The BIG events of January

 I can't believe January has already come and gone! I hoped when the year started that time wouldn't go by as fast as it did last year, but it looks like it isn't slowing down any time soon. About the middle of January Tammy and I did the Hot Chocolate 5K in Addison. It was fun. The weather was great for running a 5K and we got these awesome mugs for completing the race. Neither of us had even close to our best time as we hadn't been running since before Christmas. School started in the middle of January as well. Aaron's semester will be much less stressful as his teaching load is MUCH lighter than last semester; however, I started my foray into the world of teaching college and it has been an adventure. I feel like things are going pretty good so far. All of my students are supposed to turn in rough drafts of their first essay this week so I guess I'll see how much of my blabbing and in class practices and assignments have been getting through my students little skulls.

 Maddy continues to enjoy all the goodies she got for Christmas. She loves eating and reading books at her little table. Sometimes she will pick a stuffed animal to sit in the other chair. It is so cute. She has started crawling a lot lately. She still has trouble getting that left knee down all the time but she is really practicing her crawling. It is so great! She says all kinds of things and is starting to talk in complete sentences. "I love you", "Mama read book", "Watch a 'bebe'" (movie), "get doggies treats", "all done with cereal", and "dada get kiss" are a few examples of the kinds of sentences she's putting together.

 She has also really been enjoying coloring lately, especially with pens and especially with pens on herself and other people.

 Last weekend we went to Stock Show in Ft. Worth. It was very crowded because we went on a Saturday. I felt like I was in a herd of cows not looking at herds of cows. At first I was regretting that we even bothered, especially since I had horrible allergies that day, but we finally found an arena that wasn't crowded where we watched some people exercising their horse, including a lady who was driving a little buggy around, pulled by a miniature pony. Maddy was really fascinated with the pony/buggy. We sat and watched a while til I felt like my allergy meds were kicking in and then went to some other barns. Maddy thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the cows, sheep, and goats. She would get so mad every time we would leave a barn because she didn't want to stop looking at the animals. Fortunately there were always more animals to see. We finally found the Children's Barnyard where we saw different kinds of baby animals. Then we took Maddy to the petting zoo. Ummm...I think the petting zoo might have actually been the highlight of someone else's day. (see pics below). We also went through the Museum of Nature and Science because stock show tixs also got us into any museum we wanted for free. The fountain in the pic above is in front of the MONAS.

 After seeing what there was to see at stock show, we headed down town to Ricsky's (sp) BBQ. Everyone else had the same idea because there was a wait and the place was packed. It was worth it though for all you can eat ribs for under $10. Maddy loves ribs.

 The weather for stock show was beautiful, but it didn't last. Last night it turned nasty. A cold front blew in and we got freezing rain, sleet, and snow all through the early morning hours. Last I checked the temp was about 18 with a windchill of 9. Brrr! I nearly froze to death going out to take some pictures of the ice. The good thing about all of it is that Aaron and Tam got the day off because DBU closed since the roads are awful AND they don't have to go in til 10 tomorrow morning.

I leave you with this video of the best event of the month and the year so far. On Sunday, Maddy was able to stand a couple of times for a few seconds unsupported. Today we were able to get her doing this on video. She is so proud of her accomplishment and we are too!