The Strawberry Patch

Last weekend I wanted to get out of the house and let Cooper do something fun.  We've been prepping our house to sell, so most weekends have been spent doing house repairs, yard work and generally un-fun things for a two year old.  We're finally on the market, so other than keeping the house spotless, we've found ourselves with a little more free time.

Jason had a bike ride that morning, so I decided to take Cooper to a strawberry patch.  The most popular one in Houston is over an hour away and I wasn't that committed.  Instead, we made a shorter 30 minute drive.  Unfortunately, the berries weren't great because of the massive amount of rain the weekend before.  But Cooper loved it!  We started by looking at a few strawberries, leaving the very green ones or borderline rotten ones on the vine.  He stuck by me for a while, but ended up running ahead.

I have a feeling some perfectly good berries ended up on the ground - he kept pulling them off, yelling "I found one!"  Then he followed that with "This one is yucky" and threw it down.

I planned on making ice cream or frozen yogurt with our loot, but realized my ice cream maker is in storage.  Shannon was nice enough to loan hers...only I forgot to buy 1 ingredient.  I ended up throwing together some strawberry bread.  Never fear, I'll be buying strawberries Sunday to make frozen yogurt...how else will I eat the huge tub of plain yogurt in the fridge?

My Little Cowboy

I'm in big trouble.  I knew I was in for it when Cooper developed an infatuation for Peanut.  All of his horses are named Peanut.  Except one brown little one that is named Big Cat.  Right now, I'm thinking we have 17 Peanuts in the house.

Then came the rodeo.  Or radio, as Cooper calls it.  Lindsey took him one night when I had to work and all weekend he talked about going back to the radio with Aunt Sassy.  Then we took him a few weekends ago.  Twice.  And Lin too him again last week.  He has no clue that the radio pulled out of town yesterday and I'm certain that my sister was standing on Fannin watching it leave with tears rolling down her face.  The good news, it comes back in a year.

Here is a photo from the night Lindsey took Cooper.  Doesn't that look like a little boy who is excited?

For some reason, we pick one of the nastiest, coldest, rainiest days to go to the rodeo each year.  The night we took Cooper happened to be just that.  By the time we got there, we were all pretty wet & cold, but that didn't stop his fun.  See how wet his jeans were on the bottom?

Lin bought Cooper a lightsaber.  Odd choice for a toy at the rodeo, but since I'm hoping he'll be a Star Wars fan, it works for me.

We went back the next day so that we could do a little shopping, eat some of the great food and let Cooper see the animals.  He was fired up.

We walked through the animal exhibits and did a little shopping before Zeth & Cooper headed out to check out the carnival.

Cooper & Zeth got on one of the carnival rides together.  Jason & I both told Zeth not to spin it around thinking Cooper would be afraid.  Instead, they got on and he did exactly that.  And Cooper loved it.  I tried to snap a photo of his ear to ear grin, but they were moving pretty fast.

Shortly after, we grabbed lunch and headed home.  I turned around to check on a very quiet little boy and caught this.  Pops bought him a new hat and he wasn't letting go.

A Baby Shower

A few weeks ago I helped host a baby shower for a little girl that I can.not.wait. to meet.  When I found out that Bridget was pregnant, I squealed a little inside at the opportunity to host her shower.  Then, when we found out she was having a girl I jumped on Pinterest and started planning.  (have I mentioned that Pinterest may be the death of me?)

We hosted the shower at my mom's house and did a salad buffet.  Most of the salad recipes were from old family or church cookbooks.  My favorite was a taco salad - taco toppings (lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cheese), seasoned taco meat, Frito chips & Catalina dressing.  When I first heard about it, I was skeptical...but I loved it.

We also made Hummingbird Cupcakes using the cake recipe from my favorite cookbook ever - The Second Typically Texas Cookbook.  My aunt bought a copy for me as a wedding gift and I'm so glad, because I can't find it anywhere to purchase as a gift.  My mom's copy is well used - cake batter stains, pages glued together with some old baked good & torn pieces just lying in the book.  We used Annie's idea for the pineapple flowers, which were a huge hit.

Cooper & his cousin Haley helped Bridget open gifts.  That is going to be one well dressed little girl!

I was so honored to be a part of her shower.  I can't wait to hold that little baby girl.