Lovin' the Summer Weather

Friday night our friends Ricky and Kristen (& Elianna, too) came to babysit for James so that Mark and I could go on a date. Thanks so much, guys! We don't get many pictures like this anymore. :) We went to hear our friends' band, Two Seconds Away, play in a competition. They did really awesome!

Then on Saturday we finished up making over our kitchen! Doesn't it look amazing? Ha, ha...just kidding. That's actually the kitchen area at the apartment complex where Mark's sister Jody works. It's a brand new place and looks like a resort. We stopped by to visit her before heading to the petting zoo with James. I thought it was an opportune time for a family picture.

One of those face cut-out photo thingies. It said "I'm a dairy farmer, strong and gentle". Mark grew up on a dairy farm so he was excited to show James the cow. Singular--only one cow, named Charlotte. We just missed the last milking of the day.

Mark said that Charlotte was the cleanest cow he's ever seen. I thought that was funny. I'm pretty much a city girl, but I could see what he meant. Charlotte was really well groomed.

Checking out the goats, James didn't act so much thrilled as totally mesmerized by the animals. We don't have pets and he's only been around two different dogs in his life. It was fun to watch him watch them.

Pulling Mark's hair out. Mark always asks me, 'Is he enjoying it?', as if it's worth it as long as James is having a good time. I think it's really sweet. But it may just make him bald if he keeps it up.

Sunday afternoon James and I had a picnic in the front yard and crawled around in the grass (another first) while Mark did more house projects. He's been working outside a lot lately!

Painting away!

Sunday evening we went to some friends' house for a BBQ with friends from church. James enjoyed their swing.

And then he has his first experience in a swimming pool! He was not so sure about the whole thing. I stuck my feet in and thought it was SUPER chilly. Poor little guy.

Here's Mark saying, "It's freezing in here!"

A picture of the three of us, to prove I really was there and involved in the whole process. My job was to warm him up in a cozy towel afterward!

I know I've asked this before, but does anybody know what I might be doing wrong with typing AROUND photos? I can't ever get the text to type alongside the photos--only above or beneath them. It's really annoying and, as you can tell, makes my posts three times as long as they need to be. Please let me know if you have a good solution or tip. Is there a setting I should be aware of when I upload photos? I've already discovered I need to upload them in the opposite order I want them to appear in the post. But this one...keeps stumping me!

Weekend "Back Home", Two Teeth, and Crawling Everywhere!

James started crawling the past two weeks and has picked up speed, leaving less time to blog during the day! My parents are out of town on a vacation for two weeks. Before they left my dad told me he was sure James would be all over the place by the time they returned. Okay, Dad...you were right. He's into everything! But more on the later.

First business is a couple of photos our friend Sarah Sorell took for us. Here's her website, in case you're interested in her photography. We visited her really cool "Un-Studio" for the photo shoot. She has all sorts of backgrounds, walls, and doors that she can wheel around as 'backdrops.' I think it's genius. Anyway, here are just two photo 'teasers' she sent us. I'll include a link to the rest when they're ready!

What a ham! I think he was maybe blowing raspberries at this point and she caught it.

Gotta love a baby in a red wagon, right?

Okay, next are a few photos from our weekend 'back home'. It was Mark's 10th year class reunion, which we attended Saturday night. But Friday night and all day Sunday we were just able to shoot the breeze, so to say. It was one of the most relaxing weekends we've had in a long time! Thanks, Dad and Mom!


Mark's dad is very much into bird watching, bird houses, bird feeders....you get the picture. It's fascinating to see the variety of beautiful birds that are drawn to all the feeders and houses in their yard. I know we saw Orioles, but that's the extent of my bird knowledge. I liked this picture of our nephew peering in to see if there were any eggs.

Class of '99--here are 11 of Marks' graduating class of 16 (plus one exchange student) . It was a nice time of catching up with friends. This was a really tight bunch. I believe all of these kids went to school K-12 together! My favorite part of the night was watching the prom video that one of his classmates had brought. It was a great slideshow of photos and videos from their school years.

Every Saturday morning Mark's dad takes his own father, Grandpa Lester, to breakfast at The Buzz Cafe. We try to make it when we can. James was up and at 'em early that day so we all joined Lester!

In the hammock, snuggling after naptime. Mark said James loved it and was able to lay with him for thirty minutes, which is amazing considering how active he has become recently!

Down the slide at the park

playing the piano with Grandma

And now we get to James' developmental update. It's amazing that all within one months' time James learned to sit on his own, push up on all fours, crawl/bunny hop, crawl slowly, and crawl with more speed! :) I really have to check on him about every 15 seconds if I'm not in the same room. I've thoroughly emptied the bottom shelves of our coffee table and end table, as he was snatching everything there. In the past week, he has started pulling up on things, too! It's all too soon, if you ask me, but there's no stopping him!

the side-ways-chair barricade worked well at the grandparents' to keep him out of magazines and in the living room...

learning how to open kitchen drawers...I plan to empty this one out and fill it with James' toys and baby-friendly kitchen items

trying out the 'side-ways-chair' barricade at our home--it's helped a lot!

One final announcement: a second tooth popped through last week. He's looking very nice with two teeth. He's also been upgraded to whole Cheer*os. I tried four times to upload a video of him eating his Os, but the computer just wasn't letting me. But who hasn't seen a baby eat Cheer*os?

That's all for now.

8 Months

Today James is eight months old. Tomorrow we have a photo session with our photographer friend Sarah Sorell. I had planned on including several potential outfits here and having you all vote on your favorite, but James had enough after two photos. The 'newsboy' hat is new. I got it on clearance today and thought it would be fun to include in his photo shoot tomorrow!

A fun visit from cousins

What a busy week we've had! We had a fun visit from Mark's sister and her family. Thursday morning Mark's mom and I 'babysat' for two of the cousins while the rest of the family had an appointment in town. We had a fun morning! It sure was different to have three kids instead of one!

Here's the latest James & Ricky Friday photo...yes, our living room is almost always that messy these days. Oh, and the empty oatmeal container to his right has been a great toy--he loves to chew on it (of course) and dump things out of it!

Here's James playing with, or at least next to, his cousin Jason. Jason is exactly two years older than James, so we get all of his hand-me-downs. Thanks Jason!

We started off the morning with some sugary cereal with marshmallows. I never eat cereal--but I did Thursday morning! And no, Andrea, I didn't pick out all of the marshmallows first. I know, it's hard to believe. The kids were pretty excited about the cereal!

After James' nap, we went on a walk! I'm glad we had two strollers, as the park was five blocks or so away. It was a beautiful day for it!

Look at this big boy!

I was surprised at how hard it was to get all three kids to be looking in the direction of the camera. This was the best of four or five attempts!

Sarah was so sweet with James. He wasn't sure what to think about all the loving from her, but she was very gentle with him. At one point she even picked him up and hauled him into the kitchen where we were getting lunch ready--they might be a little too small for that yet! :)

Girly Weekend and Mother's Day

What a wonderful girly weekend with friends! We talked, shopped, ate, went to the same coffee shop twice and stayed in a nice hotel. It was a great get-away and we can't wait to do it again! James did really well with just Mark. I was so excited to see them when I got home on Mother's Day morning before church!

Playing Catch

If Mark has anything to do with it, our son is going to be athletic! He 'taught' him how to play catch. Sometimes he just giggles the whole time, thinking it's the greatest game ever!

This weekend is my big Girls' Get-away Weekend! Several girlfriends of mine are coming into town and we're staying in a hotel Saturday night after shopping and catching up all afternoon. It'll be my first night away from James and Mark's first night 'on-duty' by himself! I'll let you know how it goes...

Needed: Baby-proofing

This little boy is starting to get into everything. Although he doesn't do much more than 'bunny hop' forward right now, he does slide and scoot backward pretty efficiently to get into and under all sorts of things. I've found him underneath our coffee table several times. He seems to gravitate toward paper, coupons, and magazines! He just loves the crinkly sound they make. I don't think crumpling paper is so bad for him; it's the eating of paper that I'd like to avoid...so I'm going to be working on baby-proofing some things in the next few weeks.

One piece of exciting news in our home is James' new tooth! His first! It just 'popped' out on Saturday. It's nearly impossible to see it, because he's always playing with it with his tongue. And it's pretty short still. But we can feel it with our fingers and it comes in a little more each day. Other than that, there's not much else going on here. We're really enjoying getting out for walks in the stroller most week days.