More Zoo & Ryan's Birthday!

It was a super fun weekend! For St. Patrick's day, we went as a family to the Austin Zoo cuz Ryan didn't get to come last time (and i scored a really good deal ... 2 admissions + 2 bags of animal food for 4$, regularily 20). So we dressed up in green so none of the animals would pinch us and we had a great time.

The peacocks just walk around everywhere. We even saw one do the whole "spread the tail fan" thing- neat!
these tigers were huge! and possibly in love :)
pretty kitty

Jaxson was a champ at feeding the animals this time. Sometimes at home, Jaxson likes to feed mommy and gets a big smile after he gives me a bite of his food. He did the same thing to the animals and it was so precious for us to watch. He loved reaching 1 piece of food in there and try to put it in the animals mouths.

love this photo! he is my little stud muffin

my cutie feeding the deer 1 piece of food (Jax didn't quite understand the whole "hold a handful of food in your palm idea")

my boys!

couldn't get Jax to look at the camera -- there were too many cool monkies around

romantic lemers.

We let Jax chase some roosters.

For some odd reason, Jaxson thinks it is funny to come and sick on our necks/faces (it may or may not be because we start laughing really hard when he does)

just thought this was a funny one of jax

We celebrated Ryan's birthday at Red Robin with some friends. Man was it loud in that room with all those kiddlets! fun time though :)

looks like Jaxson is doing the Haka

The kids had a lot of fun in the waiting area while us grown ups chatted for a bit

Emily, Lindsey, Me, & Vee

Jaxson likes wearing my sunglasses ... so I tried to get a good photo...

ryan had to be quick taking the photo before Jax took off the glasses.

Holding Jaxson's hands to get a photo. and see his teeth??? I love them, they have such a huge gap in them (just like his cute cousin Talia)

Happy Birthday Ryan! We love you!

Young Woman's ... A minute to win it

We had an awesome Laural activity (in case you aren't familiar with that, in our church we have a youth program, and I am in charge of the girls ages 16-18 called "Laurals") done by the other Laural leader (sis.tuck). It was based on the hit tv show "A minute to win it" hosted by Guy Fieri. We had different stations with taskes that we supposed to be accomplished in 1 minute. They were quite challenging, but really fun too.

This is Natalie and she is attempting to make an upsidedown pyramid out of pop cans and paper plates. The first row had 1 can, then a paper plate, then 2 cans, paper plate, etc.
This is Audrey and she just stacked 6 dice on top of each other ON a tongue depresser she is holding in her mouth.
This is Chloe and she is organizing pop cans based on how many coins she thinks are in each can, from lowest to highest (coins are in increments of 5)

This is Gavin ... he is sis.tucks baby and is such a cutie. he also peeded on Audrey during the activity

evidence

This is Megan and she is attempting to get a cookie from her forehead down to her mouth, only using facial muscles.

This is Sis. Sowards (aka Amy) and she is hooking 6 penne noodles on a spaghetti noodle only using her mouth.

the finished result

I just flipped a tortilla onto a plate on my head, using a snorkling flipper on my foot. I got it on my first try (lucky I guess ... b/c only 1 other person did it too)Elephant walk. I have a nylon over my head, and there is a baseball in one of the legs. Staying on either side of the black line, I was to try and swing my head back and forth, causing the ball to knock over 8 waterbottles.

"Spudnik" The object was to stick 5 straws into a potato and balance m&m's on the straws (if you try this, use plain m & ms!)

We also had a "shoe toss" where we had to toss shoes (using our feet) onto a table about 15 feet away. The last game was using a squirt bottle to transport a balloon across the gym into a garbage bin (use a big balloon and powerful squirt bottle if you try this). Such a fun activity!!

Birthdays & Food

This past week has been awesome! If you know me, you know I love food ... like I am obsessed with food (yep, its a baaaad habit). Well, it was also my birthday on Tuesday so we thought we should celebrate! I also signed up for a lot restaurant eclubs online so I got about 30 free or bogo coupons to eat around Austin ... Perfect! So we made good use of the coupons and we enjoyed a lot of good food this past week.

This was at a place called "Mama Fu's Asian House." We have never been there before and we really enjoyed the food (so I guess their advertising by giving us a bogo coupon for my birthday paid off b/c we will probably go back). Just don't ask Ryan about when Jaxson spilled his entire glass of ice cold water on the table ... they are both still trying to recover from that.
On Thursday, some of the ladies from my ward did a "Ladies night out" (we do it once a month). This month we went to the cheesecake factore (one of my favs!) to celebrate mine and Heidi's birthday. It was a fun night of good food and girly chatting. This is the "caramel chicken" and it is suuuuper good (nope there isn't caramel in it, so I am not sure why its called that....)
The group

On Tuesday (my b-day) some of the girls and I went to Red Robin for lunch. We love the place b/c its really low key, good food, and kids eat free!

Jaxy and his birthday mommy

For dinner that night, we left Jaxson at a friends house (first time we had ever left him with someone who isn't family!) and we went to Benihana's (Japanese hibachi grill) .... YUM! I had the filet mignon, which is my favorite steak. The chef was entertaining and it was fun to watch him chop and cook everything at lightning speed. Ryan and I had a fun date, thanks hunny!

Jaxson loved the birthday balloon my friend gave to me. I am super impressed ... it has been 6 days and it is still floating on the ceiling!This is our little righteous boy. He is obsessed with Jesus and this D&C kids book. He will find it wherever we hid it, and he will open it and read it or bring it to us and then sit on our laps so we can read it to him.

Long Time Coming

I have been trying to post these pictures for 5 days now. I uploaded all the photos and wrote all the captions, then published my post ... all on Ryan's blog (which he didn't realize he had one, but it was an account he made when he was at BYU ... well I guess somehow i was signed into his account). So I tried re-doing everything to this blog, but the photos were taking soooo long to upload, so I stoped trying that day. I have tried every day since and the same thing. But today it worked (happy birthday to me! literally) These are just the photos I forgot to blog about the last month or so....

Jaxson had this cute "chart your growth" paper on his wall so we could see how tall he was getting. Yep, he ripped it to shreds, my little destructo-man.
Jaxson playing with the cute hand puppets G & G Harbor gave him when they came to visit.
Jaxson still LOVES balls. And he is sporting a Canadian onsie, awesome eh?!Jaxsons new favorite food ---french fries! But lets be honest, who doesn't like them?!

We went to a U of Texas basketball game with some friends. Hook em' Horns!

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Emily and Lindsey and I all went to the zoo with our kidlets. Jaxson loved the animals and had a great time. It was super fun and Jax loved the animals. He likes to point and go "Ahh!" when he sees all the animals. The kiddos. Jax and Addi like to hold hands, cute!

Jax and the giant pig. This was right after the lion almost attacked us. We were standing about 8 feet away (literally), but behind the fence of course. He roared, jumped at us and smashed his face in the fence. Well, we jumped and screamed and almost took off running. Seriously, SCARY!

I love petting zoos and I was trying to teach Jax how to feed the animals. He wasn't too impressed.

I stuck Jaxson's hand through the fence so I could snap a quick pic.

All the kiddies again. So sad we are all moving away in a matter of months :(