Our Weekend at "The Farm"

We had what I'll call "our first relaxing vacation weekend since Charlotte was born" this past weekend. And let me tell you, it was way overdue! Our weekend completely proved that you don't have to spend tons of money or go somewhere exotic to have a good time and appreciate the little things. The best part of all was just watching Charlotte explore, react and have fun being a silly 2-year old, outside of the schedule of everyday. She noticed every little thing and had so many hilarious little comments. It made me appreciate and realize how fun it is being a family and how amazing it is to simply watch Charlotte.

We headed to a cabin (or "farm" as Charlotte hilariously insisted on calling it) in Broken Bow, Oklahoma (Beavers Bend State Park I think) with the Millers. When this weekend planning began I have to admit, I wasn't too keen on going to a cabin in the woods for our vacation - I totally pictured the camp in The Parent Trap and made jokes about Meghan and I being like the girls in Troop Beverly Hills...Kudos to Mark who did all the planning-you proved me wrong buddy (don't get used to that)! We had a great time and the cabin (or "farm") was perfect!

We all piled into Mark's truck - 4 adults, a 2-yr old, a Cali dog and plenty of food and beverages to keep us happy (yes, it's a big truck). The drive ended up much longer than expected due to our navigation system-'cough'-Doug-, but Charlotte couldn't have been better. We spent the weekend pretty much just hanging out.

Saturday the guys made breakfast and we went for a hike. We ended up playing in the creek, throwing rocks and letting Cali roam - Charlotte could've done that for HOURS, she is still talking about throwing "wocks in da wader." We did a little paddle-boatin', then Meghan and I headed for the local ladies place: Girls Gone Wine winery. It was Meghan's mission to find a wine she liked. Mission accomplished, she found several, while we both enjoyed some girl time. Mark made us indulge all evening (he does have some culinary skills): fried quail legs (yes, even I ate them and see the photos, Charlotte devoured the dip), bbq bacon wrapped shrimp with pineapple and amazing huge steaks topped with some ridiculously delish pepper butter. Oh, and how could I forget the molten chocolate cakes...yum! Nope, that's not it, we roasted marshmallows too! Charlotte more than enjoyed her first marshmallow roasting experience and that's another thing she's still talking about.



Between Mark, Meghan, Doug and me we all agree that Cali had the best time of all (no leash, a creek to play in, attention), Charlotte probably had the second best (rules were broken, junk food was O.K. and she was absolutely in love with "the farm"), and the 4 adults are all at a tie for 3rd. It was just over too quick, like most vacations are.

Snow Day...um, let me rephrase: SNOW WEEK

Maybe it was due to my boasting on facebook this past weekend about the 75 degree weather (yes, I do think my personal comments affected mother nature), but it's completely obvious that a bit of winter weather shuts this city down. Those poor people who came in for the Superbowl - I'm sure the Steelers/GreenBay fans think so highly of Dallas now that the city has basically been shut down all week from some ice and now 3-5" of snow - that's like a minor dusting to them.

I'm not complaining though, while it's been a pain, it's been a nice change of pace to be locked up with my family at home. I did make it to work yesterday and realized that I'm happy I didn't go the 2 days before that. It was 3 days post-ice storm and most major roads were still only showing small patches of pavement through the ice...Then we got 3-5" of snow overnight.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that the sun comes out and some of this crap melts so Scott & Dave can make it in tomorrow - can't wait for some great nky friends to visit!

Here's a little glimpse of our snow day in Texas!
Charlotte has come down with a horrible cough and runny nose, so we've stayed inside. We did pull out the winter-wear and have some fun though:

We went Krogering - Meghan, Charlotte & I and had a successful trip. Here's Meghan hiking back home sporting Mark's fashionable hunting boots and on the way back, we witnessed this hilarious site of a family of 4 trecking back home with some Little Caesar's pizzas in tow. At least Cali likes it & it looks pretty!

She's a Big Girl Now!

So with my lack of posting over the past 6 weeks or so it seems like Charlotte has become a little girl. Christmas, traveling, her second birthday all came and went ~wow~ then we headed down the potty training path and most recently, her first haircut! My apologies to all for the lack of posts (seems to be a common apology for me here), but I thought I'd jump right back in with some pictures from Charlotte's first haircut (well, first non-mom cut). We went to a kids cuts place called Sharkey's. Sharkey's is a pretty cool place: cars, TVs with Dora or video games, and it even included the "star treatment" (painting fingernails, a fancy ring and glitter star on the cheek). Have I mentioned that Frisco is soooo built for families?!

Before...all scraggly and mullit-like:

Dad got a cut too, he actually declined the offer to play a video game. See Charlotte in the background? Also notice how still she is, that's cuz Dora was on TV.

It's time for nails now...oh how daddy was loving this part. And as you can see, she was pretty excited and proud of her pink nails with "spaaarkles."

Ready to go shopping now Daddy!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas....

One thing we absolutely love about living in Frisco are all of the special family-focused events they have going on through the year - and all free! This is honestly a great city to raise kids. Last weekend we went to Merry Main Street where they turned on all the lights, it was a very fun holiday festival (and free). This weekend we headed to Holiday Lights at Frisco Safety Town.

When we were kids, "safety town" was some wood cut outs in the mall parking lot - you brought your bike and stopped at stop signs etc. This place is fabulous - it's an entire mini town, complete with mini buildings and all working traffic signals. They deck the place out for the kiddos for Christmas. There is something special going on in the little houses/businesses, Santa's there and tons more.
Here's our photos from Holiday Lights at Frisco Safety Town. I think Charlotte's favorite was her balloon, her bear with a bandaid and Santa:
please look closely at the below photo - Charlotte is almost airborne...I snapped this right as she bit the dust, trying to run in those boots:


AND after peering in the window pointing at Santa (above)...................Drumroll please..................Charlotte sat on Santa's lap and actually smiled!! Both Doug and I would have taken a pretty steep bet that she'd throw a total fit. It took a little coaxing - Santa actually told Doug "get your camera ready for this one" when we walked in - which was hilarious to us. When I first handed her over she began to throw a charlotte-fit, but we were miraculously able to immediately calm her down and convince her that it was in her best interest to sit on Santa's lap and smile (she totally knows "santa bing me pesents"). If you look closely, you can tell the 1st photo is totally fake, about to cry smile, but the second is pretty genuine:

We can't wait to celebrate this Christmas with all of our family and friends and we know Charlotte is excited too!

October: Visitors, Pumpkins and a Little Cat

The month of October has sure been a busy one at the Millay house. First the Clarys came to visit, then Grandma & Grandpa Millay. We've had so much fun with our family here and Charlotte has LOVED having all of the attention. After each visitor left, she has talked about them so much, especially right before she falls asleep.

On top of all of the visitors, this month has also been one full of crying from a little girl who is scared of anything that remotely resembles anything associated with the holiday called Halloween. Every grocery visit results in crying and "Ha-ween go home" or "no ugy wich", I can't even begin to describe the trembling and screaming that occurred in that nice red cart when Doug ventured into the Halloween aisle in Target.

The one and only thing she has liked about this holiday is pumpkins. She loves "pu-kins" and has spent a lot of time playing with them. She painted and carved a pumpkin at daycare and went to 2 pumpkin patches. Wait, there is one more thing she liked about Halloween, she loved her cat costume - after I put on her ears and painted her nose & wiskers she told daddy "look at me!" and wanted to continually look at and smile at herself in the mirror - it was adorable. After all of that getting ready, Charlotte only actually trick or treated to 1 house. She knocked on the door, said "tick u teet" and held out her pumpkin, then said "tank tu" after the guy gave her a handful of chocolate. I was sure she'd want more, but as we started for the next house she said "wan go back mart an meg-ans." Although that meant no candy for mom & dad to indulge in, that was fine with me. We had a great time on Halloween night hanging out in Mark & Meghan's driveway. We set our pumpkins out on Mark's truck bed (most things involve a truck here in Texas), grilled out, and gave candy to trick-or-treaters. Charlotte's favorite thing was playing with Mark's duck decoys (she kept kissing them and making them kiss each other). We had a fun Halloween with our little cat and great friends!

Enough to read - Here's some photos of our Cat, her "rooaaring", our pumpkin patch visit, and carving her first pumpkin. Enjoy!

Meghan has some additional photos on her blog: http://gettingourducksinarow.blogspot.com/

Clarys in Texas

We've had a very full house for the past couple of weeks. First, came the Clarys (and that's what this post is about)...

It was so great to spend time with Amy, Josh and the girls. It made me really happy to give the girls a chance to play together and get to know one another. We're so glad that thay were able to come down to Texas and hope they had as good of a time as we did. Here's some of the highlights of the Clarys in Texas.

To say that Charlotte loves "Channer" is quite an understatement. She would yell her name from her crib and would sit for 30 minutes while Chandler read her books. Here's a moment I caught watching Saturday morning cartoons:

So Coach Doug all of the sudden appeared this weekend...he found Soccer Tots - a soccer class for kids as young as 18months! They give you 1 free trial class and we took Arden & Charlotte. Josh & Doug ran after the girls on the field. Arden was a pro, she dribbled and ran and kicked. It took Charlotte a little longer to warm up, but she loved running down the field kicking her ball with daddy and Channer:

It's that time of year again: Texas State Fair aka Fried Food Capital of the World. We took the trek down to Fairpark (2 cars, 3 kids, a bike trailer/stroller, and 4 parents) to partake in the festivities. The place was packed, but we were able to keep most parties happy and eat some fried goodness. Arden & Charlotte even got along very well in the 2-seater. It wasn't until we were leaving I heard Charlotte yelling "No ma'am" to Arden who was poking at her ear. My favorite was the part where the kids went through the farm, working and gathering all the things that come from the farm (fruit, veggies, milk, etc.). At the end, they drove their tractor to deliver their goods and then received a fair dollar for their work and used that dollar to pay for a snack, it was so cute and the perfect learning activity to excuse Chandler from the extra day off school. I think Chandler's favorite was when she played some good 'ol carnival games and won 3 stuffed animals - one of course being a stuffed boot with "State Fair of Texas" and "Big Tex" embroidered on it! By the time we left we were worn out and our wallets were empty, but we had a great time:

please note: Charlotte has perfected the fake smile already...jeezz (see above photo on the tractor)