Another Sneaky Chef Success

My little guy loves pumpkin. And even though pumpkin is more traditionally a fall food, I had to try the recipe for these Pumpkin Spice Muffins that I found on the Sneaky Chef blog the other day. Yummy!

To say Oliver liked these muffins would be an understatement! :)

Guess How Much I Love You

This may be one of my favorite books. I purchased it for Oliver before he was born and I love reading this story to my very own Little Nut Brown Hair. Oliver received a Guess How Much I Love You gift set from Clayton's co-workers just after he was born. It had this adorable little bunny in it and I chose it to be Oliver's lovey right away. He adores his bunny and wants to take it everywhere with him. I am a total germaphobe, so it is easy for me to say no because we want to keep it clean for him to have in his crib. But in reality, I don't know what we would do if we lost this cuddly Little Nut Brown Hair. I have found the gift set online but the price is downright outrageous just to have a replacement lovey. So my sweet boy, you'll just have to keep cuddling your lovey while you sleep. "I love you right up to the moon and back!"

a boy and his bunny

quick trip

Saturday morning we headed to Oklahoma for a quick trip to see Clayton's parents. This was my first time seeing their finished house and it looked great!

We stopped at Marie Callendar's in Norman for lunch. Check out Oliver's cookie; it is as big as his head!

Oliver & Grandmas playing with Oliver's cars/trucks/tractors, etc.

Grandpa gave Oliver a new police car which instantly became his new favorite. Grandpa helped him name it the Pottawatomie (not sure on spelling) Police Car.

Oliver loves tractors. We pick our hardware stores based on the availability of riding lawnmowers to ride. Here is Oliver checking out Grandpa's lawn mowing tractor.

Daddy took Oliver for a ride and although he was a bit nervous, he enjoyed himself!

Video of Oliver riding the lawnmower

Oliver on Grandma & Grandpa's cute little bridge

Oliver brought his truck all the way from Texas!

I thought all these were so cute!

Oliver finally said NO more pictures Mommy!

So, Daddy & I decided to take some of us instead! :)

We had a really fun day with Clayton's parents, however unfotunately, Oliver had a difficult night during which he probably only slept for 2 hours max. Oliver was not happy and we ended up leaving after breakfast instead of after lunch. Oliver actually slept in the car for about 1.5 hours which may be a record for him! Sorry Oliver wasn't on his best behavior Grandma & Grandpa. Oh well, I guess he can't be perfect all the time. :)

Oliver Clayton Royal is Thirty-three months old

Lately Oliver has enjoyed pretending his unzipped, un-legged pajamas are a cape.

This morning, he flew around the house for me.

Here is the video of him running around the house

I loved this one!

Oliver chose this spot at the park for a picture; great job Oliver! A cold front came through and the temp dropped 10 degrees to the low 90s. With the humidity, it was still too hot to be out for long. Then we came home and it was just as hot in our house as the AC was on the fritz. We called the company that installed our new AC a couple of years ago and they never returned the call; so we called a company located in Plano and they came out within a few hours, determined the cause of the failure, put in a quick fix, and first thing Monday morning they will be out to install a new furnace. All I care is that we have air again! Thank heavens for AC repair technicians!

Oliver's 33 month birthday present arrived today just in time: A fleet of FedEx trucks. He is so happy with them!

Oh ya, we so went Bonkers on Monday!

Oliver and I met Ace & Aunt Tricia at a fun place called Going Bonkers today. They had a huge climbing area for the kids and an arcade too. We all had a ton of fun!

Getting ready to play

Oliver found the car right away

Oliver & Ace inside the toddler climbing area

I encouraged Oliver to climb up the slide in the toddler area...oops, bad mommy!

Oliver walking through the hanging bags

Hanging on for dear life while jumping

Video of Oliver jumping

Video of Ace & Oliver jumping

Oliver peeking up through the big play ground



Video of Ace gettin his Dance, Dance Revolution groove on...Oliver had to join in

Oliver thought this might be more fun than dancing

The four of us "Going Bonkers" with out silly faces at meal time

Oliver & Ace playing air hockey -- I never knew it was such a long game

Hugging goodbye

Ace looking so innocent! :)

Oliver, Aunt Tricia & Ace

Happy Birthday Madelyn!

Oliver loves his cousin Madi so much, and we wanted to wish her a very happy 7th birthday! Have a wonderful day sweetie!

Oliver wanted me to take a picture of the poster we made in your honor this morning. We love you!

Little Mesquite Rodeo

As I type this, I can't get the words to an old favorite song of my sister's called Little Red Rodeo out of my head. Not that it has anything to do with the Mesquite Championship Rodeo, but I thought of that song as I was thinking of a the title for my post. We had a great time at the Rodeo last night. We ate junk food, Oliver "tried" cotton candy for the first time, and we cheered so loud the kids in front of kept turning around. We had pretty good seats, except that we were in the middle of our row so coming and going really wasn't an option. Oliver was entertained and interested almost the entire time. We did miss seeing the bull riding (the biggest event at a rodeo), but it was approaching 10:00 pm and as it is, we live 40 minutes from Mesquite.

I think one of my favorite parts was in between events when they had the 7-12 year olds come down for the Race for Cash. Two calves had ribbons tied to their tails and about 200 kids were down in the arena running around after them trying to get a ribbon. It was so funny, as soon as the calves saw them coming, they took off running. It took only about 30 seconds for them to be cornered, though with that many kids, I would have thought it would have been shorter. It was hilarious! The two winners received $20 and a t-shirt. Pretty good for a kid!

Shortly after the rodeo began -- Oliver was mesmerized by the horses

Most of the rodeo, Oliver was standing in our laps

The calf roping was good!

Oliver "trying" cotton candy for the first time -- ya, he licked it and said "mmm...I don't want anymore". Personally I can't stand the stuff so I don't blame him, but every kid has to at least try it, right?

A different point of view from Daddy's lap

I liked the shot of him clapping

Thanks for a great show Mequite Rodeo!

Can you say zonked out???

This picture was taken at the end of a three-hour nap from which I had to wake him...he was sleeping so peacefully, I felt bad for waking him!

On another note, Oliver tried gymastics yesterday for the first time and really enjoyed it. I just enrolled him and now we will be going on Tuesday mornings and he is pretty excited. The most amusing thing about the entire experience is that his favorite part was using the drinking fountain for the first time. Sometimes the best things are free! :)

Fireworks Extravaganza

I wish I had a fireworks extravaganza to show you. Unfortunately, our park wasn't the best place for seeing the fireworks, we could only see the tops of a few different displays. But you can't beat the walk home! :)

We snapped some pictures using the night setting on our camera while we were waiting and these ones kind of turned out. It's hard to find your target while you are aiming the camera into darkness. Oliver did love the fireworks we could see. He loved the loud booms and all the colors. Some of our neighbors also came out to join us in the park, and Oliver about talked one of their ears off. He wanted to make sure they were seeing everything he did and also wanted to know if he liked it too. I thought it was too cute. Maybe next year we will have to actually take Oliver to see a show some where. :)

When we came inside, Oliver thought he needed to try my flip flops on and his smile was too cute to resist taking a picture! :)