And Another Month Bites the Dust...

Whew... I can't believe it. Another month down and it is October and has been chilly(highs near 90 and lows around 70) in Texas. I know, a practical Ice Age and what a month! We have been to Chicago, made part of a bookshelf, started pre-school, went to a good friend's wedding, made crafty boots with Callie, carved pumpkins with Casey, rode our first roller coaster and got to hang out with Mary's family.
First we went to Dane's wedding reception in Chicago and we got to see fish and wear a suit which was both really cute and Kaylie was looking very dapper in her new shoes and hair flower.

Carter also met his brand new friend (well he had met Grayden before, but now they were old enough to be classified as friends). It turned out well, but Carter wasn't walking quite yet so he wasn't able to partake in things like eating dirt, which Grayden did some of, and he has to sit on the sidelines while the rest of the family played red light, green light (and I do mean rest of, it was like a 15 person event).

I had to come back home so I could go to work but Mary and the kids stayed a week with Grammy and Grandy and went to the Sandwich Fair where they had a fair sandwich and Kaylie rode a roller coaster for the first time, but the achievement fell a little flat when we were too short to ride the Ferris Wheel, 6 more inches! Kaylie made up for it by boldy mounting every other ride present, which was quite a feat by itself, but she did it all by herself.

Carter drank a little bit out of a real mug which turned out to be quite the treat.

Thus ended the madness and the family came home!!
After all of this craziness we came home and had my birthday where I got help opening a shovel, an oil changing setup, a creeper, a gift certificate to Game Stop, a vacuum sealer and a "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock" t-shirt. (If I left anyone's gift out I am very sorry and thanks for the gift!) So it basically boils down to I can change my oil, shovel it into a bag and seal it up while wearing a shirt and playing games, I am in! Luckily however I am a practical kind of guy so we decided to plant vegetables in the fall, what could go wrong? Well, at least it looks good.

Kaylie also started pre-school which she is completely excited about and comes home to do "homework" which Mary has to make up for her, but she is doing so well at everything, she can count to 20 (sometimes we need help at 16), she was adding in the car the other day and then helped us count the right number of vegetables per square foot in the garden! All while making it look fashionable in no other color except pink of course...
Anyway, that about wraps it up from here, I close with a few more pictures (and in the last one, we aren't flying, we are "running with our arms out because flying is in the sky")

Having Friends

So I think it is important to have friends as children and apparently Kaylie has found one (for now) because the last couple of days has been super cute around the house. Kaylie doesn't mind too much but she was playing with Carter in the living room and they were rolling the soccer ball back and forth and both thought it was good fun... well at least it was until Kaylie thought it would be cute to "holdtheballsomybrothercan'tgetit". Well that worked really well until Carter did it back and she started whining at him "Commme onnnn Carter, let me have it..." I just wanted to say, "You taught him sweetie".
Kaylie is getting a lot better about sharing though and absolutely can't wait to go to school! She has been learning a lot and actually listening about 5% of the time when we try to teach her about letters or numbers. We were in the car driving to look at furniture since my lovely wife loves to CraigList (not saying it is a bad thing), and she saw a sign for the bridge height and said, "I see one, seven." I then told her that one-seven meant seventeen and asked "if one-seven is seventeen, what is one-eight." She took a second and donned her "deep in thought face" and answered "eighteen!" So learning is not such a terrible thing after all apparently as can be seen in this book picture. Carter really didn't care so much about the reading part as he did about the turn-the-page part. That was the fun stuff. He is able to walk around when he doesn't think about it. If you put him down on his feet or if you put him in front of people he absolutely won't do it, but I have seen him walk across the living room when he wanted something on the table.
Here we were making "glasses" at each other and Carter thought it was big fun to play along, though I am not sure how much use he is going to get out of his pair. Kaylie got significant mileage out of hers over the course of the evening.
Bath time has also become a joint effort since it is easier to corral both of them if they are together and more like rounding up cats if they aren't. At least they are clean when it is over, as well as the wall, dad's shirt, the floor and most of the rug.

Here are just a few more pictures. One is of the pizza we made which was fantastic (ignore the not quite so round and flat part). We had trouble getting it to come off of the pizza slider and go onto the pizza stone in the oven so it didn't turn out juuust right, but tasted fantastic none the less, especially with home grown tomatoes and garlic from my pops. The last is a picture off of our back porch and like all amateur photography, just doesn't do the real life thing justice.

Weebles Wobble...

Looks like I am going to have to put everything up a little higher in the house because some little people are going to be getting into all kinds of new and exciting places!

Yes, he is laughing the entire time.
He walked from the computer desk all the way into our living room which is about 15 yards, long trek for short little legs.
We also really, really like corn, apparently it is tastier if you suck on it as opposed to actually eating it. Took him a while to get around the entire ear but he managed to do it eventually with a little help and direction towards the proper, uneaten, kernels. In other news, Twilight: Eclipse was awesome despite what the critics had to say although I think we enjoyed it because some of them actually took some acting classes this time and the dialogue was things people would actually say not:
Edward: "I love you"
Bella: "I know"
Edward: "I know you know"
Bella: "Glad we covered this"

Luckily this year is our 5th anniversary and it just happens to be wood because we had to take the door off of the hinges to get this bad boy in the bedroom. Looks fantastic though and is really going to go well with the red, red wall.

We have cool friends

Thanks to our cool friends Casey and Callie, we get to go on a date...and my wife looks awesome.
Going on our 5 year (Oh my...it has really been 5 years...) anniversary this weekend. It is going to be fantastic. Will take pics of the view from our hotel room, should be pretty cool since it overlooks Lake Travis.

Yes, We are STILL alive...

Reed is making me blog.

He is cleaning up the dinner that he made, while dealing with Carter and getting Kaylie showered and ready for bed... and making me blog. Apparently "the masses" think I've died. When I told him I didn't have masses... he told me Fi was upset. So Fi, you are apparently "the masses" - thought you'd want to know.

Since Halloween...

There was Thanksgiving...

And Christmas...

And a bunch of other really important stuff that happened...

And closer to now, we have recently bought a house, moved to a new city (still close, but different), Carter turned 1, cut 9 teeth, and Carter is working on walking while Kaylie is on the verge of reading.


This is Carter eating his blue frosted cake for his birthday... apparently trying to truly become a smurf.


Carter and his almost invisible eyebrows, probably thinking about what he can get into next, especially with the help of his sister!



Kaylie was super helpful painting her new room. She had a princess pink apron and gloves and actually did some painting... she's not bad. Her room is now entirely cotton candy pink. It seriously glows from the hallway. And she absolutely loves it!



The kids on their new favorite chair, the windowsill. Not sure how it became so fun, but they both sit there if given the chance. I didn't even make them sit together, I just got the camera.



The new house. We love it. Still working out the details, but we have time, plenty of time!



And finally, all of us sitting on the new fireplace hearth. And hopefully I will be able to post pictures of the house progress soon. And more pictures in general. I. will. do. better.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Short and Sweet. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody! We so very thankful for things this year and are looking forward to what is coming next.

Greetings from the Enterprise with Butterflies!

Happy Halloween! Today was great fun with all the trick or treating, sitting out in the lawn giving out candy and the costumes! Kaylie tried to get into her Pa's jacket pocket at all the 'scary' costumes and decorations, but managed to get a bucketful of loot anyways after they walked up and down the entire street.

Kaylie wanted to be a pink sparkly butterfly. check.

And she wanted fancy pink sparkly makeup. check.

Here we are in our costumes. Well, except me. I'm boring. But Kaylie as the pink sparkly butterfly. Reed as Spock. And Carter as Captain Kirk. Quite a team!


The brainpower of the Enterprise. Ready for action!


And a close up of Reed! "Live long and prosper!" Spock.

Pretty Pumpkins...

So I always keep my dining room table set. It stays decorated with the season or holiday always ready for dinner. Or lunch. Or any other meal that would need china and crystal. Yes, we actually eat here sometimes.







And because it is fall, I have way too many pumpkins out all smooshed together in the middle. They make me happy.

And Reed, now you have proof on the internet that I do this, and usually make you help me :)

Thanks Dad!

So my Dad is an awesome woodworker. He has made most of the furniture I owned. My favorite being of course my coffee table. Recently he brought us his old bedstead in hopes of us converting it into a more grown-up entertainment center for our living room. Our old one being a college dorm holdout made from a stolen sign, plywood and a set of drumsticks - yes drumsticks!

Reed and I finally got all the pieces in the living room and spent all weekend putting it together and arranging all the cords and such. It was a bigger job than anticipated, but now that we have the space for it, all the gaming consoles are out and the tv actually fits and the dvd's are hidden. It is a beautiful thing!

Without further ado...

Thanks Dad! It looks great!

16 Pounds!

So, I have no idea what I am doing on a blog. Or how to write one. I do not write journals, or notes or much of anything, so this is all very new. So jumping in...

Yesterday Carter had his 4-month checkup. 16 pounds! 26 1/2 inches long! I have one heavy tall little man! But he seems perfectly contented to be all of the above.



Oh happy day!

Oh and also, I can't get that song 16 Tons out of my head now that I have posted this! ;)