February 2014

February kinda gets a bad rap around here. It's probably my least favorite month of the year, if I had to pick. The weather is crappy, and it's the tail end of winter before the glorious spring that we Oklahomans are desperate for by March. But this year was different. We had a great month with lots of fun things going on. After an extremely cold winter, the weather warmed up a touch which allowed for some fun football games in the front yard for the boys. Genevieve and I usually opted to stay inside and watch from the window. :)

 

But most outings required full winter gear. Usually this lead to a Desmond Mark meltdown, as he hates coats, gloves, hats, clothes, and socks. But one day he dressed himself with a smile and that required a picture.

 

There were days of crafts and play dough of course.

 

My good friend Mandy Jo had a birthday and we girls actually made it out for a night on the town! Sushi and drinks with this crew means a lot of laughs and a lot of fun!

 

And Mandy's mini-van allowed for plenty of space for us all to ride together and continue the party all the way home!

 

Des and Genevieve spent the days together wonderfully while Ben was having a blast at school. These two have such a sweet relationship. Though he never really played what she wanted, he was always excited to have her play with him. He was really into his MegaZord that Santa finally got around to sending after it fell off of his sleigh. He also loved Ninja Turtles, Spiderman and Power Rangers. Even during her nap, he was always good about finding something to play. He is so imaginative.

 

Genevieve loved playing with her brother Des, but both of them would start asking about 9 a.m. if it was time to go get Ben yet. They missed him so much. She loved to have Des push her around in her stroller, and when he tired of it, she would push her babies in it. She wanted to play kitchen every single day and she really started mothering her baby dolls by wanting to put diapers on them, nursing them, and putting them down for nap after nap after nap.

 

Ben still was doing excellent in school. He was speeding through his reader books, faster than any of the other kids in his class. He even started to read books at bedtime with his dad and brother. He was in his second month of basketball and loving every single practice and game. Practices were Tuesday nights so I missed a lot of them because of yoga class but I would try to rush over after to catch the last part because it was so fun seeing Brad coach and Ben loved showing off his drills. Papa made it to every Saturday morning game and Mimi even made it down for one! Ben helped make Valentine's Day school party treats and at the party, Mrs. Moreno led a dance party. The boys and girls took turns asking each other to dance. They had spent a couple of weeks practicing how to ask, how to accept, how to dance together, and how to thank each other for the dance. It was priceless!

 

On Valentine's Day, I planned a Scavenger Hunt with poems about what we love about them and they had to solve the clues to where to find their treats. It was a huge hit and they made me hide it over and over again throughout the week even though they had already solved it all! The following week-end Brad had planned a special surprise getaway for us to Dallas. We hired a babysitter and headed down Saturday morning. We stopped for lunch at a cute bistro in Davis, OK and walked the Main Street. When we arrived in Dallas, I was in awe when we pulled up to a gorgeous B&B just off Deep Ellum downtown.

 

We stayed in the First Lady Edith Roosevelt room. This place was gorgeous!!!

 

After a lazy afternoon, we headed into Deep Ellum for Dallas' most famous burgers at a greasy joint and then walked over to another famous site, Trees. Brad had told me that we were seeing a band Shovels and Rope that I didn't really know but was excited anyway. While we were in line to get in I saw the poster for the show and realized the opener was Hurray for the Riff Raff! My favorite band!!!

 

The venue was great and because we were there for the opening act we were right up next to the stage. After they were done, we stayed and hung out a bit and somehow managed to run into every single member of the band at some point in the night, including the violinist who we saw next door at the pizza joint. I made sure to invite them all to stay with us for the Annual Woodie-Fest and gushed on and on how much I just LOVED each of them. It was an amazing night in a fun, hipster area of Dallas in which we countered nicely by sleeping in our gorgeous B&B and waking to have a 3 course breakfast with other uppity travelers. We also managed to squeeze in a fun few hours with our looooooong time Camp Cayuga friend Trish! She took us to a fun urban park where we chowed on food truck treats!

No February is complete without many trips up to Stillwater and at least one pee-your-pants exciting win in Gallagher. This was by far the most excruciating season of OSU basketball in my lifetime...but we at least managed to beat Kansas in a thriller one freezing cold night. We made an event out of it by having Ash and Zach join us and starting the evening at George's Stables with pool and shots of whiskey!

 

I also spent a ton of time on completing my DONA Doula certification. I had to drive up every Wednesday night to OKC to attend a childbirth education class with my favorite teacher. :) She actually was the birth educator that Brad and I took Lamaze from when we were pregnant with Ben!

 

It was a fun, COLD, fast month!

Gentlemen of the Road

So...this was two months ago. 

Feels like a year ago. 

Probably the best weekend of my life.

Haven't really wanted to blog it because that would make it in the past.

My first music festival experience.

With some of my very favorite people in the world.

Gentlemen of the Road.

i.e. Alabama Shakes, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Mumford and Sons.

Played 5 concerts worldwide and one was in Guthrie, OK.

Yes, you read that right.

First time we went kid free for two nights in a row eVeR.

Yes, you read that right, too.

Ridiculous fun.

Here's our tickets packet. 

Friday night was amazing.

Stayed the night at Micca and Josh's.

Saturday morning, Micca hosted brunch for like 30.

Then we drove out around her tree farm.

The guys were at the lease for hours.

I almost died of PMS cramps but didn't even care because I was having so much fun.

Headed back to Guthrie and Josh took us the backroads way.

This meant getting lost in a pasture.

Made it back to the scene around 5.

So exciting.

Long hot days lead to crazy, fun nights.

We closed the show with an epic dance party before heading downtown for even more concerts. We watched a great bluegrass group on main street and most of our group headed home. We had tickets to a late night jam fest that didn't start until 1:30 a.m. Brad, Josh, Hubble, and I were sure glad we stuck around when Marcus Mumford took the stage...

That's right. It was amazing guys. The whole freaking weekend was amazing. 

Woody Guthrie Fest

We visited the annual Woody Guthrie Fest in Okemah for the first time last year with Grandma Mary and we all had so much fun that we couldn't wait to go back this year. Then a few months ago, Brad saw that our favorite band (as of late), Hooray for the Riff Raff, was going to be performing at 3 p.m. on the Saturday of the festival!!! We couldn't believe our luck! We headed down just a little early and pulled up to see the band's van unloading. I gave a loud honk and cheer from the car window much to the entire family's embarrassment, but I was excited and I have no shame in being the crazy embarrassing mother/fan. We headed down to the basement where they were playing and hovered around the front while they were setting up and we were able to score some seats on the FRONT row right in front of the speaker and just to the right of the band! They were perfect seats, because not only did we have a perfect view, but the kids could sit on the floor, eat two orders of french fries or just dance in the aisles. 

My pictures are terrible. I stayed on manual mode and was far too interested in the music to care enough to practice my settings. :) But the memories are precious...

They only got to sing about 45 minutes but the show was awesome. Genevieve was a hit as she ran up and down the aisles and danced in front of everyone. The boys totally recognized some of the songs as well as the lead singer from watching her on music videos. Grandma Mary even liked them! They are great...you should check them out. :)

After the show we walked the short, rundown streets of Okemah. There's not a ton to see but all the music is free so we headed up to the other main stage and watched another performer before heading back to Seminole. We had a blast.

Videos: Jingle Bells.

The boys LOVE this song. They will watch this youtube cartoon jingle bells slide show over and over just to get to sing along. It's crazy. I love their take on the lyrics though...they just make up the words!

Here's Desi singing by himself:


Then one morning they came and told me that they had created a band and the band's name was "The Banjos." They wanted to perform for me and I was supposed to film it. The first take has terrible audio but I love at the end Ben's says, "And let's hear it for The Banjos!"



Take 2 is better...



When I asked Des why he wasn't singing along he said, "Ben is the singer and I am the shaker!"

Paseo on a Saturday night.

Singing, jumping, brick oven pizza, draft beer, dancing, alfresco, sunset, banjos, bluegrass...super fun night