Dylan's Dump Truck

Here are some pictures to go along with the video I already posted of Dylan opening and playing with his dump truck.

Fort Bend County Fair Parade

Lily, Dylan, and I went to the Fort Bend County Fair Parade this morning! It was so much fun. It seems like Lily probably should have been to a parade sometime before, but I can't think of ANY other parades I've taken her to, and she didn't really seem to know what to expect before it started. So I guess this was a first for both of the kids! There are quite a few high schools in our county, so there were several marching bands throughout the parade. The kids would dance and clap whenever they heard the music. Lily enjoyed seeing horses, fair royalty wearing tiaras (princess crowns!), and costumed characters like Clifford, Elmo, Mickey, Minnie, and Ronald McDonald. Dylan liked the horses and the fire trucks the most. The parade was pretty long, lasting over an hour. Some of the floats had people passing out advertisement information, but only a few of them had candy. And they didn't throw the candy from the floats like I remember from when I was a kid - they walked along the side of the street, handing it to the kids. But we were right on the curb, so Lily did get a couple pieces of candy, which she thought was pretty neat. I hadn't told her about it ahead of time, so she was surprised. It was a fun morning!

Zoo

It was too hot to go to the zoo the last part of the summer, but the weather has finally started to cool off a very little bit.  The mornings are at least bearable in the shade now, so the kids and I headed to the zoo for a few hours yesterday.  Many of the animals were very active, and the kids both had a lot of fun.  When Dylan has been to the zoo in the past you could tell that he was enjoying himself, but you couldn't necessarily tell what exactly he was interested in.  On this visit to the zoo, though, he was very excited about the animals and waved to most of them.  The orangutans were especially entertaining yesterday.  The youngest one grabbed a turtle from the pond to play with.  He rolled around on the ground with this poor turtle, covered it up with cellophane gift wrap (the remnants from another orangutan's 30th birthday present, I think), laid on top of it, and even sat right on top of the turtle's shell.  The young one and also the larger orangutan both came right up to the window to pose for visitors' cameras, and they seemed to really enjoy having the little kids get up close, literally face to face with them.  We also saw Baby Baylor the elephant interacting with 'big brother' Tucker and also Tess, Methai, and his mother Shanti.  Staying at the elephant exhibit for awhile is really fun, watching them all interact with each other.  We also noticed two new statues outside the aquarium, so of course we had to take pictures with them!  Lots of  pictures from this visit - we had a great time!

Dylan's First Haircut

Dylan's curls were starting to make him look a little like Bozo the clown, the way they stuck out over his ears.  So Daddy gave him his first haircut this afternoon!  Mommy didn't even know they were in the bathroom cutting his hair, so I think it's a little shorter than I would have asked him to cut it.  But it's very much a nice, clean cut little boy haircut.  He looks SO much older without his curls!  I suppose that's appropriate, though, since he's turning 1 in just a couple of weeks.  What a big boy.

Little Pressure Washer

Lily helped Daddy pressure wash the fence.

Lily's First Day at Preschool

Well, the day has finally come... Lily is officially a Preschooler!  She has been talking about school for months, ever since we registered her in the springtime.  Then there were a couple of play-days at the school over the summer, so the place has already been established in her mind as one of the best places to go to have fun.  So she was very excited to go to school this morning.

When we arrived at her classroom, she acted like she'd been to school hundreds of times before - she somehow knew exactly where to put her lunch bag and happily placed her snack in the snack basket.  She found her name by the hooks and hung up her backpack all by herself, then found her place at the table and took a seat so I could take a picture.  She gave me a quick hug and ran off to play with the other kids.  No teary goodbye from this little girl!  Mommy, on the other hand, went to the car and cried for awhile.  After already having cried a few times while getting Lily ready for school.  Goodness gracious, you'd think she was moving off to college, as bent out of shape as I was this morning!

Don't mistake my tears, though.  They were mostly happy tears.  I'm incredibly excited for Lily... She'll have so many great experiences at school, making new friends and learning all sorts of new things.  She will love school, and her being in school will give Dylan some one-on-one time that he deserves too.  Lily going to school is a good thing for all of us.  Yet at the same time, I'm just not ready for her to be such a big-girl, so grown up.  Time is going WAY too fast these days.

At the end of the school day, I arrived at the classroom a few minutes early.  I was able to observe Lily in her class without her knowing I was there at first, which was fun.  The teacher was reading a book to the class, and Lily was in the middle of the group of kids.  After the story was finished and Lily saw me, she was really excited to give me hugs and tell me all about her day.  The last three pictures below are from the end of the day.  She had a great first day at school!  And she was worn out - she took a nice long nap after school today, even though she usually doesn't take a nap at all.  Preschool must be hard work!

Lily and Daddy

Lily and Daddy took a picture of themselves with the webcam. Cute!