Dallas World Aquarium

My sister Emily and her daughter Evelyn drove over from Shreveport LA last weekend so my parents could see both of us. Last weekend was really cold by Dallas standards and after shivering at the stockyards we were ready for an indoor activity so we headed to the Aquarium. Evie and Norah are just two months apart so they make great companions and quickly declared themselves best friends. It was so sweet to watch them play together – even if there was a little bit of this at timesEvelyn LOVES babies and was very interested in baby Alice. She wanted to tickle her and give her kisses and talk to her every chance she got. I love how even in this group photo Evie is interacting with Alice.This picture is from the next day before Emily and Evelyn had to leave. I wanted to get a picture of my mom with her granddaughters and I could manage to get a single one of them to look a the camera! Not one – good grief!

Fort Worth Stockyards

Last weekend my parents came out for a visit and we went to Fort Worth to see the stockyards which is a historic section of the city. They say that Dallas is the end of the east and Fort Worth is where the West begins and after visiting this past weekend I have found that statement to be accurate. Dallas really feels like any other big city to me but Fort Worth is what I imagined Texas being like and the stockyards were like a cartoon version of how I pictured Texas.The main attraction at the stockyards is the cattle drive down East Exchange avenue and while we waited Norah was able to visit with real cow boys. They were all very friendly and let Norah pet their horses and complemented her on her cow girl boots and there was even a real cow GIRL (pictured below) for Norah to meetNorah was also treated to a pony ride on “Blackie”

Norah had a great view of the cattle driveThis is what she sawIt was pretty anticlimactic. Police officers were walking around making sure everyone was safely on the sidewalk so I thought things were going to get pretty exciting and expected the cattle to run down the street with the cowboys whipping them but it was a very leisurely stroll. Alice was a little disappointed too.But overall she had a great time

Norah, Harper and Willa

or Norah, Willa and Harper?The following pictures were all completely candid

Alice is 10 Months

Alice is 10 months as of yesterday and it seems like every day she has a new trick. Just in this past week she has learned to stand up (as opposed to pulling herself up) and point. She has been pointing at her sister, food, and animals at the zoo. She has been waving when we leave or when someone else leaves for a while but now she is also waving “hello” when people come in a room and she is perfecting her timing so that people also see the wave (as opposed to waving bye bye to Daddy when he’s already out the door). Her bye-bye wave is often accompanied by a “baba” and it must be about the cutest thing in the world. And just today, I heard her say Mah-ma very clearly meaning me. She has said ma-ma a few other times but I haven’t been sure it was intentional. She has been saying Dada for a few weeks now – I’m not sure when that happened for the first time because it is just hard to know when we’re flattering ourselves but she definitely said Dada first, baba (bye bye) second and Mama third.

Last weekend we went to the arboretum to see the pumpkin village

Notice her pointing in this pictureAnd here is Alice at the arboretum again today – we go a lot

Monorail

The Dallas Zoo has a section of habitats that you can only see from their monorail. We got 4 monorail ride tickets with our membership (lame that the monorail has its own admission fee) that I’ve been saving to use sometime when Bryan could come with us. It was a lot of fun and our monorail guide/conductor/whatever was hilarious. I’ve never actually been on a monorail before so I was pretty excited and the whole time I was hearing this song from the Simpsons in my mind.
Look how happy we are on the monorail!

Farewell Summer . . . or not

Since today is the last day of summer I thought I would post my phone pictures that never made it into blog posts. It actually still feels like summer here in Dallas – so much so that I am startled when I see pumpkins and Halloween decorations. It reminds me of how I felt when Bryan’s parents took us on a cruise over Christmas break – I could NOT accept that it was January when it was that warm. If we were in Ithaca I’d be thinking about unpacking the sweaters around now.
These are from July 9th at a spray park
That same day Alice started pulling herself up on furniture for the first time and I quickly took some terrible pictures (always a battle – do I take the picture or make sure she doesn’t fall?) to remember the moment. She was so happy with herself.And I love this picture of Norah playing princess with my friend Crystal’s little girlsAnd here is Norah playing with her friend Jonathan

Utah Part II: Salt Lake City

Saturday afternoon after a Café Rio fix we headed up to SLC to see family. We haven’t been to SLC since Norah was a wee babe so it was great to see family again.

Norah practiced her Spanish (she pretty much just knows the colors) with Great Grandpa Hicks She read stories with Aunt Leslie and picked tomatoes from my Aunt Renee’s garden Explored City Creek with Natalie and walked around Temple Squareplayed in the Church History MuseumThis is one of the few pictures where you can see Alice’s faceAlice wasn’t in many photos because she was so traumatized from me leaving her repeatedly that she wouldn’t let anyone hold her. That is, until at a Hyer family party we were all talking about how Alice wouldn’t let anyone hold her and my uncle Glen confidently said “ah, I bet she’ll let me hold her” and managed to not only hold her, but get a smile and walk into another room. Before we left to return to Dallas on Tuesday, we made sure to get a 4 generations picture. When I visited SLC with Norah as a baby I took pictures of her with my grandma but I didn’t get one with me and mom grandma together. Alice was asleep in her car seat but at least she’s in the picture!