Black Friday

I didn't do any shopping this year, though I wanted to. Instead, we went out to Chad's grandfather's house and had a 2nd Thanksgiving meal with his uncle from Oklahoma.

After lunch and before pie, we headed outside for some fun! Forget family football, Kyndall decided it was time for some family t-ball. For someone so tiny, she sure can pack a punch when it comes to hitting the ball.

After t-ball, she had to "drive" Popple's tractor!

Love this picture.

Hanging out in the tree.

Kyndall and Daddy in the tree that he grew up climbing! I'm sure Kyndall will follow in his footsteps and will soon be climbing this tree all by herself.

Next Black Friday, I'll be at the stores with all the crazies! As strange as it sounds, I really like Black Friday shopping.

World Prematurity Day

Today is World Prematurity Day. People all over the world are working towards finding a cure for prematurity.

Some facts about prematurity:

- 1 in 8 babies are born too early.

-There are about 1,400 babies in the United States alone born every day!
- 13 million babies world wide are born too early.

- Prematurity has no rhyme or rhythm. It does not matter who you are, how much money you make, what religion you are, what job you do. It can strike anyone at anytime.

- The cause for premature births is unknown in 40% of cases.

- The main causes for prematurity are infections/inflammation, maternal or fetal stress, and bleeding.

- The state of Texas scores a D when it comes to prematurity. (Find your state here.)

The March of Dimes is working hard everyday and doing research so that one day all babies will be born healthy.

Dallas Zoo

In addition to the Dallas World Aquarium, we made a trip to the Dallas Zoo. Kyndall got the experience so many new things, and we all had a really good time!

They have a whole section devoted to children. There is a big koi pool that has windows so that the little ones can see into it, goats, chickens, some playground type things, and a pony. We weren't sure how Kyndall would react to it, but we decided to give it a try. She was a little apprehensive at first, but once she got going she was all smiles!

One of the coolest things at the Dallas Zoo is that you can walk right up and feed the giraffes. I mean, how cool is that?! It's something that I've never done before, and I had fun. Kyndall wasn't too sure about it and wouldn't actually hold the leaf for the giraffe, but she was excited about the giraffes.

And this ladies and gentlemen, is the main reason we decided to go to the Dallas Zoo. Jamie the Giraffe, named in memory of James Camden Sikes. (You can read his story here.) She is still too little to be fed from the deck, but she sure is a spunky little thing!

Kyndall wanted to ride the camel as well, but finally settled for sitting on the elephant statue. Though she wouldn't sit on the "mommy elephant" just the "baby" one.

The zoo has a carousal that has a lot of different endangered species on it. Kyndall walked around almost the whole thing looking for an elephant. She made me ride the "horsey" beside her. If you ask her now what a merry-go-round does, she'll tell you it "goes round and round and up and down" a long with spinning her finger in a circle.

She still talks about the elephant that she rode on!

I'm sure we'll make it back to the zoo in the future.

Dallas World Aquarium

This weekend, we went to Dallas for Chad's birthday. We went to the aquarium and the Dallas Zoo.

We took a family picture in front of this waterfall last year, almost to the day. Goodness how things have changed!


Kyndall was super fascinated by the HUGE tank. I think she's telling me that that is "a big fish!"


By the time we got there, it was almost time for the shark feeding. We got to the shark tunnel a little early so we sat and watched the shark and sting rays swim over head and just inches away!

(Our shirts came from It's a Preemie Thing)

The aquarium doesn't just have fish, they have birds, penguins, bugs, and in the middle is a jaguar. It was pacing up down on one side of its cage, so Kyndall sat down on the other side. The jaguar changed directions, and it freaked her out a little bit. However, she thought it was pretty funny!

They also had a Mayan dance show close to the jaguar. Kyndall enjoyed watching them dance, and watched them intently, but wasn't too interested in having her picture taken with them.

We've only been twice, but its amazing to be able to see so many of God's creatures that we wouldn't be able to normally see without the aquarium.

Corn MAiZE

Yesterday, we went to the next town over to the corn maze. My brother came in so he went with us. We had a pretty good time, and I'm sure it'll become a yearly tradition!

They had a cute little set up to take pictures, but Kyndall wasn't so excited about doing that so the only one I got was of her on the little tractor.

Instead of a sand box, they had a corn box. I mean what else would they have at a corn maze? Kyndall had a ton of fun playing in it. She dug in it and even made a corn angel. She did have about 20 pieces of corn in her shoes though by the time she was done!

Through out the maze, Kyndall was out fearless leader. She would look at her "map" and tell us which way to go. She got us though the first half of the maze pretty quickly, but the

second half, we got pretty turned around and had to get a little help from the "corn cop."

We rode on the hay ride, which was just a covered trailer pulled by a tractor, but to a 2 year old, it was super fun!

They also had duck races, where you raced little duckies down drains by pumping the water up. Kyndall could have done this all day if we would have let her. She did it twice that day for about 10 minutes both times.

The maze has this awesome jumping pillow. It's like they took a blob and sunk it in the ground. If you know anything about Kyndall, she LOVES to jump(on just about anything!) So when she saw this, she took off towards it. She jumped for a good 20 minutes. Again, she would have done this all day if we would have let her.

There was also a barrel train, which she wanted to ride, but not by herself. Therefore, I had to get in with her. It was probably a 4-5 minute ride around the maze and was pretty bumpy, but she had a pretty good time laughing the whole time.

I finally got her to sit on a pumpkin and take her picture.

All in all, we had a good time, and next year will probably be pretty fun too!