Super Duper Bouncy Balls and Grampie

My boys love their Grampie. And with good reason. He calls them on the phone, takes them to the park almost daily when we visit, plays with them, takes them to get donuts, gives them hugs and kisses, makes up crazy bedtime stories for them, tells them how much he loves them, AND buys them balls (or "super duper bouncy balls," as Noah calls them or "baaaaws" as Sam calls them). It's no wonder Grampie is such a hit. (By the way, they really love their Grammie too but I don't have pictures of them with her from this trip!). Thanks, Mom and Dad, for being such awesome grandparents!

Fountains

Tonight after Ben got home from work we took the boys to this outdoor shopping area near our house. We ate dinner there while the boys ran around and played by the fountain in the center of the shops. My boys absolutely love fountains.

The following are not from tonight, but here are some pictures from our recent CA trip of Noah and Sam playing by the fountain at the outdoor shopping mall near my parents' house.

I'm Back. Again.

Have you ever noticed that the longer you go between posting, the harder it is to get back to posting? I'm making a personal goal to post something - anything - every day this week (we'll pretend for this exercise that Wednesday is the beginning of a week), just to get back in the swing of it.

So today's random post...

This morning we went to Sam's Club. As I was getting all set to walk out the door I said, "Okay, boys, time to go!" Upon hearing of our departure, Sam immediately booked it to the kitchen, opened the pantry door, grabbed the jumbo container full of goldfish, and toddled toward the door with it. Apparantly he wanted a snack for the road.

Sam is 20 months old today. I'm noticing such a difference in him lately. He's picking up more phrases (my current favorite: "Got it!" exclaimed each and every time he picks something up), running around the house finding things to occupy himself with, and doesn't want to be held quite so much. He's a full-fledged toddler. It's a bit strange to not really have a baby right now. When Noah was Sam's age, I was already six months pregnant. Weird! I couldn't imagine that right now. I love my two boys to pieces, but they're pretty much kicking my butt. Just keeping it real.

Blog Slacker

I don't know why I'm so sporadic in my blog writing these days. My current excuse is that I'm in California, and I can't very well be expected to blog when I'm busy trying to get as much time in with my parents as possible before going home. Living several states away is a real bummer! It's been a really fun week and a half. On the day of my last post, my parents flew to Houston to visit us. We spent the next four days doing nothing exciting (unless you count the dinner out to my favorite Tex-Mex restaurant, at which we stuffed ourselves silly) but having such a great time. The boys and I flew back to Cali with my parents and we've been here ever since. I almost had to cancel the trip out because my stomach bug decided to revisit me the morning of our flight. Fortunately my mom and dad watched the boys all day while I slept (I really know how to show my visitors a good time) and I felt well enough by evening to suck it up and get on the plane. Ben said, "I knew when it came to California, you'd fly through the pain." And thank goodness, because by the next day I was feeling totally fine and would have been really mad if I'd stayed behind! Anyway, it's a little bitter-sweet to be here right now because it's my first visit since my sister and her family moved. I hate that they don't live here anymore! And Noah asks for his cousins every day - he's so confused that they aren't here. Nevertheless, we're having a great time with my mom and dad.

I celebrated my birthday here last Monday. 29. I'm not really digging it actually. I don't like being odd ages, and even though I don't think I'll mind being 30 next year, I don't really care for being in my last twenties year. Make sense at all? Anyway, here we are at my birthday lunch at California Pizza Kitchen (I love that place!):

February is a big birthday month for my family - Happy Birthday to my dad, sister-in-law Laurel, and niece Alex (all on the 14th)!

Oh! Before I forget, thanks to Ashby for once again creating my blog header (she used stuff from heatheranndesigns.com). Ben got me Photoshop for Christmas specifically because I wanted to start doing my own blog headers but, come February, I still hadn't installed it on my computer. Ashby kindly volunteered to redo my header. Thanks, Ash! Without you, it would still be the Christmas season over here in Amy's blogland.

Happy Valentine's Day!

On the Mend

Well, my house is finally free of the stomach bug. I think. Hopefully. As you know, Noah got it first a little over a week ago. Then it moved on to me and Sam last Sunday and decided to stay awhile. Ben has miraculously escaped it, and I really have no idea how he managed that. Especially after he stayed home from work on Monday taking care of me and Sam all day. Anywho, we're all finally over it. And thank goodness, because we hardly left the house for more than a week and I was getting really stir crazy!!


Actually, I take that back - we did leave the house on Tuesday when we took Sam to the doctor, who determined that he needed to go the emergency room to get rehydrated with an IV of saline. But I don't really think that hospital trips really constitute an "outing." Poor Sammy - he was obviously not thrilled about being there but was such a good sport about it. And Noah was such a sweetheart and so well-behaved the whole time we were there (minus one meltdown at the doctor's office, but we'll give him a pass because it was a stressful day). Thank heavens Ben was able to leave work immediately to meet us at the hospital - it took both of us to keep Sam entertained and somewhat still while he was lying on the bed for an hour. You know, it's really not fun for a mommy to see her baby with a needle in his arm.

Ben took some pictures with his phone:





I am SO happy last week is over!

Day at the Park

We've been cooped up in the house for the past several days with Noah being a sicko (I thought he was over it yesterday but it came back today... ugh!!). Anyway, I'm missing the outside world right now so I thought I'd post a bunch of pictures and videos I took of the boys at the park a couple of weeks ago - a time when we actually left the house!


Sam finally likes the swing again (he went on strike from it for awhile)

Noah was pretty concerned about getting his shoes dirty (related video below)


Noah insisted on wearing his hat even though (as you can see from his t-shirt), the weather didn't really require one.

Some random videos:

You can't hear this very well on the video, but when Noah went down the slide he said, "Whoa! Now that's what I call slippery!" It cracked me up!

Poor Baby

Noah was so exhausted by mid-day today (after an early morning filled with throwing up) that he fell asleep in the middle of climbing up on the living room sofa!

It is days like today that make me particularly grateful that I was born after the invention of washing machines. I've done six loads of laundry relating directly to Noah's puking (he managed to get it all over himself and me, twice, and all over his bedding and mine - two comforters and one pillow included, naturally). Seriously, what did mothers do before washing machines, Zout and Tide?

My poor little guy threw up again this afternoon (on the tile, fortunately, so it required no extra laundry; although I did have to throw away my Skip-Bo cards which he was playing with). A little while later I asked him if he felt like he needed to throw up again. Noah politely declined, "Um, no thank you!" like I was offering him the option.

So far Sam has escaped the bug and is feeling just fine, as you can see (keeping my fingers crossed).


This little guy is getting to be so funny. He says a few words now ("yeah" - which he will say if you ask him basically anything with the proper inflection, "uh-oh," "i don't know," "baseball," "basketball" and a few others that he can repeat after hearing them first). He also "reads" Blue Hat Green Hat by Sandra Boynton and it's so adorable. He can't say any of the words in the book, but he babbles using the same voice inflections that I use when I read it to him, changing his tone of voice at all the right spots. Oh, and he also plays a game of "swipe" with Ben and Noah where they take food off his highchair and yell, "Swipe!" Sam has his own way of saying "swipe" and he just laughs and laughs. Funny kid!

Book Review

One of my goals for 2008 is to read a book a month. That probably sounds pitiful to many of you avid readers, but it is what it is! I do like to read, I just don't do it very often for some reason. Anyway, so this month I read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

Overall, I really liked this book. It took me a little while to get into it but then it got really interesting. I enjoyed the writing style, with each chapter written from the point of view of one of the 4 daughters or the mother. I highly recommend it.

And speaking of the new year, here are some pictures of how we rang it in. We had a very thrilling NewYear's Eve. Sam went to bed at 8pm as usual. Noah stayed up and partied. He and I worked on our puzzles together.

Then he fell asleep watching TV with Ben (before midnight).

We are very exciting people, no? I do plan to spice things up a bit as the boys get older.

Remember Me?

Apparently I felt the need to take pretty much the whole month of January off from blogging. And now I'm back!

So tonight I was helping Noah get ready for bed. I got him in his jammies and then we headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth. I entered the bathroom first and as I walked through the door, I stubbed all my little toes really hard. So I'm holding my foot and leaning against the door frame, trying my darnedest not to shout obscenities in the presence of my three-year-old. Noah, who was right behind me, somehow misinterpreted the situation. In his most concerned voice he said, "Oh, don't worry Mama! I'll help you get unstuck!" and he pushed me through the doorway. He's a very helpful child.

Holiday Home

Being the first Christmas we've spent in a house (well, in a house that belonged to us), I had a lot of fun decorating for the holidays. My parents asked me weeks ago to post pictures of my Christmas'd up home, so I thought I'd better do it finally before I start taking it all down tomorrow (boo). Here you go, Mom and Dad!

Our little 4-foot tree from our apartment-dwelling days found a new home in our bedroom this year. Note to self: buy a tree skirt and topper.

Big Family Christmas

This year we had Ben's entire family come into town. It used to be that Ben and I were the only ones in the family who lived away, but now only one brother besides Ben lives within a couple of hours of Ben's parents. It's been three years since we've all been together for a holiday. Some of the family stayed with Ben's parents and we had one of his brothers and his family stay with us. We had so much fun with James, Shelley and their four great kids.

Emily, James, Aaron, and Daniel

We were back and forth between our house and my in-laws' home over the days around Christmas. We had lots of family up at our house the Saturday before Christmas and had fun eating pizza, playing cards, watching football, and staying up way too late.

Noah with some cousins - Colin, James, Zach, Jack, Daniel and Aaron (this family is really heavy on the boys!)

Emily and Sarah

Noah and Colin

The Sunday before Christmas we all went to church down in my in-laws' town and took this family picture afterward.

On Christmas Day we opened presents and had breakfast at our house and then headed back down to my in-laws' for the rest of the day. We had a yummy Christmas dinner, opened some more presents, played Apples to Apples (fun game!), and played around outside (nice advantage of Texas winters).

Sam with his Uncle Stan (Sam LOVED Stan and his Uncle James too - I guess they look a lot like his daddy!)

Noah was cracking the family up. At one point, my sister-in-law Shelley said to him, "Noah, I love you so much!" To which Noah replied, "No, I'm Mama's boy." Shelley tried to explain, "Well, you can be Mama's boy but I can still love you too." Noah wasn't buying it and said, "Um, no. I don't think that's possible."

Another time, my 13-year-old nephew Jack stopped Noah in the hall and asked, "Hey, Noah! Can I have a hug?" Noah thought about it for a moment and then said, "Go find my Mama. She'll give you a hug." Jack thought this was hilarious so he found Ben to show him what had happened. He again asked Noah for a hug and this time Noah turned to Ben and said, "Daddy, can you give Jack a hug?"

Despite these two exchanges, Noah (and Sam) really did love having so much family around. They had a great time playing with their cousins, who were all really sweet with them. Ben and I loved having so much family around too!