Derby 2012

Thank goodness for modern medicine.  We've had this year's Kentucky Derby party on the calendar since last year.  I was sicker than a dog last Thursday, the day before our drive to Houston.  I awoke feeling especially crummy and thought I could stick it out one day at school.  Bad idea!!  I hadn't run fever, nor did I have any contagious seeming symptoms like fever (C'mon...it's kindergarten.  Seems like I have symptoms to something every other day, and something always seems to be "going around" in the kinder pod...)  My kids were absolutely horrible that day, despite my telling them many times (which I don't usually do), "I need your help.  Mrs. French doesn't feel good today!"  I finally gave in and called the doctor by lunch time and they worked me in that afternoon.  Three shots and a round of oral antibiotics later, I felt somewhat human by Friday at noon.  So the trip was on!  Reid thoroughly enjoyed his "DD" (DVD) and a squeezie on the way down.  The squeezie made me not feel like such a bad mommy when he had his Happy Meal at McDonald's.

At Grammy and Grumpy's house on Saturday morning,  thankfully I was feeling pretty normal.

 

 Reid was loving the attention...

 and the newfound tractor from the garage.  We weren't sure we'd be able to get him away from this one!  With Reid successfully distracted between that, a toy lawnmower (that he's allowed to take outside :), and a trike, Jason and I took off.

Our B&B was absolutely adorable, and it was only a few blocks from the Carlins' house.  Kinda made me not want to leave...especially when we were upgraded to the Austin Suite for no additional charge.  But there was dressing up to do, and good times to be had!

 

  Sadly, I was most excited about my shoes and hat, as far as the dressing up goes.  We did manage to get one good picture of us as a couple (which doesn't happen often these days!):

 Our gracious host and hostess, Dan and Cate.  These two really know how to do a Derby party!

 

First costume change (of five, I think?).  Dan enjoys dressing up more than anyone I know!

Ladies

Gentlemen

 A fun time was had by all and it was wonderful to catch up with some of our Houston friends.  We even visited our old house in Spring.  I didn't take a picture, but it was neat to reminisce about our newlywed days.  But it also made us realize we do NOT miss two things about Houston...the humidity and the mosquitoes!!

In the meantime, Reid had a blast with Grumpy's new lawnmower box:

And back at home, he's been enjoying his new boots from Aunt Lala.  Samson often supervises from the couch ;)

Growing Like a Weed

 More fun with the bird feeder...  As you can see, Reid has sprouted some of his own birdseed grass in the flowerbed by the feeder.  The backyard bunnies don't seem to mind too much as I discovered it was "mowed" last week.  Yesterday, Reid was very interested in something by the feeder.  Disgustingly enough, it was a dead bird...and sadly, Reid was very sweetly petting it (ick!!).  I apparently didn't do a very good perimeter check of the yard.  We had lots of hand sanitizer and hand washing after that!!

One of my favorite pics of Reid was when he was only a few weeks old and was asleep.  It was so sweet.  I now go in every night and check on my sweet sleeping boy, but I haven't been able to get a sleeping picture.  Here's the best I did...not so cute!

Reid is totally and completely obsessed with diggers.  Fortunately for him, virtually every road around us is under construction right now, and they're building two new neighborhoods adjacent to ours.  We see them every day, he runs around with the digger book Aunt Laura sent, and I got several diggers at a consignment sale recently. I ordered a digger DVD off of Amazon for $6 and he loves it!  Today, he was "asking" to watch it and I couldn't figure out which show he wanted to see on it.  After trying three, I just left it on one and this silly digger song came on...apparently that's what he'd been waiting for!  This kid cracks me up.  And one of the books talks about lining up the diggers at the work site each afternoon, so I guess he thinks he should do the same:

He is also into pictures lately.  I made a "This Is Reid" book and "Watch Me Grow" book for school, but I haven't been able to get them away from him! 

And he is in love with dumping water in the bath.  I am in love with the laugh...sometimes I swear he makes it come out just because he thinks he should be laughing.