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We went on a getaway earlier this week.  It can be exhausting waiting for the phone to ring or an email to come in about a job opportunity.  It’s important to keep your spirits up, so we’ve been trying to frequent parks and take in as much fresh air as we can.  That’s a difficult thing to do living in the city, so we decided to go camping.

We were headed up to OK, but found out there was a burn ban, and what’s the fun in camping without a fire?  We ended up at Martin Creek State Park, in one of their little cabins.  We like to do tent camping, but Illianna is still a little too young.  Illianna loved running around the cabin and exploring the woods.  She was collecting things and giggling at every corner.  I’ve never seen her so filthy, and let me say she is a regular mess pot, but this took the cake.  I turned a blind eye to the dirt until she grabbed some cereal which had obviously fallen in the dirt/ash and came up to me with dirty hands and a black mouth trying to spit it out.  Poor little thing.  She’s so well trained to pick her food up and eat it after it’s fallen on the floor.

It was nice to see trees older than a couple of years, and we almost had the park to ourselves, but there was a huge power plant humming in the distance and a stupid train announcing its presence every hour or so.  We were able to see some wildlife, roast marshmellows, hike around, and see a few more stars than we can see from our backyard, but we won’t be returning to that park.  We managed to take a pretty decent photo of ourselves.

Looking for disipline ideas?

We noticed tonight that we recently had some traffic to the site from the google search ‘missy moo’. This peaked our curiosity. What other missy moos are out there?

Well, it’s a popular name for a cat. Missy moo is Oober Yuckems ‘ not so secret admirer. Somewhere along the lines we ended up buying a bib from Australia (fyi-delivery by sea takes 2-3 months! we opted for air). We found some cute onesies (Link Removed on Remote Site) for identical twins, and the true meaning of missy moo.

gotta love the net

I thought I’d share a few of my favorite things.

I love kids in hats. From day one I’ve had Illianna in a hat. Unfortunately she’s figured out how to take her hat off, and thinks it’s a trick. Now I’m having to wear hats as well because if she sees me in a hat then she’ll leave hers on.

Yesterday it wasn’t too hot, there was a slight breeze, and a few clouds remained in the sky from a storm that passed through the night before, so we decided to go on a walk. I got us all loaded up, which was a feat of it’s own because once the dogs see their collars come out they start going crazy, and we were just about to head off, when Missy Moo looked up at me with an evil smirk and pulled her hat right off. I only have one hat, which after recently falling into the pool I found out was made of paper (I didn’t know you could make a *real* hat from paper.), so I was in a bit of a predicament. Fortunately I saw one of Ryan’s baseball caps in the entry. It did the trick, and she kept her hat on most of the walk. Of course she wanted to try on Dada’s hat at well.

We love to read. From day one we’ve read to Illianna. One of her favorite books is Peek-A-Zoo. It’s been a great book that’s grown with her. It’s more of an activity book. Dr Seuss has been great as well. My Many Colored Days is not a well known Dr. Seuss. Illianna has loved Oh The Places You’ll Go from when she was little. I think the illustrations catch her eye. It plays with black and white and bold patterns, which is good for babies. Recently Horton Hears A Who was turned into a movie. I haven’t seen the movie, but the book has a great message. Your tounge will get twisted when you read Double Trouble in Walla Walla, and The Cranky Sun has beautiful artwork. A Day With No Crayons is very creative and helps encourage children to see art in everyday things.

Well, we took our first family vacation to New Mexico. Illianna did great on the airplane. Here she is checking out the view from the overhead.

We did a lot of hiking.

See that hole on the right. I climbed through there with Missy Moo along for the ride. That was darn difficult. I couldn’t just get down on my hands and knees because just the day before we were hiking around in the snow and I fell and bruised my knees.. bad.

We didn’t do any intense hikes this time because it was the first time I’ve worn a pack since I was a teenager at summer camp . I’m glad we stuck to the easy stuff because that’s all Illianna could do anyway. She is at the age now where she’s too interested in everything to fall asleep anywhere other than her bed. Towards the end of the trip she was doing better to sleep in the car, but that was out of total exhaustion and desperation. I’m not sure how long it will take her to catch up on missed sleep. Nor am I sure how long it will take us to catch up. She woke us up everyday at 5AM, which is 6AM her regular time. Usually when she wakes up early at home, I let her hang out in her crib until time to wake up, 7AM, but you can’t really do that when you’re in a hotel room.

Maybe if I have a little more time or energy I’ll blog a bit further about the whole thing, but right now I’m not that into it. more pics

It’s tradition to take photos in the blue bonnets. For some odd reason they only seem to grow on the side of busy highways, except for the crazy guy who plants them in his front yard in Southlake, only to spend all his time on the front porch chasing people away.

We were on the side of a highway, actually where two meet, but it was off the road quite a bit.

Illianna was far too interested in the flowers and grass to actually look at the camera, but I figure I’ll have many years of blue bonnet photos where she’s looking at the camera. Only one where she’s actually fascinated by the flowers.

We’ve been busy with lots of firsts lately. This weekend we managed to make it to the zoo. It was Illianna’s first time. I wasn’t sure she’d enjoy it just yet, but she sure did. There was a lion who was not in the best of moods and kept pacing back and forth and roaring. She *loved* that. Here’s this big intimidating lion giving it his all and she’s giggling at him. It was so cute. I now know a new noise to make to get her to giggle.

There was also this cool avery that had tons of birds flying around. You could go in and feed them. Ryan took Illianna in while I stayed with our stuff. When the birds would get spooked they’d all fly from one end to the other and the wave of ooooh’s and ahhhh’s from all the kids watching was adorable. Here’s a photo of Illianna checking out the birds.

Today was our second week of swim class. Illianna loves it. With her love of bath time, I thought she’d enjoy swim class. Illianna was chatting with another little girl, Sophie, during class. They were cooing back and forth. Sophie started splashing and giggling and then Illianna started kicking and giggling back. I wish I had a video camera. I did manage to get a pic of us after class.

We ran to Target just a little while ago and she successfully sat in the basket. I don’t have a shopping cart cover just yet. I actually went there to get one, but I’m not sure if it’s truely needed. I understand it’s supposed to help keep germs at bay, but kid are going to get germs and get sick. I don’t know if the hassle of having a cart cover is worth it. I think it would be easier for me to carry wipes and just disinfect.

For Grandpa

She hasn’t mastered making the Longhorns sign yet.