The Rodeo!!

Last night we went to the rodeo and thanks to one of CK's clients we had AMAZING seats! His client gave us six tickets so we invited our friends Harvey, Thelma and their daughter Isabella. Since the rodeo started at 7:30pm and knowing that Olivia would be a mess soon after, we hired a sitter for her to stay home and sleep. Once we arrived, we went upstairs and enjoyed dinner at Reata, one of our favorite restaurants in Ft Worth. Reata sets up a satellite restaurant within the arena during the month of the Ft Worth Stock Show. As usual, it was a delicious meal and we had a great view overlooking the arena.

After we ate, we found our seats and couldn't believe how fantastic they were - literally the front row right along (but a little above) the dirt of the arena! The rodeo kicked off and there is nothing like the powerful voice of the announcer to talk about how great America is and how proud we should all be to be born in this great country! It was very touching and lead right into the singing of the national anthem. After, we sat back and watched all the fun which included bronco riding, team roping, steer wrestling, barrel racing, wagon races, and of course, bull riding. It was all so much fun to watch and was that much better given our seats. We actually had dirt fly up into our seats a time or two! It was such a fun night and Sofia was completely captivated throughout, especially with the horses. By the time the last bull rider got tossed off, it was already past 9:30! We headed home and got a very energized and excited Sofia off to bed for school the next day.

The view from our table at Reata


Our awesome seats!!


The lead-up to the Star Spangled Banner


Giving the riders high fives!


Bronco riding!


Sofia and Isabella's highlight of the night - cotton candy


A tribute to Will Rogers, which the arena is named after


Sofia loves it!


Steer wrestling


Steer roping


Bull riding


The three of us after a very fun night at the rodeo!

Olivia at 17 Months!

Little Olivia is now 27.5 lbs and 32 inches tall! Her hair is a bit shaggy and unruly which reminds me a lot of Sofia at this age. I've considered getting it trimmed but think it may even make it look worse. Unfortunately she will not keep any kind of bow or clip in her hair, so I can't even sweep her crazy bangs that are a bit too long up and out of her face. I can sometimes sneak one in her hair, but she usually discovers it and pulls it out of her hair after a few minutes. Her newest thing that she started doing a few weeks ago is kissing! She does this cute sound when she gives a kiss each time and it's the cutest thing! She loves giving hugs, particularly to our neighbors' shih tzus.

Although she still doesn't say much that is understandable, she sure talks a lot! She'll wander around the house just chatting away. She does understand everything that we say to her and will go get books to read when we ask her to, walk stuff to Sofia for us, etc. She still absolutely loves her food and eats anything we put in front of her. She still doesn't love avocados, but if I'm eating them then she'll be happy to help me with them. She still doesn't love milk so we still give her yogurt and cheese to be sure she gets calcium and sometimes give her milk with a little Ovaltine which she loves.

She's wearing nearly all of Sofia's old clothes and it's so fun to watch them be used again. I've been giving most of her clothes to a woman whose brother had twins last January in El Salvador. I've also kept probably too many outfits for the girls to have when they're older, but it's been hard saying goodbye to some of those adorable outfits.

Olivia is still a great sleeper and sleeps 12 hours at night and then has a 2 or sometimes 2 1/2 hour nap during the day. Every night CK gives the girls their bath together and gets Olivia ready for bed and Sofia out of the tub. Then he reads Olivia a few books, cuddles and sings to her "You are my sunshine" and lays her down to sleep. She generally goes to sleep without a peep. I used to sing to her at nap time and would sign "You are my sunshine" but she started to fuss as soon as I would start signing, so I switched to "skidamarink I love you" which is really a silly short kids song, but she seems to love it. Her nap used to be at 10am but that's been moving slowly toward 11 or even noon. She really needs another nap, but usually gets sleepy around 5pm so we just keep her up and try to distract her until her bedtime which is usually 7pm, after CK gives her and Sofia a bath.

Our sweet girl....

....who is very serious!

There's her sweet smile (thanks to Sofia who is being silly behind me)

What a pretty little girl

So happy!

Look at all those teeth!

Sisters (and Green Beup Beup)

Silly sisters!

Sofia telling Olivia a secret....I love this picture!

Visiting the Ft Worth Stock Show

I decided to take the girls to the annual Ft. Worth Stock Show on Martin Luther King day, since I knew the weekend would be crazy and with CK's travel schedule we wouldn't really get a chance to all go together. We arrived around 930am and it was COLD and windy! As I pushed Olivia in the stroller while Sofia and I braced against the wind, I was beginning to think it would be a very short day - and we hadn't even reached the ticket booth yet! Once we got inside, the barns did a great job at blocking the wind and we spent a lot of time walking inside the barns to stay just a little bit warmer. On previous visits, we'd never really explored anything other than the cattle barns. We walked through the cattle barns and ended up watching cows getting milked. It was fascinating and Sofia and I couldn't believe how much milk one cow produces!

From there, we decided to go into the horse barn since it was still fairly cold out. The horse barn was pretty empty but we did find a horse being shoed and watched that for awhile. After, we made it out to the petting zoo where we spent a good deal of time. Both girls loved petting all the animals and Olivia wasn't shy with any of them, and especially liked the bunnies and chickens and followed them all over. Sofia was busy feeding her grain to the small horse and donkey. We finally left and Sofia had a pony ride next to the petting zoo.

It was starting to warm up and we decided to visit some of the rides on the midway. It was set up exactly as the previous years we've been there and Sofia went on the teacups - Olivia and I had to watch since Olivia is too small. She also rode on the Merry-Go-Round and the Dumbo ride and then the three of us got into the rotating bears ride which Olivia could go on. She loved it and it was fun to go on a ride all together.

We were getting hungry so we headed back toward all the food stalls. Olivia actually fell asleep in the stroller, so Sofia and I ate and saved half of a grilled cheese for Olivia since I knew she would wake up and want to eat. We walked through one of the cattle barns and Sofia pet a few of the cows and steers that were friendly and we watched Longhorns being lead around in a halter - I'd never even thought that was possible!

We went back to the horse barn and watched the cutting horse competition which was really interesting! While watching, our friend Lyla called and she and her girls had arrived at the Stock Show, so we left and met them on the midway. The three girls rode a few rides together and they shared a huge cotton candy together - I'm sure this was Sofia's highlight of the day - before we had to say goodbye and head home for Sofia's piano lesson. It was such a fun day!

Sofia learns how a horse gets his shoes


Olivia at the petting zoo....we spent a lot of time here chasing around animals


Sofia and Olivia feed the calf


Visiting the chickens


Hanging out with the chickens


Olivia and one of many goats


Sofia and a goat


Sofia saves the best part for the horse


Pony Rides!


The Teacups - Olivia was too small for us to all go unfortunately


Dumbo!


The three of us on the bears ride


Sofia and the Stock Show Steer


Olivia naps while Sofia and I eat lunch


Watching the cutting horses warm up


Hanging out with one of the friendly steers


Cotton Candy! Yum!


With Chloe and Lily on the swings

Chinese Lantern Festival

Yesterday we drove into Dallas to go to the newly-opened Perot Museum which is apparently an amazing science museum for kids of "all ages." CK's office overlooks the museum so we planned to visit him after and maybe grab a quick bite to eat downtown together. However, we weren't the only ones who decided to visit the museum - the tickets were sold out until 7pm that night! So, the girls and I decided to visit CK in his office first and then walk down to the Dallas Aquarium which is also a short walk from his building. Once at CK's office, Sofia ran around and chatted with everyone before we loaded Olivia in the stroller and headed to the Aquarium. We hadn't visited the Aquarium since Sofia was probably Olivia's age. At that visit we had Sofia strapped into the stroller and were pushing her around until she got fussy and we took her out to let her "stretch her legs" at which point she disappeared into the crowd and the walkways were too narrow for us to keep up in the stroller. CK took off after her and stayed with her while she explored and I stayed back with the stroller behind a gaggle of people trying to catch up the entire time. We eventually met up at the end and compared our different experiences of the Aquarium!

This time, I kept Olivia in the stroller and although the walkways are still too narrow, Sofia stuck with us and we had a lot of fun exploring all the various jungle animals before getting to the "aquarium" section. It was a lot of fun and Sofia's favorite were the bats, which were really cool to look at in the dark. Olivia loved watching the otters swim around and they were right at her level.

After the visit, we returned to CK's office and were about to head home when CK's partner told us we had to visit the Chinese Lantern Festival. I actually had purchased a Groupon for it so we decided to eat dinner before going. We ate at a nearby Mexican restaurant that was very good. Unfortunately as I was leaving the parking lot in a hurry to meet with CK and Sofia, I accidentally ran over our Maclaren stroller! It broke off the front leg/wheel and was clearly ruined. I was so sad since we've had it since Sofia was just a baby and it's gone on just about every trip we've even been on! Of course, once I told Sofia she was just as sad.

After dinner we drove over to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Fair Park. It was a bitterly cold night, and we weren't completely planning to walk around at night, but we did have enough layers for the girls. Unfortunately we had to trade off carrying Olivia or keeping up with her as she explored since we no longer had a stroller. We walked throughout, looking at all the lanterns and it was definitely worth it! It was so beautiful, especially those that were set up next to the water - the reflections were incredible. We had fun, and nearly froze, as we enjoyed the Chinese Lanterns before we headed home. It was really worth the adventure and we now had two tired girls on our hands who were ready for bed.

The girls all settled into their respective car seats


Our sweet girl at the Aquarium


Ready to enter into the Chinese Lantern Festival


All the red lanterns were so cool!


One of my favorites - the "cherry blommoms"


Masks


The large lanterns with their reflections


Our sweet girl!


Chinese dragon


Texas longhorns


Mermaid and fish with their reflection


The view of the main temple lantern


Three frozen girls!