The Fair 2012

We love the State Fair of Texas!! We look forward to it every year and this year we got to take DD with us. We continued Carson and Avery's "birthday week" celebration by going to the fair on opening day which was the day before their birthday. Shane took the day off and we headed to the fair Friday morning. I wasn't sure what to expect on opening day, but it turned out to be a great day to go. We got there shortly after it opened and it wasn't crowded at all! We had so much fun.

We hit up all of our favorite spots. First was the Children's Medical Center petting zoo

I love his reaction to the animals eating out of his hand, it is precious!!

He couldn't believe the goat took the whole cup out of his hand

Then we headed over to the "little hands on the farm"

They were finally old enough this year to really participate, it was so cute!

Of course, we couldn't go to the Fair without getting mommy's favorite, Fletcher's corny dogs!!

And some cotton candy!

Daddy got to have his fun too!

We let the kids play one of the games this year.

They loved it!

And they got to pick out these really cute, and super annoying horns as their prizes.

We finished out our day with a few rides in the midway.

They absolutely loved it and would have stayed there all day if we would have let them.

Here they are on the four wheelers

The race cars 

And the motorcycles

My sweet girl!

See you next year Big Tex!

The Dallas Zoo

Last week was Carson and Avery's "birthday week." Their birthday was on a Saturday this year so we had a whole week to celebrate leading up to the big day! We started out the week with a trip to the zoo with MiMi. On Monday's you get a discount on your zoo admission if you ride the Dart Rail, so we thought we'd give it a try. It was great!! So easy and so much cheaper then driving and paying for parking. We got on the train right at George Bush and it took us straight to the zoo without having to change trains. It was about a 50min ride, which I was a little nervous about, but they did great!! Carson was so excited to ride the train. It however wasn't quite what Avery had in mind, she kept saying, "Where's the big red train? This is a bus." Ha

It was a hot day at the zoo, but the kids had so much fun!

We saw the penguins

Lions

My favorite, the giraffes

Waiting the feed the giraffes, they weren't too interested in eating that morning

We finally got them to eat our lettuce

A cheetah (I think)

Elephants, zebras, and more giraffes

Avery impersonating the monkey's

I love this turtle statue

My sweet babies!! They do love each other (sometimes)!

Carson passed out within 5 minutes of the train ride home, he was exhausted!!

Not this girl, she talked the whole way back, and tried on some of MiMi's lipstick!

We had a fun day at the zoo!!

Bad Doggy

About a month ago, Carson had a little run in with a not so friendly neighborhood dog. We were walking home from the duck pond and we passed by a house on our street where a man was working in his yard with his dog. The dog walked out to the sidewalk and appeared to be friendly. Carson, of course, immediately wanted to pet the dog. I reminded Carson that we always ask before we touch someone's dog, and the man said, "your mom is right, you should always ask first, but he's the sweetest dog, he wouldn't hurt a fly." Famous last words!! Carson leans down to pet the dog (I think he was trying to give the dog a hug, because he laid his head down on the dog's back) and the dog whipped his head around and snapped Carson in the face. It happened so fast!. The guy was very apologetic and was very shaken up about it. I was actually really calm until I got home and called Shane to tell him what happened, then I started getting really upset. I felt so guilty and started realizing how bad that situation could have been. The wound wasn't very big, but it was deep and pretty open, so I decided to go ahead and take him to the ER to get it checked out.  

The ER Dr. opted to put steri-strips on it instead of sutures to decrease the risk of infection. Apparently the saying, "A dog's mouth is cleaner that a human's" is just not true. Dog's mouth are extremely dirty and filled with tons of bacteria that I've never even heard of. They cleaned out the wound really well before putting on the steri-strips and sent him home on oral antibiotics. The Dr. said that even on the antibiotics there was a 50% chance it would get infected. And it did. By Tuesday morning he started having redness and swelling up around his eye.

It got more and more swollen and red throughout the day so I took him to his pediatrician to have it checked out and she said it looked infected and that he would need to go back to the hospital for IV antibiotics. 

So Tuesday evening we headed back to Children's Legacy. I was really nervous about him getting the IV, and I didn't know who to ask for or who was a good stick up at Legacy. It was such a blessing though, because my friend Sunni (who was also my preceptor when I started working at Children's...she works at Legacy now) was working that day and she called the charge nurse from the ICU to come put in his IV...and she was fantastic!! They used a J-tip (which is pressurized lidocaine that numbs the skin and tissue) and she got the IV on her first try. He didn't feel a thing. I don't even think he realized what was going on, it went so smoothly!!

He actually slept all night and was in a really good mood the whole time we were there. I think it was like a little vacation for him. He was loving all the attention he was getting, and he got to play with some cool new toys.

And even got some balloons from DD.

After four doses of antibiotics his face was looking so much better. We were discharged Wed. afternoon. He was excited to get home and see his daddy and sissy.

So my lesson learned though all of this is that no matter what people say, just don't let your kids pet animals that you aren't familiar with. I am just so thankful that it was a small bite, because it really could have been so much worse!