MM ~ Petland

Hello, my friends, and Happy New Year!! ❤  I'll probably write a more New Years-y post later this week, but for today, I'm keeping it simple with a few pictures from last Tuesday, my final day with the fam over this Christmas break!

Starting with Jace and Kyndal playing with their Lego friends.  Hearing their pretend games and imaginative dialogue was pretty amusing for me - I love the innocence of some of their childhood ideas, and the way they imitate what they've heard other adults say!

I mean, you should be impressed with our hard work here!  This was a fun project for me.  And Kyndal clearly enjoyed the quality time hanging out and building this with others, as she ordered three other Lego sets with the rest of her Christmas money!! ❤

After Lego time, I helped the Jaceman with eye therapy (giving Mamaw a tiny break from this ongoing daily chore).  We reeeally hoped he would be done by Christmas, but his eyes are still unstable, so it's been extended indefinitely.  Sad day.  Anyway, he currently has to watch TV with the glasses, read a book for 20 minutes using the bars and lenses, read tiny little phone numbers 3 different ways, put a toothpick through a straw that you move all around (for depth perception), write b-d-p-q several times, then write sentences that I'm supposed to make up containing a lot of those letters (because he tends to confuse them and see them the same way).  He does the phone numbers first because he likes it least... I decided to snap a photo, and he was super thrilled about it. lol  He did work really cheerfully, though, as he's got his eye on the prize of getting a snake as a pet if he can be kind for a full month... eeeek, not sure I'm quite rooting for him on that one! lol

Speaking of snakes, after many repeated requests from Jace, I took Jace and Kyndal to Petland, telling them we'd just look around and not get any of the pets out... (As Dwight would say:  False!)  This guy who worked there was incredibly helpful... he was into snakes and reptiles too, and very happy to answer Jace's many questions and get out different pets and share random facts about them.  I was grateful for that!

It was cute to see him so happy.  Kyndal wasn't too sure about the snake at first.  And Aunt Lindsey was kind enough to keep it to herself that my first association with snakes was the Superbook episode where Satan chose to take the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden.  All the animals in the world available to him, and he looked them over and picked that one... thus it's the only animal God very directly cursed in Genesis, plus there's Nagini and the Slytherin symbol, and then they're just generally creepy in their movements and hissing and darty little tongues and sometimes poisonous fangs and/or red eyes, so it's a hard pass for me all around.  I couldn't handle the Snakes on a Plane movie for more than 10 minutes. lol  Okay, good talk!

The mini Miss K and I got out this precious Pomsky puppy while Jace continued to hang out and hold a bearded dragon and an albino milk snake.  Kyndal's favorite dog is a Siberian Husky and mine is Pomeranians, so we were pretty happy about finding this one with pretty blue eyes! ❤

Back to Jace... just hanging out with his chameleon friend (whose claws were pretty sharp, Jace mentioned later).  If this pic doesn't immediately put "Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon" in your head, well, then we don't have that in common. lol

The guy working there (couldn't see his nametag and I never asked, but totally should have - I did thank him multiple times)... anyway, he told Jace that snakes love the warmth of the neck (strange but interesting), so Jace was happy to oblige.  I love his genuine smile here, but no thank you on the live snake necklace move!

Just pretending to be strangled by the actual python wrapping itself around his neck and giving it a gentle squeeze.  ICK!!

Kyndal Faith decided to be brave and try holding it.  Jace was very thrilled by her coming around on that, then he advised her that any time she holds a snake, she should make sure he's there to help out.  I laughed to myself at that expert older brother spirit and said, "Yeah, an adult or worker who handles snakes should definitely be there, too!"  I fear him finding a random snake somewhere and thinking he can pick it up and pop it around his neck. lol

So after all that Petland excitement, I made us all go wash our hands in the bathroom and then use hand sanitizer... and THEN we headed to Quail Springs mall to grab lunch at Chick-fil-A in their food court.  Brought back memories for me... and also made me a little sad to see how much it's gone downhill through the pandemic.  They asked to ride these "Zu Animal" things, and I figured that was preferable to having them argue over which stores to go in (they can't go in the stores on these).  ....They were a bit irritated, but I was quite happy with the turtle-speed of these things. lol  I just moseyed along taking pictures and laughing at them trying to race each other at about 2.5 miles an hour!

❤ They make me happy! ❤

Just to be clear, T-man stayed home and slept in on this day, which is why he's not in any photos.  Mom was working at Babah's house... the original plan was for us all to go there, then Mom and I decided that she and JoBug would likely get more done + Jace and Kyndal would have more fun if I took them while Mom went without us to Babah's.  She met us at Quail Springs when they were done, and I left from there to head on to Tulsa (after grabbing cookies at Great American Cookie co.).  When I got home, I promptly crashed and took a long nap, then caught up on the latest Netflix fun and ordered groceries for making Oreo balls. lol  In case you needed the full play by play.  It was a fun day all around!  (Jace's lion ran out of power before K's minion, so he ran over and hopped on hers for the last minute or so! lol)

That's all I've got for you today.  Happy January, and happy Monday!