This is a special post for Jennifer. There was a really windy evening recently & I told Jennifer I was worried about falling branches. She scoffed at me & said I was being silly. Well, here's Brandon standing next to a huge branch laying under a tree the next day. Can you imagine that thing falling on you??? Ouch!Jennifer - don't worry - I'll stop pointing out fallen branches eventually.

We recently went bowling at the Millenium Bowl. I'm lame & forget to pull out my camera until AFTER Rich, Regina & Jackson had left - sorry guys... Anyway - here are a few pictures of those remaining when I DID remember to get the camera out.

It's interesting to see how differntly everyone releases the ball. Tyrus has great form & alot of power. This alley shows the speed of your ball on the overhead monitors. Tyrus clocked some impressive speeds.

Nick, of course, beat us all. But he only beat me by 3 points (hehehe) After many many frames without a kiddie ball hill, I finally managed to nab one. It mades it SO much easier. When Brandon has to roll the ball himself we somtimes wonder if it will even make it to the pins it rolls so slowly. Seriously it was painful to watch/wait.


Laedyn obviously had a good time watching everyone bowling ... or is she just learning to pose for the camera from her big brother?!? We all know what an expert HE is! Yet another example of Brandon's hamminess...
The flash really made for a bad picture, but turning it black & white made major improvements to the exposure...Besides - I HAD to post that cheesy grin!

We had planned to hang out & watch election returns last night, but Mother Nature intervened. We had quite a storm and all the local stations had on nothing but storm coverage. Luckily the tornadoes that wreaked havoc in neighboring areas missed Little Rock completely. The storm that did come thru was short but strong. Heavy rain, strong wind, lightning & very loud thunder. Brandon had trouble sleeping the rest of the night. He came into our room, scared, several times. I guess next time they're showing constant weather updates related to severe weather we shouldn't let him watch. As you can see from this picture, he's looking kind of worried.When it first started coming down, I went out on the back porch to take a little video. You can kind of see the wind flinging the rain around. The actual thunder was MUCH louder than what the camera was able to pick up.

Jennifer & Mark came over to watch the Superbowl on Sunday. I made chili & hot wings, Nick cut fresh veggies, Jennifer made cheese dip (the best ever), and Mark brought York peppermint patties, hershey kisses & beer. Brandon brought out his crazy velvet top hat & we all took turns tyring it on. You'll remember it from Nick's Halloween costume...


Brandon had fun hamming it up for someone other than me... Jennifer bought a new digital camera & all the superbowl pics were taken with it. It's a Canon Powershot - but a few steps up from mine.

As you can see, Brandon was enjoying Superbowl food - chips & cheese dip.

Nick was very comfortable sitting in the desk chair. In fact he looked so comfy, that Romeo & the kids joined him. I hopped into the picture just so it would be a complete family portrait.

This walk led us across some railroad tracks and under Cantrell Road (highway 10). Some old supports run adjacent to the railroad tracks. I thought it looked nice with the downtown skyline in the background.
Mark decided to play balance beam...Jennifer stepped out too.This is along the bike trail that goes under Cantrell Road near Dillard's. On the underside is an old "No Parking" sign bolted to the underside of the road. That's what Jennifer is looking up at. I thought these cross supports looked interesting with the light and shadows and dead vines.
There were some lower ones further along, so I had Nick put Brandon up on them. Brandon wasn't too thrilled about it - he thought it was scary. But he's a good sport & smiled so I could take a picture.
Nick pushing Brandon & Laedyn on the stroller near downtown.
It was getting too late to go any further, so we turned around at the next stop light, went up to Markham & home.

Nick led a recent neighborhood walk & took us to a really really steep hill. We all came down very carefully. Mark helped by holding onto the front of the stroller just in caseThen Jennifer decided to go back to the top of the hill! She just can't get enough of those suckers...
Nick & Mark stared back up the hill at Jennifer's craziness...
Brandon wanted to go back up too, so we let him follow her. He got about half way and was scared to continue, so Mark had to go after him. Brandon refused to wait until Jennifer was on the way back down - he just stood there crying pitifully until Mark got to him. Poor thing! It's hard to tell in the picture, but just past where Brandon stops it gets much steeper than it is up until then. If you're going up, you can practically put your hand out in front of you & touch the ground without bending over at all...

Laedyn's growing up so fast. She's started using the highchair instead of the Bumbo seat and bouncy seats now. She really likes it with the big tray to hold her toys and cheerios (yes - she's eating cheerios too).

http://www.papajan.com/

This a cool website I ran across looking for mazes for Brandon. It's full of printable activites for kids. Brandon will sit and do 20 mazes at a time, so I need to stock up. They also have coloring sheets, letters & numbers worksheets, dot-to-dots, and cut & pastes pages.

Friday got to be a little icey here in Little Rock. Nick stayed home in the morning with the kids while I went to the office briefly. When I came home, Brandon wanted to go out to see the ice. He called the little icicles "crystals" and had a great time breaking them off the car. After he had finished his examination, we went back in and painted together. We each did a snowman ornament for next years Christmas tree and then he did 3 little winter animal knick knacks - very colorfully...

We went out to dinner at Shotgun Dan's last night. The only reason we went out in the first place was because I had to buy a new computer for work - my laptop serial port was having issues with my large flat screen monitor. It's been PINK for several weeks. I'd just got to the point that I'd had enough of the pink. Anyway, Best Buy needed to install some more memory on it, so we had to leave the computer there for 1 1/2 hours. Instead of driving home & back again, we just decided to grab dinner. Jennifer was with us because she was looking to buy a digital camera. She made up her mind & then ... they were out of stock. I took her to North Little Rock to pick one up at lunchtime today. She's pretty excited.

Since dinner out wasn't a planned affair, I didn't have any "out to dinner supplies" for Brandon, so we had to improvise. I made him grids of dots and he had fun connecting them. After dinner he gave them to the waitress & asked her to hang them on the refrigerator. He thought that was standard since a waitress at Vino's did it for him once.
Jennifer was trying to listen to the President on TV. Of course Brandon could care less about George W, so he was talking away & asking Jennifer to play connect the dots with him.As we were waiting for a really long checkout line to clear out, I had some fun embellishing Jennifer's pizza box. Much hilarity ensued...

We were just hanging out and I wanted some shots of Brandon & Laedyn together. Laedyn wouldn't look at the camera - she was too busy watching Brandon. Check out her cool boots. Goo gave them to her for Christmas. They're really nice because they're higher around the ankle so she has a harder time pulling them off. It seems like we're forever hunting down her lost footwear. She just loves to pull it off and chew on it. It's especially challenging on walks. There have been several times that Nick has had to run back along our path hunting for her slippers or socks. Brandon has become really good at keeping an eye out for fallen footwear as we travel. Aren't they cute?
Daddy's girl :-)
She's good at sitting now as long as there's something in front of her to keep her occupied. She's really interested in these peek-a-blocks, but they're a little big for her to pick up yet. This was one of Brandon's toys when he was a baby.

The other night Jennifer had other obligations so the rest of us walked without her. Anyway, we decided to go the opposite direction (we usually walk through Hillcrest). We walked all around the state Capitol grounds, and read all the memorial signs. Jennifer is probably glad she wasn't with us as she reads that bit of info!!! I didn't have my camera with me, so I kept nabbing Mark's. Next time I'll be sure to bring my camera if it's daylight- even when we're in our own neighborhood!

Here's Laedyn all ready to go, but before she's wrapped up in layers of cozy blankets and all that's visible is her pacifier, her nose and the whites of her eyes. Her knit hat has a little kitty face on it and kitty ears. Too cute. She gets really excited when we're getting ready to go out for our walks ... then she sleeps for the majority of the time we're out!
This is the new memorial to the Little Rock Nine - the African American kids who first integrated into the all white Central High School. Little Rock had alot of activities honoring the group at the 50th anniversary of the integration last year. For those of you who have not been to Little Rock, Central High School, which is still in operation, is also a National Historic Site. They have a visitor center and offer tours of the school. If we're still living in our current nieghborhood when Brandon reaches high school age, he'll attend Central. Brandon enjoyed getting a closer look at the sculpture while the rest of us read the surrounding signs. There were nine signs, each one a quote from one of the Little Rock Nine. This monument is on the north side lawn of the capitol building.

Directly behind it, under that conctrete structure, is a replica of the Liberty Bell. Apparently all 50 states have one. They were made by the same bellmaker that made the original Liberty Bell that's in Philadelphia. The U.S. government gave one to each state in honor of the bicentennial and they were all rung simultaneously during a nationwide celebration. Do you know where the one in your state is displayed? There's also a time capsule displayed next to the bell. It was sealed during the bicentannial celebration and is scheduled to be opened in 2075.

This was taken on the Capitol Mall which is directly behind the capitol building - to the West. It was nice and deserted when we were there, but during the week it is impossible to find a place to park along there. The buildings house various government departments like the AR Department of Education. There's also a very nice library along here. (I only know that because I was sent there to get some legal information when I was clerking at Chisenhall, Nestrud & Julian). Most of the buildings do not have signs identifying what's in them - at least as far as I could see. Along the center of the Capitol Mall is a wide grassy lawn. It's on a slight slope and Brandon wanted to run all the way to the other end. I told him he could go to the first sidewalk.

Here's where he stopped to turn around at the first sidewalk ... and I've zoomed the camera a bit to make him a little bigger!

This giant boulder, weighing 20 odd tons, was quarried near Little Rock and placed on the Capitol grounds in honor of 100 years of statehood. Needless to say, it's been there awhile. Brandon and Mark are standing on the back side of it, which has alot of smaller rocks mortered together to form some kind of support for the actual boulder, which is smooth. Since it's on a slight hill, it's probably meant to prevent the boulder from rolling down that nice grassy lawn that Brandon ran down and back up. Do you see Nick peeking out from behind the boulder? He was hoping to escape being in the photograph. Haha...I'm very patient. There's another boulder across the steet, closer to the Capitol. It's an example of bauxite which was (is???) mined in Arkansas. The boulder was placed in rememberance of Arkansas' contributions to the war effort in WWII. Apparently Arkansas was one of the largest supplies of aluminum. Who knew. All in all a very educational walk ... I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit too.