Mutant Grapes

Brian and I went to the grocery store today and bought some grapes. Scratch that.... We bought some mutant grapes:

Oh, I'm sorry.... You probably need something else in the photo for scale. Here it is with its friend, the adorably average red grape:

Still not doing it for you? Insert my freakishly long thumb:

You actually have to take bites of these grapes. You can't just pop them into your mouth. It takes like three chomps!

Yes, I'm blogging about grapes. But to be honest, they kind of freak me out! They can't be healthy.... I'm sure they're pumped with steroids or something.

P.S. This is my third post of the day. Check out my previous two posts if you haven't already!

Christmas on the Farm

We went to Aware Central Texas's "Christmas on the Farm" event on Saturday. It was a bit early for Christmas festivities in our opinion, but we went to support the cause. ACT is a child abuse prevention organization where Brian volunteers and they put on a great event! I took some pictures but it was really crowded and they didn't turn out great. I did get kind of a cute picture of Brian and Chase on the hay ride:

I also have to share this with you. They had a stuffed animal booth with 5,000 stuffed animals the kids could choose from. Out of all the animals in that booth, Chase just HAD to have this one:

Brian and I are still laughing about it every time he pulls it out. He loves that goofy looking thing!

This is my second post of the day (I'm playing catch-up again!), so check out the previous post if you haven't already.

Waco Zoo

We headed to the Waco Zoo when we were all off for Veterans Day. We have been there so many times now it seems crazy to keep taking pictures. I only took four this time, and this is just about the best one I got (sad, huh?):

Hope everyone enjoyed their day off as much as we did!

Fort Hood Shooting

Hi there. We have had some emails of concern come through in regards to the Fort Hood shootings. We wanted to let everyone know that we are fine. Some of our district high schools were on lockdown, but luckily it was an early out day and the middle school students got out of school right when it happened (of course we didn't know about it at that time), so we didn't have to go through a lockdown or anything.

Brian has been put in charge of organizing some crisis counseling services at the university so he's going to be busy! And I'm wondering what school is going to be like tomorrow, with so many of my students being from military families. And I'm worried about the students I had at the school where I taught last year, because half of those kids lived on post (which was literally right out the back door of the school).

When I picked Chase up from daycare they were in a panic because with Fort Hood being on lockdown there were going to be a ton of kids stuck at daycare. I was happy to take Chase off their hands. When stuff like this happens you can't help but hug your family a little bit tighter.

Nap Time Fun

Well, it finally happened to us. We had heard of this happening to practically every other parent we know and we were just waiting for the day it happened to us: Chase smuggled a blue crayon into his room during nap time.

He colored all over his white toy box (and decorated it with stickers)...

...and his white bookcase...

...and his wall:

I knew something was up when I found him like this:

(Someone was tuckered out after all that hard work!)

He looks pretty pleased with himself, doesn't he?

Of course we made him clean it up:

I had to call my mom right away and say, "What goes around comes around," because one of her favorite stories to tell about me is that I loved to color on the walls... and every time I did, she made me clean it up. Then one day my mom cleaned it up herself and I got MAD. Turns out I only colored on the walls so I could clean it up.

If Chase loves to clean that much I'm going to put him to work scrubbing toilets.

Trick or Treat!

Chase was a ghost for Halloween this year! And as I stated in my first post of the day, I made his costume all by myself! I am so proud.

Here he is admiring a leaf that changed colors. We don't see that much down here so it was a small taste of the north!

We went trick-or-treating and it was so much fun! First we went to an area park that had a bunch of fun Halloween games and activities for kids, and then we drove to a trick-or-treat friendly neighborhood and went house to house. Chase had so much fun! He was so good about saying his "trick-or-treat's" and "thank you's," and then as soon as he got his candy he would turn around and shout, "Let's find another house!" Here are a couple photos I took of him trick-or-treating:

Chase got some "candy sticks" that looked strangely like the candy cigarettes we used to get as kids and it just felt wrong watching him eat them!

Ha ha! When we got back to the house he helped us pass out candy to the neighborhood kids, which was really fun, too.

More pictures are in our Photo Album. Happy Halloween!!

P.S. This is my third post of the day. Be sure to check out the previous posts if you haven't already!