Our Morning At The Farm

This morning Lily and I went to the Owens Spring Creek Farm with the MOMS Club -- well actually just with Michelle and her son Davey, since they were the only other ones to show up! Lily was SO excited to see the animals and go to the farm, she sang Old Macdonald all morning long! It is funny since it is a little farm with a petting zoo, and next door is the headquarters and factory for Owens food (which I have seen in the market here and apparently is in 49 states) -- and in most of the pictures I took it looks like a cute little country farm, which it was, but not so much in the country. Directly across the street is the local Samsung headquarters as well as many other big buildings and companies! I was a littler hesitant going in case there were pigs (ya know, because of the swine flu), but they only had 2 potbelly pigs in the back and we stayed away from them (which is ironic since Owens Foods makes mostly sausage and sausage sandwiches). It was a fun little outing and Lily really really enjoyed all the animals. There were goats, sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, the 2 pigs, and ducks. She has already been asking to go back.

The farm, and factory in the back.

First stop was feeding the goats and since we were among the first ones there they were hungry!

Poor things all lines up begging for food!

Lily was having fun -- she pointed out the baby goat, and the Mommy goat & Daddy goat! And there was even a grandma and grandpa goat, according to Lily!

It is hard to see since the photo is small here on the blog, but this view is looking out onto the street, which is the city view -- as compared to the country looking view the other way.

We got to take a hay ride and had the whole thing to ourselves!!

Clapping for an animal (I think).

Looking at the mini ponies.

My little flower.

Since the farm wasn't too far from the golf course, Lily and I stopped in and said hi to Daddy, Grandpa and Paula. But Lily was pretty upset that she didn't get to see Grandma, so Grandma came over before nap time to feed (or try to feed) Lily her lunch and play some.

Playgroup

This morning was our turn to host playgroup at our house. Lily was all excited to "have all her friends come over and play." Here she is waiting for everyone to arrive:

For some reason she wanted to wait at the table for them.

I don't know why, but playgroups at our house are like 10 times more chaotic than anywhere else! Everyone says they have the most fun here, but we really don't have any more toys or any different toys than anyone else. Plus today I didn't even bring any extra toys down from the playroom! But it was fun and another successful playgroup at our house!

Afterwards Lily and I went out to lunch with Pam and Tyler again -- that is our new thing on Tuesdays, which is kinda nice. But I think the kids were way to worn out from playgroup since they didn't sit very well (well Lily was good, but Tyler was crawling all over the restaurant!)

Now I have some toys to go and clean up. yeah.

Our Weekend

Yesterday we spent the morning at my parent's house, as we do every Saturday, so I can clean. The first thing Lily does when we get there is turn on the CD player so she can dance. That girl LOVES to dance -- and she has some pretty awesome moves too! :) I am trying to get it on video, but as soon as the camera comes out she immediately stops. Yesterday she was really excited to find a new CD in the stereo -- the Beatles. Apparently she is a huge Beatles fan since every time a new song came on she would scream like every teenage girl in 1964 did!

Dancing with Grandma

It is hard to get a good picture, since we are spinning around so fast -- but she loves when I twirl her around. I, of course, can't do it too much or else I will vomit.

My little helper!!

My Mom has this cat toy that shines a tiny laser of light around the room. It was SO funny watching Lily and the light. She would run and scream, not quite sure of it. When it landed on her feet she ran away yelling "It tickles!". You had to be there, it was hilarious. My mom and I had tears in our eyes from laughing so hard at her.
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This morning I woke up so excited that we had absolutely nowhere to go today and really not much to do besides start cleaning up the house since we are hosting playgroup on Tuesday. Sadly, my dreams of a nice relaxing morning at home we quickly squashed by the fact that I have a 2 year old who does not believe in relaxing and wants to play constantly! :) By 9:30am, we had already played with play-doh and colored and I just wanted to sit back and drink my coffee already. So I suggested we go outside, thinking she would run around some and I could get a least one cup of coffee down. It worked for a little while.

Not surprisingly, she was already undressed and since it was warm (and a little humid - there is a storm coming) I didn't bother getting her dressed.

I love Spring!! I thought I loved Fall and the changing of the leaves; and I thought I loved winter since at first all the bare trees seems so peaceful and beautiful. But I didn't realize until all the leaves and flowers started to return how much I missed them!!

Not sure what she was doing, but I love that crazy face.

And this kissable face.

Looking through a tiny hole in the fence. You can't see anything but the alley and the neighbor's fence, but ever since Grandma pointed the hole out to her she has to take a peek!

Tiny Home Improvements

This morning Lily and I went shopping! And when I say "morning", I mean morning. Lily woke up at 7:30, which is kinda early for her. So we got up, ate breakfast, got ready and headed back to Downtown McKinney since I needed to return one of the valances I got. I've never really had to think about what time stores open, since I am not a morning person and never get there too early! Well, today we got there at 9:55 -- 5 minutes before the store opened! That was crazy to me, I mean we usually have a hard time making it to playgroup around the corner at 10am!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I bought some new valances for the living room to replace the plain white ones that came with the house. The funny thing is that neither me nor my Mom could recall if the back door had a valance on it, so I wanted to get 3 just in case and inquired about the return policy. The owner of the store told me that since it is such a small little store, it costs too much for them to process sales and returns on credit cards, so she gave me the third valance to take home and try out and if I wanted it, I just had to call her and tell her to charge it!! How nice and trusting is that?? When I got home I discovered the door did not have a valance on it (I only look at the door all day, everyday - how was I supposed to know? I am SO bad at remembering details, if I ever get mugged the guy will never be caught on my description!). So today I brought it back to the nice little store. Here is a before of one of the windows -- no wonder I never really noticed the valances, they are so white and plain:

Window on the left has a new valance, as Chip is taking down the other old one.

It was hard to get a good picture this afternoon with the sun shining in, but here they are! The red matches the couches and the kitchen and I liked the stars. It is kinda country, but seems to mesh well with all the other random stuff I have.

I also got this new star for over the entertainment center:

I actually bought 2 other plain iron stars to hang on either side of this one. But once I got this up, I felt it was enough and the extra 2 may be too much. The plan is (and has been for nearly a year now) to paint that wall a neutral earthy tone color. But just the star will have to do for now. It was fun buying some new things for the house -- haven't really done anything new since the first couple months we were here!

Texas Bluebells

This morning on our way home from Gymboree, while en route to the market, Lily and I made a quick pitstop to take some pictures in the beautiful Texas Bluebell wildflowers. There are some great ones in a median on the road by our house and we always see people who have stopped to take pictures, but I have been weary about stopping and hanging out in the middle of the street! Then today I noticed a nice little field of them next to a walking trail right off the street, which is much more accessible, so we stopped! Not surprising, it was really hard to get a decent picture of Lily and the flowers since she would not stop for a second. She just wanted to run among the flowers and down the trail (further reinforcing why the median would have been a bad idea!) But at least we got some shots in -- I am sure this will become a tradition since the Bluebell is the state flower of Texas and they are super proud of them here!

McKinney

This morning Lily, my Mom and I went to check out historic downtown McKinney. We've been meaning to go for awhile, but never got around to it. It is a really cute preserved downtown area full of shops and places to eat. Most of the stores are antique shops, with a few boutiques here and there. I didn't plan on buying anything, but I ended up getting some new valances for the family room -- something I have been meaning to do since we moved in, but never found the right ones! We also ate lunch at a cute little cafe while we were there. It was a nice way to spend the morning/afternoon.

Downtown McKinney, Texas

Of course we had to stop at the candy shop too! :)

Lily's favorite -- a quesadilla and chips. Of course she didn't eat the quesadilla until we got home, she never eats while we are out!

Another street in the Downtown area.

On the way home we stopped at a Texas themed furniture store. I have been wanting to get some tin or iron stars to hang about the entertainment center for some time now. Buying the new valances really inspired me to finally get some stars too. Of course being in Texas stars are not all that hard to find!! So we stopped here:

And I did find some some great iron stars to hang. As soon I we get them up I will post the before and after pictures!

Keeping Busy

We are keeping busy here and I can feel it, since I am exhausted! Last night after Lily's nap she helped me make my Amish Friendship Bread. Last week my friend Heather gave me a Ziploc bag with the starter dough and 10 days (and lots of mushing) later the dough was finally ready to be prepared and cooked. I was a little sketched out at first since the dough does not get refrigerated and has milk in it, but after lots of googling and confirmation from Heather that no one in her family got sick, I decided to give it a try. It is pretty good and tastes more like a coffee cake than bread. You can find the recipe and story online if you want more information.

The starter dough.
Lily and all the ingredients ready to help.

Stirring the dough -- although right after I snapped these pictures I realized that I was not supposed to use a metal spoon and quickly switched it out for a plastic one. I am hoping that I did not mess it up any!!

She had fun helping me cook. We don't ever bake together since I'd be the one who ended up eating all the treats, and I definitely don't need that. But Lily did a good job stirring and pouring in cups of ingredients. It was a good project for us and we'll have to try to cook some more together soon.

Chilling out watching "Peter Pan" with her apple juice. Chip showed her the DVD cabinet and she has discovered all kinds of new movies she has never seen before. She doesn't really have the attention span for them though, we'll put one in and 10 minutes later she finds another movie to watch and so on and so on . . .

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This morning we had playgroup at the neighborhood park, where we got to play with sidewalk chalk, feed the ducks and swing!

Lily, Ashely and Heather feeding the ducks.

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After playgroup Lily and I went to lunch with Pam and her son Tyler. We just went up the street to the outdoor shopping area. While we were waiting for them to arrive Lily was having fun playing with the "big cow":

She liked the "big cow" all dressed in his pink breast cancer awareness ribbons.

By the stream.

Running with the duck statues.

We ate lunch at Grimaldi's, a yummy pizza place. The best part was that they brought out dough for the kids to play with while we ate and talked. Between the dough and Tyler, Lily was so good and entertained! We were nearly there an hour and a half!! It went by so fast, that I had to rush her home for her nap! That is a new favorite place!!

Lily and Tyler with their pizza dough.