The Botanic Gardens

Tuesday was another beautiful day in Fort Worth. We headed to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens after breakfast. 

There was tons to see here. They have several different gardens that we were able to walk in and out of.

My beautiful butterfly. Lyla is my social butterfly who loves to spread her wings, explore, imagine.

There was a little pond with beautiful lily pads. On our trip, Lyla found her love of photography as well. She brought along her camera to take her own pictures. She also experimented with my camera. She actually listened really well to my instructions about how to look through the hole and find what she wanted to take a picture of before pressing the button. I have some of the pictures she took a little further down.

Future photographer in the making?

This rose garden was beautiful. It reminded my of some of the gardens we saw when we were in Germany and Austria. 

Here is a picture Lyla took of me. At first I was a little nervous about her dropping the camera, so I would help her hold it. But as the day went on she loved putting the strap around her neck and she would hold it just like I told her to.

Lyla and I are together all day every day, for the most part. One of the best parts of being a stay at home mom. I love getting to spend all my time with her. One of the greatest things about having three weeks in Texas was that I did not have any of the "normal" responsibilities that come with keeping my home running. I had minimal cleaning, laundry, and meal making responsibilities and it was GREAT! Not only did I not have to do my normal chores, the best part of it was that I really got to just enjoy my time with Lyla. There was nothing else to distract me or make me feel guilty for "ignoring" her. I know that is not real life, of course I have other responsibilities that have to get done around the house, but it was a nice little break to just enjoy Lyla and not think about anything else. It gave me a chance to get to know her better and for her to have my full attention. It let us have time to just stop and smell the roses....literally. I truly enjoyed every minute of this time. I am so thankful and SO blessed that we could have this time.

We found a pond full of turtles who were enjoying the sunny day as well.

Another picture captured by Lyla :)

Another Lyla picture.

Cooling off inside for a few minutes and we found some pretty fish to look at.

We also met this little guy.

Our morning in the gardens was coming to a close...the meltdown/I'm hungry/nap time hit, so we took a few more pictures before heading back to Sarah's.

We even saw some beautiful brides getting their bridal portraits taken while we were here. It is such a beautiful place, I am sure that brides are constantly there getting their pictures taken here.

These next few pictures are some that Lyla took of me.

One more little pond that we checked out before leaving this beautiful place.

I have never been to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, but after going to the one in Fort Worth, I definitely want to check it out. Lyla loved it and it was nice being outside enjoying the pretty weather.

We left the gardens and headed back to Sarah's house for lunch and nap time. Once Sarah got off work, we headed to the pool!!