Found a Peanut

"Found a peanut,

found a peanut,

found a peanut just now!

I just now found a peanut…

or, more like 15 thou!"

Happiness Is...

You may remember the Charlie Brown series of books and movies from years ago: "Happiness is…A Warm Puppy," or a Warm Blanket, or Snow Days. Or in our case, Happiness is a sweet little boy watching Snoopy for the first time and giggling his little head off.

Watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" the other night, Matty cracked up at Snoopy hopping on his grumpy owner's bald head so much we rewound it 3 times. This was the 3rd viewing so his laughter is a bit diluted but it makes me smile all the same.

Need a little Christmas?

Well we did, so this weekend we headed to the Lenny Hunt Christmas Tree lot over by our old house for the 6th year in a row to pick out our special tree. Matty had a grand time playing hide-and-seek in the trees! Unfortunately the lot is on a busy corner and his parents were afraid he was coming a little too close to having to dodge the oncoming traffic, so we did end up spoiling some of his fun.

But if you get the happy pictures, isn't that all that matters?

Texas Turkeys

That was us this Thanksgiving! A bunch of fat and happy birds, strutting around without a care in the world! A holiday in Austin is really the best vacation of all. Fun and family, lots of eating and drinking, sleeping and playing. The ultimate battery recharge and chance to reconnect as a family. Patsy cooked for weeks leading up to our arrival so there was little slaving to be done in the kitchen, but we ate like kings nevertheless! She has the holiday-hosting thing down pat and I plan to follow her lead myself at future holidays (as only an amateur kitchen-comedianne can).

But eating was not the only thing we did. We had lots of chances for play. On Wednesday of course after our arrival, it was off to "Oh My Goodness" house for blocks, bubbles and Patsy's childhood organ. And her backyard is the perfect playground for a small child, his dinosaurs and his imagination! But the most fun feature to the backyard is a "pogo-swing" you might remember from our Christmas card last year. Last year all Matty could do was barely hold on and not fall, but not this year! He was flung around that backyard like a flying frisbee and loved every second of it! In fact it looked so fun, Randi and I were not to be counted out in the fun and managed to hike ourselves up there and get in touch with our own inner children!

Thursday morning, Patsy and I took Matty to the playground for a bit of energy-burning. But my favorite part of the outing was the long nature walk from the car down by the creek. Matty stopped to observe every rock and stick, and as a typical boy all but refused to walk on the path, and braved the rough terrain instead. Along the way we spotted a family Patsy knew down in the creek with all kids and their dog. They were picking up litter on the gorgeous Thanksgiving morning. They said, "for Thanksgiving we are giving back to the earth." I loved that! They also managed to find a dead snake, which they also gave back to the earth!

Then on the the way back to the car, there was an all-too-perfect old live oak that inspired me for a quick photo shoot. I love this picture of our sweet bouncing little boy, dangling from the wise and steady oak.

Friday brought even more fun with a trip to Barton creek, a great playground with an open-air train that rides around for about 30 minutes, complete with Zippy the clown! Poor Matty waited in line for about a half hour to get his dinosaur balloon animal, when our train arrived and we had to go. Bless his heart, he was next in line! But it was fun to watch Zippy not-so-zippily making balloon animals, flowers and swords for other people's children!

Matty also loved a flock of people-friendly pigeons in front of the park's concession stand. There must have been dozens of birds, performing for food. They were so comfortable with all the kids and commotion, one little boy was picking them up, and he let Matty give him a pat on the head.

As you can see there was no shortage of fun. The rest of the time we snuggled, read books, watched the Longhorns conquer the Aggies for maybe the last time. Life was good.