Spring Cleaning

A couple of weeks ago - I think it was a snow day - I finally decided to reorganize Ian's closet. The clothing situation was getting out of control. He had sleepers and shirts and bibs and pants everywhere! And of course, they were all the ones that were too small for him, so I couldn't just stash them in his dresser somewhere.

Here's Ian helping me. He put one of his outfits in his basket.

A before picture of the left side of his closet.

The after picture - these pictures really don't do justice all the work that went into it and how much better it looks now!

Before on the right side of his closet.

Another angle.

After!

Work in progress - Ian's room got messy!

All better!

More spring cleaning projects - putting together Christmas presents! Ha! We should have gotten to these sooner. We needed to put together my beautiful jewelry armoire that James got me for Christmas and Ian's new big boy car seat.

After a little manuevering, I was able to get the armoire out of the box by myself (since James was at work).

Ian thought it was great fun to help Mommy get all the wrappings off the armoire!

Ian and I got it put together the rest of the way by ourselves. We had to leave it in the middle of the living room though until Daddy got home. It was too heavy to move!

And we got Aunt Lissie's beautiful painting hung in the hallway where we see it several times every day! Unfortunately, I didn't get a good angle on the picture itself...I'll work on that. This angle doesn't do it justice!

I have a few extra days off this week, so we have many more spring cleaning projects planned. Most of them included baby-proofing in one way or another. So just wait a week to really start crawling, little man. We just need one more week!

Sam Moon Pie

Today Ian and I met up with a sweet friend of mine from work. Margaret and I wanted to do a little shopping at a fun little store - Sam Moon Pie, as she calls it. We were so glad to get to see her as Ian had not yet gotten a chance to meet her.

Arriving at the store. I just absolutely love luggage! I always have - my family thinks it is weird, but I love looking at luggage! The more storage space a piece has, the better.

Meeting Marg!

She sure knows how to make a baby happy!

Giving kisses!

Later today after we got home, Ian was playing around with his toys, talking away. He loves to make sounds and has recently discovered how to hold out a sound. So this past week our little baby will "talk" to us. "Ah, ah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He loves to drag out that last note now. It was so funny to see him this afternoon saying "aaahhh", especially when I realized the alphabet blocks he was chewing on were "a" and "w". "Aawwww!" Such a smart little boy...knows how to spell his sounds!

I managed to get this little video clip of Ian showing off some of his "aaahh" sounds!



Of course, I have to add a few more pictures of Ian chilling with Daddy. Here's how I left them the other night when I went to work.

Such good buddies. I love how Ian crosses his little feet! I will miss that when he grows out of that stage.

Four

Four is an important number.

4 - the number of kids in my family

4 - the place Daddy holds in the line of James Emory's

4 - how many years we have been married

4 - the number of teeth Ian now has poking through!!!

His fourth little tooth showed up this morning. Poor baby has now gotten four new teeth in a month! And since he spits up all the time when he is teething 4 x 100 is the number of times Mommy has cleaned spit up off of the floor, herself, Ian, and his toys this month! Okay, maybe not really that many times, but it must be close to that!

If you look really closely, you probably STILL won't see the newest tooth. It is barely poking through!

Those top two teeth are showing up pretty well though. Daddy took these pictures the other day when Ian was being all sweet and snuggly. (Click on the pix to make it bigger.)

Sweet baby kisses!

Four is also the minimum number of times we read Ian's favorite book, Charlie Monkey, everyday!

It is also the number of times we aim for showing Ian how to crawl everyday (twice a day from both Daddy and me). Ian loves to see us crawl. He will sit and wave his arms and cheer us on!

And then he will try himself! We get cute little cuddles from him. He is still only going backwards though. Maybe one day he'll figure out the forwards part of it.

On a non-four note, Ian and I decided to leave a surprise in the tub for Daddy one day. Because Ian hasn't been feeling well, he has gotten two baths a day for the past week. He loves being in the tub! James almost always gives Ian his evening bath, so we decided to leave him a little message.

We were gonna say "I love my Pa", but we looked and looked for the letter "P" and couldn't find it. That's when we realized we lucked out. Our foam letters set actually left out the letter "P" and gave us two of "D".

I had to leave for work last night while Ian was still in the tub. I walked into the bathroom this morning to see a new message.

Daddy had been having fun teaching Ian about vowels and how they change words. So Ian and I changed it up once again for Daddy to see tonight.

I know, I know. Simple pleasures for simple folks! But hey, we're good at keeping ourselves entertained. Little dude, we sure hope you get a break from all this teething!

Blog Buddies

When I first started my blog, I had no idea what I was doing. I just picked the most popular site for a blog that I knew of and signed up. That was that. I had never really read many blogs and had never seen anyone update a blog more than once a month. I had great intentions for keeping mine up to date, especially since James had a few job opportunities in other states. But, when we ended up staying here and got to see family somewhat regularly, I just kind of let things slide. Like in the not blogging at all kind of letting things slide way.

I'm sure God knew I needed some kind of blog intervention. When Ian was about two months old, this new guy showed up at work. We knew some of the same people back in West Texas. His wife had a blog! A way cool, much more hip blog. AND she blogged several times a week! Fun stories about their cutie patootie little boy. Sad stories about world news events. Lame pranks her hubby tried to pull on her (haha -j/k Josh!). Recipes for the holidays. And give-a-ways! I had so much fun reading her blog. It totally inspired me to get my act together and get this blog back on its little bloggy training wheels instead of sitting on the sidelines. (You can read more of Libby's great blog here.)

So I was thrilled when our schedules finally worked out to meet up and take the boys on a fun outing. We decided to have lunch at Mickey-D's and then head over to the Fort Worth Children's Museum. Neither of us had been there before and it looked like fun.

The McDonald's just down the street from the museum was really nice. I had never seen stonework like this in one before. (This is the table we ended up sitting at, but for some reason, we forgot to get a picture of all of us having lunch.)

While we were waiting to meet our friends, Ian had a great time looking out the window watching traffic go by. He also made friends with a few little boys who were sitting across the way.

Blog buddies in person at last! Checking each other out before heading down to the children's part of the museum.

They were so cute to watch together! Noah has the sweetest little personality.

The back wall had some fun hand prints all over it.

Hanging with Libby! He loved her scarf.

Libby got a great new camera for Christmas and has been having fun honing her photography skills. She's gonna have to teach me all she knows because know I want a new camera too! She took this picture of Ian sitting in the padded infants and toddler area.

London Bridge is falling down... Okay, not quite. Still a pretty cool looking bridge though.

And it could have been falling down for all Ian cared. He wanted some milk!

Wheeee! Noah having fun with his sweet Momma!

All that play made our boys hungry and ready for snack time. Good thing the crocodile wasn't too hungry!

The entrance/exit to the Children's Museum...right above the boys' heads. I couldn't get both shots in one pix.

Right next to the Children's Museum, they had a dinosaur area with skeletons and interesting facts for the kiddos to learn. Ian is sitting in a large dino footprint.

Of course, the footprint was much more fun to share with a buddy! (Thanks for sharing the photo, Libby!)

I guess the boys have a bit of growing to do before they can be dino-normous.

Upstairs in the museum were a few more exhibits. I thought this one was a pretty way to say good night!

We had a fun day and great time getting to know our friends in person. We're definitely looking forward to the next outing! Thanks for being such wonderful blog buddies!

One, Two, Three - Come Teethe With Me!

That's right - Ian now has one, two, three teeth! Poor baby - he spits up all day when he teeths, so we knew to expect something. And sure enough, his third tooth popped through today! It is the bottom right center one.

The top two teeth.

And our newbie bottom tooth! You almost can't even see it. (Click on the picture and it will make it larger.)

For the fun of it, I thought I'd list some of the things Ian is rather fond of teething on.

1.) His crib.

2.) His rubber duckie - especially the Christmas reindeer one with antlers.

3.) Mommy's spatulas.

4.) His Animals book.

5.) The laundry basket.

6.) His cousin - so sorry, Ace!! You're such a sweet cousin to put up with our little teething monster.

7.) Mommy and Daddy's chins (we don't let him do this anymore now that he has so many teeth!).

8.) His rug (and any other furry thing he can find).

9.) His hammer.

10.) His chiller snail.

That's three teeth in less than a month! We're hoping that our poor little buddy gets a break from all this teeth coming through for at least a little while!