date night, play dates, and 2 road trips

the past 2 weeks have been insane for us.  crazy.  busy, but good.  here are some of the highlights:

chris and i had one of our **rare** sans thom date nights.  so what do we do with no child?  go to a children's place, of course!!  haha, yeah we decided to go to the aquarium.  which may seem childish, but was actually quite cool.  we saw some eels.

 and a shark

 and many beautiful rays.

our friend michelle came over to visit and we ate for the first time at pie in the sky.  i'm sure there will be many more similar outings.  it was delicious.  michelle wanted to see what thom would look like with curls.  what do you think?

amelia and arthur came to play and brought thom an awesome activity mat!  i don't think i captured his excitement in these pictures, but trust me... he loooves this thing.  thanks amelia!!

we all went to dallas to visit steffany and kevin.  we celebrated steff's birthday and went to the state fair.  i thought it only appropriate that any fair food she ate had to be topped with a candle.  i was hoping she'd eat 13 things and spell out the entire "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" with candles.  but she wasn't as ambitious as i'd hoped...

 i got closer to eating 13 things at the fair.  this corn was probably the healthiest thing i ate.  i felt sick at the end of the day.  deliciously sick.

 

we also saw a butter sculpture.  it sort of grosses me out.  you?

 and we rode the tallest ferris wheel in north america!  it was a little bit scary for me.  

 obviously thom loved it.  obviously.

 and i think these cows are beautiful.  probably the prettiest thing at the fair.  i wanted to take one home and snuggle with it.  they look so soft!

chris and i got home sunday in the late afternoon.  as we were unpacking our stuff, i got a call from my mom saying that my dad's mom, grandma "butch" (thomas) had passed away and the funeral was in 2 days.  so... thom and i packed our stuff back up and headed out monday morning.  sadly, chris had to work so he didn't get to come, but i'm planing a trip back out there so he can meet everybody.  

i was so sad when i heard that my grandma had passed.  although she was quite old (95 years!!) and had dementia, and the fact that we knew it was coming, it was still hard to take.  i loved that spunky old lady.  and i will miss her.

the silver lining of this is that the entire family except chris, aaron, and my cousin angie and her family was able to make it to the funeral.  i hadn't seen my thomas family in a long time, so it was really great to see all of them and catch up.  

 thom and matt are gonna be buddies.  i suppose they already are.  

 not everyone is in this picture, but it's my family, anne, dave, and kaitlin, and john and sue.  another silver lining?  i got my taste of autumn.  it was chilly and i loooved it.  

in other news... thom loves toys.  our neighbors let us borrow this jumparoo and it's clear that thom thinks it's great.  he's finally starting to be interested in toys.  also great, because this means that i have to spend less time entertaining him (i'm starting to run out of funny faces and other ways to make him laugh).

 and finally... today i put thom on his tummy in his boppy and left for literally, like 2 minutes.  i came back and he's over the boppy, with his tummy on the ground and his legs up in the air, like he's doing a swan dive into the carpet!  i couldn't decide if i should help him so he didn't get hurt or laugh and take a picture.  obviously, the latter option won out.  

and i helped him right after i documented it.  not exactly the pose, but... i didn't have the heart to watch him struggle while i tried to get a photo.