Swimming on Memorial Day

We took Zachary to the pool for the first time on Monday. He LOVED it! We went again this morning and took his floaty thing. I think we'll finally get some use out of our community pool this summer!

After the pool today we went to Luby's - he loved the mac & cheese this time. He filled up on that, green beans, wheat roll, and sweet pototoes, then we came home and took an almost three hour nap with Mommy. It was a good day!

More wedding pictures...

For some really gorgeous pictures from the wedding click on Tyler's blog. Thanks Tyler for pointing me to them! FYI, Tyler is the adorable Georgia's daddy.

Cousin Georganna's wedding

A couple of weeks ago we went to Zachary's second wedding of his life - my cousin Georganna's.


Georganna looked just gorgeous!


Zachary and his daddy didn't look too shabby either!

All the men were handsome in their suits - this is my cousin Ben and Uncle Warren with Charles - we thought they had a nice assortment of ties.

Since it was Mother's Day weekend, we took advantage of the fact that we were all three together, dressed up nice, and took a picture for Mom while she was in the bathroom to surprise her with the next day.

I'm not sure what Granddad is whispering to Zachary here, but it looks pretty important.

Zachary got passed around a lot at the reception - here he is with Aunt Jaime.

Here are Reid and Andrew, all hopped up on Shirley Temples and Roy Rogerses. Notice Reid's red tongue from the cherries - I think this was after his eighth or so...

Uh oh, it looks like he's telling Uncle Warren Granddad's secret!

Zachary got to try lots of great food - salmon, twice-baked potatoes, green beans, a little mushroom... he's not too sure about this roll though.

He had a lot of fun dancing too - they had a great live band.

Who is that suspicious character lurking in the background with the camera? Just kidding! It's our next door neighbor Tyler! It was a fun surprise to see him there.

All tuckered out...

We had a lot of fun - Congratulations Georganna and James!!

Tooth #3!

Official eruption date of Top Lefty: Monday, May 21st, after four days of fever and general crankiness.

Look what I can do!!!

Official first pull-up to standing (i.e. the first time Mommy saw it): Thursday, May 18th.

Music education Part 3

Last week was our neighborhood garage sale - we got a lot of cool stuff from our neighbors down the street, including this neat percussion set...

Zachary's first movie

How many kids can say that the first movie they ever saw at the theater, their dad's name was in the credits? :)

The movie premiere was really fun - Zachary hung out with Aunt Kathleen and the boys while Mommy and Daddy went to the first showing, then they all joined us for the second showing, along with Uncle Robert and Aunt Jaime. It was really great to finally see the outcome of all of Charles's hard work -we were very proud!




The line to get in - people were lining up over an hour before it started.

Flatland premieres today!

I've been meaning to post about this for a while, for anyone who is wondering what that link is for - Charles has been working on this movie for about a year now, and it is finally finished!

This is a film that started out as a home-grown Austin project, but it has really grown and has some big name actors in it. It's based on the 1898 Edwin Abbott novel, and is a 30-minute film that will be used in classrooms to help teach about dimensions and shapes.

Flatland debuts today as part of the Austin Film Festival. It has had quite a few write-ups in the press and they had to add a second screening because the first one sold out!

Austin Film Festival
Austin Chronicle (link is fixed!)
Austin 360 - best bet!
Austin movie blog
News 8 Austin
Blog of Jeffrey Travis - filmmaker
Flatland on IMDB

Company picnic

A couple of weeks ago we went to my company's picnic. We forgot the camera but they were taking pictures of each family as we came in. I had to post this because I love the matching looks of excitement on Charles and Zachary. :-)

We waited for Zachary to wake up from his nap before we went, so we missed the barbecue and ice cream, but Charles got to play some basketball and Zachary and I checked out the clowns and went inside a tepee. We also went out on a paddleboat - it was fun!

Babies don't keep

My mother made this when she was pregnant with my brother, 30 years ago. It has been hanging in the hallway of our house in Corpus ever since, so every time I walked down the hallway growing up I saw it. Those words have been ingrained in my mind since I was a little girl - sometimes they would just pop into my head and get stuck there for a while for no good reason. Now that I have Zachary, I realize how true those words are, and I'm so glad I knew from the start to appreciate every moment with him and not sweat the small stuff. The best part is that just before Zachary was born, my mom gave this to me, so now I can see it every day again. I can't say how special that was to me - thanks Mom!

*****

I started this post on October 1st, but for some reason I never posted it - I just noticed it sitting there in 'draft' status. How true it is though! Today Zachary is nine months' old. Nine months! How much faster did these nine months go than the nine months before he was born?! How has he already gone from my sweet-smelling newborn to this little person with a personality?

Happy 9 months Baby Z!

Laundry day

Crawling

This is today...

Zach in action

This is from last Saturday - you should see him this week!

8 1/2 month checkup

Zachary had his checkup with Dr. Jolet on Monday. The good news was he didn't have to get any shots, but he did have to get some blood drawn from his finger. I think they check for lead and anemia, but I'm not sure. Anyway, he weighs 24 pounds (97th percentile), is 30.5 inches long (>97%), with a 48 cm head (>97%). So he is now on the chart in weight but has stretched out some.

He is really starting to crawl now - he can get a few knee crawls in, then drops to his belly and marine crawls the rest of the way. He knows 'give me five!' and is almost waving bye-bye. His hair is really growing in now too. He is so much fun!

New homeowners!

After the weenie races, Charles went to help Robert and Jaime move into their new house. After we took a nap, Zachary and I went over there too. Zachary had fun reading books and playing the piano with their nephew Brennan, who was very sweet to share his french fries with Zachary. Brennan is so cute - he looks a lot like we imagine Zachary will look in a few years. Jaime's sister Joanie got some cute pictures of them together - hopefully she'll send me some so I can post them here (hint hint) :-).

Fun (sort of) at the Weenie races

Things are still pretty busy at work, so I'm a little behind in the blogging but I'll try to get caught up here...

Last Saturday we went to the Weiner dog races in Buda for our third year in a row. The theme this year was Teenage Mutant Ninja Weiners. By the time we got the stroller, sunscreen, dog, baby, hat, etc. packed up, we were already tired! Luckily we had preregisterd this year so Tootie was in race number 12, instead of 63 like last year. The weenie dog races have really taken off! We got there just in time for the costume awards and the first race. Tootie ran like a champ, but didn't advance to the next round on Sunday, which was just as well. After our race we went and looked at the ponies, but it was Zachary's naptime and he seemed pretty indifferent to the whole thing, so we went on home. I asked if he remembered going last year in my belly, but he just looked at me like I was crazy. I'm sure that won't be the last time. :)

Notice the pregnant woman next to us - we saw several really pregnant women. My first thought was 'are they crazy?' but then I remembered that was me last year, so I had to withhold judgment. :)

Here is me at the starting line - Tootie was in the green lane. The eventual winner of the whole thing was Copper - he has won several years in a row now.

See, here we are last year. Wow, I was already big!

We didn't get a picture of Tootie this year, but he was happy to go out in the car. He got another certificate of participation to add to his collection.

Moving right along...

Zachary has been practicing pushing up on his knees the last few days and is really making progress. Tonight after work we were lying on the bed visiting about our days, and he was kind of rolling around. One minute he was on his belly, then he pushed back and hooked his leg around and the next thing I knew he was sitting up! He was surprised and joyous all at once, and laughed out loud at his accomplishment. It was sweet. :) He rolled back on his belly and did it again for good measure, and laughed again when it worked. I think it's easier on the bed where he has some give. Later we were in his room and he got up to his knees from his belly and kind of lunged forward to grab the toy he was after. Where did my little baby go?!

The winner!!

About a month ago my friend Sherri at work brought me a flyer from Glamour Shots about a photo contest they were having for Easter, so I took Zachary to get his picture taken and enter him. I gave Sherri a hard time because this $29.99 deal ended up costing me a couple hundred dollars because all the pictures turned out so cute! But she is not in trouble anymore, because I got a call from them today to tell me that Zachary won the contest! When Mom and Dad were here this weekend, we all went over there and voted, so I don't know if that put him over the top or not - he was definitely the cutest one. :-) Our prize is a free family portrait session (who knows how much that will end up costing us!) and something else - they are supposed to email me something. But also since he was the winner of the store contest, he will now be entered in the national contest where the prize is a $2000 savings bond. How cool would that be? Anyway, here is the winning photo!

New skill

About a week ago, Zachary figured out how to blow raspberries and has been doing it pretty much non-stop since. He is so silly. :-)

Happy Birthday Jaime!

Happy birthday to my sister-in-law Jaime! Here she is in the window seat of the home that she and Robert are in the process of buying - they are closing on it this week. The best part is that it is in our neighborhood, so we will get to have them close by - we are very excited for them! Congratulations on the new house y'all!

Frog hat

Since Mommy has been having to work a lot of overtime lately, Zachary has gotten to hang out with Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Jim and his cousins Reid and Andrew a lot. Aunt Kathleen picks him up at school and then he gets to go to the ball field with the big boys. Aunt Kathleen let him wear this cool frog hat that Andrew used to wear when he was a baby. He loves the ball field and his big cousins!

Eight months old!

Zachary is really moving now! He is a pro at rolling and scootching and can get pretty much anywhere he wants to go that way. We are really having to watch him now. He loves his toys and most days when we pick him up at school he is on the floor, playing happily. He loves to eat puffs and cheerios and can get them in his mouth with no problem, although we're still working on the pincer thing. I got him a mesh bag feeder and he enjoys eating bananas with it, but it gets a little sticky! Other than that we haven't really progressed beyond stage 1 fruits and vegetables. Oh, he did have some guacamole at dinner the other night, which he loved! I think he's game to try anything right now. He loves to stand and will jump on your lap as long as your arms will take it.

On the downside, today we discovered (when the ladies at daycare told me) that Zachary has thrush. Form what I read it is usually not too painful but can be a nuisance. Some places say to boil all nipples and pump parts for 20 minutes every day. Like I have an extra 20 minutes a day! We went live on our new SAP system at work last week so this month has been crazy. Hopefully things will slow down in the next week or so so I can get back to focussing on my baby boy! Anyway, he doesn't seem too bothered by the thrush, but I'll be glad when it's gone. Charles took him to the doctor today and got some medicine - let's hope it works!

Happy Easter!

We had a really nice Easter - we all went down to Corpus Christi and went to church together with Grandmother and Grand-dad. Uncle Robert and Aunt Jaime were there, and Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Jim and Reid and Andrew. I wish I had gotten a picture of us all together! At least I got a picture of the cousins. Andrew has a piece of confetti in his hair. Someone got a little carried away with the cascarones, but I won't name names. :-) It was really cold so they had the Easter egg hunt inside.

Zachary had fun playing with Grandmother's sweet old-school toys...

And, just so all the pictures of us on the blog aren't just-rolled-out-of-bed....

Reid took this last one - I really like it... thanks Reid!

Music Education (Reprise)