Imagination blossoms in Dallas

The weekend before Jack was born, Little C, Mom and myself hitched up the wagon for a trip to Dallas to visit my mom's parents and a few college girlfriends.

Our first stop was to see my friend Lindy who just had her (ADORABLE!) second little one in October. We had visited them back in August and her daughter Reese and Carter hit it off famously, so it took them no time at all to pick up where they left off playing like old friends. Carter at one point had a cup and spoon and was 'eating' out of the cup with the spoon...so cute to see him using his imagination. It was however not-so-cute when he freaked out at me holding Lindy's baby. I thought for sure it was a foretaste of what was to come when baby Jack arrived, but luckily it seems it was an isolated incident.

The rest of the time we mainly tried to visit with my mom's parents. This proved to be a challenge since it was a REALLY cold weekend - it was actually the weekend it snowed here in Houston, and mom practically drove through a blizzard to get from the south side of Houston to my house to meet up with us on Friday, and even though Dallas didn't have any snow, the temperature made it really difficult to spend any time out side. Visiting hours at the independent living facility where my grandparents live don't really float the munchkin's boat in the entertainment department and a park is usually our go-to activity to break things up, but was out of the quesiton this trip. So, desperate for a little kid-friendly activity, we hit up a local pet shop on our way back to the hotel on Saturday and let him play with a puppy for a little while. It was wonderful!! He had so much fun. The puppy they let us play with was a havanese (sp??), and it was this tiny little thing that I was sure my son was going to hurt, but the people that worked there assured me that it was a sweet breed and good with kids and that's why they chose it. It was great, it ran around like a wind up toy while my son shrieked with delight. Then when we got back to the hotel, Carter was crawling all over the place. my mom and I couldn't figure out why he was doing this since he hasn't crawled anywhere for the better part of the last 9 months. Finally he sat up and said "roof roof!" He was pretending he was a dog!! It was so cute. I've seen him pretend to do stuff, but it was the first time I'd ever seen him pretend to be something. It was such a neat milestone.

We had a great time and I even had the opportunity to sneak away Saturday night for a girl's dinner with Lindy and Jessica who recently turned the dirty 30. We had sushi, and wine and then closed down the starbucks catching up. The cherry on the sundae was the by-the-seat-of-our-pants win that Texas pulled out at the last second (literally!) to take the title of Big 12 champs and secure us a seat in the national championship!

Who could have guessed, that the very next weekend I would have Jack, but it was an awesome way to spend my last weekend sans an infant!