Zoo trips

Back in November with cousins

H, Gabe, Thomas, Ella, MG, Alice, Isabelle, and Arden

(Megan- looks like the same Komodo dragon Jackson was intrigued with! We can photoshop him in with his cousins)

New Year's Eve with the Woods and Bentons
Lucky for Henry that Aunt Kate always takes her kids on the train... we had never ridden it before. I'm not as fun.

MG, Alice, Ella, Thomas, Jack, Rylie, H, and Olivia

I think this time was at the end of January- we needed to get out of the house and when I went to go pack up the car, I noticed it was drizzling. We plugged on (is that the correct expression??)- and I'm thankful we did- ended up being the beautiful day and we had a the whole zoo to ourselves.

Can't wait!

Surprisingly, Henry can. The dinosaur screeched. Henry screamed!



Last Saturday.... on the spur of the moment, met my sister, Elizabeth, and her family at the Tyler Zoo. Tom had worked the night before and needed to sleep- so why not get the kids out of the house and spend some sweet time with my family?!

Margaret Gray loved the petting zoo.

Both had a great time feeding the birds.

Elizabeth and Emma sitting out on the bird feeding.

Checking out giant ants

Sarah Grace, M, Madeline, Emma, and H

Arboretum

Realized that I had pics I've never posted from trips to the Arboretum.

Back in December, we went with the Delaneys.

Forgot my camera, but Liz was awesome about documenting our day.

Cooper, Charlie, Jackson and Margaret sharing some love, and H

Since it was close to Christmas, the Arboretum had about 1 bigillion Santas on display in one of the houses on the property.

We braved taking the 5 kids to see them.

Not one Santa was touched and even though Henry sat down and started to take off his boots when we went into one of the bedrooms (so he could get up on the bed and jump, of course) we were very proud of the kids for controlling their touchy touchy hands.

Love being able to get out and enjoy warm winter weather!

Then we went about a month ago with Kristen and Ava and Amy and Brinley.

MG, Ava, H, and Brinley

It was wonderful to enjoy a beautiful day with great friends!

Last Friday, again with the Delaneys.

When I went back through my pics- there were only 3 worth documenting.

Camera's up to being crazy, again... don't. want. to. put. it. in. the. shop.

Margaret wanted to know how she could get up there, too.

Thanks for inviting us again, Liz. We always love being with you guys!

Lunch with Dr. Dad

A couple of weeks ago, after a visit to the arboretum with friends, I took the kids to have lunch with Tom.

Henry thinks its so fun to be able to pick out whatever food he wants in the hospital's cafeteria.

Chick Fil A? Chocolate Milk? Chips? Sure!

We took the cookies outside.

Lately, Henry's been asking, "How's work? See some xrays? See doctors?" whenever Tom gets home in the evening.

He was very interested in this new radiology book that Tom got and now asks to look at it often.

Snow Pics

Here are our pictures from when it iced/ snowed.

Tuesday morning

After taking about a million hours getting the kids and myself dressed, we braved the cold.

The kids were excited for oh.... 3 mins.

A gust of wind came along and they both screamed bloody murder.

Back inside.

Margaret went down for a nap.

Henry wanted to brave the elements again.

He was pretty upset that he had to wear Margaret's gloves.

(his were in my car. Tom took my car to work- He couldn't get his out of the driveway... for 4 days)

Then I took Margaret out.

Fresh up from a nap, she actually liked being out in the single digits.

Kept trying to pick up the ice.


Well, we were stuck inside for the next 4 days.
Kids didn't mind... I did get a little cabin fever. Knowing that there was no way of going anywhere got to me.
(I take that back, we had a couple of excursions to Kate and Brent's for dinner)



Finally on Friday, we got a beautiful snow. Much more do-able than the nasty ice.

:)

Luckily, there was still snow on the ground on Saturday so the kids were able to go out with Tom.

Henry liked throwing snowballs at his daddy.

Family Date Night

Tom had been working nights, so Friday afternoon (when he and the kids woke up) he told me that we needed to get the kids dressed- cause he was taking us out.

The kids needed some snuggle time with Daddy before getting cleaned up.

Our first stop on our date was at Fort Worth's Botanical Gardens.

We hadn't been there in ages.

It was beautiful weather and the kids had a blast running around.

Timer on the camera :)






Totally posed... but sweet, nonetheless.

:)

Our next stop was dinner.

Tom had wanted to try out Love Shack- Top Chef's Tim Love's burger joint.

It was a successful dinner. Never know how its going to go with the kids. Sitting outside helped.
Food was good- great onion rings!

Our next stop was to Williams Sonoma- I wanted to spend a gift card.

Not the best place to take kids on a date, but we made it out without breaking anything.

(at one point, Henry was found in the front display enjoying his loud echo)

Our final destination was Barnes and Noble, where we let Henry and Margaret Gray pick out a book .(Henry is now owner of the most annoying fire truck book- Tom said, "But look how happy he is!" Margaret kept taking all the stuffed animals off the displays- she went home with an animal book)

Wonderful evening.

These pics are from the next day.

Late afternoon popcorn.

Henry does it all... from throwing away the plastic wrap to pushing "POP" to picking out everyone's bowls.

Why we eat it outside.

And a little basketball.

Can't get enough of this sweet family time!