Fun Filled Weekend

We had a great weekend filled with lots of fun. It was nice to be able to go out as a family and enjoy the weekend since Dada finally recovered from his week long stomach flu (which luckily neither Mama, Stella, nor Des ended up getting).

On Sat, we went out to breakfast. We were sitting in a portion of the restaurant on the 2nd floor that was covered on all sides with windows and jutted out into the nearby trees making it seeming like we were eating in a tree house. While we were waiting for our breakfast, Des and Stella saw a cat sleeping on the ground outside the restaurant. Des just started yelling loudly "Wake up cat! Cat, wake up!". We kept telling him to use his inside voice which he would obey for 10 seconds before yelling again. It was rather comical...at least for us, if not for the other diners=;)

After a yummy breakfast, we headed out to visit the Jones center for the first time. The Jones center is a social, recreational, and educational facility donated to the Northwest Arkansas community by Bernice Jones where all are welcome to use the facility free of charge. The Jones center has a large swimming pool, an ice skating rink, a gymnasium, a park, places to host birthday parties, etc. Stella and Des had lots of fun playing basketball with Dada.

All that running around the gym worked up an appetite and so off we went to have some lunch. After lunch, Dada took the kiddies to Chuck E. Cheese, while Mama did a little shopping nearby. The kids then took their naps in the car. Dada said that when the Gup woke up and saw that Mama wasn't in the car, he was so concerned. He kept saying: "Dada, where's Mama? Stella, wake up, wake up, where's Mama Stella?" Dada kept telling him that Mama was shopping and she will be back soon, but Des just kept asking about Mama. Well, hearing that story just melted Mama's heart. So, so sweet!

After Mama was done with her shopping, we went to the park and Stella made friends with 2 girls. She is starting to be very social these days and loves making friends with other girls (not boys) her age.

After the park, it was off to dinner. Then, we walked around town and got some YUMMY gelato.

To sum up, on Sat, we left the house at 9:30 am and didn't get home until 8:30 PM!

Cool Shades

We bought Des his first pair of sunglasses right before our beach trip to Florida. But for some reason, we don't have any pictures of him wearing his sunglasses, even though he has worn it plenty of times. Well, the other day, Des and Stella put on their sunglasses and we happened to snap some pics of our lil' dude wearing his shades.
Finding sunglasses for Des was very hard because he has a relatively tiny nose with a low nose bridge and his ears are very flimsy (somehow his ear cartilage is very thin). So most of the sunglasses we tried on him would not sit on his face very well and would end up sliding right off. We finally found a pair that stayed on fairly well, but they still cause his thin ears to bend.

Painting Fun

Stella absolutely loves doing any sort of craft activity, but it is hard to do when you have a 22-month old around who wants to do what his big sis does. So, today, Mama threw caution to the wind and decided to let the kids paint (with acrylic craft paint) wooden stars and Christmas trees she picked up at our local craft store. Stella and Desmond had a BLAST painting! This was Desmond's first time painting anything and he just LOVED it!

As you can see in the pic above, Mama dressed Des only in an old T-shirt and a diaper because she knew he would make a big mess and sure enough he did. Here he is showing Mama and the camera all the paint he got on his hands. After we finished painting, Mama had to hose the Gup down in the bathtub.

Plain Silly!

The kids amused themselves by making silly faces with oranges at breakfast this morning. Stella did it first and then, Des followed suit. Whatever Stella does, Desmond does. Monkey see, monkey do!

Mmm, Oreos!

Des was introduced to Oreos this weekend and sure enough, he loves them. He wasn't too happy with Mama for asking him to smile for pictures while he was trying to enjoy his mint chocolate Oreos. He sure does know how to make a big mess while eating them.

Reading Rainbow

To encourage Stella's love of reading books by herself, Dada made Stella a rainbow reading chart.

For every book Stella reads out loud to an adult, she gets a sparkly star sticker on her reading rainbow chart. For every 5 books she reads out loud to an adult, she gets to go to Hobby Lobby (our favorite craft store here in AR) and pick something out.

During her first trip to Hobby Lobby, Stella picked out a giant pink calculator. She didn't want anything else we showed her, not even the Princess glitter nail polish. Here she is posing with her chosen prize!

It's funny to see what strikes a kid's fancy and what doesn't!

Fun at the Park

It was a beautiful day here today (in the upper 70s and no humidity), so Mama took her two little munchkins to the park. We had a fun time swinging, running, sliding, climbing, and playing.

One section of the playground had a big plastic dinosaur and an alligator. When Mama put Des on the dinosaur to take a picture, he started crying like so...

He kept saying "No Mama, dinosaur bite you". Poor little guy, he thought the dinosaur was real and was afraid that it was going to bite him. Mama immediately took Des off the dinosaur and comforted him. He thought the same thing of the alligator, but eventually worked up enough courage to walk over to the alligator...

...looked at him for awhile to make sure that it wasn't real...

...and then ventured forth to pet it and even sit on it. Too funny!