Lock up your daughters!!

Lock up your daughters, Thomas is ON THE MOVE!! Thomas started crawling last night. He's been ooching, rolling, crawling backwards, rocking on all fours, pulling up to his knees, but now, finally, he is crawling forward in short spurts. And he's a manly man from an early age - he first crawled towards the TV remote.

The video is dark, but take a look

Cookies!!! 20 minute video

Yeah, so it's way too long, but it's primarily for my family so stuff it.



Whistle Stop Park video and still shots

Quint and the leaf blower

Thoma's first cereal.


Thomas making fun noises!


Quint in the leaves!

Hank is all smiles

Here's my Smiley Boy at Nannie's request.

Clean a living room in 4.5 minutes

This video shows how you can make a room look remarkably better in just a few minutes. This is neatening as opposed to cleaning. Cleaning involves removing dirt. Neatening is what you do to either restore sanity, or start to actually clean. But a quick neatening job can make you feel better so you can maybe tackle the next room in a similar fashion, and then maybe the kitchen, and the satisfaction of seeing one thing done can just snowball until you've got the whole house neat or clean. Or until the kids wake up from their nap...

Hank's Baptism

Here's the video of Hank's baptism. We were very proud of how many folks wanted to stand up with us for his baptism.

Quint's Second Birthday

With my folks in town for the week, there's been little computer time, but here is the video of the crucial song!



More will follow with time...

Coming home from the hospital.

Coming home from the hospital. Quint had pink-eye on Hank's second day of life, so I didn't see Quint for like 36 hours straight. Which was hard. So here we are leaving the hospital and Quint seeing me and Hank for the first time in a while.

More baby video

Here's another video that shows Hank's face better.



And a cute one of Quint...



And Sis? I hear you want to see his face better so let me show you waaaaay too many photos. Look for that tomorrow sometime.

Quint and Hank

Long overdue, I know, but I've been a bit busy. Here's the video of Quint first seeing his little brother. I think I'm going to call the new baby Hank on my blog here.



Quint kept touching his hands to see if he was real. Soooo cute!

Quint is handling being a big brother pretty well. Sometimes he also whimpers when Hank is crying, and sometimes he looks disappointed when I'm nursing Hank, but that's all.

I know I haven't talked too much about Hank yet, but Quint does more interesting stuff than Hank right now. Hank sleeps a lot, cries when he's hungry or wet, and then goes back to sleep. That's about it. He's getting cuter by the day. He likes a pacifier and the bouncy seat. He still has his froggy legs.

And he's crying now so my blog time is up!

Playing in the pool

Here's the latest video of the golden boy.

Fun last night

Last night with little Quint was really a whole lot of fun.

When we got home, he still wanted to play outside, even though he'd been outside for quite a while at Priscilla's when I picked him up. I wanted to get out the infant seat and install it in my car, so this worked. Quint looked thoughtfully through the laundry basket of outside toys and gardening type implements and took off for the back yard. There's one patch of soft silt just in front of our back deck lowest step. It's always easy to scratch up great play dirt. After a few minutes, I went to check on him and sure enough, he was covered in soft, dry dirt and was obviously thinking about trying to drink his little bucket of dirt. I wasn't really willing to deal with a muddy (dirt + spit = mud) boy and a bath and whatnot. My belly had felt really heavy all day and I just hadn't felt tip top. Also there was a huge mosquito on Quint's head. The mosquitoes are worse in the back yard than the front. Hmmm... what to do...

So I got out the swimming pool and turned on the hose to dribble quickly into the pool. This way, he could clean up himself and I wouldn't have to deal with mud, just water. I hauled Quint out front again, which he didn't seem to mind, and immediately picked out different implements for water play. For quite a while, he played in the water while standing outside the pool. The water was way too cold to be inside the pool, but after a while, he wanted to get in and tried with his shoes on. I talked to him about how cold it felt on his hands and are you sure you want to get in? Yes. So I took off his shoes, socks, and pants. I dipped his feet into the pool and immediately sat him on my lap again. He gasped and clung to my arm. I laughed. He laughed. Do you want to try again? Yes. Dip. Gasp. Giggle. The third time, he wanted to stay standing in the pool, the whole time saying, "cold! cold!" He had fun playing in the pool for probably 20 minutes. Occasionally he would try to go down on one knee, but would quickly shout "cold!" and stand back up. Very funny to me. He never did cry because of the cold, which was a relief to me. Typically when playing in the pool or bath, he'll fill a cup with water and dump it over himself. He only did this once with the cold water. He gasped and looked astonished, then laughed. He didn't do that again. Smart boy!

Later, inside, while I was trying to cook dinner, he was, as usual, very whiny and just cried because I was cooking. Why on earth does he hate to see me cook? Any cooking causes tears, including the 40 seconds it takes to heat nuggets. We had a lime and I had a brilliant flash. I cut him a slice of lime, showed him how to hold it to eat the pulp easiest, and he was happy as a clam! He loves limes and lemons. He sucked and chewed on that thing until it I was done cooking. He giggled, made faces, and roared like a lion the whole time. When we say lime, he hears lion.

After supper, his daddy called and he talked on the phone to his Papa. When he heard his voice, he smiled, picked up the phone and said, "whoa?" (his version of hello). Quint made several appropriate responses on the phone, including a "bye" at the end. Very fun for Papa.

About 7:15, 45 minutes before bedtime, Quint was down to thinking the only fun thing to do was run and dive at mama's huge belly. Very not fun for me. Quite painful and causing me to get more and more irritable. So it was time to pull out the secret weapon. I bought it a week ago and was saving it for some evening I had Quint alone and I was hurting pretty bad. The huge bag of 100 plastic balls! (Think Chucky Cheese ball pit.) I dumped them into the pack and play in the living room and plopped Quint in the middle of it. He was ecstatic! He swam through the balls, scooped them over himself, occasionally threw some at me. He kept shouting "BALL! BALL! BALL!" I got to sit outside the pack and play, not get beat up, and simply play by sticking my arms in occasionally. PERFECT!!

When Hubby got home, Quint said to him over and over, "Papa LOOK! BALL!" pointing to the balls at Quint's feet. Papa came over and played with him with the balls and also by pressing his face against the pack and play screen to make funny faces. Papa would lay Quint flat on top of the balls and spin him around like a washing machine. Lots of jumping up and down and dancing in the balls. At 10 unitl 8pm, we started trying to get him out of his own personal ball pit. At 8:05 we finally accomplished it. Papa hauled him upstairs and Quint wanted him to put him to bed. Fantastic for me! I went straight to the tub and floated my huge, horrible belly for an hour.

So despite me being miserable last night, I still had fun with my son. I even got the infant car seat base installed in the car and the carseat covers taken off for washing. That's the only thing I really got done last night, but eh...the non-hanging laundry is clean and sitting in our bedroom. It can fold itself later. Or not.

New video camera

Here's the first test shots with the new video camera this morning. Just regular play in our PJs, but the first video we've had since Christmas.

Videos from Christmas!

So here we go. I finally got around to downloading all the video from Christmas and here are some of the highlights.

Quint with Aunt D and her wonderful sound effects.



Quint plays ping pong with my Cousin L, who I hadn't seen in 10 years! When did we all stop being the kids?!



Aunt D and Quint and the pinchy playdoh video.



Aunt D and Quint with the Tupperware toy. I'm not the only person who was astonished that Tupperware MADE toys, and it was one of the classic basic toys from everyone's childhood.

Greensleeves and dancing

Quint really likes it when Daddy plays the bagpipes. The first few seconds are a bit squeeky, but it gets better. Watch Quint's reaction each time Daddy stops playing and then restarts.



Quint is nearly 15 months old.

he's gonna get you!!

Lotsa laughs

Lotsa laughs on 11-3-10. Quint is 13 months old

Comprehension - 14 months

I've got to start being more mindful that Quint understands nearly everything I say. There's this Veggie Tales silly song with the line "I ain't got no belly button". It's really a very funny song and a spoof on hip-hop love songs. Click here to go watch it.

Last night at some point when Quint's belly button was visible and he was playing with it, (in the tub or during a clothes change) I started singing this song. "I got to tell you something. I ain't got no belly button." He looked up at me, and his eyes said he was clearly shocked! "You don't have a belly button?!" was clearly what his face said. I quickly said, "it's just a silly song, son. Of course I have a belly button," and showed him mine. He looked relieved and played with my belly button for a minute.

Because he will soon start to understand what I'm saying, I've already told him that he is going to be a big brother. I've even explained what that means and will do so many more times before #2 gets here. Right now, he obviously doesn't get it.

Also this weekend, one afternoon when I knew he needed a nap, I just asked him. "Do you need a nap?" And he actually said, "I do" with one quick nod. He still shrieked as if tortured when I first put him down, but that only lasted for like 3 minutes then he was OUT! We're working on the phrase, "come here" while trying to not associate it with "or I'll get you" which makes running and chasing happen. He also requested to go outside to play. Outside he walked all over the place and went up the deck stairs several times. Once back inside, he chased Hubby around our kitchen/living room race track. Then after a few minutes, they switched and Hubby chased Quint, all while Quint quacked like a duck. He is so darn cute!

We also worked on going DOWN the stairs. He's great at going up the stairs, but horrible at going down the stairs. We moved the baby gate at the very bottom of the stairs to three steps from the bottom. That way he could climb them and learn how to go back down by himself. I'm not that worried about him falling down three carpeted stairs. He did manage to get back down several times by himself.

At the park, he learned to both climb up the slide steps and then go down the slide. He hasn't mastered the "sit on the edge and put your feet in front of you before you go down" part. A friend took some video on her phone. That I can't get to install here on this page. I'll try again later.


My camera is busted, AGAIN, so my most current photos of Quint are trapped on my phone where I don't know how to get them off. I've been taking still pictures with my video camera and I need to post some of those.

Quint is 14 months old today! He will feed himself solid foods for Priscilla, but not so much for us. He will eat broccoli for her, but refuses for us. He's starting to feed himself more and more though. He only occasionally will only eat spoon fed goo. The other day, he actually stacked one block on top of another and looked astonished that it stayed. He is completely weaned!

The very last time he nursed was funny. In the middle of the night he was incredibly upset about something and we couldn't figure out what. Maybe it was a nightmare. At wit's end, I plugged him in to nurse, knowing I didn't have any milk. Hubby asked about that and I said it still works as a pacifier. After a few calming minutes, he let go and sat up. He turned at looked at it, touched it with his finger, and his little shoulders fell a bit. He reached for my shirt and pulled it down to cover me. Hubby and I exchanged a look. A minute later, as we walked by a sippy cup of water, he lunged at it. I handed him the water and he drank about 4 ounces in a minute. Oh! He was actually thirsty! And had learned that Mama is not the source of drink any more. He hasn't tried to nurse again since.

He says several partial words like ugry for hungry, ank oo for thank you, el-cm for welcome. Mostly, he's still pointing at things he wants to eat. And he's starting to get object permanence. It no longer always works to hide the Vanilla Wafers under a blanket.

Lately, with the daylight savings change, his sleep schedule got out of whack. There for several days, he would go down for a "nap" at 6:30 and not get up again. Until 5am. When he awoke with a very dirty diaper and a determination to be UP for the day. FIVE AM!! He doesn't need to get up until 7 am on weekdays. And on Saturday morning, the best way to make parents hate life is to joyfully wake them at 5am, and then scream, SCREAM, for a full minute before finally falling back to sleep for another 90 minutes. So for several days there, we distracted an extremely sleepy toddler until at least 7:30 pm before we would put him to bed. Finally, this morning, he didn't wake up until 6:30 am. Much better.

He's a very sweet, loving boy, who will sometimes plant a hug on you as he passes through the room. If I'm laying on the floor, he will come and crash his head on my body for a hug. (This is great if you're prepared for it!) The other day, he layed down with me for about 2 minutes and repeatedly kissed the arm I had around him. Very, very sweet!

So that's what our little guy is up to at 14 months old!

video clip

OK, let's see if this works. I've never tried to include a video in my blog before. Once Quint walks out of frame, the video is basically over. This is a good example of is pterodactyl noise. This is the noise he was doing as he crawled along the concourse at the airport in Austin.

Quint got a new push/ride toy this weekend. Instead of paying $37.54 (Walmart) or $50 (Amazon) I found it on craigslist, within 10 miles of me, for $10! And the guy was so grateful that I was taking it off his hands, that he gave me another push/ride toy. So I basically got it for $5! I love craigslist! I'll have better pictures of it later, I'm sure, seeing how he absolutely beams when he's pushing it.

Last night, just before bed, he was pushing it around and when he would run into a wall, he would cry because it wouldn't go anymore. So I started readjusting it every time he'd run it into a wall. In this way, we went all the way around the dining table multiple times, traveled that big stretch between the pantry and the fireplace, turned around and came back, rounded the dining table, and then went from there to the front door. Over and over again. I figured out how to attach reins to that lion's head and things got better.

Non-family members should completely ignore the following paragraph: Quint's birthday is coming up! If you're wondering what our little guy might "need" in the coming year, I've thoughtfully included a list on a separate page on this blog. It's at the bottom of the right hand column of the blog page.