Category: Life

Matthew and I spent yesterday making turkey shaped cookies and talking about our trip to Paris for Thanksgiving and what we are thankful for. We had a great time and he enjoyed finding all the green mini M&M’s in the bowl and sorting them out to use for the turkey eyes. He was happy to tell his Daddy what we had been up to when he got home and they got to share the left over M&M’s. Here is how they came out:

It will be wonderful to see everyone and I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy Turkey Day. I know we will.

Matthew recently upped his Wii Play Tanks score from 195 to 295! Yay, Matthew. I can’t believe he will be 4 years old on Christmas day. Don’t tell him but we found a good deal on Wii games last night and bought him a couple. They were two he actually saw the previews for and said we would like to ask Santa for. He has out grown Wii Play seeing as he has platinum medals for every game on the disc! So I bet he will be happy about the new games.

Temperatures finally fell down around freezing here in Austin last night and I absolutely love it! It puts me in the Christmas shopping mood that all the retailers anticipate every year as the first really good cold front comes through. Since I had never even visited Austin in the winter, I was beginning to worry that it would never feel like holidays where you could bring out the long sleeves and jackets.

Matthew and I even listened to Christmas songs on the way to the store this afternoon! He loved “Jingle Bells” and asked the name of every song as it came on.

Bring on the holidays! I love it!

Today is my sister & brother-in-law’s wedding anniversary! We think the world of them and they are a great example of how a happy, fun-loving marriage should work. Also, we want to wish them many more years of wedded bliss. Congratulations, Peggye & Billy. Hope today was wonderful.

Anyone of you who have played tanks on Wii Play will appreciate this, not to mention how amazed I am about how well Matthew plays the game: Matthew is 3 years, 10 months old and this morning he completed 45 missions with a total score of 195 tanks! I know I probably should not brag about my child playing video games, but trust me when I tell you he is in constant motion while playing, working up a sweat and I do make sure he gets outside everyday to run around!

That said, I myself have never gotten a score of more that 19 tanks (with Matthew’s help) and I think Tony has topped out around 50 or 60 so you can see Matthew’s score is pretty amazing. You wouldn’t believe his coordination and thinking skills he uses to out smart the other tanks!

Ok, I will stop gushing about how smart my little cutie pie is but I do want to tell Matthew’s Uncle Billy that I hope he has been praticing tanks a lot-Matthew is ready for a rematch!

Well, this election has a huge turn out already, so I thought I might try one of the Mega-Polling places Austin has to offer today. Hopefully, there won’t be a 3-4 hour wait like those reported in Florida because Matthew is not feeling well today. If there is a long line, we will just have to try again later. Wish me luck!

We took Matthew to the festival down at Zilker Park this afternoon. It was free with a food donation to the local food bank which was really cool. They had several carnival style booth games for kids Matthew’s age to enjoy, some live music, and of course, a haunted house for the bigger kids. The show stopper for little Matthew was the bounce house. They had 3 different ones up so it really wasn’t crowded. He was hesitant at first but when I started to put his shoes back on to leave he summoned his courage and jumped right on in! I was so proud.

We also got several nice comments on Matthew’s costume. Some guy even told us that everytime he saw him, the theme from Rocky played through his head. I mostly think that everyone wished they had found a costume for their little ones that had shorts and wasn’t too warm. It was very, very warm today and most Halloween costumes seem to be made of polar fleece these days! Some little ones looked like they were melting in their little pumpkin costumes, poor things.

Matthew told me & Daddy that he really had a good time and that makes me feel better because I know he won’t get to go trick-or-treat family this year and that was always a tradition of ours. I know I will miss it, too.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the festival.

Sunday we took a small excursion to the Botanical Gardens so Matthew could check out “Dinoland”. It is a large scale, outdoor display of life-sized dinosaurs along with some general knowledge about them. The park also had a cellphone tour available but with a 3 year old to keep up with, we didn’t get to call in!

Matthew liked it and got to romp around outside for awhile and we got to check out how pretty the gardens were.

We got lots pictures. I’ll post more soon.

Matthew and I made a whirl wind trip to Sherman to see my doctor then, since we were so close, drove on over to Paris to visit everyone we could from 6 p.m. Wednesday to 1 p.m. Thursday! It was fast and a wonderful visit, we only wish we could have stayed longer and seen everyone and that Tony could have come too! He had to work, though. I guess that’s what future visits will be for…

Here is a picture of part our visit. Matthew could not have been happier to see his family. We had never seen him so wound up!

Matthew and I had a great time at the Children’s Museum today! Then afterwards we caught up with Daddy at The Clay Pit for the best indian food we’ve ever had. I think I’m getting the hang of navigating around Austin finally, but that probably has something to do the my new gps!

Anyway, here are a few pictures of Matthew at the museum. He really did have a blast!