Introducing: Atlie Claire!

Atlie Claire

Born October 27, 2010 at 4:04 am

7 lbs 13 oz

21 inches

Big Fun in Small Places

Last week, I was 39 weeks pregnant and Branyon had to take a trip to Alabama. While Branyon was away, my family came in shifts to watch over us. While waiting for Branyon's return flight, we headed over to Callahan's, a small-ish general store in Southeast Austin. With live animals, fun western stuff and cute housewares, it's always a fun store to peruse, especially on Saturday's when they usually have some sort of live entertainment.

Branna Practicing in the Saddle (sorry about the belly)

This time, we had a super special treat since a group brought Ivory, the albino python, an African tortoise, and a blue tongued skink! The picture makes it look like Branna might have been a little intimidated, but she was anything but that. If she could have, I think she would have held the snake.

After getting her fill of reptiles, we headed inside to listen a Polka band. She loved doing the Polka with Ernie and wanted to go faster!

Diggin' Up Bones

Recently, our preschool mom's group had a play date the Austin Nature and Science Center's Dino Pit. It had been years since I'd been (I think Jess was Branna's age) so I didn't really remember much about it. I'm so glad that we got the opportunity to go back.

The before entering the Dino Pit, the Center has a small hands on activity area that the kids enjoyed playing in. The exhibit going on right now is called "A View From Space". (I really enjoyed the exhibit, too!)

I think the kids mostly enjoyed exploring the small indoor cave. But, they were relieved to know that that wasn't the Dino Pit. :)

The Dino Pit was really just a big sand box, but the kids had a blast! Before they got too dirty, I got a shot of Branna and her friend entering the Pit.

The Pit had all sorts of digging tools for the kids to uncover dinosaur "bones". (It was really just concrete replicas.) Here is Branna working on excavating a T-Rex:

When they got tired of digging for bones, there was plenty of sand to dig in for other things...

Like many people, our family sat down to watch a little football this past weekend, in particular the UT game. I've never really been into football, but Branna really does enjoy getting to watch it with her daddy.

As the camera panned over the crowd, Branna looked a little confused and asked "What's the sign for yak?" Not being familiar with that particular sign (or really even sure why she was asking that), I told I didn't know and that we would look it up on the ASL Pro website later. However, a few minutes later, she excitedly said, "Hey, look! They have an orange yak on the football field, too!"

Ding! The lightbulb went off: For whatever reason, she thought that the UT Hook 'em Horns sign that people in the crowd were making and the UT Longhorns field logo, was a yak. I don't know where she got it, but it was pretty funny that that was the connection she made. I guess we could say:

Yank 'Em Yaks!

( Roll Tide! ; ) )

School Days

I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted! The main reason (next to being completely wiped out at the end of the day and not have enough mental capabilities left to write) is that I've been getting Branna ready for preschool! As a lot of you may know, Branyon and my goal is to homeschool our children. Through a friend's suggestion, we purchased a preschool curriculum. I think this allows both Branna and me a good opportunity to get a school routine established before kindergarten. As you are probably aware, we had done some informal schooling, but I am very thankful to have an outlined structure and goals provided by Hands On Homeschooling.

Even though the creator of the curriculum lines out the lesson plans, there was still alot of work to be done on my part. Alot of my summer was spent preparing the lessons and getting our "school room" ready. I think if we weren't expecting a baby in October, it wouldn't have been necessary to make as many preparations as I did, but I wanted to get as much done before Branna's year got started.

This week the fruits of my labor came together as Branna had her first day school! She was so excited, I think partly due to all the anticipation of seeing me make things over the summer and hearing me say, "You have to wait to use/play with this... It's for school!" The night before the first day, she had a very difficult time getting to sleep. When she actually did, it wasn't very restful, seeing as she got up several times during the night to see if it was morning yet.

Our weekly curriculum consists of a Bible story, social studies, health science, physical activities, math, and reading/writing. Not all are covered in a day (except for Bible), but are at least touched on during the week.

Monday:

Of course, a good day starts with a good breakfast:

Branna seeing her "school room" for the first time:

We start our school with circle time. Each day, we start with a prayer, say the Pledge of Allegiance (US and Texas), have a few songs and a story. Branna thought our song time needed a little spunk.

Tuesday:

Today, we worked on gross motor skills where Branna improved on her hopping

Our weekly Bible story was about Annanias and Sapphira, so we made a money bag. I let Branna "sew" with some yarn.
We also had a discussion of patterns using sock colors. Branna decided using them for puppets was more fun.
Wednesday:

Today was cooking day! Our letter of the week was A, so Branna got to make applesauce. It was really good!

Thursday:

Field Trip! Not all Thursday's will be like this, but the group of moms with kids preschool age and under have put together a time to get together every other week. This last week was our first get together and we met for a low-key gathering at our church's annex. Branna had a good time playing with friends. (So did I!)

Friday:

Since we missed our school on Thursday, we tried to make up for some of it today. Usually, Friday's are for review, but this Friday, we did pattern blocks and took an pretend airplane trip to Eldorado, TX to see Grandma Honey.

Branna in the "airplane"

As I mentioned, each day we say the pledge and also have a Bible verse. In just a week's worth of time, Branna as memorized both!

Beach Baby!

Some of my best childhood memories are my family's summer trip to the beach. This year, Branna was able to start making hers! With my mom, stepdad, and brother, we headed to Rockport on the Gulf of Mexico.

On our first day, we took a morning dolphin boat ride. Branna really enjoyed it, I think mainly because she got to stand on the deck of a fast boat and have her hair blowing in the wind.

After traveling a good ways out into the Gulf, our captain spotted what he was looking for: shrimp boats. Apparently dolphins have realized this is a great place to find all-you-can-eat shrimp. We trolled around and finally spotted our first dolphins! (Note the small arrow to the left of the shrimp boat.)

Branna was impressed by the dolphins, but not nearly as intrigued by the 3-year old boy she met. I think what sealed the deal was him letting her borrow his binoculars. As you can see, in true Branna fashion, she's talking rather than paying attention to the exciting events.

The following day, we made our way across the bay to Port Aransas. Before getting to the beach, we made a stop for my brother to get a boogie board at a local store. Rightly so, Branna was a little shocked at the store front, but after a bit, she was quite impressed that she could walk into a shark's mouth.

We all had a blast at the beach, despite the larger-than-usual waves and strong undertow. We didn't know it at the time, but this was the day that Hurricane Bonnie was making landfall.

After swimming for a while, Branna decided to make a sand castle. It only lasted a brief while, as the waves came and knocked it over.

After Port Aransas and some lunch, we headed to the new Bay Education Center in Rockport. The Center is designed to bring awareness to the public of the local marine habitats. They also are 1 of only 51 centers in the US to have a Science on a Sphere. With the help of 4 projectors, this sphere that is suspended in air, can project moving images of the Earth, Moon, Sun, planets and any other spherical body.

We enjoyed a 45 minutes presentation of various objects (the moon, sun, and Mars) and images of Earth. Unfortunately, it was right in the middle of Branna's nap time. With the very active morning, she fell asleep not too long into the presentation.

We spent our final morning playing one last time at the beach in Rockport. As many of you know, one of Branna's favorite things to do is roar at something she thinks she can scare. Her (un)-lucky target this time was a seagull. Of course, it flew away as soon as it saw Branna running towards it, but I think she felt accomplished.

As we were heading back up to the beach, my stepdad spotted a fish and attempted to catch it... with his bare hands. Would you believe it worked? You probably wouldn't unless I had the pictures to prove it:

Branna was quite impressed to hold the fish, but complained that it was too slimy!

We had a wonderful trip and I am so glad that Branna will be able to look back at this fun time. I hope this is the start of many more exciting trips to the beach!

Red River, NM

We had a great time at our Red River camping adventure, especially Branna who got to experience and see so many new things!

After driving for 2 days, we were all very excited to be out of the car! After getting a goodnight's rest, Branna, Branyon, and Granddaddy headed to a guided nature walk the next morning.

Flower from the Nature Walk

Later that day, we all ventured down to the river next to our campsite. Branna was very excited to be around water and wanted to swim, but after realizing how cold it was, she was content just to throw sticks and rocks.


While dinner was cooking, Branna entertained us with her stick guitar, much like Prince Naveen's from Princess and the Frog. Although she didn't have the strings to make music, she was very entertaining.
After dinner, came s'mores! Branna enjoyed roasting the marshmallows, but when it came time to eat them, she decided she would rather just have the chocolate.

Day 2

The following day, we headed to Taos Pueblo. What a neat experience! I thought the most fascinating part was being in a true Native American village that had been in existence for over 1000 years and was still functioning!

Branna posing in front of a Pueblo oven

There were tons of shops to visit. Branna enjoyed looking at all the various jewelry and other items, but her favorite thing to see were all the drums. I think she asked to have her picture taken at just about all of them. Here's a couple of shots:

As we were leaving, Branyon and I were able to get one last picture of us in front of some of the village structures and the mountains. This picture was also taken right before an elderly Pueblo woman gave my belly and huge hug. As she walked away, she bet me $5 I was having a boy!
Day 3

Our third day at Red River was on a Sunday and we spent most of it at the Red River Family Encampment. I think it was estimated that around 2,000 people were in attendance. We enjoyed several good, informative lessons. It was a neat experience to be apart of, especially to hear that many Christians singing their praises to God.

Day 4

This was our last day of camping, so we tried to make the most of it. Branna got to go fishing for the first time with her new fishing pole.

About a half mile from our campsite was a little lake. Daddy and Granddaddy got Branna's pole baited and ready for her to fish. She did good, and although she didn't catch any fish, she got to see them nibble her bait.

While we waited for the fish to bite, a chipmunk decided to check us out... probably because we had snacks! At first, it would come to within a foot of where we were throwing the food, but then Branyon decided to see if it would eat off of my shoe:

Then Branyon, convinced Branna to try to hand feed it...

And THEN he convinced her to try to have it eat off of her belly. I'm glad that she chickened out before it could!

On the way back to the campsite, Branyon and Branna waded in the river. Because of the cold, I thought she wouldn't want stay in for very long, but she did and loved it. When she got out, her feet were like popsicles!

We had a great time at Red River and made lots of memories that we'll look back on in the years to come!