Boys

Growing up, I remember my mom having a framed quote in her bedroom that read, "There is a special place in Heaven for the mothers of little boys." As a child the humor of this was totally lost on me, but as woman who is now the mother of a little boy, those words come to mind often and make me laugh. I offer you an example of such a moment:


These are the big boy underpants I bought for Nathan a few weeks ago while at the store by myself...


And these are the big boy underpants Nathan picked out several days later when we were at the store together...


I tried to convince him that Mickey Mouse or Thomas the Train underpants would be so cool — or, hey! Look at these awesome Lightening McQueen underpants! I mean, he's not even two-and-a-half yet. How can it already be time for scary monsters and super heroes?

But my little boy wanted — nay, had to have — super hero underwear. There was no persuading him that anything else would be cooler. This marked the first of what I can only imagine will be many, many moments of thinking to myself,


Carrie, just let him be a boy.


Raising a tough-but-kind little man is an enormous daily challenge, but I wouldn't trade the gift of having a son for anything in the world. And with that, we purchased the biggest package of super hero underpants we could find.

TriWaco

This weekend we had a great time watching Jason and Charlie compete in the TriWaco race. Both of the guys did incredibly well, and Jason even scored his first trip to the podium! He placed third in his age group and came in 19th out of 431 sprint distance competitors. Charlie rocked the olympic distance competition, coming in 30th out of 314 (can you tell I'm more than a little proud of these guys?)

(Behind Aunt Char are the reporter and cameraman
from News 8 Austin who interviewed her.)

After Jason completed the race he and
Nate had a race of their own...

Nathan helped Daddy receive his medal...

Congratulations, Jason and Charlie! We love you!

TriWaco (Part Duex)

This is just the first part of the post from the past weekend. I just had to share this clip of the famous McDougall Clan. Credit Austin News 8, I copied the video (hope they don't mind). Wait to the end for Carrie and Nathan's cameo. Also, see if you can spot the zebra! That would be Charlie.

Stylin'

When Nathan discovered that the hair dresser had styled his hair into a faux hawk after trimming it yesterday, he said, "Mommy, I don't want my hair in a pile." He then put every ounce of his energy into making sure it was smooshed back down into place (I managed to snap a picture or two before he noticed his 'do)...

Weekend Happenings

We spent much of the weekend outside and had lots of fun despite the summer heat. Saturday morning we headed over to our local farmer's market where Nate made a crazy vegetable man we named Mr. Tomato Head (who is now missing both ears but lives on in our kitchen)...

Nathan enjoyed some cinnamon bread
(poor little guy has quite the farmer's tan)...

After picking up a few more things at the market we headed to Nash Farm's "Ice Cream Social" day in Grapevine...

Nate helped make homemade ice cream...

(How funny is the little girl glaring at him?)

(suddenly smitten!)

Then we fed the chickens and went for a wagon ride around the farm. We also had the most delicious homemade peach ice cream, which might just have kept us from melting...


On Sunday afternoon Nathan picked out flowers from the store to plant in three flower pots. He loves to dig in the soil and use his watering can, so we thought he'd enjoy watering something he planted himself and watching it grow.


Can you tell the flowers endured some rough handling? I'm sure they will perk up with a little TLC — and I know just the boy for the job!

Pretending

Though probably unexciting to most, this kind of two-year-old moment brings me such tremendous joy...

Race Fans

We had a great time cheering for Uncle Charlie on Saturday as he raced in the Iron Brothers Triathlon near our house. Nathan enjoys these races so much that when I wake him at 5am to leave the house he is excited to get up and out the door (let's just say it takes me slightly longer to reach that level of excitement before sunrise). Charlie did an amazing job, placing first in his age group and second overall — then the crazy boy drove to Austin to compete in another race on Sunday! He's training for his first Ironman race next May (Texas' first ever Ironman will be held in The Woodlands), and we can't wait to cheer him on as he accomplishes one of his life goals.

Fun-filled Fourth