countdown to 2010

Happy New Year!!

christmas 2oo9

To start the holiday off right, we headed into Austin to see our dear friends Melanie and Travis and their new home!!! Now a trip into Austin would not be complete without dinner at our favorite mexican restaurant, Maudies!! David takes after his mommy in the fact that he enjoys mexican food, and he shows a favoritism to queso. It is funny because, just like his mommy and daddy, he ADORES maudies queso. We had to order another large bowl so that he could have some more! We really enjoyed seeing you guys; the new home is fabulous. Y'all are such wonderful friends and we are thankful to have you all in our lives!

We had a wonderful time celebrating christmas with our family in austin this year. It reminded me of the traditional Christmas's' that I enjoyed growing up. Dad made peanut brittle and egg nog, we enjoyed appetizers and mulled wine on christmas eve and just spent time as a family. We even got to see a hint of snow flurries on Christmas eve day!

Christmas Eve Family Pictures

(with an uncooperative little boy)

Christmas morning was exactly as predicted...unforgettable! The look on David's face when he saw what santa left him under the tree was priceless. Watching him brought back the excitement and those special moments we cherish from past christmas's as a kid. It can only get better from here, right? He is truly the most precious gift we could have ever received!!

"santa came!!"

Introducing his elmo to the "real" elmo...elmo live encore

my little chef

lovin him some elmo

his own personalized chair

Our family, Christmas 2009

'tis the season

It's officially the week of Christmas and we are ready! We got the presents under the tree last night...just in time to pack them up in two days for our trip to Austin! Although our visit with Santa did not go so well, David is loving the Christmas decorations and is definitely in the spirit. He will turn 21 months this week and I thought I would post the top 10 favorite holiday memories thus far!

1. Every morning when we come downstairs he runs to the 'kismas tee" and trys to plug in the lights, with mommy's assistance of course!

2. We had our outdoor lights installed before Thanksgiving and he was extremely involved in the process. He monitored every move those men made on top of our roof and learned within five minutes that they were putting up "ights." Now every time we are outside he points to the house and says "ights"

3. The infamous line from our Santa visit "Ma'am...it works best if you drop the child and run!"

4. Oh the cookies....we made Russian tea balls and peanut butter kiss cookies a week ago (mmm...mm....mmm..) He likes the powdered sugar on the tea balls, but will not actually try my peanut butter cookies, so we are going with the traditional sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles this evening just for him...and maybe Santa!

5. You can't have cookies without milk!! That's right, at the end of this week we will be sans bottle for two whole weeks. You see, we had the baby-baba, big boy-sippy cup talk and he has done great! No throwing sippy cups, no screaming....he has only asked for his baba once and that was when he was overtired at lunch.

6. When you ask him what does santa say, he will reply "ho, ho, ho"

7. We have to read The Night Before Christmas to him at least 3 times a night because at the end of it he always says "agin"

8. His favorite Christmas song is Frosty. We sing it around the house and he will grab the snowman that sits on the bench in our entry way. I've been on the look out for when they would be airing Frosty on ABC, but somehow I think we missed it. He has had no interest in the traditional Christmas movies, but I thought that he may enjoy Frosty. Oh well, there is always next year.

9. We took him to the Kids Krazy Christmas Show at Second Baptist Church this past weekend. If you live in the Houston area with kiddos and have not been it is AMAZING. I was soooo worried that all he would want to do is run around, but he proved his mama wrong. He loved it!! Sat in our laps the whole time watching the puppets sing and dance. When they disappeared he would say "were de go?" It was truly fun for the whole family and cannot wait to see it again next year!

10. The presents have been under the tree for a day now, and although he does not have many under there for him just yet he knows which one is his and will not keep his itty bitty fingers off of it! I have a feeling Christmas morning is going to be unforgettable!

We hope that all of our friends and family have an unforgettable holiday as well!

Merry Christmas!

a christmas classic

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Who would of thought..snow in Houston??? It was the craziest thing! The weather reporters were talking about it all week and of course here I am "I'll believe it when I see it". Well, I saw it and it wasn't just a little flurry here and there that you usually get in Texas. It probably snowed consistently for 3 hours here in Katy and I loved it; couldn't stop staring out the window! It reminded me of being in Germany in 2005 when Dave proposed. He laughs at me because I get so giddy when I see snow, and who could blame me I grew up in Texas for goodness sake! David seemed amused by it too! It started coming down fairly hard while we were leaving the grocery store. I kept telling him what it was and he would look up at the sky, let it hit his face and say "cold." So sweet, I never thought his first experience in snow would be at home! The only disappointing part was that it was coming down hard during his nap time so he missed the exciting part of it all. By the time he woke up the sun was peeking through and it was starting to melt, but that did not stop us from having a good time. He ran around the backyard with his little buddy Dylan, tasted snow for the first time, and had little cold red wet feet because mommy did not think about snow boots and does not even know to this day if you can even find them in Katy, Texas!

December 4, 2009

20 months...

and a case of the terrible twos! Seriously, I didn't think it started this early but it has certainly been tough around here lately. I have not even had time to blog because I am constantly picking up after the hurricane known as David that hits our house on a daily basis! Tomorrow our big boy will be 20 months and we will be on the road to Austin for Thanksgiving so I figured I would go ahead and post the David update that I have been meaning to do for the past month. As tough as it has been around here it is truly the greatest thing watching him become such a little boy. He his learning so much and getting so big! I don't know if I have the time or if I can even come up with 20 things that are going on right now, but here's a shot....

1. He still has a love for music and can sing along with several songs. His favorites are twinkle, twinkle, Elmo's world, shake your sillies, head-shoulders-knees and toes, and has picked up on lady gagas new song-he will sing the paparazzi part! It's crazy how many songs and tunes he remembers and funny to hear him sing them at random points in the day. I love it!

2. He can count to ten. He loves to count and is really good at it; I would have to say Dave and I are very impressed. Sometimes I will hear him counting in his crib in the mornings; it is quite funny. We are working on coordinating it with his fingers. He tries but we are not there yet!

3. He is constantly talking to me and everyone we encounter. I can understand what he is saying probably 50% of the time, but the rest is just babble. I cannot even tell you how many words he knows, but it is alot and he is doing a really good job of putting them together correctly. Our favorite sayings right now are; "peese, peese, peese"and "ank you" ( he says both in the right context), "herya go" (which is usually when he is handing us something that he knows we use alot. For instance, my hair dryer is always being thrown at me when we are in the bathroom), "____ wher a ew" (where are you?)usually filled in with mama, dadda, ankie (blankie) or papi (paci), and finally he has mastered "ga ma" (grandma)!

4. He gets his feelings hurt when you tell him no in a strict voice. He will run away and dramatically throw himself on the stairs and cry. Dave and I were laughing the other day because it almost sounded like he was complaining that mama is so mean during one of his fits.

5. Our grocery trips are the highlight of his day. He's got the routine down and has all the employees wrapped around his little finger. He knows that he gets a "aloon" (balloon) as soon as we enter the the store, "apple" (pineapple) samples in the produce area, "urkey" (turkey) from his girlfriend at the deli, and "icker" (sticker) from whoever is bagging the groceries and they always give in and give him more than one b/c he asks them for it.

6. You know it's bad when the highlight of our month has been the new season of Sesame Street. The kid is obsessed. He knows all the characters names and will yell them out when they come up on the screen, but Elmo still remains to be his favorite. I try to limit TV time to an hour a day and sometimes when we are in the car, but he is getting very demanding about it lately. He will bring me the remote when it is not on and throw a fit when I don't respond the way he wants.

7. When you ask him a question you can see that he is thinking about what you are asking and if he understands he will usually respond "ya" or "k.".

8. I am starting to wonder if I should read a potty training book. I have heard that boys usually take longer, but he understands certain things associated with it such as potty and shows somewhat of an interest. It is usually around bath time and he will run into our closet shouting "potty, potty" (I was hiding the training potty in our closet up until last week). I will typically take his diaper off and he will sit on it, but won't do anything. A few weeks ago we went through this nightly process and after he sat on the potty he got up and went and peed on Dave's shoe, hence why we moved the potty to his bathroom! This may be a little TMI, but he has also started recognizing when he goes poo-poo and it will say the word after he goes; I hear him doing this in his crib. I will ask him after he goes and he will say "ya" and shake his head, sometimes he has and other times it is just gas. So I am clueless and am open for any suggestions on techniques and books if any of our readers have some!

9. Now that I am home with him he is becoming very attached to his mommy. I know this is not the best thing, but I have to say I don't mind it. It's not to the point where he cannot function without me and I don't think we will ever get to that point.

10. That being said....he constantly wants mine or Dave's attention. His alone playtime is very short lived; I almost think he is bored with all of his toys which I cannot explain how happy I am that Santa will be visiting soon! He always wants to be involved with what we are doing. This has made it very difficult to get anything done while he is awake, especially cooking dinner which I am glad Dave is usually home during to help out.

11. He does not like the group activities at little gym. He prefers to wonder around the gym by himself and shows little interest in the structured activities. This scares me a bit so we are contemplating adding another activity in the spring. We did a free trial at the kindermusik class in Katy a few weeks ago. It was very structured and he seemed to like it. I am just scared that he will not want the structure and misbehave, which I don't get because things around our house have always been very structured and strictly scheduled. Maybe it's the group setting thing???

12. We have been spending more time around kids his age to work on socializing skills. He started off doing really well, but we have recently run into a few issues. He is not very aggressive and at first he would allow other kids to take the toys that he was playing with without a fit. I think he got fed up with it and thinks that all little people are going to take his toys! If another child at play group or little gym would come close to him he would get very frustrated and hold his hand out at them and yell, not hit. We have been addressing it and making sure to stay involved during play dates. It is getting better.

13. His bedtime routine cracks me up! He is very particular about who reads books (dada) and who cuddles (mama). He takes his bottle (yes, he is still on a bottle #14) while dada reads a few books and precisely puts it on his table when it is half done so that he can save the rest for cuddle time with mama!

14. His love for his bottle. He will drink juice and water from a sippy cup, but refuses to take milk. Yells at me if I try. Doctor said go cold turkey, but that is easier said than done. How do you take something that they love so much away. Breaks my heart.

15. Loves his kisses...sometimes! "ki-ki" aka kiss-kiss is heard often lately and we love it. It is so funny because when he says it whoever is around at the time gets it! It is often followed by a big "muaaahh." He even takes his plastic Elmo and Ernie bath toys and says "ki-ki" and then makes them kiss.

16. The bond between him and our dog Bailey is still growing stronger. David loves to take her on our walks with us. He is very adamant that he hold on to the leash and walk her, but she ends up walking him! He thinks it's hilarious. She typically will take off pulling him in his car or stroller behind him.

17. He is often mistaken for a 2 1/2 year old based on his size. His last measurements were taken at his 18 month apt and he was in the 97 percentile for height! He weighs a little over 26 lbs, which is only 50-75 percentile but is very heavy to me. I struggle getting him in and out of the car and it is getting harder to hold him for periods of time. I think I probably have lost 6lbs. from carrying him around all the time!

18. We have taken up a new family hobby...biking. We did a lot of research and bought the co-pilot to sit on the back of Dave's bike. It was originally going to be installed on my cruiser so that I could go riding with him during the day, but he is sooo heavy and we thought it might be best for me to practice on Dave's bike first. It is really hard! David seems to love our family rides; he even has his own little helmet. He looks adorable in it!

19. We are in the holiday spirit around here! When asked what a turkey says he responds with "ga gal ga l" (gobble, gobble, gobble) and if you say Santa he responds "ho, ho, ho"

20. Sneak Peak from our holiday/20 month photo session done by our friend and photog Amanda Green. It was definitely our toughest shoot yet, but she did a wonderful job capturing the moment. You'll have to wait until our Christmas cards are mailed out for more!

halloween 2oo9

since the day the costume arrived we were worried whether or not he would wear it; partly because when we first put it on he cried. so here, along with other pictures from our evening, is......

david the pony!

ready for trick or treating...the sucker was a life savor because he was a little cranky (thanks leah)

practicing at home first. earlier we let him pick out a piece of candy while we were attempting to teach him the concept. he picked out a kit kat and ever since that is the only thing he will take out of the candy basket!

"peese, peese, peese dada" we are hearing this a lot around here these days...at least he says please, right??

trick or treating with dada. we only stopped by a few neighbors houses so that he could show off his costume. he was not fond of waiting at peoples door steps. just like everything else he would rather be running/wandering off somewhere, typical toddler!

wrapping up the evening with mama. time to go home and get bathed and in bed so that mommy and daddy could watch the longhorn game.

too funny not to post! i'm not sure what was going on here, but i am guessing he was excited about something.

my sweet baby boy, or should i say big boy. happy halloween!!!

pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins

Pumpkin Patch

After our experience this past sunday I don't think we will ever beat last years picture when it comes to the annual pumpkin patch visits. We ventured out to give david an official farm/ pumpkin patch experience this year with miniature horses, pony rides, petting zoo, face painting, and of course pumpkins! Lets just say it was not a big hit.....for David or mommy! He was fussy, we were hot, he was hot, and the girlie-girl side of me came out-mommy and farms don't go well together..ugh! Oh and let's not forget to mention the horrible haircut he got last week...I am seriously going on a haircut strike, but that's a whole other post! Oh well, at least we gave it a shot and we did have a good time with our friends Katie, Mike and their daughter Lachlann...who was also fussy! We are glad we didn't pay the money and wait in line at Dewberry Farms because these kids lasted about 30minutes! Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Note-we are not giving up on the pumpkin picture just yet; we have a fall festival and a visit to the church pumpkin patch next week and are hoping to have better luck!

VEGAS!!

Just got back yesterday from our weekend trip to Vegas. It was much needed mommy and daddy time!! We had a blast, but are definitely exhausted. We flew in Thursday evening and stayed a The Paris Hotel; it had the best deal for the weekend and a great location on the strip. We enjoyed having a little extra time this go around, but had to keep ourselves out of the casino on Saturday night so we ended up seeing Cirque Du Soleil Love at The Mirage. It was amazing!!

Here are just a few pictures from our trip....I did not do a great job of getting out the camera.Thank you Grandma and Tracy for watching our little nugget so that mommy and daddy could have a weekend out to play!

Drinks at Mandalay Bay before we ate lunch at the Burger Bar and hit the tables. Yummy food and the only place we actually walked away with a decent amount of winnings!

The fountains at the Bellagio; our hotel was right across the street and in the three years that we have been to Vegas it was my first time to see them dance to the music. I loved it; could of stayed and watched them all night!



Dinner at Sushi Roku, Caesars Forum Shops. Dave again was a trooper and went out to eat sushi with me. This place had a great view of the strip and excellent sushi.

week in review...

pick up toys.....laundry....pick up more toys....dishes....pick up more toys.....

okay, so it has been my first week in my new role and whew....can you say exhausting. this toddler boy sure knows how to make messes and keep his mommy on her toes! i feel like most of my days are spent two steps behind him picking up after whatever he is into at the moment, which is EVERYTHING! so really, it was not that bad we had a great time enjoying toddler library hour, shopping, little gym, and a play date with my friend katie and her daughter lachlann. i will say that it has been more of an adjustment than i thought it would be. i feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulder, but that there is something about me missing. i'm sure it is going to take some time to settle into this role and get a routine that works well for both david and i. one thing is for sure....i just love spending this time with my little man.

here are some pictures from last weekend. we had some friends over to watch football and celebrate daddy's birthday. he made his best brisket yet!

happy birthday, daddy!

watching football with the guys

david and lachlann ready for some football

first slumber party; they were so cute sleeping in the same room and did so well. if you look close you can see that they have positioned themselves to be as close to each other as possible!

It's Official....

I started my new job today as a stay at home mommy! After a long debate (a whole year) we have decided it is best for our family. I am so excited to have the opportunity to watch our son grow up; I feel like I have already missed so much. Thank you daddy for working hard and letting mommy stay home and play. We love you very much!!

we heart atx

Friends......Family......Longhorn Football.....Yummy Food......you can't beat it! We enjoyed a nice long eventful weekend in austin over labor day. We were fortunate to spend time with friends and family and watch the longhorns start off their winning season ;) Thanks Kelly and Colby for coming to see us Friday night! I am so bummed that I did not get a picture of the two of you and david.

Game Day

Zilker Park

{he loved the soundplay area}

{first snow cone}