A Day Out with Thomas

So a few weeks ago we were some of THOSE parents who paid way too much money to go ride a train pulled by a life-sized Thomas the Train engine. I found out about this event last year when it came to the DFW area, but it was the week Graham was born (of course) so we didn't make it. And this year, I thought both of our kids would like it--because there are so many varying-sized Thomases around our house that Graham is fully indoctrinated into the love of Thomas. I don't mind spending some money on experiences that will be good memories and get some good pictures. And OH this was a cute day.

We didn't tell Dane what we were going to do, we just hopped into the car and started driving. It wasn't even a big secret; he just had no idea. And then we pulled up and saw Thomas the train standing in the train station--and Dane just about lost it. I WISH we'd had our camera on him when we pulled up. He could NOT believe it. "THOMAS?!? IS THAT THOMAS!?" We were there pretty early in the morning and got some good pictures with Thomas in the background (as good as we could with the lighting). I just love Dane's excited face in this picture.

We got to ride on the train pulled by Thomas, for about a 25-minute ride. Dane was loving it. It went much better than the last train ride we did where both boys were crying by the end.

And now some pictures of how CUTE Grahammy was on this train ride. So happy to just be standing on the seat and looking over the seat back.

Oh yeah, Dane was there too. He was too excited about the train ride and looking out the window to be bothered for pictures, though.

They had a whole ton of little activities going on after the train ride. Electric train sets, Thomas the Train trikes to ride, a clown walking around, a big sand box, even a little mini-petting zoo. It was like KID HEAVEN. They had literally every favorite thing of kids this age.

Dane really liked the bunnies. (I did too--if we were to ever get a pet it would probably have to be a bunny.)

Dane was POOPED out after just two hours of all this excitement. This was one reason why I didn't want to tell him and have him anticipating this exciting event--when he gets super excited, it drains him SO fast and he loses all ability to behave and be nice. He yells back at us and cries when we have to go. But it's pretty understandable if you take a step back--because when your expectations are up so high, any little disappointment becomes HUGE. This whole event was worth it just seeing his face and how excited he was to see his favorite train in real life. We probably won't ever do it again, but it was a fun one-time thing for us in this stage with two little boys.

Happy Birthday to Graham!

It is sooooOOO crazy that our baby boy is now one. It's so weird to see him acting more and more like a little person, with his own ideas and thoughts, and how he's starting to be able to act on those ideas and even to verbalize them. He officially says about three words, although on his birthday a week ago I would have probably said that he just said Dada and Mama. (Now he says "Itty" whenever he sees his stuffed kitty and it is the CUTEST thing in the world. Pretty sure he also tries to say Dane too but I'm not 100% on that yet.)

I am not a big birthday person! I don't do much to celebrate, on purpose. For Graham's birthday, we got a blow-up baby pool for us to use during the summer, and we bought some ball pit balls to fill it up with. Sadly, we got 200 balls and somehow they only filled up about 1/3 of the pool! But I'm glad we restricted ourselves to *only* 200 because they are all over the house as it is. (I knew we would put them up in the attic after not that long, and I think we may have already reached that point after a week.) We decorated the dining room the night before.

And the little birthday boy was so excited he woke up at 5 that morning! It was such a wonderful birthday surprise!

This is the money shot for the birthday morning. He only wore that hat for approximately 8.9 seconds but we got this cute picture and that's ALLLLLL we needed.

I went to the store after Graham woke us up at 5 and got doughnuts for his birthday breakfast. He approved.

We opened his few presents--just a couple of books from us in addition to the baby pool.

We spent the day doing things Graham likes, like pulling things out of cabinets and off shelves.

We spent the beautiful afternoon out in our backyard, in the sandbox and on the trampoline.

And then we had our friends the Hornes over for hot dogs on the grill and cupcakes. I made little smores cupcakes, with marshmallow frosting and graham crackers on top (in honor of our little Graham cracker). We didn't do a great job documenting the cake moment--I didn't really get a picture of him with the candle on his cake... but oh well.

We DID get a picture of the messy aftermath at least!

It was a perfect low-key first birthday for our boy. He is a sweetheart--a very opinionated one. In the last few weeks, he has decided he HATES getting his diaper changed, and it makes my life so difficult. I dread every single diaper change. He also likes to scream during meals quite often, when we're not bringing the food fast enough or exactly the right food he wants. But usually, he is a sweet, happy guy! He is much, much happier now that he can crawl and get around so quickly and easily--and I can't wait to see what he thinks about walking once he manages that. (Or maybe I can...) He has started to LOVE LOVE LOVE on his blankie and kitty and is always snuggling with them whenever he gets the chance. He also loves his daddy so, so much. My favorite thing they do is Graham likes to nibble on Tommy's chin and just laughs and laughs because Tommy's stubbly chin tickles his mouth.

Graham, we love you. Stop growing up. You're the cutest one-year-old that there ever was.

Easter 2016

This was kind of a unique year--Graham still hadn't turned one yet but he was getting to celebrate his second Easter. He was born the night before Easter last year. It's kind of hard to believe that last Easter we were doing this:

This year, things were a little different. We did an Easter egg hunt with our ward on Saturday afternoon, and it was very cute to watch all the kids lined up to find their eggs.

This is Dane and his two best friends: Preston and Ben. He was thrilled to hunt for eggs with them.

Dane lost interest after about 8 eggs and we had to pick up the last few for him.

Then right after our ward Easter egg hunt, we drove out to Nathan and Kristin's house for ANOTHER Easter egg hunt with the cousins. Dane was in total heaven. Their backyard is amazing, with huge oak trees all over--the perfect place for an Easter egg hunt.

Graham really got into the egg hunting spirit. He just wanted to shake the eggs and listen to the candy rattling around inside.

Dane the Easter egg hunter.

We did dye Easter eggs too. They didn't get too colorful though. Maybe next time we'll follow the instructions better.

On Easter morning, the boys woke up and "found" their Easter baskets (with a couple of dollar toys and Peeps in them). It was cute.

I tried to get some Easter pics of them before church, but I'd just woken up Graham from his nap and it was pretty chilly outside and it did not go well. But his little sad face was so cute!

We tried again after church and things went a little better. Not perfect by any means, but at least showing them in their cute Easter shirts. Dane got pretty sick with a fever on Easter so he stayed home from our Easter dinner at our friends' house with Tommy.

We tried this year to spend a lot more energy talking about the Resurrection and the real meaning of Easter. For FHE before Easter, we filled up Easter eggs with symbols of the Resurrection and opened them and talked about it. We also watched some of the Church's Bible videos and Dane really got into it. I know we could do better next year... I think we will try to do more of the reading of the scriptures about Easter week throughout the week. We had a very nice week, and especially a great Easter weekend.

A Trip to Austin and San Antonio!

Last Monday, Tommy got asked to go to a few meetings in Austin during SxSW. He'd been planning to just drive down for some meetings on this Monday and come back Tuesday, but then they asked him to do some stuff on Friday too. So we decided we'd make a trip of it! Most of our hotels were paid for, and the gas to get down there, so it was an almost-free vacation for us. Of course, "vacation" is a misleading term--because traveling with these two kids is anything but relaxing! It was a LOT of fun but also a ton of work. But at least we didn't have to clean up the food Graham threw onto the floor for a few days, so I think it evened out.

On our drive down, we stopped in Waco and went to Magnolia Market, the store owned by Chip and Joanna Gaines from Fixer Upper. I've only watched a few episodes of their show, but I love it and it's given me some great ideas for things to do to our house (starting with planting some flowers in our yard this weekend!). And also, it was a rainy day and we wanted to stop and get out of the car halfway to Austin, and this was the best stop! We didn't buy anything at their store, because it was $$$, but it was fun to stop. Then we also went to the Dr. Pepper museum just down the street, because why not? It didn't blow my mind but it was fun to explain how they make soda to Dane.

A horse made out of Dr. Pepper bottle caps.

Graham did NOT want to nap in the car. But he was sure happy to get out and help drive! (Just kidding, this is just waiting in the hotel parking lot while Tommy checked us in.)

It was still rainy when we got to Austin, so we changed our plans and went to the Texas State Capitol to do a tour. Dane and I went here when we came last year, but Graham wasn't born yet and Tommy hadn't been! It was fun to do a tour, and we even got to go inside the Senate Chambers, which was really neat.

I have a picture of Dane sitting on this exact cannon exactly one year ago when we came. 

We love Texas!

Tommy calls this the "Daddy sandwich." 

We drove to San Antonio the next day, because we were dying to hit up another major highlight of Texas history. Just kidding, but it was fun to see the Alamo and learn about the story of it some more.

The best we could do with all four of us and a stranger taking the picture.

Then we went down to the Riverwalk and got to ride on one of the riverboats for a tour!

We were definitely the worst people on the tour. Both boys were crying/trying to sleep by the end.

I was sad because I wanted to spend more time walking along the Riverwalk. It's so pretty! We will be back sometime and plan better for it.

After we got short naps in at the hotel, everyone felt much better. We went to the big city park and got some delicious popsicles to enjoy together on the grass.

And then we got to ride on the San Antonio Zoo train! We were the first people on our train, so we got to choose where we wanted to sit--at the very end facing the back, of course!

So, so cute. Dane was so, so happy.

Then we went across the street to the Japanese tea garden there, which was surprisingly gorgeous and really fun to wander around. This picture obviously does not do it justice. I don't get it--when I ask someone to take a picture of us and we're standing in front of a waterfall, why are you not getting the waterfall in the picture??

We found a restaurant for dinner that had an enormous sandbox for kids to play in in the back, and we were all very relieved. They were so happy. And so were we.

While we were at the gift shop in San Antonio, Dane saw this semi truck with the Texas flag on the side and immediately WANTED IT and talked about the "Texas truck" nonstop. We said no, but then saw it was only $6.

So we got him the Texas truck and gave it to him the next day. He was SO SO SO SO HAPPY and the Texas truck became his best friend. He puts it down for naps when we leave the room and talks to it like it's a human being.

Graham so happy to be able to stand and look out of our hotel room window.

Dane and his nighttime friends all sleeping next to him.

We drove to see the San Antonio temple as we were leaving town. Of course the gates were closed. Why are the gates always closed when I want to just walk around the grounds?

We went to a sculpture garden and somebody was very happy to be there.

Dane's favorite sculpture in the sculpture garden.

Graham's favorite sculpture--the baby sculpture.

We went to see my cousin Scott and his family that live in Austin. They just moved there a little over a month ago, so we got to see their cute new house and see them for the first time in a long time! Their two boys are the same exact ages as ours. It was a lot of fun, and Dane has been asking to go to Elliot's house again since we left.

The cousins with our babies!

Dane and Elliot are only six weeks apart, and Graham and Oliver are only a few months apart. They all played great together.

Monday morning, while Tommy was at meetings, I took the boys to the Austin Botanical Gardens, which were SO pretty and peaceful. I really was glad we went.

They had (another!) beautiful Japanese garden, with this awesome stream going for a looong time to walk along. It felt like we were all alone too. I loved it. And I loved pointing things out to Dane, like the spiderwebs and the koi fish. This is my favorite part of parenting--teaching him about the world and about things. 

During Graham's nap, Dane and I snuggled on the bed and he played games on the Kindle while I watched a show on my phone. We had to be quiet, right? It was fun to do something like that in the middle of the day.

Then we went back to Scott and Kate's house to play with them a little more while Tommy was at more meetings. Dane was thrilled to play with Elliot's trucks some more.

Then we drove back home on Tuesday morning. No stopping in Waco this time, because Tommy wanted to get to work for the afternoon. It's so nice that Austin is only 3 1/2 hours away! It feels like almost nothing--except when the baby won't nap for that whole time. I cannot even FATHOM doing a drive to Utah this summer like we did last summer. It would be so absolutely miserable with Graham at this age. These 3 1/2 hours is almost the max I want to do with him for a while. But all things considered, the boys were so nice and happy despite missing naps and sleeping all together in the same hotel room. We have just learned that even on vacation while staying in hotels, it's generally worth it to slow down for a few hours to try and let them get a nap, or else we will all be angry and frustrated by 3 pm. It's made our trips a lot less stressful to make that a priority and to keep their needs in mind instead of just trying to sightsee as much as possible. And we still got to do and see quite a lot in the short time we were there! The great thing is I am sure we'll be back to both of these cities sometime (as long as we keep living here), so I don't feel pressured to see everything. I'm glad we went though!