Caroline Eating Yogurt

Recently, Caroline has been using spoons and forks (more like a spork) to feed herself. Here she is eating Yo Baby yogurt. Caroline has not quite mastered getting every bite into her mouth but she does a pretty good job and can eat an entire container of yogurt by herself without making too big of a mess.

Our First Saturday Morning Donuts

One thing I've been looking forward to doing was take my kids to get donuts. Well, the three of us finally did so this last Saturday.

I grew up liking small, family owned donut shops and I still prefer them today. One of my favorites is Jumbo Donuts on Parmer over by Mopac. They make the world's best apple fritters. I didn't even know I liked apple fritters until I had one from here. Even though there are probably a dozen donuts stores closer to our house, I wanted Jumbo Donuts to be Caden and Caroline's first.
I had planned to order myself an apple fritter and I was hoping to buy 2-3 donut holes for the twins. Well, the worker didn't speak English well enough for me to try to buy such a weird number of donut holes so I ended up just getting a dozen.
I was pretty sure Caroline would love donuts and boy did she ever. I handed her a donut hole which she quickly shoved it into her mouth as if someone was trying to steal it. Here is a picture of Caroline enjoying her first donut ever.This is a picture taken five seconds after I handed her the donut hole. She had already fit the entire thing in her mouth and stood up to grab another.
Caroline noticed I pulled the donut out of one of these little white bags so she quickly helped herself to a second one. Her second donut ever lasted about five seconds as well.
Caroline was reaching for a third when I moved the bag away. Her cheeks were puffed way out with donuts. I told her she needed to chew and swallow what she had.

While I was sure Caroline would love donuts, I was equally sure Caden would not. I handed Caden his first donut hole which he licked once and then never moved it towards his mouth again. Instead, he just wanted to walk around the donut shop holding his donut.
Caden was very content walking around while Caroline sat in a booth enjoying donuts. Caroline eventually managed to swallow her first two donuts and then she really wanted another. I decided to let her have one more donut hole before we left. I then quickly ate the remaining eight so that I could show her the empty bag and tell her all the donuts were gone. Ah,parenting at its tastiest!
The three of us had a lot of fun on our quick donut trip. I look forward to taking them out for donuts again real soon.

Valentine's Day Pictures

Amy asked Heidii to make some Valentine's shirts for the twins. Heidii did a great job so of course it deserved a photo shoot.

This was as close as we got as a shot together. Thankfully, we got a lot of great individual shots.
Here is Caroline blowing me a kiss.
Caroline talking to her Valentine on the phone.
I love these three pictures of Caroline and her little cow.
Both our kids love kissing. Here is sweet one of Caroline planting one on Mommy.
Caden also had fun posing for the camera. I think this was my favorite of him.
Get this tie off of me!
Caden was on the floor playing with his Valentine balloon.
Caden loves playing with his blankie.
Caden loves making a fish face. He'll do it for me whenever I ask.
Here is Caden playing with both Valentine's balloons, or as he calls them, "baaawoooon."

Another BBQ Trip to Lockhart

I went on another BBQ trip this last Saturday. My friends, Matt and Russell, were unable to make it on the previous weekends trip so we decided to try again. Despite my kids being sick, my wonderful wife still let me go while she stayed home with the twins! I think it was very sweet of her and might even have made up for the fact that she threw away my leftovers from the previous weekend. :)

Once again, we made our way to to the Lockhart, the BBQ Mecca of Texas. This time, our main target was Black's.

It took us longer than it should have to get to Lockhart. We were in stand still traffic for about 45 minutes right by the airport. But we finally made it to Black's. (Note: Once again, I forgot my camera. I stole all of the pictures here from Russell.)
This was my first time to go to Black's. In the past, I had heard Black's was good but both Smitty's and Kreuz Market were the real places you should go in Lockhart. Even Matt said this after he went to Black's awhile back. Needless to say, my expectations were not very high. But even if I had the highest of expectations, Black's would have surpassed them! The BBQ was amazing!

First, they were very friendly when we walked in the door (which is not really the case at Smitty's or Kreuz). Here is the guy that served us showing off a two pound beef rib. I really wanted to purchase this but it would have been pretty expensive and I wanted to try multiple things. If Caroline was with me, I might have gotten it for the two of us to share. :)
I ordered brisket (the fatty version), jalapeno/cheese sausage, and spare ribs. The spare ribs were good but nothing special. They were a little too tough. The sausage was really good and rivaled the stuff served at Smitty's/Kreuz. Now, the brisket is what made the experience. Not to oversell, but this was easily the best brisket I have ever had in my life! It was amazing and I am drooling on the keyboard as I think about it now.

Matt said the food was way better this time than it was during his previous experience. I hope Matt's first experience was the aberration and not this awesome brisket. I hope they can reproduce this the next time I go.

Before I thought about it, all our food was gone. Otherwise, I would have taken a picture of it. So, this is all I got of the table at Black's.
After eating a ton of meat at Black's, I thought the appropriate thing to do was go eat a ton more meat at another BBQ place in Lockhart. Since I hit Smitty's the previous week, we went to Kreuz. Sadly, Kreuz did not have a good showing. Not only was it in the bad position of following the awesomeness we ate at Black's, but it just wasn't very good this time. They definitely had an off day.

Despite the disappointing Kreuz and the bad traffic, I declare the trip to be a huge success. Black's was amazing and I'll be dreaming about there brisket for weeks to come!

P.S. -- Russell also wrote about this trip here. Here are my two favorite lines from his post. (I figure, I stole his pictures, I might as well steel some of his words.)

Don't worry, no vegetables were harmed in the process of this trip.

Overall we had a good trip and needless to say we are full tonight (Well maybe Jason isn't).

P.S.S. -- In case anyone is wondering, this here is a really cool site Matt sent me that helps you find good BBQ places all over the country (but mostly in Texas)--Full Custom Gospel BBQ. I think I'm going to set a goal to try all of his 5 star locations.

Caden's Walking Progress

Last month, I mentioned Caden took his first steps. I thought I'd give a long overdue update on his walking progress. Caden is definitely a walker and uses it as his main mode of transportation. He still keeps both hands in the air most of the time but he does a pretty good job staying upright. He's been walking well for a few weeks now.

The one thing he struggles with is standing up. With the way he crawls/scoots, Caden has yet to learn how to stand up without using something to pull himself up. So, when he wants to walk somewhere, he either crawls over to something or he sticks his arms up at us so we'll stand him up.

Over the last few days, Caden has started trying to stand up without anything to help him up. Before, he rarely tried so I bet he'll get the hang of it really quickly. Its funny how Caroline was able to stand up a couple months before she could walk while Caden could walk for at least a month before he could stand up.

BBQ in Lockhart, Candy, and Food Trailers

This weekend, Amy and I went back to Lockhart for some BBQ. We went to Smitty's market--one of the same places from the last time. The couple we went with last time were unable to make it but our friends, the Followays, came along.

Just like before, the food was awesome! I even ordered some extra so I could have some leftovers at home. But sadly, Amy committed an unforgivable offense. When I was throwing away the trash, Amy was throwing away my bag of leftover sausage and brisket! I watched her leave the table with the BBQ and then noticed it was gone when she came out of the bathroom. Amy didn't remember throwing it away but I know she did! Amy blames me...not that she thinks I threw it away or doesn't believe she did, but instead, she blames me for entrusting her with the BBQ. I guess I can trust her with our twins but not some Lockhart BBQ.

On the way home from Lockhart, we got to talking and decided to drive through South Congress and go to Big Top Candy. We had seen it on the Food Network and thought it would be fun to check out. Big Top Candy is an old fashioned soda parlor and candy store. They had soooo many random types of candy.

Across the street from Big Top, was a collection of food trailers. We decided to go check those out as well. A couple of the trailers were places Amy and I had already tried at the Gypsy Picnic. One place I didn't get to go to at the picnic but wanted to was Cutie Pie Wagon. They sell miniature pies. Everyone at the Gypsy Picnic said their buttermilk pie was amazing and I have recently come to realize how good buttermilk pies are. Of course, I had to get one of these and it was a pretty darn good pie. I ate my mini pie while waiting in line at the trailer next door--Hey Cupcake. :)

At Hey Cupcake, I asked the girl working which was her favorite cupcake. She looked at me, started to say something, and then said, "I'm sorry. I was about to lie but I just couldn't do that to you. I hate cupcakes and don't like any of the ones we sell." How about that for honesty! Despite her glowing recommendation, I went ahead and bought a double chocolate cupcake. It was good, but Amy makes better cupcakes.

That was our Saturday food adventure. I look forward to doing it again some time and next time, Amy isn't coming near any bag of leftovers. :)