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Another attempt at cake decorating. Mom's birthday is on Valentine's Day so we had fun celebrating her birthday and Valentine's Day. 
Helping GiGi with her candles.
We had a fun Valentine's Day. We took Graham to Philip's Toy Mart to watch the trains and then headed home to play.
We gave Graham a little Thomas set but I'm worried it's going to drive him crazy. He doesn't like the fact that they are magnets and don't latch to each other. He's having to learn how to leave them on the tracks and let them "stick" together. This is not an easy task for him. :)
Michael found him a new book on cows. Graham loves cows, dogs, trains, trucks and airplanes. Every time we see one in a book, outside, or on TV, he will point it out to you. Choo Choo and Moo are all that he will say but I he attempts train and truck a lot.
GiGi found Graham a tool set that includes his very own drill. He likes it but if Daddy's drill is in sight he of course wants it. We couldn't believe he would wear his goggles. This may be a good toy to prepare him for pool goggles this summer.
Sometimes the smallest thing can make Graham so mad. At this point he brought himself to tears and we have no idea what was wrong. It was only 10:00 am so he couldn't have been tired but I took him up to his room and we rocked and read books in the dark until he calmed down. I hate to say it, but we find it humorous when he gets like this because it's so pitiful.
The blocks are a daily game. He really like to ride his four wheeler up and down them.
Helping me drive down the driveway.
Mom came to help us with a few projects around the house. Since she's so good at painting we put her to work on the Mary Virginia's new room. So long blue, hello pink.
Graham's the photographer here.
Deja Vu. Painting Graham's nursery in 2007.
We had some concrete poured in our backyard and thought it would be fun to pout Graham's hand print in the corner. He was not pleased with having that gook on his hands. Then as we were cleaning up, he walked across it. So our nice broom finish has a nice imperfect finish about it now. :)
We have started to run out of things to do inside during this miserable winter. We are now down to playing in my necklaces. You may think it's for little girls but if it helps to pass the day along, I'm all for it!
The kitchen table is also our latest bad habit. I started off letting Graham sit on the table while we painted, now he thinks he needs to be on the table for every meal and every activity. While at the library last week, I turned to find him on top of the children's table putting a puzzle together.
Since Graham has quite a texture aversion issue, play-dough is not a big hit. We found some of his toy shapes to use as cutters but he only wanted to mark on them. Thankfully they are washable markers so again, I let him go for it.
Nothing made him happy he was so miserable.
MLK day was a snow day for us. We didn't get enough to really have a good slide down our front yard but we tried. I couldn't get to our snow boards so a Christmas gift bag was the best I could find. Graham still had fun but you won't see any photos of that because I was doing my best to keep the camera from sliding around my neck and knocking him out. 
That's right, I'm giving up. There is no point in trying to keep Graham out of things or keep a straight house with all that is going on around us. One night after dinner Michael and I were looking at a new light fixture and Graham discovered how much fun the packaging could be. He climbed up on the table, grabbed a pen and started punching holes. Little white pellets made their way all over my dining room, hallway, den and I even found some upstairs in Graham's room. If you've ever dealt with peanuts or other foam packaging, you know how impossible it is to clean up. So we just let him go and have fun for a good 30 minutes or so and just figured we'll vacuum all the dots up at some point.
They usually ended up in a clump at the bottom when they went down together. Before Graham could even stand back up he was holding out his hands to go again.
Riding the Choo Choo.
What a fun morning. We will definitely be going back. They open at 10:00 and that is probably the best time to get there because when we were leaving around 11:15 it was getting full and full with older kids.
We had the perfect weekend in Dallas. My family was in town for the Cotton Bowl while we were in town for operation "Bling Bling". On Saturday we drove over to Ft Worth to check out the stockyards. Graham was soooooooooo tired. He probably lost at least 12 hours of his normal sleep throughout the weekend. He powered through it with only a few melt-downs but I felt awful for withholding sleep from our baby.
We enjoyed 82 degree weather while we were there. It was a nice break to have warm weather in January. 
The cattle run was short but fun. We watched, from the curb, as the longhorns walked down the streets of the stockyards.
This poor cow broke my heart. He had clips in his nose instead of a bridle in his mouth. He looked like he was miserable and I just couldn't bear it so I took the picture and walked away. 
Boy did he eat.
