Favorite Babywearing Photos

These are some of my favorite babywearing photos:

JR curling up last winter; I love how his big eyes are staring at me.

At the park near our home in Alabama all snuggled up. I think JR was about 5 months here.
My very first carrier-a pouch sling. This was at my cousin's wedding-I think Little Dude was 10 months here.
On our way to Texas. This Mei Tai has become my favorite carrier now that JR is older.
JR watching the fish tank while we pose for a photo. This was in Texas at the Dallas Aquarium. Little Dude's head is down at the bottom.

Those are a few of my favorite babywearing moments. They are starting to get few and far between now that JR has decided he enjoys walking/running after his brother more, but when it is needed, my ring slings and Mei Tai have been a life saver.

Sweet Caroline

I am so glad I took the trip to Texas to see my Aunt, Uncle, cousins and Grandma. And she got to meet her GREAT-grandsons-which was such a great joy for me to bring to her!
Me and my grandma, aka "Ms Sweet Caroline" according to some of the old men in her retirement community-apparently a lot of them have little crushes on her, which embarrasses her completely but we all think it is pretty cute.

One of my favorite photos from my trip, my grandma, who will be 90 years old here soon. You can't really tell so much in the photo as in real life, buy Grandma has BEAUTIFUL skin and complexion, which I think is because of her Native American (Navaho) and Mexican heritage. She is just gorgeous.

Another favorite photo, the boys and their Great-Grandma:

I Got You, Babe

Little Dude's first bike ride! With a little help from me and my Aunt, Little Dude got going on his first bike ride and for the rest of the day (and every day since, really) he has talked about his "motorcycle" and how awesome it is. Oh my.

Babywearing with the Animals

While in Dallas, we went to the Dallas Aquarium, though honestly it is WAY more than an aquarium. There are all kinds of birds, animals, reptiles and everything is set up as a nature trail in a jungle-complete with birds flying freely over head!! We had a few close calls with bird droppings!

This was my favorite guy. He is a sloth, and we got to get SUPER close to him. Isn't he just a beauty? SO CUTE!

Here are some of the sharks we saw


Here I am under the shark tank with JR. The tank was so cool! It was like a tunnel, so the sharks were swimming all around you-Little Dude was amazed.
I really loved the aquarium and highly recommend anyone visiting or living in the Dallas, TX area to check it out. Little Dude LOVED it and didn't want to leave (boy THAT was fun). They had a few clown fish as well (think Nemo) and Little Dude loved those the most out of everything.

And the best part? I got a really great, fun filled day with my Aunt Marla. Getting to spend time with her was the best ever, she is one amazing lady!

Everything is Bigger in Texas

Even the Cattle. Do you see the horns on the ones below? Yes, those are Longhorn Cattle, and at the Fort Worth Stockyards you can watch them get herded down the street from one pen to another, very cool!

You can see Little Dude watching them from the sidewalk. He was with my Aunt Marla; JR and I hung out a little farther back under a shade tree.

The Longhorn herding is pretty tame, they just walk down the street and a whole slew of REAL cowboys surround them, ready to correct any that deviate from the street. One lady though commented to me that she was annoyed at having waited half an hour to just see them walk-she wanted to see them run! My reply? If those horns are running, I'm not standing here to watch, I'm up the tree! She looked puzzled, so I can only assume she'd never been around cows before-even normal ones are strong and faster than you think-let alone some with 2 foot horns!

The Stockyards are super fun, and we even got some ice cream and a fun little cowboy had for Little Dude!



The Longhorns!
One of the cowboys let Little Dude play with his whip! Little Dude wanted nothing to do with it though until Aunt Marla held it first (shes the arm in the pic)
The super nice cowboy that enjoyed showing Little Dude all his cowboy "stuff"
Yes, that is a longhorn with a saddle. Yes, that is the cowboy that owns him. No, I did not ask for a ride.
I was so impressed with seeing someone riding a longhorn I just had to share another picture.

Flight Number One

So this is how you fly with two kids under the age of 3! It actually was a great time; Little Dude loved his book bag of toys ad JR loved my Mei Tai carrier, so we were pretty much awesome with the travel.

That is, until the plane ran out of gas.

Yea, my plane ran out of gas, because we circled Dallas for over an hour waiting to land, and couldn't, so we ended up going to Houston, getting gas, WAITING THERE til we could take off (all the while not getting off the plane...sigh) and then FINALLY got to DFW Airport. The flight we had should have arrived at 7:30pm; however, it was well past midnight when we finally landed. My poor Aunt and Uncle were waiting up and worried because of all the bad weather (which was why we couldn't land to start with and caused us to run out of gas...) and by the time we got to their home it was well past 1am.

And even though we did have a few moments of semi melt downs, all in all the kids did GREAT and I was impressed they actually feel asleep once we made it to Aunt Marla and Uncle Bruce's! Whoo hoo!

Though somehow, both were up with the sun at 7am, goodness gracious!

Here we are waiting to take off from Raleigh to go to Atlanta and from there to Dallas


Here we are on the plane!

And my carrier is a Babyhawk Mei Tai that I got off ebay for $50 dollars. Yes, it is double sided, has pockets on both sides and has a key ring. Yes, I recommend this Mei Tai very highly. It is so easy to use, so very soft, padded and comfy AND I would even pay the full price for it now that I have one, but suggest just hunting on ebay for a deal. My Mei Tai saved my life and made this trip possible. If I had not had pockets for the tickets and a way to keep JR snuggled with me, the trip would have been a nightmare. As it was, JR was content to just snuggle and hang out and I had free hands to do important stuff, like cashing Little Dude, drinking coffee and eating the pretzels!

Last Day in Texas

How did this week fly by so quickly? I feel like I JUST got here, but already, tomorrow morning I will be flying back to North Carolina. I'm pretty bummed I have to leave already; I have had a blast hanging out with my cousins and my Aunt and Uncle AND I am so very glad my Grandma got to meet her great-grandsons!

We went to a train museum and Little Dude loved it enough to throw the Tantrum of All Tantrums when we had to leave, we went to the aquarium, which also had birds, monkeys, and all kinds of animals. It was HUGE and a lot of it was underground. I can't wait to share the pictures! Today we are going to go RIDE a train to Dallas and go explore downtown-I'm really excited!

Well, off we go, and wish me luck tomorrow flying back. I haven't told you guys about flying IN; however, just trust me that it was the flight from H E double hockey sticks. I'll explain more later, now it is off to catch a train!

Take care!