Curiosity lands on Mars!

I'm including this one here because it was taken earlier in the day and because it's just so cute!

We woke up Lane at around midnight to watch/listen to Curiosity land on Mars! It was awesome! Lane loves 'for specials'. Thank you, hubby, for knowing about that and sharing it with our family!

Matching monkeys

Grandma Karen got Brooke and Maggie-to-be matching outfits some months back. Now that Maggie's here we got to take pictures of them together!

Brooke and I went with Maggie and Marilyn to an event at the Botanic Gardens. Everyone nursed their babies (LOTS of people there) for a minute all together... I think it was to celebrate National Breastfeeding Awareness week. We got there 45 seconds into the minute :)! Anyway, it was neat to see AND we saw Danny and Kathy and sweet Kathy got this balloon for Brooke and I found a business that will take our used Fuzzi Bunz!

DMA with Grandpa Rufus

Grandpa Rufus joined us at the DMA for our monthly preschool class. Lane painted a skyscape and the Dallas skyline, including the building with the red pegasus on top! We played in Arturo's nest after the class. Ms. Leah is awesome!

Teardrop

Chad is very excited about building a teardrop trailer. This is the second model mockup.

Backyard fun!

Enjoying a relaxing morning watching babies in kiddie pool and sandbox.

Yay Daddy!

Chad got Brooke to sleep tonight all by himself while I was working!

YAY Daddy!!! Should we move her?

First Texas Outdoor Nature Challenge - Complete!

Texas Outdoor Nature Challenge is a program to get families out to parks to complete "missions" for two months or so starting late May. Today we did our first ever challenge/mission at Lake Lewisville Environmental Learning Area, http://www.ias.unt.edu/llela/main.htm.

I thought it was going to be way hot, but it was actually bearable and a lot of fun and I'm so glad we went!

Starting off on the Cottonwood trail to see the 1870s log cabin, smoke house, and dugout. Perfect because Lane has listened to four of the first books in the Little House on the Prairie series!

Part of our challenge was to find animal tracks, animal scat, a bird's nest, an animal's burrow, a hollow tree, birds singing, insects chirping....

Brooke on the back porch of the log cabin.

All of us on the front porch. It was actually breezy and pretty cool there!

Brooke completing her birding checklist :)! I've never seen her lay down on her stomach to draw before :)!

The water coming through Lewisville Dam was quite a site!

When we returned the challenge backpack (which was pretty cool because it had binoculars, magnifying boxes to inspect insects, a bird identification book, clipboards, pencils, maps and copies of the challenge) and our completed challenge paper, the woman working at the gatehouse put stickers on Lane's papers. She let me lift Lane in through the window to get a picture of him with her and Kimberly, the rescue dog she got last Thursday. The woman has a nice setup in there. Cold, cold AC, a puzzle under the register, tv and Kimberly.

Great day. Great family outing. Lots we did not see. I'd like to go back to see the marsh and boardwalk, to camp (who knew - just off of business 121) and to see the dam when water is coming out the BIG hole - maybe after a big, big rain!