Patio Play

Taylor and I spent some energy cleaning the patio this weekend. We generally don't let Brady play on the patio for 2 reasons. (1) The dogs tend to potty on the patio. (2) Brady wants to play in the fountain which usually has moldy bricks in front of it, which is very slippery. I scrubbed the mold, cleaned the dog mess and hosed off the patio. Taylor went to the very tedious task of cleaning the fountain. He put a little bleach, which is the reason for the fountain bubbles. It's hard to get the bleach quantity just right.

Brady is certainly all boy. He grabbed the hose to try to fill the fountain, as he frequently sees us do through the french doors. He hiked around the mulched areas which have a slight slope. He slid on the wet mulch and landed on his diaper several times. Once he got a face full of mulch, but it didn't phase him. We also played with the new bubble machine. Playing with bubbles is so much easier (for us) when we just plug in the machine.

Bubbly Brady Boy

Howard and Kelley got Brady this great bubble machine for Christmas. It's super quiet and shoots out TONS of bubbles. Brady was a bit grumpy tonight, but this certainly perked him up. Thanks Howard and Kelley!

Play Dough

Even though I didn't have food coloring, I decided to make home made play dough last night (for the first time). Brady wasn't exactly sure what to do with it. Taylor made a tall volcano looking structure; Brady tried to pick it up and drink from it, like a cup. I took pictures of a few of my creations.

First Trip to Chuck E Cheese

Brady was not a fan of eating the small pieces of pizza we cut for him. He grabbed the biggest slice of the pie and dug in.

Brady really liked riding this horse.

Look at that pride.

It's so much fun!

Look at that angelic face.

Brady's first carousel ride.

Mmmm... Spinach Quesadilla

We undoubtedly eat a lot of spinach quesadillas. I recently bought HEB's "Homestyle" tortillas (not the ones made in the store), and they were really good. I'll splurge the extra penny per tortilla for these vs. the everyday tortillas.

Taylor has a lot of 1/1/10 renewals, so he's had to work a lot of late nights. Day to day, one of us will cook or clean while the other watches Brady. I feel very proud of myself when I can run the evening by myself, though it's terribly exhausting without Taylor.

All done!

Snow and Salmon

We had a lot of snow yesterday (well, a lot of snow for Houston). Brady's school shut down at 2:00 PM, so I picked him up and brought him to work with me. Taylor took a picture of our patio with all the snow.

When Taylor starts cooking, Brady becomes very eager for his meal. I thought it was cute how happy he was to see his salmon in the oven. Brady and I tried HEB's seaweed salad as an appetizer. It's a strange food, but really quite tasty. I was surprised that Brady ate it, but later decided that it was a very boyish food. It kind of looks like slimy green worms.

Riding the Roadster

Grammy and Pappaw gave Brady this little Radio Flyer Roadster for his birthday. Initially he would just push it around. He always rolls the car over his toes, so we have to be sure he has shoes on. In the past month or so, he's learned how to mount and dismount the car without assistance. This week was the first time he actually moved forward on his own. Way to go little buddy!

Who needs toys?

Who needs toys when you can surf on a cutting board?

Don't tell PETA

Bubbles and Barking

We hesitate to play on our patio (even when it's clean) because Brady always wants to dive into the fountain. On Saturday, we had some time to kill before we met my family for lunch, so we went out our front door to the common area of our town home complex to blow bubbles. I've become slightly disappointed with my camera because I keep getting so many blurry shots. I think this is a phase every camera goes through when photographing a very busy toddler. Our neighbor's dog started barking which sparked Brady's interest. He climbed up the stairs to look at the dog (through the window) and bark back. It was actually a lot of fun and a nice change of pace from the norm; we'll have to do it more often.