Easter 2012: School Egg Hunt

Hana's preschool even celebrated Easter with an egg hunt. Parents were invited to hide the eggs, watch the hunt and then have lunch with the kids. It was a blast!

We seemed to hide hundreds of eggs and within 5-10 minutes every single one had been found!

Happy 41st Anniversary Mom & Dad!

You're an inspiration

& you're loved more

than you could ever know!

And no Santa yet...

Ninny Clause made a special delivery, which added to the ever-expanding accumulation of presents under the tree. The sad thing is, these will all be opened on Christmas Eve, leaving the tree barren. I hope Santa is up to the challenge! This afternoon I found a couple presents open and strung about in front of the tree. I asked Hana what happened and she said, "They had my name on them!" I was puzzled because there's only a couple under there for her and they are hidden (Hers are hidden upstairs, I mean, um, Santa will bring hers) so I took a closer look. "These have your name on them because they are from you, Hana!"

(pictures taken at night with my cell phone. sorry for poor quality)

Hana the Puppy's Crate

Reading

Sitting right here at Ninny & Geegaw's counter (where I did lots of homework myself) on October 9, 2011 Hana read her very first word. C-A-P. Cap. We then moved on to tap, map and nap.

The Black Eyed Pea Festival

As I mentioned before, Joe and Mom entered the Black Eyed Pea Cook off again this year.

Last year Joe made Black Eyed Pea-to Pie

 and mom, who was the reigning grand champion the two previous years, made Black Eyed Chicken Pea-chiladas.

Those delicious reci-peas won Mom first place (but not grand champion) and Joe second place. So they were back at it again this year with a couple more delicious and completely different reci-peas.

Joe made Black Eyed Pea-quitos and Pea-so.

(Black Eyed Pea-stuffed taquitos and black eyed pea-infused Rotel dip. YUM!)

Mom made Black Eyed Burgers.

(Hamburgers with black eyed peas in the meat. Delish!) 

There were only 7 entries this year, which was shocking, and once I tasted all of them, I knew it was anyone's game! Seriously, every recipe was good! I honestly can't say that about any other year. But this year was a close call. The food was judged and then it was time to serve the people while we waited to hear the results. It took a very long time for those results to come in! In the meantime, Hana passed out toothpicks to everyone.

She wore a special outfit I made just for the festival.

Hana wandered over to taste the competition's food.  ;-)

It was okay, though, it was her Ninny after all!

And Geegaw was there!

Snow cones were enjoyed.

Slides were slid down.

Even Hana's new baby named Zebra got to go down the slide.

(She got a new baby doll at the festival and he wears striped clothes so she named him Zebra.)

Faces were painted. 

Tours were given.

(Geegaw and Hana toured the oldest house in Athens that is there at the Arboretum. He told her all about it and she then gave us the tour and told us all about it - and I quote - "This is where they used to sit a hundred years ago. This oak furniture is very fragile..."

Pumpkins were decorated.

Hana showed us she might be able to help the Cowboys out.

And at the end of the day feet were very, very dirty.

(And shoes were worn the entire time!)

And the winner of the cook off? They did not have a grand champion this year, only 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. Apparently what took so long was the judges got into a heated argument over a couple of the dishes and had to re-taste. 1st place went to a lady who made Tamale dressing with black eyed peas in it, 2nd place went to mom and 3rd place went to Joe. Great job, guys!

Birthday Artwork

Lost Fort Worth Pictures

I took this picture with my cell phone while eating at Kincaids after we went to the zoo.

I forgot I brought my old camera the day we went to the museums! I came across these pictures full of fun memories so I thought I'd share.

Hana got to ride a (fake) horse and round up cattle.

The (fake) cow in the back of this truck was confusing for her, but she was very excited by the truck's lights flashing and engine sounds.

Now this was fascinating. They had an actual piece of a B-29 communication tunnel.

All the kids were lined up to "slide" though it so, of course, Hana could not be left out. There was a girl ahead of us in line who was Hana's age or older and she tried to go through herself, but ended up needing her mom to go with her because she wasn't able to pull herself through. Just like the crew did in WW II, you had to lay on your back and use your arms to pull yourself through using the rope over head. After seeing the young girl need assistance, I began telling Hana that she would probably need to go through with me, which did not please her. Miss Independent needed to do this on her own, so I assured her she could at the very least try but warned her not to get upset if she needed help. Then Geegaw offered to go through with her in place of me if she liked, but she was still determined to do it alone. She laid down and I got the camera out, ready to take pictures of her "trying," and, well, see for yourself: 

She was gone! I didn't even have time to take a picture! So much for needing help! I'm slowly learning that I should never under estimate what she can do. And she was so proud of herself!

Here are some other interesting things we saw and did. 

Hana did a little shopping in the (fake) supermarket. While other kids were filling up their shopping carts with groceries:

Hana had fun filling hers up with baskets. I guess she thought she was a Hobby Lobby. LOL!