We went to a birthday party at the Austin Zoo last weekend, and our friend Nina took some great pictures while we were there.


Me and little man hanging out on the zoo train.


Cupcakes!

The birthday boys' mama took a quick shot of the whole family.

We're doin' stuff.

I promise we are. We're just not writing about it. This summer has been crazy busy and even crazier hot. The high temperature for today, tomorrow, and the foreseeable decade is 105. Since I know at least Gretchen is paying attention to the blog, I better get a few pictures up here to prove we don't hole up in our A/C all day.



We made our first visit to Deep Eddy Pool.


We checked out some live music with some margaritas and milk.



We went to the bouncy place.


We hung out with friends.


We saw Dwight. See that floor right there? That's the stage. We could touch it.


We made s'mores around the pool after a long day and night of swimming with friends.

Did I mention it's summertime?

And did I mention we have a big boy who eats his own corn on the cob? We do.

Summer Stuff

Amery got a water table from Grandma and Grandpa for Easter (yeah, I'm a little behind), and so far it's the hit of the summer. Here's a quick video of him seeing it and playing with it for the first time. It's a little dark at first becaust I put it together in the house while he was asleep and then hid it in the garage until we got home from school/work the next day:





And a few more pics for Grandma:






The 30+ toys that came with it weren't enough. He had to add some rocks from the yard.

Of course

I have this collection of panoramic sugar eggs from when I was a kid. Here is half the collection...



This year, I allowed Amery to carefully handle each egg and look inside. We talked about what he saw. One had a duck inside, another had a bunny, and so on. When we got to this one, which is probably about 20 years old...



I asked him what was inside. He answered very matter-of-factly...



"That's Batman."

Rocky Mountain Hiiiiiiigh, Colorado

Warning: This is going to be the laziest post ever. Seriously. I really wanted to write this awesome play-by-play post about all the fun stuff we did in Colorado since it's the first vacation we've taken in forever, but time has gotten away from me. We saw some beautiful snow, we swam in an outdoor heated pool in the snow, we ate some great food with some great friends, checked out the Denver Zoo, hosted a baby shower for Amery's godparents, and had some eventful flights around the country in the mean time.

Here's a link to all of our trip photos (Walgreens, you might need to log in)

And just in case you are as lazy as me, here are a few faves:


Amery and his godparents.


Hanging at Wash Park.


The crew at Valdoro (minus the children who were finally in bed).


Baby shower decor.


Party favors.

Trip to "the jumpy place"

Amery and I had some fun at a local indoor inflatable playground yesterday. I would post the name, but no doubt they would then find my blog and post an annoying ad in the comments. Here's a link if you wanna check it out. We really don't make the rounds at the bouncy places around town unless we're attending a birthday party, but I happened to get a pass for 3 visits for free. This place is nice, really nice, and it's great for the toddler crowd. Lots of times these places have tweens mixed with 3-year-olds and it's just a recipe for disaster of the concussion variety. A few cell phone quality pics for you:


Jumpy area just for kids 3 and under...


...with a ball pit.


Bliss. {let's all pretend there are not germs from seventy bazillion other kids on those balls, mkay?}


Climbing up the "big lide" by himself.


Piece of cake.

In addition to the bouncy areas, they have 5 or 6 different play rooms/houses filled with toys, costumes, props, etc.


A service station/garage.


A grocery store.


A dress-up room with a stage.


A diner.


An animal hospital.

That little band around his ankle matched one I had around my wrist. No one is allowed to leave until the adult's band is matched up to the child's band. Smart. If you go, bring some healthy snacks. All they had available was ice cream treats, chips/Goldfish, and sodas/juice.

We've been working on being polite the past few months. Amery now says please and thank you without prompting, and he's starting to get you're welcome as well. We also get a lot of spontaneous I Love Yous and we always get I Love You Toos in return if we say it first...all of which is awesome of course. Tonight at bedtime:

Me: Night night, baby.
Amery: Big hugs, mama?
Me: (gives big hug)
Amery: You're welcome, mama.

Limes

A whole lotta nothin' goin' on right now. I did make some beer margaritas the other night which was pretty exciting for me, not so much for Amery. He begged me to give him one of the limes and I obliged.



He loves sour stuff, spicy stuff, sweet stuff, pretty much all stuff.

Snakes and Snow!

A few fun happenings from this past weekend. Austin got snow last Friday! It was probably about an inch, but combined with the underlying ice it was enough to shut the city down for a day.


Notice the massive amount of snow in the grass.


We were able to scrape up enough to build a snowman using parts from Mr. Potato Head and Amery's play kitchen.

The snow was short-lived as it got up to 70ish degrees over the weekend. On Sunday we took a trip to the Snake Farm in New Braunfels, TX. It was cool. A little old and smelly, but Amery was in heaven. It was tough to take a lot of photos with the animals since they're all, well, deadly.


Ready to see some snakes!


Huge pythons.

Mean little goats at the petting zoo who stole the food bag right out of our hands.

Friendly llama.

Busy

That's a lie. I don't even know what we've been doing lately, so I have no excuse for not blogging other than we haven't been doing anything exciting to blog about. Let's see...Amery is in a Superman phase right now. Jon puts the movie on, and when the song starts he runs around the house with two outstretched fists. We really need a video. He's becoming a little smarty pants more and more each day. He knows (from daycare I assume) how to count to six in Spanish. Oh, and when I pointed out the other day that his wooden train tracks were in a circle he corrected me, "No mama, oval." Geez.

I'll try to keep better mental notes of when something cool actually happens. Until then, stay cool.

Playdate

Amery had a fabulous playdate with the even more fabulous Ruby today. Since sharing toys isn't a two-year-old's forte, I started talking with him the day before about how Ruby was coming over to play.

Me: Amery, are you going to share your trains with Ruby tomorrow?
A: Share trains, mama.
Me: Are you going to share your cars?
A: Share cars, mama.
Me: Are you going to share your books?
A: No share books, mama.
Me: Why aren't you going to share your books?
A: No share books, MAMA!
Me: Are you going to share your puzzles?
A: Share puzzles, mama.
Me: Are you going to share your books?
A: NO, MAMA!
Me: Jeez, ok dude.

In the end he shared the books, but I have no idea what spawned the initial freakout over the damn books. Weirdo. He shared his Learning Tower for a Cheerios break too:

Merry Christmas (late) and Happy New Year!

Hey Cupcake

I'm pretty sure everyone, including me, was sick to death of the haircut picture, so here's a chocolate cupcake instead:

First ya poke at it.

Then ya try it.

Then ya ask for more.

Haircut

What a difference a little old haircut makes. He looks so old compared to the Halloween photos.

Happy Halloween!

Ever since he was introduced to Blues Clues, Amery has been obsessed with checking the mail. Anytime we drive by a mailbox he waves and cheerfully calls, "Hi mailblox!" When we pull into the neighborhood and he catches site of our cluster mailboxes, he starts asking over and over again, "Check a mail, mama? Check a mail?" It was only fitting to dress him as a mailman this year.

Mailmen wear Converse, right?

We tried to get a quick shot with the hat. FAIL.

Without giving too much away

I think we're going to have some really awesome photos for our Christmas cards this year.

Yep, he's a Texan.

Photographic evidence from Monday's impromtu dinner at one of our favorite local Tex-Mex restaurants:


Going in for the dip.


Careful to get a nice big scoop of the jalapeno seeds.


Down the hatch.

And if you haven't been to La Morada, you're missing out.