The Not So Great Pumpkin

So we went to a pumpkin patch in Flower Mound with our neighbors.  Their little girl girl Emma just happens to be the current love of Alex's short little life.  Alex was great all day but I swear the second his foot hit dirt when we were getting out of the car, a switch flipped. The kid got evil on us.
I mean I truly haven't seen Alex melt down like this for over a year. So, the majority of the day at the patch, Alex looked a lot like this:

Or at best, like this:

Emma on the other hand, was great. A doll the entire trip. She did spend a lot of time looking at Alex wondering if she had made the best decision in choice of best friends. 

Alex playing in the bounce house, where he threw a fit. 

 Alex tossing the corn bag.  And afterwards, he threw a fit. 

 Alex and Emma checking out the "petting zoo" where you couldn't really pet the animals. Shortly thereafter, he threw a fit. 

Alex can count now, which scares me.  Soon he will be able to read and call me on my bluffs like, "look Alex, there is a sign right there that reads, 'We apologize but we are out of Happy Meals'. Sorry Buddy".  Every time I do something like that, I just wonder how many times my parents did it to me. "No Kate, we can't go to Chucky Cheese tonight.  They close every Saturday night" 

 Emma being a little sweetie. Alex was off somewhere, throwing a fit. 

 There was a tractor on site for photo ops.  There were some tractor accessories still on it that even Alex knew were a little questionable. He stopped throwing a fit long enough to give me a knowing look. Seriously, no one thought the daggers of tetanus here might need to be removed before mass quantities of children climb on it?  Geez. 

 He even threw a fit after we bought him a cake pop. 

Thanks for checking in. Hopefully this crabby kid will have a better Halloween!! This is the first year Alex has taken an interest and decided what he wanted to be himself.  Much to my dismay, he opted out of something incredibly cute from, say, Pottery Barn, and went for the typical overly priced, stupidly cheaply made Optimus Prime costume.  I was not overjoyed obviously, but he is. Loves it with all his might. I am sure he will take the mask off by the 2nd house and the costume itself will fall apart by the end of the block, but hey, hopefully he will remember it as his best costume ever. Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, so I hope it is one of his too! 

So about ME ME ME.........

I am never really in a hurry to get out in front of a camera.  I do like to take photos. And I suppose I don't mind candid photos too much, but sitting in front of a camera, posing and trying to give off a natural smile is not something I do well (as evidenced below).

Recently I came across the opportunity for a free portrait session with a local photographer who is trying to update and add to her portfolio and look book. I figured it wouldn't be too bad an idea to have so current, decent shots so I went along with it.

Below are two of the shots: my favorite and Allen's favorite. I won't post the rest because it just feels silly and, well, I don't want to! I figured I better post at least these though so they are not lost forever.....after I hide them.

Soooooo awkward and unnatural...........

Easter!

I don't know where I get it from, but one of my favorite things is just to be with people I love. A house full of people. It doesn't have to be for a particular purpose, but if I went off inviting people over all the time for no reason, Allen and I would never have down time!  So for Easter, I thought it might be nice to gather the family together. In my head it started small, not because I didn't want everyone there, but I just assumed there was no way I could get the entire family together in one place. I thought we would have Allen's family and a couple of my extended family there. Well word spread (ok I spread it!) and to my surprise, pretty much everyone could come.  So in the end it was a bigger affair than I had initially thought of, but it sure made me happy. I don't think that all these people on my side of the family had all been together in the same room at one time in a decade. 

The weather started out great.  Cool and sunny. Then all of a sudden the storms came in and lightening was hitting right in the back yard. After the fact, I found out a tree right behind our house was struck and went down. I don't think I have ever been that close to lightening.

So below are a few shots from this awesome Easter day!



Love of my life.



Even Chopper got some eggs

 

Cindy

 

The Roberson Clan sans Leroy.  he hates getting photos taken and he was scowling. You have to be sneaky to catch him smiling.



Scott tried to make him smile.....

 

SO, the big joke in my family is that my Mom is horrible about taking photos. She is always talking, has her mouth open, or her eyes close. We give her such hell about it. Note she is the only one not looking directly at the camera.  Know why?  She was giggling. Know why? Cuz' she was talking!



THAT is why I dubbed this picture: PERFECT

 

Thought this one was good though.

 

Mr. Munn!



I call this one "the poor man's Easter egg hunt'.  Scott would distract Alex and Allen would steal eggs out of his basket and put them back out to find. Look how intent Alex is on Scott. Poor kid......he has no chance does he?

 

Dad tells me there is no such thing as a good photo of him. I disagree.

 

Great shot of the entire bunch (sans me.  Someone had to take the picture!)



Fishy Tank

So a while back I did a post about a 14 gallon salt water fish tank that I bought for Alex's room. A lot has happened since then in our house with the fish! Turns out, I am pretty good at the saltwater thing, excluding a few very small (we'll call them) starter fish.  I did a ton of learning with the 14 gallon tank and pretty soon had it filled up with corals and fish.  With saltwater tanks, space and size and gallons are very important. Overcrowding in a tank can lead it south very quickly. So it wasn't long before I was sad that I couldn't do anymore with it.

So around Christmas time, Allen started poking around the Internet for a larger tank. Saltwater reef tanks are what we call "a rich man's hobby", so we weren't looking to buy one brand new. We started looking at Craigslist and had a few potential candidates. Allen wanted to go REALLY big.  He was looking at 160 gallon tanks and 190..........I have seen owners clean those tanks and sometimes it entails them actually getting INTO the tank. I was not so keen on that. We settled on a 90 gallon tank that actually matched our kitchen cabinetry fairly well! It's funny, Allen and I thought we would be all big and bad with a 90 gallon. In the saltwater tank world, that is NOTHING and Allen and I still find ourselves restricted in what we can put in there. There are some fish that require a minimum of 120 gallons and above!

As far as fish tanks go, I love fish. I love corals. I HATE the way fish tanks look. Nothing screams '90s decor more than a huge fish tank to me so I really was picky when it came to what the tank was on and under.

Below are a few pictures of the tanks.  It is constantly changing and evolving and these pictures don't show even half of what's in there, but I will work on getting some more. I am still maintaining Alex's tiny tank as well, which is a lot to deal with. I am slowly transitioning pieces from his tank over to the 90 gallon tank and letting Alex get used to the idea that we might just end p with one tank, although I currently don't have the heart to shut his down. I love the fishies in there as well.



This is called a Hammer Coral. Love the purple and green.



This is a Gobie. We call him Gobie Wan Kanobie.  His job is to keep my sand at the bottom of the tank from settling too much. He scoops sand up in his mouth and filters it all out of his gills. He is very moody and will typically come try to bite me when I have to reach in the tank for some reason.



This is called a Carpet Mushroom.  It has a very cool texture and gets fairly large and covers everything around it like a carpet.



This is a Naso Tang. He is our "Big Boy"



He is the biggest fish in the tank but also the most shy.



We call him Wrasse. He acts very strange and will literally go take naps in between rocks and sand. I always think he is dead!



This is another coral called a Frogspawn.  It is named that because it looks like lots of tiny frog eggs. See my shy Big Boy peeking out from the back.  

 

A sponge coral. I love the color of this one. It is an interesting one: if any part of it touches oxygen, that particular part dies and will soon kill the entire thing. It soaks up oxygen like a sponge and can't let go of it. Also you can see Tang.  We call him that because he is a Mimic Tang, not actually a tang. Real tangs can be very aggressive if you put too many of them together in a tank. We bought him because he looks like a tang but is very peaceful.  

 

We have two clownfish (a mated pair). It is possible but unlikely that they would have babies in the tank.  They are so goofy it is easy to see how they get their name. They play and are always excited to see people near the tank. People think that Clownfish are peaceful and sweet because they always come towards people. That is actually aggression. If they could bite you they would. This particular breed has a tiny mouth with no teeth. There are clownfish that can bite and draw blood.



The other clown fish and some polyps. Polyps are one of my favorite corals because they come in so many different colors.  The multiply and form what looks like a soft carpet over the rocks. These are called Eagle Eye Polyps.

 

Lastly, this is Sailor. He is a Sailfin Tang. He is black and yellow now but will change greatly over the course of his life.  These can get to be 12" long. He is probably only 1.5" now.

 The tank is not really hard to maintain, but it certainly requires a lot of time and diligence. I have had both and I think saltwater tanks are easier to take care of IF you know how.

Thanks for checking in!

So, long time no post

It's been a while sine I last posted. Don't blame me. Blame Google. Apparently they were going through some changes, and by changes I mean something that disables me from uploading anything to the blog!

The only reason I can post this is because I thought I would sit down and give it one more shot before I gave up on it entirely. 

SO this post will be short and sweet because quite frankly, I did not expect this to actually work and didn't make the time to really put a good post together. AND I'm hungry. 

There are quite a few events I suppose I could/should post about, but Christmas is probably the most significant, so I will start with that.  We had a big Christmas this year. It was the first year that Alex really believed in Santa so you bet Allen and I used that to our advantage with the discipline. It goes a little something like this,

"Oh, Alex.  I guess I better get on the phone and call Santa. I know he would want to know that you aren't being a good boy so close to Christmas..."

I even went so far as to actually make a phone call in front of him a couple of times. Now that is good acting because not laughing while you are fake talking to fake Santa and watching your poor son's little heart fall out on the floor while you are doing it is quite something. 

Graham's first Christmas!!!!!

Dad dressed up as Santa and came through the front door. BLEW. THEIR. MINDS.  Although just after Santa left Alex turned to me and said, "Santa sure sounds a lot like Pop"  

In awe of the fat man in red

Ruby looks so pretty in her Christmas dress. Boys are so much harder to make look nice.  A collared short is about as nice as Alex gets.   :(

Pumpkin Patch with the Entire Famn Damily

We recently went to a pumpkin patch with the entire fam. No major story to tell here, just some good shots of the day!

Rubicon with a Ruby sized pumpkin next to one of the cool antique tractors the owners had on property.

Alex playing in the sunshine.

What?!?!

Alex and Ruby hanging out on the tractor.  I just love how he has his arm thrown around her shoulder.

The Boy with ears glowing in the sunshine.

The original Boy

That's all folks!

The State Fair of Texas

 So Alex had the day off of school on a Monday this month, so I decided to take him to the State Fair. I called my good friend Mrs. Angy Pipes and asked her and her two boys to come along with us. She has to have two of the cutest boys I know. They are so sweet.

 So we hop in the car and Angy puts Fair Park into her nav on her phone. It took us to somewhere in the area, but close only counts in horseshoes. And "close" in that part of town is not where you want to be. Although, we did see 7 Habitat for Humanity homes being built on 1 street. Really made me wonder how many of them were there. The only reason we knew they were HFH was that they were being built and there were signs in the yard, so just how many of them are HFH. I mean, 7 being built at one time?!?!?!

 This is Alex goofing off in the car show building. One of my best shots of him the entire year.

 Alex and Charlie hanging out. Charlie is just the sweetest kiddo. Alex liked him a lot. Angy's other little one is not so little. His name is Jake. He would pose for a photo if I made him, but he was usually way too cool to be seen sitting still for a camera.

This is the best shot of the day.  Charlie just hopped up on the firetruck and posed like that. So cool.

Below is Jake. He totally forgot about playing it cool when he got in the Cadillac CTSV didn't he? Silly Bugger. We did have a scary moment with Jake. We had stopped to try the Fried Butter.  I know, I know, just saying it makes me cringe. I tried one, decided I absolutely loved it, and then decided I was going to have a heart attack right there on the spot, so I didn't have anymore.  But I would have..........

Anyway, I have Alex and Charlie by me and I look up to see Angy walking across the fairway to a trash can.  Jake is right behind her. One her heels practically. Next thing you know, Angy is back and looks at me and asks, "Where's Jake?"  I say,"He was right behind you."  You can imagine how this played out. We stood still for a bout 5 minutes just calling Jake's name thinking he would obviously be close enough that he could hear us. Then after 10 minutes the real worry starts to set in. I stay still with the boys while Angy starts wandering around the fairway looking for him. 15 minutes later, we were both looking at each other knowing that internally we were both just about to lose it with panic. There was an off duty police officer that joined our hunt. Long story short, they found Jake by the pet pavilion. The officer said this was a little ways down the fairway. After hugs and a stern talkin' too, we went on our way. Well, we couldn't believe it when we got to the pet pavilion. We were nowhere near this thing. It was a good 5 minute brisk walk away from where we lost him. I'll never figure out what that kiddo was thinking, but I am sure glad we found him!

 Below is Angy in her (show host announcer voice) BRAND NEW CAR!!!! Well not really but she had fun pretending. She loves the new Ford Explorers.

All in all, it was a good 13,000 calorie day at The Fair. We had a good time, but Alex was DONE by the time we left. He actually told me he was tired of walking, his feet hurt, and he wanted a nap. That's when I know I did it right!