Shoes, sticker, rainforest, decorating cookies

Justin was gone from the house a couple weeks ago for 5 days. Though Derek and I weren't at the house for 3 of those days, we were able to completely transfer the "nursery" to a big boy room. Photos of that to come soon, but I had to show you why I had to go to the Container Store for some shoe caddies. Have you ever seen such a thing? He has more shoes than Derek. Now, 2/3 of these are hand-me-downs, but still. When Justin saw this line of shoes prior to the shoe caddy, he sighed and said, "Oh Mommy, you put them in a line!" He was truly overjoyed to see his mommy putting things in a straight line like he does.

Don't know why we are obsessed with giant stickers on the belly, but he came home with this after eating at Fuddruckers one Tuesday night with Derek when they were getting out of the house before biblestudy.

One weekend we basically had nothing to do in the evenings. A rarity for us. So we decided to go to the Rainforest Cafe that just opened in the Galleria. I thought he would love being with all the animals. At first he was cautious with the big tree and the "scary eyes".

But then he warmed up and was eventually jumping for joy when it would talk to him.

I completely underexposed this photo and almost ruined it trying to brighten it up. But it captured his expression when a thunderstorm started while we were waiting for our food. The lights flickered, the elephants and tigers started making a ruckus, and the whole place seemed like it shook.

My very concerned son put his hand on my arm and whispered, "We need to get out of here guys!" He repeated it probably three times during the duration of the meal. Derek and I were dying laughing. And in case you thought they were doing face painting, they weren't. Oh no - we had done that at home (the butterfly was done by his father). And we wore that face to the Galleria - I obviously didn't care enough to wash it off. People probably thought we had come from a carnival or the Children's Museum, and I didn't correct them.

I promise we had a fun time. I had the best strawberry and spinach salad that was their special on the menu. It was yummy and healthy. It was one of those days that I had not even brushed my hair the whole day. Maybe there wasn't that much humidity or something.

Aunt Kaki brought back a fun treat from the Pottery Barn Outlet earlier in the summer. Sports themed cookie cutters and fun sprinkles to go with it. So one afternoon we busted it out.

It calls for a special kind of cookie dough, but Miss Smarty Pants said we would just do the roll and bake cookie dough from the grocery store.

I think this was supposed to be a basketball player. Yep, the shapes didn't keep their form, but I talked each one up like Justin was crazy for not seeing what it was.

Which by the way, my mom's neighbor, Karen Yowell, sent home this Pillsbury Easy Frost with my mom that we used to decorate the cookies. It's like whipped cream in a can that you don't keep in the fridge and it easily comes out. No more half-used can of cold icing that you have to thaw to use again. It rocked! Not to mention that my little artist had a blast doing his own creations.

We had enough leftover that he makes one every night after he eats ALL his dinner.

I recently went to the PBK outlet as well and brought back these number cookie cutters. We made jello and cut out the numbers with it. I copied that idea from Katie.

The shapes were much more legible than the cookies.

He's never been a jello lover, but nothing like eating a number 4 with red dye No. 40 food coloring (for all you health nuts out there - that sentence was for you).

And please notice the very large tattoo on his arm. We had dinner with the Braniffs the weekend prior and the tattoo has nicely stayed on for DAYS, including promotion Sunday at church. Did I mention that he has one on each arm? At least it's Lightning "Matween" and Mater.....


I leave you with this adorable way of presenting watermelon for the coming holiday from Everyday Celebrating.