Dazzled and Voluptuous

What's that Toni, I mean Ms. Voluptuous? You heard I was doing chores? That's right. I've got to earn my keep around here.
Here's me feeding Dazzler.



Me Me says next time I might even get to clean the stalls. Yea!

Zoo Boo

We had a family outing to the Zoo today for Zoo Boo. Our intention was to dress Mr. Man up in his costume, but that was nixed by the 80 degree weather. The grandparents will have to wait just a few more days to see him dressed up. But let me tell you, there were plenty of sweating Power Rangers and Snow Whites. I think the kid who dressed up like an egg, fried.

We heard our fill of Thriller, got enough Tootsie Rolls to feed the neighborhood kids and are now the proud owners of an original painted pumpkin by Gavin Moore. It's one of the ones that survived his tossing practice. Needless to say, we had to make a quick exit from the Zoo's pumpkin patch.

Here's a few favorite pictures from the day. None of them contain actual zoo animals other than the two cute monkeys.

Belated Birthday and Bosom Buddies

We celebrated Granddaddy's birthday late- way late, but I guess it worked in his favor to get to celebrate for a solid month. It's kind of fun that way. When we finally got together, it was a racing good time.
As the Moore cousins are growing and able to play a little better together, there are the ups and then the downs. Gavin used to "pat" oldest Moore boy Ayden on the head in good fun, but only one was having any fun. Now youngest Moore boy Logan wanted to clear things up a bit. Both were all smiles for a while. Aren't they cute in their matching hats?
Then the playing turned into a bit more than one could handle.
Gavin will make a good big brother one day because he was awfully patient for a while with Logan's "patting."
In the end, they cleared things up and were jolly good friends.
I couldn't resist including this pic of Gavin hamming it up.
Happy Birthday Granddaddy!

This Is The Way We Patch The Pumpkins

We got around to doing one of my favorite fall activities- going to the pumpkin patch. It ranks right up there above making the first pot of Moore chili which we did today. So...we actually went to the pumpkin patch last weekend while we were in Dallas, but for blogging's sake, we'll pretend it was just yesterday.

There were dozens, probably more like thousands of pumpkins lining every inch of the Dallas Arboretum, even creating the cutest pumpkin house complete with a pumpkin and gourd garden.

We had a little more success at catching some cute pics of Gavin this year than we did last year.







Not long after this picture is when we notice Gavin had "leaked" all over his pants, so we promptly ended the photo shoot, changed clothes and just explored the rest of the gardens.

Sweet Sixteen...Months

While one day all too soon we will no longer measure your precious time on earth in months, we will always treasure the days. You just get more sweeter, cuter and fun with each passing minute.

Mornings

State Fair

For years I've wanted to go to the Texas State Fair. After all, shouldn't every true Texan see Big Tex in person at least once in their life? Well, I'm finding quite a few Texans haven't visited this one-of-kind event, so consider us your tour guides.

Let me just say that if you are going to try to make it to the last weekend of this year's State Fair, then get there early. We were there after the gates opened, but a little before the booths officially opened. It was really nice not to fight the crowds.

First up, Gavin helped out at the farm. He had done something similar to this at last February's Houston Livestock Show, but eight months of growing makes a huge difference on how much more he was able to enjoy it. He watered and picked peaches.

Planted pea seeds.

And drove the tractor.
And a run down of just a few other things we did: ate lots of food, walked it off, saw a saloon made of butter, watched a professional dog dancing show, took in the view of prized canned goods, ate some more, wondered why they were giving out blue ribbons for collectibles and secretly thinking about prized possessions we could enter next year, napped in the stroller (at least one of us did), burned more calories searching for a lost hat Mr. Man chucked out of the stroller, saw Oprah's camera crew, listened to Celtic rock music, and ate a not so delicious glass of fried Coke. Yum!

Can You Feel It?

Fall. It's my most favorite time of the year. The air is a little crisper (and I mean little in the hot South), leaves and jewel tone colors adorn everything, and a change seems to creep in unlike any other season. Yes, I like it even more than Winter and the glory of Christmas. It's probably because people seem to be a little more thankful and less commercial but for an, oh so brief, period of time.

And sometime during Fall, usually not at the beginning like I would hope, but about a 1/3 of the way through, the temps drop low enough here to consider making the first traditional pot of Moore chili and that ceremonious cup of hot chocolat. Yes, that is chocolat instead of chocolate. It has more of a sophisticated sound to it don't ya' think?

I'm probably just a little antsy, but I have already bought the new pack of marshmallows to replace the old, smooshed together leftovers from last year. And, a brand new box of reduced calorie hot chocolat. Those things have expiration dates if you didn't already know.

But alas, when my dashboard read a cool 100 degrees (it actually only reached a high of 92 degrees today), my hopes dashed away from that warm cup of marshmallowy goodness. I mean chocolat goodness. Hopefully no one is keeping track of my marshmallow to hot chocolat ratio. It's kind of like when the cousins would brag that we drank coffee at Nana's, but really it was 95% milk and 5% coffee. I've heard someone at Dell still drinks it that way.

But I digress and will endure for a few more days until our cold front comes to rescue us from the "marshmallow hits the pavement and melts" kind of weather. Until then, I will be looking for a new fall hot chocolat recipe (feel free to send me your favorite) and trying to usher in cooler weather with a reminder of last year's Fall.

Incognito

I love it that our little boy loves hats. I mean one day he's a pirate, the next an Amish boy and another day Frank Sinatra. With few accessories for boys, I'll take what I can get. And so will Me Me. Just recently, Gavin modeled several personas for her.

The candy corn cutie
Wonderfully wacky werewolf
And the Ghastly Gavin
So what are we going to do tomorrow Me Me?