Playin' Around

Here are pictures at the park from last week and this morning.

Birthday Bash

Yeah, I know it has been too long since the last post. There is no way I can remember everything we have done in the last couple of weeks. I'm sure most of you just want to see pictures anyway. Last weekend we had a birthday party for Wyatt and Dacy since their birthdays are only a month apart. It was a great weekend at the lakehouse. A little hot, but still fun. Wyatt loves every gift he got. He has gone from one to the next ever since we got back on Sunday. He will officially be one on the 5th. We are having another celebration closer to his actual B-day Labor Day weekend at Greg's parents. So many parties! At my baby shower last year, almost to the day, Christie and I had a picture of us taken with giant pregnant bellies. Now here we are with our big boys who are almost a year old!
Wyatt is using more hand signs now. His favorites are 'help' (which, in his mind, means 'pay attention to me!') and 'finished' which he tries so say but just gets out the 'ish'. I love that he is trying so hard to communicate. Now, when I tell him we need to change his diaper or I get out the wipes or his shoes, he plops down on the floor, falls onto his back and sticks his feet in the air. It is really funny. He is so much more cooperative while changing his diaper and clothes now that he feels like he is participating. Greg and I are so happy that we don't have to alligator wrestle him anymore.

Boys in a Box

Movie Star Wyatt. He loves to try on sunglasses but doesn't actually want to wear them when we are outside. Same with hats. Wyatt is communicating more and more. He has been using hand signals for milk, eat and more for a while, but now he is trying to talk. Reliably, he says 'yeti', 'out', 'shoes' and 'dad'. He listens and tries repeating words. He doesn't remember much yet but he is trying! Also, he has learned how to bring me things. He is very generous these days. I can even ask him to do things now like bring me his bottle, sit down, hug, go outside, stop playing in the potty, don't eat the dog food- all the basics. My favorite age with Noah was from about 15 mths to 3. That is when he could communicate, but he still minded and took naps. I am excited that Wyatt is about to be in that stage. Here are pictures of one of Noah and Greg's favorite games. Noah gets in the giant diaper box and Greg closes it up and carries him around the house, making Noah guess which room they are in. When the box becomes structurally unsound then Noah climbs in and Greg spins him on the floor like crazy and makes him walk across the room to me. It is hilarious. It takes Noah about a minute to recover and climb back in the box for more. Meanwhile Greg and I are getting naseous just watching him. Wyatt climbed in and decided it was not for him as soon as Greg closed one flap. He had fun putting his toys in the box with Noah. Both boys are growing like weeds. According to my growth chart Noah grew an inch in the last 2.5 months and Wyatt grew one and a half inches! I guess that is about it for now.

So Slow...

Blogger is taking a while to load today so I don't know how many pics I will be able to upload. For my regular visitors- sorry it has been so long since an update. Here are the boys playing in the hose last weekend. It was blazing hot outside and they had a blast with the hose. Wyatt would not let it go. He waved it around and tried to drink from it. After getting a faceful of water, he would sputter and cough a little and then go right back at it. Noah had a ball just playing in his overspray. The last picture is after turning the water off. Not happy at all.
Wyatt is climbing now and pushes anything he can get to move. This includes chairs, stools, trashcans, bikes, etc. If he is awake, he is walking. He never sits to play. He finds something he wants and walks around the house playing with it. I took the boys to the park today and discovered that Wyatt can sit and swing in a regular swing all by himself. He holds on and I push him. I've never seen a baby as young as Wyatt swinging like that. Noah climbs up the slides and pushes his hummer down them. I think Wyatt is trying to jump too. He stands in one spot and bounces like he is trying to get off his feet.
I guess that is it for now. Happy Birthday to Jay, Dori and Dacy!

Camera Gremlin

Yet again I am having troubles with my new camera. So some of these pictures are posted because I may direct a customer service person to this site to see the problems. I have such horrible luck with cameras.
Wyatt and Noah are both doing great. Wyatt is close to running now. Last week he learned to go from sitting to standing and now he is truely unstopable. He is such a little guy to be walking so good that I have had a hard time finding real shoes for him. The shoes made to fit fat little 10 mth baby feet are not condusive for running in bark mulch and climbing concrete driveways. He was slipping all over the place in the little suede bottomed baby shoes. Not to mention how stinky they made his sweaty little feet. I finally found some sandals and a pair of tennies that I am able to cram his fat little foot into. He loves them. His favorite things right now are yard work (he can actually push the mower!), playing in Noah's big car (picture on the right) and playing with his 'Mozart Cube'. He is so cute walking up to Noah's car, opening the door and climbing in. He also likes to push it around. Noah is a little distressed by all this. The big car is very important to him. A ride in Ezra's big electric car helps him cope. Ezra lives across the street and he and Noah love playing together. Noah tries to drive the big truck but, in his own words, he is 'not a very good steerer'. So far he has only crashed into the Bronco and a few electrical boxes.

Yet Another Fun Weekend

I guess it has been about a week since I last updated- doesn't seem like that long ago. Pretty average week. Greg took Friday off to go tubing down the San Marcos with our Jr. High youth group. He took Noah with him. They had a great time. Noah was most excited about riding in the church bus and eating at Mr. Gattis. Later that day we headed to Point Venture for a wedding party on the lake. We stayed with Greg's parents. Here is Wyatt with a snow cone cup. Only at Mama G's house does Noah get to make pancakes, snowcones and cookies before noon. After a lot of wakeboarding, Greg and I are both sore and recovering today. Which means lying on the floor watching the boys run amuck. I'll clean tomorrow...

HOT!

Today was H-O-T hot. After a glorious morning of sealing and staining our deck, we took the kids to the San Marcos river. The city finally recognized what a hazard the old Rio Vista dam was and spent several million dollars to rennovate it. The dam is pretty much gone and was replaced by three sections of rapids. They put in a bunch of large rocks for sunbathing and made huge inmprovements to the banks. As you can see in the picture, it is THE local summer hotspot. Lots of free cold water. Greg loves it because on thursday nights it is a paddle spot for local kayakers. Playboaters gather to surf and do stunts in the three big waves. Greg has experience paddling in everything from the pacific ocean to Golden, CO and the Platte and he says the new waves in San Marcos are the best surfing waves he has ever paddled. Paddling is Greg's favorite past time and it is a huge blessing to have this so close. As pretty as the river is and as fun as the people-watching was, I never want to go there again on a crowded weekend. Not what I consider relaxing. Greg and the boys cooled off in the river after playing at the Children's Park.
Today I found about a hundred more features on my new camera. Here is a picture of Wyatt colorized so that the blue in the picture is accented. The camera lets you choose any color to accent and subdues all the other colors. Those are the actual color of Wyatt's eyes with the rest of the picture toned down. So Cool.
Yesterday a friend of mine begged me to let her watch the boys. Uh, okay! I am so fortunate to have so many friends and family that love spending time with my boys. Anyhow, she gave me a couple hours in the afternoon to run some errands and then her and her husband watched the boys in the evening while Greg and I went mtn. biking. We had such a great ride- it felt so good to be back on the bike again. Afterwards we came home and played cards with our friends and stayed up way too late. I need to get off this thing and get some sleep. This weekend has already been a lot of fun- we will see what more tomorrow brings!

The Past Few Days

My new camera has arrived! It is awesome. Since it came with such a dinky memory card I have not been able to take very many pictures, but hopefully tomorrow I will have the opportunity to get a larger card. It also came with some really cool new software that I am still learning so my picture are not cropped, sized and edited like usual.
Here is Mama G and Noah coloring while we waited for our food at the Texican Cafe last Sunday. They came down to hear Greg preach at our church. The pastor was out of town and asked Greg to fill in. He has preached once before in this church and spoken at various other occasions. He teaches the Jr. High twice a week and really loves working with the youth, but speaking to the rest of the congregation gets him a little nervous. He did a great job. I really admire his public speaking abilities. After lunch, Mama and Papa G hung out at the house for awhile.
Tuesday we took the Rav to San Antonio where Uncle Brad worked on it. He gave us a new decked out FJ Cruiser to drive while our car was in the shop. We had a lot of fun driving it. It is a really cool truck, but not exactly the efficient family-mobile we need. Maybe when the kids are older... Greg worked from his laptop and phone the whole day while the kids and I visited with Aunt Tammy and Jacob out in Sisterdale. We swam and the boys played outside. That is Noah on Jacob's 'motorcycle'. It was a fun, but long, day.
Today we are back to the same ol routine. We went to the pool this morning and this afternoon is gymnastics and then church.

Sweet Baby

Visit Dori's new photo site to see updated pictures of our kids. Hint for her new site: click on a picture and then click on the tiny icon in the top left corner that says 'all sizes' to see a big picture better for printing and downloading to your computer.

Glimpse into the Future....

Dori took this picture at the lake a couple weeks ago. How old does he look to you? Greg and I think we can see what Noah will look like as a teenager in this picture. Greg sees a lot of Geoff, his brother, in him. Hard for me to say because I did not know Geoff as a kid. I see a little heart throb- don't know how I'm going to handle that...

Happy 4th of July!

Yesterday Wyatt turned 10 months! He is a small but very mobile 10 monther. Each day he is trying to communicate more and more. He uses hand signs for 'eat', 'milk' and 'more'. That is all I have really taught him or he might know more. Right now he is really into clapping. He learned to do it a long time ago but stopped for a while. Now he claps all the time- even while he is walking. He is finally sleeping through the night. I hope I don't jinx it. The past four nights he has slept from 8:30 to 7. It has been wonderful.
Here is 'Yankee Doodle Wyatt' according to Christie. Our Fourth began kind of crumby but got a lot better. We went to a 'festival' on the river in San Marcos that turned out to be really lame. There were a few booths selling junk, some junk food and it was about 99% humidity and h-o-t hot. So after some ice cream and funnel cake (while listening to a really horrible band) we left. Christie and che invited us to go swimming and eat hot dogs in the late afternoon. That was a lot of fun. Christie's aunt has a little boy close to Noah's age so they played in the pool the whole time. Wyatt and Ben kept Christie, Che, Greg and I busy entertaining, feeding and cleaning up after them. The boys were exhausted by the time we got home so we put them to bed, watched a bad movie and went to bed ourselves. No fireworks- other than the non-pretty, loud ones the rednecks in our neighborhood set off all hours of the night. They must have not had time to fire them all because all day yesterday and last night they were still goin at it. The boys probably would have enjoyed a big display, but they start so late and Monday night was rainy.
Here is Wyatt chowing down on a tomato yesterday. I was babysitting Molly and I had all the kids in the backyard looking at flowers and picking stuff int he garden. The babies wanted to inspect the tomatos and before I knew it they were both eating them like apples! The one Wyatt is eating is a variety that is supposed to be green. Don't worry, I woulnd't feed the babies unripe veggies. Molly ate most of a huge red one. Wyatt only ate about a third of that green one. Afterwards everyone went in the tub to get off all the tomato juice and dirt.
My exciting news is that I am getting a new camera! Canon has an upgrade program so I am sending in mine and they are sending me back a refurbished current model that is leaps better than the one I have. It takes much better video too. I am determined to figure out how to get video on the blog. I think I will work on that right now while Wyatt is taking an uncharacteristically long nap. Nevermind! He just woke up while loading that last picture!

It's Go Time!

It has been quit a while since I last updated! Wyatt is walking all over the place now. This picture was taken last week in Dallas (s a last minute trip to attend a funeral). At that time he was only able to walk about 6 ft max. He now can get from one end of the house to the other and make small turns. He still has a good many falls and he is not able to go from sitting to standing without pulling up on something. He loves walking and usually falls because he gets so excited by his progress he laughs and waves, knocking himself off balance.
Our recent days have been pretty busy. The unexpected trip to Dallas came with mixed emotions. It was fun to visit with the family but the death of the father of Greg's closest childhood friend was really sad. Last Friday Christie and baby Ben came over for a play date. Wyatt loves to hug and kiss and wrestle with his baby friends, but they don't usually respond very well. We figure that he interacts with other babies so physically because that is how Noah plays with him. Lately, it is a constant wrestling match around here. Anyhow, the babies made their way into the pantry and enjoyed shaking macaroni boxes and chewing on Diet Coke bottles. That was the best entertainment all day.
Saturday we went to the lake with some friends and rode the wakeboard most of the day. We were wiped and headed back home that evening. Noah and Wyatt did great spending most of the day on the boat. Sunday we were at church most of the day. Greg had to work on Monday but we had some friends over for dinner. They have two little girls close in age to Noah and Wyatt. Noah and Taylor played hard all evening, wrestling, jumping of the deck and generally running amuck. Today we tried to take the boys to a July 4th 'festival' in San Marcos but it was nothing more than some lame booths selling junk and junk food. Christie and Che saved the day by inviting us over to her aunt's house for a mini pool party. So the boys should be absolutely worn down by now. They went to bed tonight without so much as a peep.

Early Morning

This picture was taken at about 8 this morning after I had been up for an hour and a half doing dishes. As on of the few really good pics of the boys together, I just had to post it. They were in a very happy and cuddly mood. Don't know that I can same the same for myself! For the scrapbook I think I will crop myself out of this pic.
After reading my last post I want to apologize to all my readers for my horrible grammer and typos. I usually write these entries with the last shreds of energy and brainpower I have at the end of a day. This is actually a really good way to keep me writing at a time in my life when my 'job' doesn't require it. Even the most basic skills tend to get a little rusty when they haven't been used in a while. Even though the last entry was atrocious, I really don't feel like editing it! Instead, I think I'll go share a cookie with Noah...

Play, play, play

I started with this picture because this is about where our week began. I helped a friend throw a slumber party for the ninth grade girls in our church. We had a really fun time making (and devouring) and enormous sundae, hiking, painting toenails and doing makeovers. Yes, I know it is hard to beleive, but I participated in it all. Anyhow, I brought the boys over the next morning to visit with the girls and this how they 'fixed up' Wyatt. You may think this is not right but I think he was lucky not to get an avocado face mask or purple toenails. Noah loves those girls and just had a grand ol' time telling his stories to a very captivated and excited audience. He played his first game of Twister and it is hilarious to hear him tell the story. The jist of it is that the girls got all twisted up and fell over on him, hurting his arm slightly. He may never play Twister again. The rest of the week was pretty quiet. We did a lot of playing. Wyatt takes a few steps everytime he stands up. If he practiced more freestanding and squatting I think he would walk in not time, but he insists on skipping those skills and going straight to strutting across the room. This week I am on a mission to get a good picture of him in mid stride so ya'll don't think I'm just making this stuff up. In this picture he is 'dancing' to his singing dog. He loves that dog. He plays with it for several minutes, squeezing and hugging it to make it play different songs and say things. He will get bored with it and crawl away. The toy stays silents for a minute or so and then, in a last effort to keep the child's attention, it says 'Hug me' before turning off. When Wyatt hears that he will crawl back over and hug the dog, starting the singing all over again. I saw him repeat this little scene about three times. It was really cute. So the second picture is him hugging the dog. The last picture is just silly Wyatt. He thinks it is hilarious to smash his face against the mesh of his little tunnel and have me kiss or poke him through it. It entertains him for almost 15 minutes! That is like a whole movie to him. Last night he slept from 8:00 to 7 am- the longest stretch ever in his whole life. I really hope it sticks. He did not nurse at all today. So sad, but I think it is time to wean. Sometimes I am so ready to do it and other times it bums me out to think about it, but I guess he is ready.

All Wet

Greg called me up Friday afternoon and told me his boss wanted him to go out to his lakehouse on Lake Travis to entertain (aka wakeboard) some business associates. He happens to live just a few doors down from Greg's parents so I loaded the kids up and we headed for Point Venture to visit Mama and Papa G. Greg was able to get some good wakeboarding in. The boat broke down right when I was ready to go out. Bummer. But we had a wonderful time hanging out with his boss' family, enjoying their company, hospitality and great food. I took Noah on his first ride on a waverunner. I think he enjoyed it. He wasn't scared, but it didn't really excite him either. I think he is spoiled by Papa's boat and our sailboat. The waverunner was nothin' special. We took Noah to the Point Venture park where, due to the drought, there is a huge beachy area. We drove the Rav in the sand and went swimming, played on the beach, collected shells and went for a walk. It was Noah's first beach experience and he LOVED it. I have never seen him as pooped as he was that evening. Wyatt hung out with Mama G most of day. He had fun getting into Mama G's kitchen cabinets and using her step stool as a walker. Noah hung out with her quit a bit too. They just love Mama G. She gave Noah his first sno cone this weekend. Lots of firsts for Noah. We even tried to catch a fish but to no avail. There was one down there- he kept stealin' our bait- but we just couldn't hook him. Today we went to church and spent the afternoon playing with the boys around the house. Wyatt now has eight teeth. At home he practices walking every chance he gets.

Lots of Learning Going On

I don't think I can say that Wyatt is officially walking yet, but he is pretty darn close. This morning he went three steps and I was all excited and planning on bragging about it on the blog but by the end of the day he had walked 6 steps! He was pulling up on things, letting go and trying to walk all day long. At one point he was holding onto a blanket with both hands and leaning against a table leg. He balanced himself and just started walking, holding the blanket in front of him like it was helping him balance. I think he though it was helping him and didn't realize he was doing it all on his own. 6 steps! Very exciting.
Noah has exciting news too. He has learned to sing his ABC's - he is doing it as I type. I bought him a Hooked on Phonics kit for preschoolers. It has workbooks, progress posters and computer, board and flash card games. It is kind of a homeschooling thing to teach kids their letters. We started it yesterday and he loves it. The lessons are only meant to be 15-20 minutes long but we did it for an hour and I had to tear Noah away from it. He learned to recite the alphabet and recognize the letter 'A'. He can recognize a few other letters too. I am so excited that he is so excited about learning. He has been driving me crazy lately because he gets bored and tends to make trouble. We go for walks, bike rides, swim and gymnastics but he still didn't seem to have enough to do. So I decided that maybe he needed something to busy his mind. So far it is working!

Dallas, Wylie and Granite Shoals

Where do I start...? Last Tuesday the boys and I hitched a ride with Mimi and Papa to Dallas. We went to hang out with Mimi and Aunt Dori and the kids. The first few days were mostly shopping and playing in the pool. One day we met Dori, Jon and Dacy at Planet Pizza, a much more mellow version of Chuck E Cheese. Noah rode little indoor kiddie rides for the first time. They had a tiny roller coaster, tilt a whirl, tea cups, swinging ship and, my personal favorite and hard to find these days, bumper cars. Noah and Jon ran from one thing to the next. There was also a huge indoor playground with a ball pit that all three kids spent a lot of time in. Wyatt enjoyed watching all the craziness around him. Saturday Papa and Uncle Jay took the boys to go see the new animated movie Cars in the convertible Mustang. It was Noah's first time to see a movie at a theater. He loved the whole experience. When they got home he could hardly breathe he had so much to say. He was totally awed by the 'humungous tv' and all the seats. Just like the rest of us, he got impatient with all the previews and commercials before the movie. It was the absolute most perfect first movie for Noah. Greg and I promised to take him to go see it again even though Noah has pretty much told us the whole movie now. Me and the boys spent a couple days at aunt Dori's house too. We just hung out and enjoyed how well the boys play together. Oh, and I flooded Dori's laundry room with two inches of water. Oops. It turnded out for the better, I guess, because the room got a good cleaning, we found her lost digital camera and now she, and I, know exactly what all the settings on the washing machine mean. Wyatt just keeps getting crazier. Last Tueday he took two steps. Since then he has been practicing a lot of freestanding and will take a step or two. He really wants to walk. Noah only tried taking steps when urged and cheered on by Greg and I. Wyatt tries walking whenever he feels like it. He began waving while we were in Dallas. Papa taught him. He waves his whole arm vigorously and says 'iiiiiiiiii'. It is so cute. The family got a chance to actually live with Wyatt and I and see how much he clings to me and how dramatic he is when things are not going his way. He is a high maintenance little baby, but at the same time he is also very friendly and smiley with everyone. His personality is so much Greg. Wyatt loves Papa and melted him with a huge grin and flapping arms every time he came into the room. Greg excites him even more. I think he is one of the few babies at this age I have met that really needs and likes having a man around. He gets tired of all us women. Who can blame him when we put him through four hours at the mall and countless trips in the car seat. Mimi, Dori, me and the four kides spent the last couple days of my visit at the lakehouse. It was hot, but the lake was smooth as glass and refreshing. The boys played with their cars and swam. Dacy and Wyatt drove us crazy between their naps and mealtimes, but we still had a good time lounging, swimming and playing addictive computer games. Now we are back home and recovering from our week of fun. We had such a good time but it is good to be back in our own beds and have Greg with us. My camera is almost kaput and I didn't get very many good pictures this past week. As always, Dori took some and I will transfer some from her website when she gets them uploaded.

A Little Lengthier Than Usual

Since my last entry I am now a whole year older. Greg took me out for some birthday sushi at our favorite Japanese place in downtown Austin while a friend watched the boys. We had a really nice time after a somewhat stressful day for the both of us. This past weekend we visited all the grandparents. We hung out at Mama & Papa G's on Friday night and continued on to the lakehouse Saturday afternoon to play on the lake with Mimi and Papa. In this picture Papa was making Wyatt laugh by putting Wyatt's swim trunks on his head and letting them slowly slide off into his lap- with some silly faces and noises added for effect. The game went on for a good 15 minutes. It was the deepest belly laugh I have ever heard from Wyatt. We caught it on video. I think the two of them look a lot alike in this pic. This weekend was Wyatt's first time to really swim in the lake. We bought him a little floaty that suspends him in the middle of a tube. He loves it. He walks around in the shallows just where his feet can barely touch, which happens to be under the front end of the boat dock. He walked around under the dock touching all the screws, picking up sticks and moss and hanging from the line to the minnow bucket. I wish I had taken a picture! Both boys love boat rides and watching Greg wakeboard. I finally got a chance to get a good ride in on the wakeboard. It has been almost two years because I was pregnant all last summer. It felt great.
Here is a rare look at Wyatt's top teeth. Hey, it is exciting for me!
Today I took Wyatt to the doctor for his nine month check-up. I was very suprised to find out that he is only in the 10th percentile for height and weight. That just doesn't seem right because, compared to other babies his age, he always seems much taller. I guess it doesn't really matter. He is healthy and my doctor says he is 'very proportionate'. They have a multitude of carefully worded baby compliments to ease the minds of young moms. Wyatt was super grumpy and cried pretty much the whole time. He screamed when they pricked his finger and squeezed out enough blood to fill a little vile. Turns out Wyatt is a really good bleeder (yet another weird compliment). He wouldn't keep a band-aid on and his finger was gushing. So, by the time we left he and I were both covered in blood. Also, Noah had to get a shot which put him in tears until soothed by a Sonic milkshake. So we were quite a scene leaving the office. I hope the new mothers in the waiting room weren't too scared by us. Wyatt is very close to walking. I say he will take his first steps in the next month. He pushes his little cart all over the house and today he kept forgetting he can't walk and would just let go and try to make some kind of progress. Once, he managed to take one step towards me before crashing, which he doesn't seem to mind. He still spends a lot of time on his tip toes, so he won't have a whole lot of success until he flattens his feet. Greg and I are sure he says dog. It sounds lake 'dag', but he definitely will point at a dog and say it or says it when a dog unexpectedly crosses his path. He knows and uses the hand signs for 'milk' and 'more', which is great except that he asks for milk more often than he really needs it just because he is excited to communicate. Tomorrow the boys and I are headed to Dallas to visit Mimi and Aunt Dori. Jon Conal is finally out of school so we are going to have some summer fun with all the kids. Noah is going bananas in anticipation. I wasn't going to make the trip for another couple of weeks but Noah, after talking to Aunt Dori on the phone, has been talking about the trip non stop, packing his backpack and picking flowers for Aunt Dori and Uncle Jay for the past week. I don't think he, or my plants, would have made it through another two weeks. So my blog may suffer a little in the next couple of weeks.