The Family Can Can

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Start the Prayers

We have a second showing on Saturday! I know it sounds silly...but we have had TONS of lookers but this will be our 1st second showing. I am going into extreme clean mode tonight!!! Please say a little extra prayer for us if you can. We are ready to move into the next phase of our lives in a new home for Zach with a big yard for Esther! :)

Wow!

Ok, it has been over a week since my last post! Where is the time going?!?!?! Anyway, I am tired and up past my bedtime so I promise to catch up soon.

Work has been busy and we spent this past weekend in Austin visiting Matt's dad and stepmom. We had a great time and also got to catch up with Jenny & Brett. So good to see them!

On Friday, Zach also had his 5 month birthday! Holy smokes! He is getting SO big and sitting up better every day. He rolls when he wants to and is just a happy little guy, and a flirt! And looking giant on his hippo chair!

I've updated smugmug so lots of new Zach pics on there too. I couldn't edit them tonight so beware, there are tons that are very similar. You know how that goes, 100 million pics for 5 good ones! But man, there are some GOOD ones in there! I'll try to work on it tomorrow at work ;-)

Here are some of my fav pics to tide you over till the next update!

WAY PAST bedtime so I will sign off and more updates to come soon!

Night night!

Welcome Ella!!

Today little miss Ella Grace was welcomed in to the world by proud parents Ashley & Jason and big brother Jackson! She is a precious little doll and I so enjoyed meeting her this afternoon! What an amazing blessing!! So many babies in 2008 and many more yet to come!

Here are a few pics...enjoy!

Ashley, Ella and me! Awww.....I want another one! ;-)Proud Parents with baby Ella! Sweet baby Ella...check out the hair!Z and his new friend Ella...can you believe these 2 are the same size at birth? ;-)And the Proud Momma...she did great! There were some scary moments a few months back and we have all been praying and so happy to have Ella here safe and sound and beautiful! Such a precious little girl! Congratulations guys!!

And now a few funny pictures of the Z Man from his recent adventures!!





These are of Zach in his 4th of July parade outfit. As I said, his float was for Baby Olympics!

What's up mom?This medal is tasty!

And these a from Sunday before our visit to the pool!

Is there a baby in that hat?Apparently there are sizes on these hats...perhaps this will fit Z when he is like 3 years old!

I've been kinda lax in my picture taking over the last couple weeks so I will get working on that. Z is a hoot these days and just getting more and more fun every day. We are so busy playing I forget to take pictures! Tonight when I was giving him his bath, I started batting some water on him and he just started cracking up! It was the cutest! I love my little man!

So..........whadda ya think of the new look? :)

I went on a bloggapalooza over the last 36 hours. Feel free to comment on any and all posts! ;-)

High Chair Help and the rest of the day!

I know a couple of you have already have told me what you have and what you do or don't like about it...but I am going to throw it out again. Zach will be five months this week so we need to be prepared for the big solid foods coming up in the next month! We registered for the Chicco Polly but did not receive so now I am open to other. Perhaps the Evenflo Majestic or just a booster seat? What high chair do you have? What do you like and not like about it? AND...when did you start on the solids and how and what first?

Also, I have said it before but I'll say it again, I definitely think Z is teething. He is drooling ALL the time and Rox and Becky and now I think I have too felt a tooth on top. I've heard the bottoms come in first but his feels like a top one. I've tried the oragel a few times when he is real fussy for no reason and it seems to help immediately so I am guessing that could be part of it! How long when you feel them before they pop out?

Anyway, the rest of our Sunday was fine. After Z stayed awake during church, lunch, and for about an hour at home...I put him in the swing and it magically soothed him to sleep as usual for a nice 2 hour nap. Then we were up and hung out at the pool. A nice man and his niece were in the pool playing too. He said he had an extra float this was too small for his niece so he gave it to us. How nice is that? Z enjoyed it too! We now have a collection of different baby floats! Perhaps whenever we move we need a house with a pool! Z loved his time in the water and is starting to do some kicking while in there now. Perhaps we have a swimmer on our hands!

Today has been the day of never ending sports. We left this morning to church with Wimbledon on...and came home and it was STILL on. Granted they had 2 rain delays BUT they played for like 5 hours! They said it was the longest men's finals ever. 5 hours of playing some SERIOUS tennis. I don't think I could even play for an hour. Perhaps I need to start playing on Wii some more for practice. So Nadal won too. I was pulling for Federer, I have always liked him for some reason. And he would have broken some record from like 1880 if he was to win 6 consecutive wins there. Oh well. Apparently Nadal broke some other record by winning both the French Open and Wimbledon.

And now the Astros are in the 16th inning versus the Atlanta Braves. Tied at 6-6 for like forever. It was almost over when we went to the pool at five and now its 730 and still on! I have been to the Braves Stadium once for Susan's bachelorette party. We had such a fun time and its a really cool stadium I thought. We were looking super cute in these snarky Astros baseball tees we made. I should find the pic.

OK, Matt just got back with dinner from La Madeline. YUM. I think I have done pretty good over the weekend considering all the food that was around. I am trying to be good! We shall see what the scale says later.

Hope you all enjoyed your 4th as well and back to work tomorrow! Night!

The 4th...continued!

The rest of the weekend has been good! We had a showing yesterday afternoon that I think went fairly good. It was another young couple and they had a 6 month old. Kinda good we were here since of course with us having a wee one too, they wanted to know why we were moving. And we could tell them honestly just to be closer to my folks. So maybe that will help us having been here when they were here. So we shall see!

Mom came over to watch Z last night which proved to be a good decision. He was SO good on Friday and since we weren't going to the Creller's until after 6pm, I just didn't want to put him to the test again being away from home for bedtime. Mom said he was a bit fussy trying to get down so I am definitely glad he was at home at least. We had a nice time catching up with the folks at the BBQ and hearing about the Field Day fun they had. The giant slip and slide thingie was still set up so Matt got a few good runs in! We were home by 11pm which was more than late enough for us but glad we were able to sneak over to the Crellers for some fun.

Today we were up early for church. Its July Revival time which entails some good soulful hymns and lots of singing! I thought Z would sleep through it since its during nap time but he was wide awake. I think he enjoyed all the singing :) It was a good message and everyone was excited to see Z so i was glad we could make it. We headed over to Barnaby's after for lunch which was delish as always!

Z was awake through lunch and for at least almost 2 hours after we got home....but the power of the swing finally lulled him to sleep. He has been talking up a storm today and wanting to sit up more and more. And hes getting good at it too! And holding and grabbing at everything. Where does the time go???

Anyway, all in all, it was a great weekend. Do I have to go back tomorrow????

Happy Birthday America!

Ok, so its a day late, but we were busy yesterday!

The 4th of July parade at Zach's school was quite a treat on Thursday. His infant room's theme was the Olympics so baby Z was dressed up in sweat bands, a gold medal, cool visor and decorated t-shirt. The babies were all on the 6 kid buggy and lookin quite surprised to see all the parents there waving flags and snapping pics as they were wheeled by. It was pretty cute and I video-taped it. Perhaps I will be cool and try to figure out how to upload it so can you laugh along too. It was quite amusing. The teachers all did a good job though and I enjoyed Z's 1st parade. Reminded me of my days participating in Cypresswood's annual parade and decorating my trike or bike or truck or whatever we were riding in that year. Seriously. It was such a big deal. We were SO excited armed with our crepe paper, shoe polish, and flags to decorate our mode of transport. I was usually with Kelly and her fam as her grandma lived across the street so they were always in town for the 4th. I look forward to when we are in a neighborhood and Zach is participating like that! :)

Yesterday we spent the afternoon, errr, all day and into the early morn, at the Senior Labbe's house. They were in Canada so we had the run of the mansion. The babies LOVED the pool and I think Z could have stayed in all day. He was so chill in his little floaty inner tube. Too cute! We laughed thinking about what a different 4th it was from 2 years ago when we were at Becky's mom's house and enjoying the pool. The only 2 babies back then were Alex and Jack so there was much more debauchery going on. Yesterday there were our 7 babies, plus 3 little labbe's, plus a set of twins and 4 more babes in utero! So quite the different afternoon. But alas, babies do go to sleep and there were baby monitors on(and don't worry, there were responsible adults there such as myself in case the babes woke up!).....so the after dark party was back to the old school ways with some entertaining antics of Allison on the slide, giant cannonballs off the diving board, and keg riding in the pool (to which Amy was the BY FAR champion!). We rolled on home around 12:30 and left with the image of B still trying to ride the keg unsuccessfully ;)

All in all it was a really fun afternoon and I wish I had that pool at my house! Perhaps we will take Z to our boring pool tomorrow for some more fun. We also had a promising showing yesterday as we were headed out the door. But when I checked the comments, they were undecided due to some of the less savory establishments off of Westheimer. Come on people, its Houston. If you want to live in town, that's just part of it. UGH. Its always something. We have another showing this afternoon. Someone make an offer! Lots of lookers...no takers :(

Anyway, I digress. So far its been a good 4th weekend. Later this evening we are headed to the Crellers for some more 4th fun. Debating see if my mom felt like sitting. I don't want to have to put Z down somewhere else again just to wake him up and move him. He was SO good yesterday and I don't know if I want to put him to the test again!

Hope you are all enjoying your extended weekend. Take a moment to remember our troops both here and abroad and say a little thanks for the freedoms we enjoy here in America! :)

Toodles!

Nothing going on but I felt the need to post. This week at work has been H E Double Hockey Sticks (I'm working on not cussing now that we have a child in the house). Pretty sad when its only Tuesday and the week has been for sh*t already! (there I go again, I'm getting good, huh?). Working on a trade floor with a bunching of cussing men makes it easy for it to become the norm. And speaking of, when did cussing become acceptable? It wasn't when I was growing up, not even in high school. So it must have happened somewhere in the 2000s. I mean, they can say witch with a Capital B on main stream tv!! And if you watch any show on cable, you hear much worse. Or they just bleep it out, but anyone over the age of 10 can figure out what the bleeped words are. I don't like it though. I think we all need to start cuss jars, I bet they would fill up pretty fast.

But I digress. Matt is watching this nasty show Fear Itself. I am trying to avoid eye contact with the tv so I won't have nightmares. Men and women definitely have different tastes in television watching.

Speaking of tv, The Bachelorette was good last night. I was glad funny face lawyer got the boot. He has bugged me from the beginning. And his dramatic get out of the car to pause at the end was just too much. Even better was the fake tear he wiped away on the tell all show afterwards. I also enjoyed D's banter with Graham and her comment about "don't worry, I am much happier" or whatever it was the elicited tons of oooohs from the audience. His face looks like our friend Jeff Anderson and they had the same voice...must be his doppelganger (isn't that what the secret twins are called?). Anyway, it always made me and Matt laugh when he was on b/c it was so much like him, only taller! So who do you think she picks? I really like Jessie and Jason but not sure which one is right for her? I am curious to see who it will be!

Does anyone watch the Mole? We are this season for lack of anything better on. I don't really get the show. I mean, are we supposed to be playing along? The show is edited so obviously the people playing know more what's going on. I love the NY dude, Paul, that's on it though. He is feisty and makes me laugh. And I like Paul too. I do NOT like mark or Clay. They just bug, like they are acting too much. Even if you are the mole, you don't have to be so weird. It makes people think you are NOT the mole. I am ready for Big Brother or Amazing Race to come back on! Time for some good reality tv!

Hopefully work will get better. There is one chick I deal with at another company who is screwing everything up and its causing me distress. Hopefully she gets her stuff together and tomorrow and Thursday will be better.

As for the Z man, he is STTN still! I swear, it was the cold thing (thanks again Theresa for that theory!)! Ever since we put him in the sleep sack, lots of Zzzzs for the Z! Which makes me feel like a bad mom before but hey, all good now. I do think we need a new sleep sack though. Z is outgrowing his and currently looks like he is wearing the coneheads costumes were wore in drill team in high school. If only I had a pic for you! Oh, and Thursday his school is having a 4th of July parade. I can't wait to go see. Anyone know where I can get a cute 4th outfit??

OK, I think that's enough rambling on my end for the night. The Astros have tied up the game and are in the 10th inning. I guess they have decided to just royally suck when we go to the games....


Is it Friday yet???

Family Fun!

We had a busy but fun weekend with the family!

Friday night was the Astros vs Braves game. Zach was a trooper again and did a great job at the game. He was all decked out in his stros gear and got many comments on what a cute "astros baby" he was!! Unfortunately the Astros lost the game 6-1. In Zach's 2 games, he has seen the astros outscored 19-1 now. Ouch! On a happier Astros note though, they won their Saturday and Sunday games. Woohoo! Oh, and Friday night we got to see fireworks too so that was cool!

Saturday morning was our first sign class. Zach is young but could be able to sign by 6-8 months. It was just fun being together too!

For the rest of the weekend, we spent Saturday at my parents house with the family and Sunday at Chris and KA's. My aunt and uncle are in town from NJ and my cousin and her kiddos were in town from AZ. The kiddos LOVED zach and were really sweet with him. They just thought he was pretty darn cute and cool which of course I would agree too! All in all, a great weekend! Oh yeah, and I beat the Easy level of Guitar Hero. I am a ROCK STAR! ;-)

Grandma and Zach at the game

What's up, Dad?

Zach in Dad's big boy hat, one day I will fit in it for real!

Kelsey, Jessica, and Jacob with Zach! Kelsey loved Zach and will make a great babysitter one day!

Aunt Kellianne and Zach! She thought he smelled yummy today. And Zach thought KA's hair was yummy! He loved to get a big handful of it! That's Otis in the window, he is a big huge fluff ball kitty!