03/19/2008

Yesterday, before the monsoon rains hit Houston, we took our kids and our pug to Memorial Park. We try to do something active each day to work the wigglies out. Sometimes this is an effective plan. Sometimes it is not. However, Nick likes the photo ops and I like the fresh air.

Our Pug is SO cute! Her name is Sophie and she is one year old. She is pretty much the world's best dog ever. And, I should know...I have officially housed most of the world's dogs. Smiling.
Nathan has an incredible love for baseball: It rivals his love for cars. Every day, without exception, he asks if Daddy will be taking him to a baseball game. The boys are tentatively planning to attend one on Friday. Nathan will be thrilled! I am hoping that Grandpa McNeil might go with Nathan and Nick to see an Astro's game. But, all that aside, here we are playing park-style baseball. I'm pitching a pine cone. Nathan's "bat" is a stick.
Nathan running with Sophie. It occurs to me that somehow we have failed miserably in teaching our son to wear shoes. He doesn't like them. We put them on. He takes them off. We put them on and do something tricky to make sure they'll stay. He yells, "Shoes offffff!" We've tried tennis shoes. We've tried sandals. Nathan still prefers bare feet. He's getting pretty old to be going around without shoes on, so this may be another battle we choose to fight with our terrible-two-year-old. Here he is running with Sophie.
This police car pulled over on the side of the road. Nathan noticed immediately (if not sooner...haha) and took off toward it. He adores the police! We got over near the police car and the officer turned on his lights to provide Nathan with a private showing. After staring at the police car for quite a while I felt it only polite to try and steer Nathan in another direction. "Okay, Nathan" I said, "Let's go play." Nathan's response: "Ohhh-kayyy! We go play with police car!"
Nathan imitating what I was doing: put the sticks high in the sky!
It's too bad the Queen is always upset. If only we could get a smile out of her.

I played Follow the Leader for a while with Nathan. Here he is the leader.
One of Nathan's favorite toys is a little giraffe statue that Nick has from his time in Kenya. He brought it to the park and enjoyed making it trot around in the sand volleyball area.
More fun with that giraffe. This picture SO much reminds me of Nick. I think that expression is 100% Nicolas. I can't put my finger on what aspect of the expression strikes me...the mouth maybe...anyway, I had to laugh. It is funny how genetics play out!
I got to spend a few minutes playing with Sophie. Awww.
And that was our excursion in brief. It's 6:30AM and I am going to make some coffee and do some Bible reading before the rest of my family is up and about. Blessed mornings. (A few years ago I would have never imagined putting the words "blessed" and "morning" together!)