Pat Green concert

We enjoyed a downtown date night out with friends tonight!

Eastside Pies for dinner + some good ol' Texas country music made for a fun time.

Dallas trip: Stars hockey game

We had another fun roadtrip up to Dallas this weekend to spend some time with Papa and Grandma. The big highlight of this trip was Nico's first Stars game!

He stayed entertained with bike riding, playing chase, and leaf throwing while awaiting his grandparents' arrival.

We stayed in Friday night and had a nice dinner. Nico helped out again the kitchen and took his jobs very seriously.

On Saturday, they took their regular walk to the park, while David and I ran an errand. Naptime approached and we hung out at the house during the day. We had dinner at our must-stop place, Mia's.

 

Even though I'm not generally a hockey fan, this Stars experience was SO exciting. I may consider myself a hockey fan now.

We stopped in the gift shop first, and Nico was spoiled with a jersey AND hockey helmet. He felt like a real hockey player.

There was a kids hockey game set up just outside the arena. Nico jumped right in and knew exactly what he was doing, even though he was clearly a foot shorter than anyone else. He occasionally would look over at us with his proud, shitty grin. For about half of the time, he ran around after the puck just like everyone else. For the other half, he was determined to be the goalie. But, he would get so distracted after a few seconds and run over toward us or leave the net to go after the puck. I have some video clips that are absolutely hilarious with Cindy shouting, "Go back to the goal," and David prompting him to get his stick down. We were all cracking up the entire time, and he was in absolute heaven! Not sure I'll ever forget how cute he was out there.

It was a high scoring game that kept Nico's interest. He made it until halfway through the 3rd period and then told us he was tired and wanted to go. He was apparently watching the game closely, because he reacted immediately with every goal, raising his arms and cheering. He was really into the crowd chant "Dallas...Stars" and also seeing the zambonis.

 Such a fun experience and weekend!

What we've been up to lately

The weather has been so wonderful lately, so we have spent plenty of time outside!

We splurged and bought some new patio furniture for our top deck. Love this outside space.



Gotta make a trip to Stanley's Farmhouse Pizza every now and then.

The ducks love when Nico arrives at Abel's on the Lake.



Nico is obsessed with our neighbor's new chiweenie, Laney. We now dog sit on Mondays and Thursdays. Notice that jealous Miley is nowhere to be found in this pic.



Walks and jeep rides on the neighborhood trail with daddy in the mornings.

Nico's newest, favorite part of the trail ride is working his way back to the "ooze" and throwing rocks.

 

Life is all about Ninja Turtles these days! He has nearly every Ninja Turtle toy known to man, and he watches the tv shows daily.

 

 He likes to pretend he is Rafael, and boy, we sure have gotten more use out of this Halloween costume than we ever imagined. There is plenty of sword fighting in this household. I woke up this morning and quickly became under attack...

 

 

He is such a happy kid. He's always smiling and laughing. He's had that quality since he was born. Love this picture of him cracking up at himself. He is into a phase of taking about butts, poop, private parts, etc. Such a boy. 

 

He's becoming quite the baseball stud.







After dinner, he declares most nights, "movie night" and insists on turning off all of the lights.

Not one night goes by that he forgets to brush his teeth. If he could rank his hobbies, this may make the top 5 list. Or maybe, he is just stalling before bedtime.




I found a kids' pretend shaving kid on the post-Christmas clearance rack at Walgreens for a few dollars. Knew this would be right up his alley. He tells us that his skin is so smooth now from shaving.

 

 

He's still into Legos these days.

While a lot of our time consists of going places and playing outside, I try to make an effort to read with him and reinforce some type of "educational" activity. Definitely room for improvement on my part, but we are all about just letting him be a kid, too!

When my ponytail sometimes gets off to one side, he thinks that I am Elsa from the movie, Frozen, and that I am going to freeze him. His facial expressions are classic.

It's difficult to sense time passing by and his growing up right before our eyes. But, whenever he gets a haircut, the realization hits me. Stop growing up so fast!

 

 

Can't remember what life was like before he joined our family!

Morning lattes

I have a new personal latte maker! Move over Starbucks, here comes Nico.

He gets sooo excited to make these in the morning before work, and sometimes it's the first thing he asks when he wakes up.

He doesn't even like the taste, but he still insists on having a couple sips in his own cup too.

Date day around Austin

David and I had a date day around Austin today! We made a rule that we could only go to places that we have never been. Makes it so much more fun that way! Don't judge, but we went to 5 of them...

The weather was beautiful, especially for January, and we could even enjoy sitting out on the patio at our first stop, Spiderhouse Café. This place just says Austin.

Crown and Anchor Pub was a perfect hole in the wall where our competitive natures shined during a few games of pool.

The Tavern brought back memories of David's days in McKinney with his roommates, where they were often found playing Golden Tee at the local bar, Hanks.

We stopped next at Corner Bar and worked our way closer to home.

And our final stop led us to having dinner at North by Northwest with these guys!

Such a fun, spontaneous day. We felt like we were dating again. :)

Ringing in the new year at home

It was a board games and relaxing kinda night at our home. David cooked his first recipe out of the Jack Allen's cookbook, braised spare ribs, and we had a nice night together!

I think this was the first year in quite a while that I made it up to see the ball drop at midnight! Can't say I was awake come 12:10, but hey, I made it.

Here's to this year being even better than the last.