All Dude, All Day

Monday, August 1, 2011

Brian's Big Nascar Adventure

For Father's Day Caleb and I gave Brian the gift of fast. Fast driving that is. He got to go to the Texas Motor Speedway for a ridealong in one of the Nascar racecars. Saturday was the big day, so we joined our pals the Dennises in the summer heat (which, remarkably, wasn't that bad since they had some great shade set up) for the ride of our hubbies lives!

From the moment I first showed Caleb a picture of what we were giving Brian, he told everyone that his Daddy was going to be Lightening McQueen. He was very excited about it and we even borrowed Trevor's Lightening McQueen shirt to commemorate the occasion. We actually took Caleb to see Cars 2 the weekend before so that it would cement in his mind what Daddy would be doing....this may have backfired....remember his uncertainty about the cars starting on fire...despite our dude's early enthusiasm for Brian's adventure, once we were there he started to declare that Brian could not go. Once Brian was suited up, he emphatically stated "Daddy. You take those off right now." At this point I caught on to what was happening and had a conversation with the dude about how nothing was going to happen to Daddy's car. After that, he was fine with it all and happily waved to Brian as he got in the car and sped away! Our precious dude just needed some reassurance.

Brian had a great time. He said that they got up to 180 mph! He didn't see us waving because he was so focussed on how fast they were going! He deserves more than a fast ride in a fancy racecar, but so long as he knows how special he is and how loved he is, then we are okay with that! It was a fun experience for all of us and something we will likely be talking about for quite some time!

(Thanks Stacie, for doing so much to make this happen for our menfolk!)

Checking out Daddy's car.

Love this one!!!!!

This picture cracks me up! Sweet Emily!

Keeping Daddy presentable.

Brian makes everything look good!

Ready!

Brian got Jimmy Johnson's car which happens to be a fave driver of his!

Oh-so-fast! Caleb got so excited every time he came around the corner!

Daddy is in the car behind Caleb and our dude is so excited!

We love you Daddy/Brian!!!!!!

Sunday, July 31, 2011

We Recommend!

Okay, so this post constitutes another catch-up...but a really good one!

Last Saturday (not yesterday) was a really fantastic family day. Since May, we have had TWO Saturdays (yes, count them...only two) that were both at home and did not require leaving the house early for soccer. Last Saturday was one of those two days and we were PSYCHED! So here are our recommendations based on that most wonderful of days and the week that followed:

1. Have a lazy Saturday!

We forgot how great they are and have now scratched plans to do T-Ball in the fall...we want a few more of those Saturdays before fall craziness kicks in! Sorry no picture. We were chillaxing.

2. Cars 2!

Caleb has been asking to see this, so we complied and took him to see an early afternoon showing of the much anticipated flick! I had a purse full of snacks in Cars-themed brown paper bags and off we went. We think he liked it, but the cars catching on fire seemed to have disturbed him a little, since he talks about it a lot (was it because they didn't show the firetrucks putting the fires out?). But even given that, we highly recommend Cars 2! It was a wonderful family activity on a way too hot Saturday afternoon!

3. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

This is a book we borrowed from the library a few weeks ago, at which point all other books ceased to exist. Caleb LOVES this book. To avoid the inevitable drama when the book came due, we took him to Barnes and Noble after the movie to get him his own copy. This is a great book. If you don't have it, you should really ask yourself why you are missing such a critical piece of literature from your personal library and immediately run out to get one! Seriously!

4. Octopus Hot Dogs!

Even if your octopus comes out with four legs instead of eight, it is still a big hit with the dude! We even gave it black eyes with some icing, but you can't see it in the picture and Mommy may or may not have slyly wiped them off before he actually ate his food...he didn't notice! The spaghetti seaweed was a hit too!

5. Baking and crafting with Grammy.

She was all ready for our visit last Tuesday with cookies to cut out and bake and even bags to decorate (to take the cookies home). Of course the decorating involved stamps which is a sure sell for our dude. So we highly recommend baking and crafting with Grammy (or whomever else is around) and stamps are a must!

6. Swimming with Pop.

Caleb's day also included a dip in the pool with Pop which is always good for fun and plain 'ole cooling off! We highly recommend Pops and pools! In fact, we just highly recommend Caleb's Grammy and Pop. They are super fab and always willing to "adopt" Caleb's friends!

7. In N Out!

We finally decided to brave the frenzy that surrounds Frisco's newest institution...In N Out burger. TOTALLY WORTH IT! We are now fans and we don't even like fast food! Caleb likes the hats too....

9. Safe Headphones!

And finally, we recommend child-safe headphones that won't let the volume go past an unsafe level no matter how much your dude turns it up. We have held off of getting headphones since we were worried about hearing damage and these are the perfect solution. The dude is in heaven, thinks he is a big-boy rocker and he doesn't complain about how he can't hear his game or movie in the apparently too-loud car anymore! Win-Win! Wahoo! We got them at Mardel's by-the-by.

So there you have it. We hope that you like our humble recommendations!!!!

Take them or leave them but we love to share a good thing!

Love to you all!

p.s. I have one more post to catch up, so stay tuned for Brian's Nascar Adventure from this past Saturday! Coming soon!

Tired of Quotes?

Are you tired of quotes yet? My evenings have been full of activities for the LifeTalk fundraiser, M2M playdate schedules and the Rhea Lana sale...so our posts have suffered. Sorry y'all! But that doesn't mean our summer adventures have suffered or that my camera has laid about forgotten and neglected! About two weeks ago I took Caleb to the new SeaLife aquarium in Grapevine for one of our M2M playdates. IT IS FANTASTIC Y'ALL! It is completely geared towards children and SO WELL DONE! There are a lot of pictures so that you can see for yourself!

Across from the aquarium is LegoLand. We saw Buzz and had to get a picture. And yes, this is next on our list of destinations. Afterall, Caleb is our lego master and comes up with great quiet time creations!

Oh, and he still insists that he wants to be Buzz for Halloween again...

Caleb has a knack for poses, wouldn't you say?

Grammy and Pop came too! Pop came in really handy for viewing sharks!

My favourite part of the aquarium was this bubble tank full of sting/manta rays! Love it!

Caleb and Gillian (very much attached the whole day) loved the view from the top.

Caleb pretended he was a frog and hopped through the whole aquarium. He found a worthy playmate in Gillian!

Ah, the fish tunnel! Much fun. Check out our dude, aka Caleb Frog.

OOOH!!! OOOH!!!! OOOH! LOOKIE!

Caleb and his pals. I love, love this picture!

He almost put his nose in...

If only I had spy tools and could hear what they were saying...

Trevor adopted my Dad. Previously Trevor has been afraid of my Dad (who is the least scariest person I know!), so this was very touching! When he hugged "Pop" good-bye after lunch, my Dad promptly declared that he had a new addition to the Christmas list!