Brothers Dear

A good friend, who's blog I adore, is always so good about wishing her family "Happy Birthday" on the right day on her blog. Me...not so much. I'm working on it though! And in the spirit of recognizing b-days, I wanted to blog "Happy Birthday" to both of my awesome brothers before their b-day month of March is totally gone.

Kenny, the youngest of all four of us, had his birthday first this month. As the youngest, he has exuded an incredible amount of patience with his older siblings...err sister...who always thought we knew best (I mean, how can an older sister's advice steer you wrong? It's the best thing since sliced bread!). Whether he agreed or not (and often he hasn't), he has always been very good-natured about our wishes and found his own little ways to quietly disappear from the scene when needed to preserve his sanity. However, he usually came back with some type of robot. He is an amazing handy-man who likes not only to fix things up, but make them better. I remember one Christmas when Kenny was about ten that my older bro and I came home from school to find that he had rewired the non-blinking Christmas lights using one of the servos from a toy remote control plane he had to make the lights blink by remote control. He has made countless robots since then and done very well learning the more intricate details of CNC work. He is currently studying mechanical engineering and working with a company using a CNC. I am extremely proud of him and all the effort he has made to be so successful.

Kenny has always had his own brand of humor. He loves a good joke and we have had many a laugh at his jokes over the years (sometimes just laughing at the fact he was laughing!). I recently came across this picture that depicts some of the fun we had messing around as kids.

Skittles: taste the rainbow!

Of course, Kenny has grown to be a strong, handsome man (see - good older sister flattery!). Here's the most recent photo I have of him with Ian from back at Christmas.

Now Mike, my older bro, gets just as many kudos for putting up with me, but in a different way. I was that VERY competitive second child and Mike played along with his easy-going nature. I really admire him for all that he has accomplished. He too has a very strong scientific nature and just this past year got his PhD in Physics. Physics!! I barely got through the first two semesters of physics without losing interest, much less ever thought about taking another course in it that I didn't have to. In this past year, he has also gotten married and started a non-profit business. Mike is always full of entreprenuerial ideas. This wasn't his first business to start. In fact, he and his very creative, talented wife are also working on an educational children's cartoon series. I'm quite impressed with all that he has done and hope I can be like him when I grow up!

My Dad used to say that Mike was the one to get me started. Here he is teaching me to "read". (Again - I was competitive...had to do everything he did!)

Haha - well, whatever his method, it worked. We were both reading quite well before kindergarten. It's because of having such an awesome older brother that I always wanted my kids to have an older brother. We're thrilled Ian gets to play the role.

This is Uncle Mike making sure Ian knows all about being a big brother.

And yes, before you ask, Ian IS reaching for the beer. Uncle Mike DID let him have as much as he wanted. And yes, they DID go to a tattoo parlor afterwards. At least Ian chose "Mommy" for his tat. :-)

Okay - a little more serious now. This is the most recent picture I have of Mike and his wife, Lissie, with Ian. It's from back in August! Sniff, sniff. That's how long it's been since we've seen Aunt Lissie (and since October in the above picture for Uncle Mike).

What can I say? I've been blessed with two awesome brothers. They are amazing and I have learned so much from both of them. I honestly don't know what I would do about my car problems or fix-it-up needs without them. They're great guys and I am very thankful that they have put up with me all these years!

I'll leave with a picture from several years back - possible ten years ago? This pictures just captures Mike and Kenny so well. Happy Birthday month, guys!

Mommy's Laundry Helper

A few days after Ian discovered Mommy's pots and pans last week, he happened upon the joy of laundry. Now, he has played with laundry before, but usually it doesn't hold his interest long (and I can't say I blame him!). But this time was different. He decided he was going to "sort" the laundry and had such a blast doing it! I couldn't believe how focused he was on his little task. Of course, when Daddy got home, we had to show him!

Having so much fun reaching for the laundry basket.

Putting his blanket in.

Digging for more laundry.

He decided to put his jammies back in the hamper.

Oh boy! Having so much fun dropping the laundry!

Haha - he left quite a trail of laundry behind him.

But no worries - he came right back to "sort" it all for Momma!

Here's a little sample of all the fun Ian was having sorting. He'd get a good pile going behind him and then turn around and start sorting it all again!

When he was all done, he cheered for himself! It is so cute to watch him! He will clap for himself and then clasp his hands together in what we call his "congratulations hands" and shake them. Then he decided he ought to go play with the door spring to reward himself for a job well done. :-)

Thanks for being such a good helper for Mommy, little buddy! You sure know how to keep yourself (and us!) entertained.

First Haircut!

James and I have been talking for a while about when to get Ian's first haircut. His cute little baby hair is rather wispy and definitely has a mind of its own! So, we thought a haircut might make it a bit easier to manage. We also thought it might make his little bald spot (that is just now barely starting to grow back in!) not stand out quite as much. James was getting to the point where he needed a haircut too, so we decided to go ahead and just get haircuts for both.

Here's one last look at Ian's little bald spot that looks like a heart when his hair is wet.

After a quick internet search the other night, we decided to try Cool Cuts 4 Kids since they have a myraid of activities to keep little ones entertained.

The fire truck was taken, so the stylist invited Ian to go for a ride in her taxi. He settled right in, happy to have a steering wheel to play with.

She was great with him - she even showed him the clippers and let him feel them. They were probably the quietest clippers we have ever come across, which was great for our little man who still gets startled by loud noises.

After doing the back on a 2.5, she trimmed the top with scissors.

At one point, she had his hair in a mohawk and stepped over to grab something, so we couldn't resist taking this picture!

Looks-wise, it isn't a huge change, but his hair feels sooooooooooooo much softer npw! Here's the before picture.

And after! (Haha - Ian and I just happened to be standing in similar poses both times. We didn't plan it that way.)

Daddy got his hair cut too!

While he was getting that done, Ian and I decided to try out the fire truck. It had a fun little bell on the front to ring.

My boys - looking so handsome!

The stylist even saved a few locks of Ian's hair and gave us this neat little page that we can attach a photo to. The info about his haircut is listed at the bottom and the little sealed bag with his locks is securely taped in place on the bottom right.

Ian's first haircut brings is bittersweet in some ways. James has a copy of this adorable photo of his grandmother, Gigi, with his dad (James III) at his first haircut.

Gigi lost a battle with cancer a couple of years ago and we miss her a lot. In memory of her, we did our best to come up with a photo that would honor the memory of her with Grandaddy at his first haircut.

Not quite the same - we couldn't get those cool cars in the background - but we were definitely thinking about her today. So Grandaddy, this picture is for you! We love you and the rest of the family very much!

Cupboards and Ian and Pans, Oh My!

As Ian has gotten more proficient in crawling, he has begun to realize how much freedom he has to roam the place. He is absolutely loving his newfound ability to go "discovering" on his own. Last week, he made his own day by finding the cupboards with Mommy's pots and pans. He wasted no time pulling out a couple and seeing what they were all about.

He was thrilled to find out that they make noise!! Our deepest apologies to our neighbors - he LOVES anything that makes noise.

He had so much fun banging them, throwing them, and spinning them around! Daddy and I had a blast watching him.

Here's a little video clip we managed to get. He is singing (okay, hollering) his pots and pans song right along with the banging at the beginning.

My pans may never all be in the cupboard at once ever again! Here's to simple thrills!

Blooms Abound

We've enjoyed seeing the trees blooming on our walks lately (except over the funky cold spell we had with snow on the first day of spring over the weekend!). We love taking the "back road" paths through our apartment complex...we just can't resist passing by the gazebo when we are out walking.

Here's another view of our lovely gazebo.

Do you remember all the snow we got? Here is a great picture our neighbor took of trees white with snow.

Here's the same set of trees white with blooms. :-) (Have to give credit to our awesome upstairs neighbor for thinking of such great descriptions for them!)

And here is a beautiful picture he took of the blooms close up. Love it! Spring is here!

Apparently the ducks at the park are enjoying this spring weather too. Ian and I came across a couple of ducks having quite a bit of fun in the pond on one of our walks last week. I didn't get the first part of on video (they were even more, um vivacious, early on).



Happy Spring! Hope everyone is enjoying it!

The First "No, Ian"

To the tune of "The First Noel":

The first "No, Ian"
This Momma did say
To a certain poor baby
With teeth on the way

"No, Ian", "No, Ian"
"No, Ian", "No, Ian"
Biting is a no-ho-o-no!

Overall, Ian is generally a very well behaved child. We rarely have to tell him no to anything and when we do, he seems to listen. As he has started to get more mobile, we know that might change though! Interestingly enough though, our first real "no" issue has been with his teeth and what he likes to do with them. He's a normal teething baby in the fact that he likes to chomp on everything - even his own hands...ouch! But he thinks it is still okay to chomp on Mommy and Daddy. We let him "gum" us when he had no teeth, but the rules have changed now that he has some sharp little chompers in there. Poor kid is taking a while to figure it out.

At first, it was kind of funny to see the little wheels spinning. The first few times he bit my shoulder, I knew he didn't know better. He thought he was still gumming on me and needed something to massage his little teeth on. So, I simply told him, "No, Ian - you can't bite Mommy" and moved him away from my shoulder. The next few times, I lightly popped him on the mouth and told him the same thing. That's when the light bulb started to come on (at least from my observations - he could have been playing me the whole time). Instead of biting my shoulder, he would press his lips on it, which was fine. Then he got the bright idea to just bite down enough to grab my t-shirt between his teeth. He knew he wasn't supposed to get me, but wanted to see how far I would let him go.

It was actually pretty cute to see his little solution to the problem, except for he still missed and would get my shoulder as well as the t-shirt. Owie!! That kid has sharp teeth! Perhaps he has a bit of shark in him? And my mom pointed out that he might tear my shirts even if he missed my shoulder. So, back to training the child not to bite. He had actually been doing pretty good until today when he was back at it again. I popped him (lightly of course!) like I had been doing and told him "no" in a stern voice. Always before he has just given me a sort of puzzled look, but today he started fuss-crying. I'm not sure if it has finally sunk in that he is in trouble and he got his feelings hurt or what happened. Of course, I felt bad, but I can't have him biting me (or anyone else!).

I haven't been able to get a picture of him getting my shoulder, but a few days ago, he decided to go after my pajama pants one morning. I grabbed the camera really quickly - as I was telling him no - to document his first "No, Ian".

These aren't very good pictures, but you get the idea. In this one, he actually has fabric between his teeth!

I know we'll get this all figured out - I'm not worried about it. I just wanted to document it for Ian someday so we can look back and laugh. :-)

There's another cute (but less painful!) thing Ian has been up to this week as well. Lately, whenever I knock on a door, he will then proceed to "knock" on my shoulder with his hand. It is soooo funny. We showed Daddy today. I knocked three times on the kitchen wall and Ian turned, looked at me puzzled since it wasn't a door, but went ahead and banged his little hand three times on my shoulder. I knocked again, and he knocked again. Too funny!

We really do love our little man, even if he thinks we are his personal chew toys!

Tech Support

James has always been very good about being our family's tech support. He can fix just about any computer problem we have and is very knowledge about all sorts of programs and gadgets that I didn't even know existed. We knew Ian would probably grow up on computers and be a great tech support help as he got older. But, I walked into the living room the other day to find Ian already practicing to follow in Daddy's footsteps!

At ten months old, he's already a pretty good typist!

It sure will be nice to have two guys on the scene to fix all my computer problems!

We have been doing a lot of spring cleaning around the house (still!). The other night, James took Ian outside to give him a little more computer training. This lesson was how to dispose of an old computer that no longer works but might still have personal information on it.

Step 1: Take off the exterior cover to the tower.

Step 2: Detach all interior cords.

Step 3: Take a hammer to all ports and hard drives.

Make sure you bang up everything "real good".

Step 5: Pour an old, flat Dr. Pepper over the smashed interior to ensure total grossness.

Step 6: Throw away in a smelly dumspter and rest assured that no one in their right mind would even think about trying to mess with personal information on your old broken computer.

Great Impressions

Perhaps you remember my January visit to Dr. David and Judy, the awesome dentist and his trusty childcare professional from Bohannan Dentistry? Talk about great impressions. We loved the staff, we loved the dentists, we loved Miss Judy, and we loved the free childcare during my appointment!

Since my chompers got a clean bill of health, I didn't think I would be back for another six months. Then my mom showed up one day sporting an ad that she had received in the mail, asking if it was for "the dentist I loved so much". Indeed it was! They had a stellar deal on a first visit that included a great price on professional teeth whitening. She was really glad to hear it was the same dentist and called them right up for an appointment. While she was there, she asked if it would be all right for me to get the whitening done since I had just had my first appointment. Being the super nice people they are, they said I could. Since James still needed to have his first appointment (as he had canceled back in January due to an upper respiratory infection), we jumped at the chance to go ahead and set up a first visit for him and get his teeth whitened too.

We're both pretty thrilled about it. Neither of us have ever had our teeth professionally whitened and never really thought it was something we could put in the budget, especially with a little one to feed and clothe. But this was too good of a deal to pass up!

Ian and I went in on Tuesday so they could make impressions for the whitening trays (James is going in tomorrow morning for his cleaning and impressions).

Ian was so excited to be going to see his friends at Dr. David's.

I really do love their new facility. It's gorgeous inside and out! Makes you feel right at home and quite comfortable to the point you almost forget it is a dentist's office.

Ian had so much fun playing with Miss Judy!

She knows all the cool little tricks on setting up toys that Momma hasn't even figured out yet.

After the impressions were done, I came back to find Miss Judy had yet again discovered one of Ian's favorite activities - music! She had turned some fun kiddo songs on in the CD player and they were tapping legos together in time to the music. Ian LOVES to tap anything and everything together (he has a bit of his Daddy's drumming ability already!).

Just in case you want to go check out this amazing place for yourself, here's their recent ad. It really is a great deal! (Click on it to make it larger.)

We'll have some before and after pictures coming soon! In the meantime, thanks to Dr. David's office for making such great impressions (both in service and for our teeth...haha)!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Paddy's Day! We headed out for a walk since this weather was so beautiful and found a perfect place for some Paddy Day pictures!

Ian's only question was, "You wanna take more pictures of me?"

He loved the beads. St. Paddy had some good teething bead ideas!

All dressed up - ready to party!

Giving Momma big smiles!

Yum, yum! These shamrock glasses are good. (Thanks, Gramma K!)

Peekaboo!!

You're making me wear what?? Kids are gonna laugh at me!

Being silly with the bowtie.

My sweet little clover, who is sitting in a bed of clovers (although you can't see it in the pix.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

Leprechaun-in-training!

Where's my pot of gold?

Looking cooool!

Going for the green.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, little leprechaun. You bring us more fun, joy, and happiness than the luckiest four leaf clover ever could!