First signs of Spring

Today was beautiful. It was in the mid 70's, and wonderful. We decided last night we would go to the Nashville zoo this morning knowing it was supposed to be nice. So to bribe Hutson a little (wrong I know) we told him if he was good last night and went to bed like a good boy we would go to the zoo when we woke up. Well all night we heard about the wions (lions), and tigers, and whippers (leopards), and the barking zebras. For those of you who don't know Zebra's really do make a barking sound like a dog. Hutson and John will get online and look up animals sounds. We were a bit disappointed that the baby tigers weren't out yet, but in a few weeks they'll be introduced at the zoo, so we'll have to go back during Spring Break. I'm glad that we decided to get a membership again, because it's a free entertainment now! We had fun though, here are a few pics....





This was really neat to see the Tigers like this....

Hutson LOVES the zoo.....

John goofing around with the timer and the hanging the camera on his back....

While at the zoo, some lady (I'm using this term loosely) exposed alot of her self to everyone in the kids play area while sitting down, and Tanisha had John laughing because she leaned over to him and said "Crack kills"....

Couple of funny stories about Hutson: When I picked him up from school yesterday, he was singing a song with the tune "Brother John" I couldn't understand the first part, but knew he was saying "I can smell red." He wanted me to sing with him too, but I told him I didn't know the words. He gave me a big sigh like "jeez mom" and very slowly told me that the words are "R E D Red, I can smell red." I about died, first cause he really could spell red, and second that he thought the word was smell. He later taught sissy the words and when she told him it was spell, he argued with her and said no it was smell!

Later in the evening as we were all lounging and enjoying our Friday evening, Hutson was down playing with his toys in the den and talking about Mommy, Daddy, his sister, his kitties, and his brother. We all looked at him and asked him who is Brother was? He gave us one of his looks like we are idiots and said "Peanut is my brother".... Well, Peanut is our little black pomeranian!
We've spent the remainder of our Saturday playing with our webcam and talking to family. We got to see Aunt Manda's baby belly (Aunt Leann wants a girl), and our cousin Katherine at Oklahoma State, and I tried my dad, but as always they weren't home. Webcams really are very cool. I'm hoping I can convince my sister-in-law to purchase one so Hutson can talk to his beloved Brooke and Nicholas.

Snow in March!!!

We heard all last week about the possibility of snow, but you know you can never believe the weather guessers. Well... we woke up to snow on Sunday morning! Yay! Of course the first thing Tanisha asked us , was if we thought it was enough snow to cancel school on Monday. She wasn't that lucky. We had about 3 inches of snow. Just enough to go out in the morning and play.

We played down by our creek for a little while. Tanisha played on the tree swing and Hutson made snowballs and threw them into the creek. Peanut our dog loves snow, so he spent the time rolling around in it. Before lunch we went over to John's parents and played with our jeep over there and then made a snowman. The kids had a blast. Hutson has asked to play in the snow everyday since, even though we don't have snow anymore.

John is on vacation this week, except really it's his last week with his company. Due to the economy right now his company has laid off many workers. He had been there 10 years, but a couple of other of his co-workers who had been there much longer also got laid off. He has been putting his resume into everywhere. Of course the common response if that they're not hiring right now. But I have faith that he will get a job. Until then I have a whole list of honeydo chores for him and he's been very helpful around the house. I haven't felt so stressed out because he has been taking care of alot of the household chores. I have a wonderful husband!

Tanisha has been spending her time after school at Drama practice for the next play she is in "Freak the Mighty". Don't ask me now what it is about, because I haven't a clue, but in a couple of weeks I'll get the privilege of sitting thru it. :) So Tuesdays and Wednesdays are busy in our house because she also has dance.
Hutson is doing really well with his potty training. In fact I guess you could say he IS potty trained! We still put a pull-up on him at nap time and at bedtime though. But most nights he stays dry. His newest thing is wanting to wear his superman costume from Halloween. Who knows why. His age right now is my favorite for little kids. They are learning something new everyday and they keep you laughing. His train set he got for Christmas was really a great gift as he loves to play with that. It still amazes how different him and Tanisha are- or maybe it's just the boy/girl difference.

I am currently staying busy at work. Thank goodness. I am the only designer so that can be stressful, and I'm working on a project where I'm having to clean up the mess of the other designer that left us a few months ago. This project is a renovation of an old hotel in Jackson, MS (The King Edward Hotel) to a Hilton Garden Inn. So between the odd spaces, working with the historical society, and with Hilton themselves it can get very stressful. One of my projects is the Bear Mountain State Park in New York. This has been fun to work on, except for having to stay on top of the budget and account for every little dollar. The client we are doing this with is one of my favorite clients, so it makes it more enjoyable. Next week I am off to my monthly trip to work in Richmond. I had about 3 weeks between visits this time which was more than it has been. UP until now there hadn't been a week since Thanksgiving that I hadn't traveled, so I was a little wore out. Well, I better sign off as I think John is wanting to get on the computer and watch Vanderbilt basketball online. GO Vandy!