{Dallas Arboretum}

This week Evette and I went and got us a membership to the Dallas Arboretum. What is better than gorgeous flowers with my gorgeous baby?! I lathered up Baby Girl in sunscreen put her hat on and away we went! It was massive! We walked around for a long long time and I'm sure we didn't even see 1/2 of it! Thanks to my handy dandy new membership I get one guest for free every visit - Fancy! Who's coming with us for the next time?

don't mind the bandaid on her head - she had a bit of a fall - little scratch - nothing big

Big Yawn!

They had these cool little houses dedicated to different artists - this was Monet's - hence the bridge and waterlilies underneath it.

The inside of the house - some of his paintings - so clever!

They also had a cool Chihuly exhibit there - Chihuly is an artist that makes large glass sculptures. This was called the Dallas Star

They also had a cool little water fountain section for kiddos to run around in - how fun! Maybe next time I'll have to bring the babe's swimsuit!

Beautiful walkway!!

Playing with the flowers!

These hibiscus were huge!!

 Cooling off in the waterfall!

Hot, sweaty, and tired - so cute!

Took a little break from the stroller to play

The arboretum is right next to the white rock lake - beautiful!

This one is call "Sun" and is comprised of over 1,000  pieces. Crazy!

Beautiful winding trails - loved it!

Bunny!

I love this little girl.

One of the worker guys took this one for us.

It was gorgeous and we had a great time! I'm glad we live so close to it so that we can be frequent visitors :)

{TidBits}

1. Right now my arms make me look like I am a survivor of leprosy. Ok, it's not that bad, but still.  It looked like our yard hadn't been taken care of in months/years - a long time. So about a week or so after we moved in I spent a good number of hours taking care of those bushes with a bush-whacker [or as the husband likes to call it, a "hedge trimmer"] that we borrowed from a friend. The husband let me do it - he knows how I enjoy using power tools :) love that guy.

Anyways - I got a few scratches on my arms from the bushes - just little ones, no big deal. About a week and a half later all those scratches got inflamed and itchy - it was super bad - Like, couldn't sleep well at night bad. I spare you the lovely details - let's just say it looked like I shoved my arms down the disposal and turned it on. I took benadryl like it was candy, applied creams and put bandaids all over my arms and wore long sleeves to church [Summertime in TEXAS!??! aughhh...]. Apparently I was having an allergic reaction to the bushes that cut me. Oops.

Now, about 3 weeks later, it is nearly gone. I am just now sporting some wicked scars - awesome. 

2. My baby brother got his mission call! He'll be serving in the Brazil Manaus Mission for 2 years. He reports to the Brazil MTC on Nov 14. I'm so proud of him! He's asked me to keep up his facebook and to be in charge of his mission blog. It looks great so far! Once it's all set I'll let you guys know so that you can follow him and his journeys in the Amazon as well!

He's such a great kid and I'm so proud of him! He's always been a great example to me and is one of my dearest friends. I will miss him so much while he's gone...He will be a fantastic missionary!

3. I love me some Texas rainstorms! They are awesome - except for the hail - that gets scary

4. I got a new calling at church - to be the relief society chorister - yay!

5. Also, I have awesome visiting teachers.

6. I like having a dining table - now I don't have to sit on the floor to eat dinner

7. The husband and I were asked to speak in Sacrament meeting this week - on Father's Day! I'm pretty nervous to be honest... bahhh!!!

8. Baby Girl just woke up and is now singing in her crib - time for lunch!

{Dallas World Aquarium}

On Saturday our little family took a spur of the moment trip down to the Dallas World Aquarium. 

It was pretty crowded:

but overall it was a wonderful trip. We didn't bother bringing the stroller and I'm glad - too many people with too narrow of walkways for that kind of stuff.

Besides just fish they had birds, snakes, frogs, turtles, monkeys, flamingos, and even a jaguar - it was pretty impressive!

They even had a sloth! cool beans.

  momma and baby monkey

and an alligator!

Cuteness!

Evette found a stingray friend - she was fascinated by this little guy. He stayed right near where she was and Evette enjoyed watching him for a few minutes.

They had an underwater tunnel to walk through - this is what it looked like from above:

This is what it looked like from below - Evette's keeping her eye on that shark :)

Evette loved watching the fish swim back and forth and back and forth

Another fish friend that Evette made. This guy would swim up to wherever Evette put her hands - very cool.

  

Horse carriage right outside of the museum - she really liked the horsey.

The museum was really cool! They had lots of different exhibits and was entertaining for all ages. The next time I go back it will definitely be in the middle of the week though and not on a Saturday afternoon

Daddy's thoughts on a learning baby

Yesterday I was overcome with pride for my daughter. Watching her learn is a truly unparalleled experience in my life, and I am loving it.

The spark: when I was getting her dressed for church, putting on her shirt, she pulled her arms in close, and then once the shirt was over her head, she shot her little arms up, searching for the sleeve holes - first her left arm and then her right. She did this exactly as I would expect an adult to do it.

She also responded to the request for a kiss for the first time yesterday. A goofy, open mouthed, wonderful, heart-melting kiss of innocent purity.

She also folds her arms and stays quiet during prayers now. Heidi and I have been working on that skill for only a couple weeks, playing a quick game after prayers to reinforce the concept. We all fold our arms, say "prayer", then suddenly throw our arms apart and excitedly say "Amen!" repeated several times.  So now if you ever hear Evette yell something at the end of a prayer while everyone else is saying "amen", you know why. She gets excited.

She also enjoys being chased, laughs hilariously when someone makes a ridiculous face, helps slip her arms in and out of her car seat restraints, crawls to her crib when she's tired, throws bananas against the wall when she's done, shares her graham crackers when asked to, spins in place while sitting on the floor, sings along with mom and me, grunts in response to questions, and loves it when I play puppet master to bring her doll Juanita to life.


She's a real gem. I've even shot a couple videos to prove it:

Chatting away, making a mess with bananas

Playing the goofy faces game with Mom.

I couldn't be happier.

{We got us a singer and other tidbits}

Evette sings and it's the cutest thing in the world.

We sing a lot around the house - sing songs before naps, before bedtime, driving in the car, going on walks, playing the piano. It used to be just me singing, but now she sings with me! Starting at church a couple weeks ago as soon as the organ started playing you hear a little "halahalaya" in a baby angel voice. Precious. Now she sings all the time with me - Lalalala! She has a light airy bubbly voice - seriously makes me want to cry it's so beautiful.

Also - we had corn on the cob the other day for dinner - delish!

Daddy has a job = shopping with Momma! [just kidding! Sorta...]

Playing in a rain puddle! Seriously loving the Texas rainstorms - I have missed those!

Evette loves looking out the window and playing with the curtains. Our next door neighbor has some pretty intense bird feeders that we can see from the window and Baby Girl has a fun time watching the birds and squirrels play.

We live pretty close to an Albertsons so Evette and I go on walks to the grocery store a lot. The stroller makes sure I only buy what I had intended to buy - limited space. We also get a nice walk in, we get to people watch, and sing songs on the way, of course.

Also, I realized I have become my mom. My mom knows the workers at the grocery store next to her house and has favorites and knows their names and now I'm the same way. We have favorites at Albertsons and of course everybody loves Evette. There's one lady in particular that is a big fan of Evette - She's a big Black lady that always greets Evette with a huge, "Oh hey, gurlfran!!! How you doin, sweetiepie!?" Evette loves it.

{McQuay Family Visit}

This past weekend we had the McQuay side of the family come and visit! Woot woot! See how lucky we are to leave close to both of our families?

They came over Friday evening and we had burgers [yay for the new grill :)] for dinner and then we went to go see the Avengers! [AWESOME MOVIE!! Thanks to Mom McQuay for watching Baby Girl... :) ]

Saturday

The husband asked his Dad to help him install a drawer in our kitchen. There was a fake drawer in the kitchen [like ones underneath the sink] that could have a real drawer there but didn't so these 2 got to work to fix that. THANK YOU!

[notice the husband's rooster hair :) no shower yet lol]

While they were here the husband and I borrowed their larger vehicle to go buy us a dining table that I found for us at a little used furniture shop near our house.While we were there we spotted a full dining set with 6 chairs, 2 leaf extenders, and cover pads. It was a super incredible deal and could not pass it up! Yay! Now we can seat at a real table instead of a card table with our computer chair like we have been doing for the past few weeks lol

Evette has recently started making this silly face. She makes it when she's happy and sad. She just squints up her eyes and crinkles her nose and either laughs or cries - it's hilarious.

Yay!

Playing some duets together!

That afternoon Kristen, Megan, and I went to go get pedicures. amazing - nice to sit and relax and not have to worry about anything.

That night we met Uncle Erik, Aunt Amy, and Emily for dinner together. We ate at a great Mexican place and had a good time visiting with everybody!

All dressed up for church on Sunday!

We had planned on staying for all 3 hours of church but after Evette's nap schedule turned out to be completely off and she was fussing all through sacrament meeting and ended up banging her head on the ground which erupted a lovely scream of "bloody-murder" proportions we headed home early so that the McQuays could get home earlier than midnight that night :)

The winning team of Mad Gab..... I don't know what's with the fish faces and guns....fish can't hold guns :)

Reading Evette a family classic "The Stinky Shoes" written and illustrated by Brenden

It was fun to have everyone over! It was a chill relaxing weekend filled with fun, games, and way too much food :)

{May Books}

I got through one book this month. One is better than zero. Progress, friends, progress.

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

Amazing. CS Lewis takes you on a journey through heaven and hell. Very profound and thought provoking. Makes you look at "good" and "evil" in a new way. It made me stop and think about my life. Far too many times in the book I was similar to the "evil" characters more so than I would have liked. Thoughts on what is really good and what is not - what the important things in life are, and fears that humans have of being completely good. The first few chapters you have no idea what's going on but it eventually all clicks. 

Super good read. I recommend it with a warning that it might teach you more about yourself which might be uncomfortable - but in a good "changing" way.