from my camera onto the computer. I got the funniest video of Aiden playing with the Easter Bunny Nano Bug. It's a little robot bug that moves by vibrating. It looks (and acts) like a colorful cockroach wearing bunny ears. Aiden jumped out of the way every time it came near him and more than once he attempted to smash it with the egg it came in. Oh man did I laugh.

A Festival

Sunday we got up bright and early to get on the road to the Texas Renaissance Festival north of Houston. Zach and Linsey invited us to go along for the Roman Bacchanal weekend so our boys could wear togas together. It was a 2-hour drive and we had a two car caravan. To help pass the time, we listened to Mitch Hedberg for a good hour. That man is hilarious. Then he had to go and overdose on drugs. Ugh. Happens to all the great comedians.

Right as we walked into the front gate there was a stand for face painting. Linsey and I really wanted to get our own faces done, along with the boys. Unfortunately Luke was not too thrilled about some stranger touching his face, so they didn't do his. Aiden was in the middle of taking a bite from a cookie when the woman started to paint his cheek. He FROZE. And stayed in that position, cookie hovering in his mouth, throughout the entire painting. It only took a minute, so it wasn't for that long. But it made me laught the whole time.

After the artist was done with Aiden's dragon, she moved on to da mommas. We both did fancy eye embellishments. It was so pretty I didn't want to wash it off at the end of the day. I did, however, get a chance to walk through Walmart with the paint still on. That earned a few stares.



Last year I saw the archery range and really wanted to give it a try, but didn't work up the guts. This year, I decided before we even got to the festival that I was going to try it. You get 10 arrows for $5, so I did five and Travis did five. It was a lot of fun. Too bad I was better at hitting the ceiling panel than the balloons.

Roman Bacchanal toga and face paint

Zach and Friar Luke

You can sort of see Travis and Aiden in the shadows next to Zach and Luke. Zach swears up and down that Luke screamed "weeeeee!" the entire ride. Aiden could not figure out what the heck was going on. I was convinced the dads had more fun than the boys. I couldn't believe how fast that thing went. Oh man did it make me laugh though.

There are lots of weaponry shops throughout the grounds. We stopped in several, but this one seemed to specialize in ninja swords. David LOVES ninjas and swords, so he had to stop to check them out.

I got a ton of pictures this year. Normal etiquette teaches you not to take photos of random strangers without their permission. This year, I realized that these people are dressing up because they want their photo taken. I jumped in for a few of them. This first one of me with the fawn was probably my all-time favorite costume.

LARGE centaur and a tiny child

Just hangin' out with a couple barbarians

We spent five hours walking the festival grounds. Last year we got stuck for two hours in the parking lot waiting for traffic to start moving because we left at closing. This year we left before dusk; partially to avoid the rush and partially because we were all exhausted. Linsey is something like 14 weeks pregnant!

A few of the activities in which we partook:

• Fire Whip - although we didn't stay long enough to see him light the whip on fire
• Drench a Wench - a woman sits above the tank berating the throwers and random people in the crowd. She was so vulgar and mean I couldn't stay to watch for long. David and Travis, however, found it hilarious.
• Ate gyros for lunch - VERY delicious
• Tried honey mead - not so delicious

There were a hundred other things to check out along the way, like the costumes (fairies, ninjas, women with corsets that hold their boobs so high it looks painful), the random child riding a llama and the various stages with music that related to the area we were in (gypsies in the greek section, oompa band in the german section and so on).

We had a blast, but I'm pretty sure I am still recooperating from the busy weekend.

In Summary

Friday night: Oktoberfest with Ariel for her birthday, then we headed to Squeeze for appetizers.

Travis, Aaron with Aiden and Phillip (Travis' co-workers)

The birthday girl and Bo

Saturday night: Got to see Kai's new house and have dinner (fajitas!).

Chris and Travis with Aiden

Alexa and the kids hanging out in the living room

Sunday afternoon: Ariel's birthday BBQ at their house, then they all went to their softball game.

Monday night: Pumpkin carving at our house.

Aiden liked the pumpkin guts!

Except he kept trying to eat it...

Our pumpkin, the mummy (carving courtesy of Travis)

This one got long...

Oi. It's been a long couple of days. But, I'll start with Saturday!

We made plans to go to the first annual Galveston Shrimp Fest with Zach, Linsey and Luke on Saturday. That morning, I brought the Murano in for an oil change and tire rotation. When we bought the car, we bought the car care package which covered oil changes and basic maintenance for so many miles. Looks like we're about to run out - we only have one "free" oil change left. Booooo!

The whole process took a ridiculous two hours, but Aiden did really well throughout. I was kicking myself for not packing a snack for him, and all my change was in the car, so I couldn't get anything from the vending machine. Unfortunately, we ran into Aiden's nap time, so he fell asleep on the ride home. I put him directly to bed when we got home, which meant he'd have to eat lunch afterwards instead of before, like we usually do.

Aiden woke up early from his nap and we headed to Galveston. We missed the beginning of Shrimp Fest because of Aiden's nap. The only bummer there is they were no longer allowing any new people to do the gumbo tastings. It was sooooo hot out, with no breeze, so we decided to take the babies into Yaga's for some appetizers. We hung out for an hour and then went out for snow cones. Aiden really seemed to like it. We all had cherry snow cones, so there were a lot of red tongues.

While we were sitting in the shade enjoying our frozen treat, Kate and her family showed up. We chatted with them for a bit before we all went our own ways.

Travis had worked all day, so we ran home to meet him for dinner. After dinner, Travis and I watched the Killers. It was eh. That's all I can say about that one. I should have gotten something else. Oh well.

Sunday, I cleaned all morning and then Robert came over to watch the Texans-Cowboys game. Ariel is in Illinois for a couple weeks visiting friends and family, otherwise she would have come also. I made a bunch of appetizers from stuff we already had around the house. It was nice to do something like that without having to spend a fortune at the grocery store beforehand.

Travis joined a softball league with Ariel and Robert and their games are on Sunday nights. (All friends are welcome to attend! Just text me for the game time whenever you're interested.) Unfortunately, they had to forfeit this weekend because only 4 team members showed up, including them. Annoying. I had already bought food for Aiden and I, so we ate then left. When we got home, I made the boys burgers and we watched the season premiere of Family Guy.

Over the weekend, Aiden's eyes had gotten a little gunky, so I called to make an appointment for him on Monday. I figured if it went away by then, I'd just cancel the appointment. Sadly, it didn't go away - it got worse. Monday morning when I went to wake Aiden up, his eyes and nose were crusted shut. Cleaning that mess up was quite the scene. YUCK.

We went to the 9:50 appointment Monday morning. When they called us back, the nurse had Aiden use the standing scale, instead of the one with a cradle to hold the little babies. My baby's growing up! He was 23.3 lbs. No idea what percentile he's in because we didn't discuss his growth. We had a male doctor this time. It was interesting because Aiden tends to gravitate towards men. He just stared at this doctor the entire time. So funny! The doctor pulled back Aiden's bottom eyelids and sure enough - pink eye.

Awesome.

Let me tell you right now, this is my least favorite ailment to medicate. Eye drops on a baby? Come on! Are you kidding me?! At least this time it's eye drop and not ointment. That was a nightmare on it's own. So, we have to do 2-3 drops in each eye FOUR TIMES DAILY for 3-7 days. Ugh.

The daycare won't let him back until he's been on medication for 24 hours. Since I gave him his first dose immediately after we filled it, he could technically go back today at noon. That falls right in the middle of nap time and it's too hard to go into work for just a few hours, so I took the entire day off. We should be back to our normal schedule tomorrow.

We spent the rest of Monday over at Robert's. Rachel watched Aiden over lunch so I could run into work. I got my regular stuff done and a few items that I normally would have done today. Hopefully it doesn't put everyone out too much.

We had already bought tickets to go to the Galveston Epicurean Event Monday night with Rachel and Robert. Travis called Sue to see if she still wanted Aiden with his conjunctivitis and she assured him we couldn't get out of this. She loves Aiden, sickness and all! Every time we drop him off there, she tells us we have to bring him more often. I keep forgetting about that. NEED TO REMEMBER THAT.

The Epicurean Event went from 6-8:30, so we weren't really gone that long. All the restaurants from around Galveston get together and serve samples of their cuisine, along with several wineries and various sellers of booze. I was stuffed after two booths. But, I made the rounds. It was hard not to with the boys trucking along, desperate to hit every booth before the end of the night. Oh and the CHOCOLATE. So much chocolate. And one booth was even handing out various vitamins and supplements, including digestive enzymes in pill form. I'm confident that those are the only reason I did not explode from all the food I ate.

I wish they had more activities like that down here. Up north, they have this for every town. The Taste of Chicago, for example. And the Taste of Champaign. Any activity that surrounds food is my kind of activity!

Tex RenFest

Oh my. That photo is just too much for words. He was like a statue just standing there. Except for when people would run up to take their picture with him - then he would lift up his arm for a hug. LOL! BIG MAN, little Alexa. And Alexa would say he had smelly underarms...

We went to the Texas Renaissance Festival this past weekend with Rachel, Scott, Alexa and Blair. Chris was out of town in San Francisco, so he missed all the fun this year. This was our (Travis, Aiden and I) first time at any Renaissance festival and boy was it entertaining!

I mean LOOK AT THAT WOMAN! I'm not quite sure what she was supposed to be. A fawn maybe? She had three-inch, tusk-like teeth jutting out of her bottom jaw. These people were EVERYWHERE. I didn't take nearly enough photos.


One woman was super interesting, but it felt wrong to take a photo of her. It was like she went into Hobby Lobby and bought a bunch of silk flowers and just glued them to all the not-for-show-in-public places. It was actually very pretty, with the colors arranged together. Oh and their was a vine entwined around one leg. Creative.

Getting the festival was a feat. We left at 10:30 thinking that would give us plenty of time to get to the north side of Houston so we could have lunch there. Nope. Traffic was ridiculous. We didn't get to the festival until 2pm!! We were all cranky and hungry, so we rushed in directly to the gyro stand in the Greek section of the festival. I sat down to feed Aiden while everyone grabbed food. We sat and people-watched while we ate. I could have done that for hours. It was Roman Weekend, so there were lots of people wearing togas. There were fairies and gladiators and peasants. We even saw someone dressed as a tree. ??? Maybe because we were in the woods? And fairies supposedly live in the woods? Not sure.

The grounds were HUGE. I guess this is the only activity that goes on there. Makes me wonder how that space is paid for if it only gets used for a couple months out of the year. Since we were all hungry, we griped when we found out the maps were $5 each and passed them up. After we ate and had clear heads I think we slightly regretted that decision. I've decided that next year I'll go there first thing in the morning, buy a map and leave by 4pm.

Since we got there later in the day, we didn't plan around the shows very well. Next year I want to try the bungee cord trampolines and the giant swings. OOOooo and next year Aiden will be walking when the festival comes around so I'll definitely go into the petting zoo (as sad as those things are) and maybe we'll try the camel and elephant rides. So much to do, so little time! I laughed when I saw there was RV parking for people who camped the whole weekend. I'm rethinking that now.

Leaving RenFest was beyond insane. We got in the truck at 5:30 and sat in line for three house while we waited for the police to get some sort of domestic disturbance under control. By that point, EVERYONE from the festival was in the car, ready to go, so the traffic leaving was ridiculous. By the time we got out of the worst of the traffic, we were all ready for a bathroom break and dinner. McDonald's here we come!