Dallas Arboretum

Last weekend we headed to the Arboretum with my mom's group and had a blast. That is one of the most beautiful places I have been to in a long. There are huge gardens filled with so many colors and varieties of flowers. The azaleas and tulips were in bloom, and the weather was picture perfect - sunny and 80. The Arboretum is situated on the shores of White Rock Lake and it's just really picturesque - it makes me take back everything I've said about Dallas not being as pretty as other places we have lived. Here are some photos of Hayden that I took while we were there.

Fort Worth Zoo!

Nate has been out of town all weekend, entertaining clients at the ranch, so I took Hayden to the Fort Worth Zoo with my mom's group yesterday, and we had the best time. I think Hayden actually could see the animals, because he would reach out of his stroller toward the animals and squeal in delight. He seemed particularly interested in the giraffes. There was a baby giraffe who was showing off and running around his habitat, and all the babies really enjoyed that. We also saw tigers, lions, cheetahs, rhinos, elephants, black bears and assorted reptiles and birds. It was a cool and chilly day, but I think that was probably for the best because I can only imagine how hot and crowded it is at the zoo on summer day.

Now that Hayden is fully recovered from his stomach bug, we have been giving him some table foods. I typically will give him some of my bread or potatoes if I'm having any, and he's also gotten corn kernals, apples, bananas and a piece of muffin. I'm so paranoid that he will choke, so I'm making the pieces incredibly tiny, but he does have 4 teeth now and he appears to be chewing and gumming all of his foods, so I may start to gradually introduce more food. He is getting so big! He continues to crawl more quickly every day, and he is standing all the time and getting into everything he shouldn't be getting into. We have our baby gates and Nate is going to be installing them when he gets home this afternoon (I hope!).

Happy Easter 2008

Hayden celebrated his first Easter this weekend and his grammy and grampy Mueller were here visiting from Ohio. We thought he was over his flu bug, but unfortunately he ended up getting sick again, and he spread the virus to his grandparents :( So Easter was a bit sick in our household. Luckily, Hayden finally seems to have kicked it for good (I hope!), but the aftermath is not pretty. He is very needy and used to being cuddled constantly, and he wakes up at all hours of the night looking for a hug from mom and dad. So we are working on sleep habits now :)

He is just such a cutie pie these days. He is crawling everywhere, very quickly, and is pulling up and getting into everything. He currently likes to crawl into the kitchen and look at his reflection in the dishwasher. It's a bonus when he gets to play with tupperware. He has his top two teeth now and he is always doing strange things with his mouth and tongue - I think because it feels so odd to now have 4 teeth. He really bit Nate the other night when Nate put his thumb in Hayden's mouth. Sharp!

Hayden got so many gifts for Christmas this year that we saved a few so they wouldn't all come at once. We saved this train from his Mammaw Debbie until he could crawl. You turn it on and it moves across the floor and he just chases after it and laughs and laughs.

First Flu :(

Hayden successfully got through his first flu bug. It was not fun, but we made it. Unfortunately, Nate and I both also got sick, so it was quite an unpleasant few days here. And it was raining like crazy so we were all cooped up, and it was just not good. Finally today the sun came out and we were able to venture outside for some fresh a ir and it felt great! Hayden's grammy and grampy arrive tonight from Ohio, so luckily the house is finally germ free.

We took a few videos of Hayden being a wild boy and climbing all over every piece of furniture in sight. He is also becoming a super fast crawler. We are definitely putting the baby gates up this weekend because he seems to beeline straight for the tile floor in the kitchen. Apparently he is going to be a cook like his father :) He is in love with the dish washer too!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Well it's halfway through March and Hayden has been very busy. He is officially a crawler (and a roller, a climber, a tumbler). My grandparents (Hayden's great-grandparents) arrived 2 days ago from Wisconsin and he decided to save his "real" crawl for them. Until then he had only executed an army crawl, so it was pretty exciting for everyone that he waited for an audience to just suddenly zoom across the room (I think he was zoned in an electrical cord - why do babies always want to play with things that they can't have?!?). He has also pulled himself to standing on a bar stool and in the bathtub (much to my horror).

We had a St. Patty's Day brunch on Saturday for the families in my mom's group and we managed to line all the babies up again for a photo in front of the flowers. It was a bit harder this time to get them to sit still because most of them are crawling now. But of course Hayden had to sit next to his girlfriend Emma :) They definitely make a cute pair.







And we will leave you with a climbing montage:

Snow Day in Dallas!

We got our second snow of the season today in Texas. It started with freezing rain at about noon, and quickly transitioned to massive snowflakes that fell all afternoon. I think in total we got about 5 inches, with more on the way tonight. It's pretty exciting, so we got Hayden dressed up in his snowsuit and took him out to play. As you can see from the photos below, he was less than impressed with the cold! But the dogs had a blast running around out there - I think they miss it!

He crawls! Well sort of....

Well sort of :) He definitely a master of the army crawl. He doesn't go anywhere too quickly, but he gets the job done eventually. It's so adorable to see him gain his independence, and he just is SO proud of himself when he gets somewhere.

We also took him to the Dallas World Aquarium this weekend. It was so cute! He loved the rainforest exhibit, and just kept craning his neck to take everything in. He also loved the walk-through tunnel under the shark and sting ray exhibit. There were sharks just cruising along the glass right overhead, which Hayden thought was pretty exciting. We also saw manatees, eels, sea horses, tropical fish, a leopard, flamingos, crocodiles and snakes.