Your Basic Awesome Weekend

We had a great weekend! Lunch and shopping with Grammy on Friday, the Mamacents sale with my friend Lynda and Luke's first birthday party on Saturday, and a canoe race, family festival, and crafting get-together with some girlfriends on Sunday! Whew, we're tired. This is the BEST time of year to live in Texas. The weather is perfect, the bluebonnets and wildflowers are out, and there are so many free events in Austin right now. Free is good.

Well, the Mamacents sale wasn't so "free" by the time I was done. I justify my spending by stating that I walked away with half a summer wardrobe, an awesome Playskool bus toy, a poseable Spongebob (aka "Bob-Bob"), and this little gem:


We had to pry it out of his little toddler hands to get him in the car, in the high chair, in bed.

On Sunday morning, Jon participated in the First Annual Colorado River Ramble 10-Mile Race at Lady Bird Lake in Austin. Jon and Stacie are used to the 250-mile Texas Water Safari, so this race was walk in the park for these guys. They won first place for their boat class. So what if there was only one boat in their class. Now they have bragging rights for next year.


Jon, Stacy, and Warren before the race.


Hanging out on the shore and cheering for papa.


Jon (front) and Stacy (back) on the lake.


Way to go, papa!


To top off the festival, our friend Collin won a brand spankin new kayak!

**JUST ADDED** There was a professional photographer (Billy Moore) at the Family Clean Water Festival after the canoe race who took this nice photo of the three of us.

I finished off the weekend at a crafting get-together with the ladies, and made these for all the kids at Easter. I figure they'll get enough candy from the Easter bunny. Don't worry, I won't start giving out raisins on Halloween.

Flaskback Friday

I was inspired by Ruby.


St. Patrick's Day 2009

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We tried to get a picture of him in his green shirt this morning, but The Fonz here refuses to take his jacket off. At daycare, he wears it all morning. They can usually coax it off him around lunch time, but if he sees it in his cubby later in the afternoon he will insist on wearing it again.

Go Fly a Kite

This past Saturday we made the trek to the annual Zilker Park Kite Festival. We met Grammy and some other family members there for lunch. The weather was gorgeous and there had to be a thousand different kites there.

A nice couple handed us their bumblebee kite on our way in and we graciously accepted as we showed up to the Kite Festival with no kite. We named the kite FreeBee.


Amery was very into everyone else's kite. It turns out free bumblebee kites don't fly very well.

Here, lemme help you with that.

Amery, Mama, and FreeBee.

Not a single person we know in this picture, but it gives you an idea of how many people were there.


See, lots of people and lots of kites.

Happy Birthday Uncle Derek!

We had a fun surprise party for Jon's brother, Derek, last night.

He was pretty surpised when he walked in the door expecting the annual family lobster dinner only to be adorned with a sombrero, a homemade Bacardi lei, and a cane.

We had a grim reaper pinata filled with mini (plastic) liquor bottles, Bengay, Preparation H Wipes, denture cleaning tablets, and candies.

The streamers were decorated with all sorts of helpful coupons for old people like Uncle Derek: Depends, Metamucil, Colon Health, and Geritol.

Jon had the awesome idea to blow up a photo of Derek with their dad at his 40th birthday party. Grammy made it happen.

There was a ton of food. I mean it, like, a ton.

We managed to float a pony keg of Zeigenbock and plow through one and a half containers of frozen margaritas. Grammy rented the machine from Margarita Mania. She's so smart.

Aunt Jen got an awesomely morbid cake from HEB. The frosting turned everyone's lips and teeth blue.

Here's a rundown of the party menu:

Appetizers:

cream cheese tortilla rolls

southwest egg rolls

cheesy-meaty things (Grammy knows the real name)

Texas Trash

drunken weiners

Dinner:

crockpot chicken tacos (Katie's recipe)

beef enchilada casserole (Paula Dean's recipe)

homemade salsa

taco fixins

charro beans

flour tortillas and crunchy taco shells

Dessert:

cake

fruit salad

Amery helped clean up the streamers this morning.

In case you were wondering what toddler help looks like.

After a while he decided it was just more fun to climb on papa.

First Hockey Game

We took Amery to his first Texas Stars hockey game last night and he loved it:

He started off a little freaked out by the noise but he got into it pretty quickly. He also sat pretty still throughout most of the game. French fries helped. Lots of french fries.

Jon bought him a little Texas Stars hockey stick at the game, and he insisted on taking it along in the car on the way to daycare this morning. We had to trick him to let go of it last night or I think he would have slept with it.