Happy Nine Months!

This kid is 9 months old (two days ago), who knew?! And for his 9 month birthday he got to take a trip to the doctor and get told he has an ear infection (his first one).  But this did mean he lucked out of getting shots, so lucky Zach.  He is a ball of joy and we LOVE him.  There's not much to say except:

• Zach knows how to crawl up the stairs
• Zach fell down one step and bonked his head (he survived, although his parents are still a little emotionally scarred)
• He still has NO teeth
• He has taken care of his parents while they've been sick (did I mention I got a cold this week on top of everything else?)
• He loves playing with micro machines which is awesome because it means I can buy him one every once in a while and not feel guilty about spending a measly dollar.
• He loves his baths
• Zach eats finger foods, some more willingly than others.  But he is an amazing eater
• He knows how to wave, give hi-fives, open cupboards, and loves using his walker

 Here are some great videos:
video #1 - While I was sick, Tommy taught Zach how to talk with his tongue.  It is now his favorite
video #2 - Zach got stuck in a laundry basket
video #3 - Zach playing with his daddy's micro machines

 

Sick

Who doesn't love modern medicine

So this is the first time Tommy and I have really dealt with being sick since Zach was born.  Sure there's been a cold here or there.  But nothing like the last three weeks have been. It all started with the Sunday night before Tommy started school.  Tommy woke me up a couple of times with weird stories or questions like:
T: Who's hitting you?
C: What?
T: Is is Gerard Butler?
C: Yep
T: No, he's an actor

and also:
T: I was an actor on stage.  I was the antagonist and I got to fight with swords!
C: Okay

I wake up the next morning and find evidences of him being up during the night.  I asked him about it and he said, "oh yeah I had a fever of 103.5 and I was taking care of it". WHAT?! Apparently Tommy didn't think that might be an appropriate time to wake your wife up and let her know of your condition. Those questions and stories turned out to be a result of Tommy's hallucinogenic state brought on by such a high fever. Unfortunately for Tommy it was the first day of school and his fever seemed under control so he headed off to school at 1:30.  I dropped Tommy off because he was in no condition to be riding his bike.  I kept feeling like I should check my phone that was still in the car but lazy person that I am I felt my book was more important (Zach was sleeping, so let's take advantage here).  20 minutes later I finally went to the car to get it and saw 2 missed calls from Tommy, one of them being at 1:35.  Odd.

Turns out Tommy's class really had started at 12:30.  So he was off to a great start with grad school.  That night his fever went up to 103 again.  This time I was allowed to be up with him.  So Tuesday he went to the doctor and got diagnosed with walking pneumonia and was highly contagious until Thursday.  He got his meds and a doctor's note to stay home from school.  GREAT start to his academic career. So first week of grad school was an epic fail.  I was actually really impressed with how well I held up with every thing.  I even got the whole house cleaned and decontaminated. I was looking forward to him being back to normal but then I realized that now he had to play catch up  and once he had finished his medication  he got exhausted pretty easily.

So week two I basically was back to the same routine.  I really had a blast with Zach though.  We went to the library and I got me the Percy Jackson series and when he would play I read to him out loud.  We got on with our lives and Tommy really started feeling himself again.  We were looking forward to a good weekend.  We even planned out our Saturday to get all the cleaning, homework, and fun time in.  Well come Friday night I started feeling like my breathing was a little heavy.  Oh no. Yep, I got sick too. I was just really congested in the lungs but no real fever until Monday night and even then it only hit 101.  We couldn't get an appt. until Friday (awesome...)  And then on Tuesday night, I guess the season finale of Dance Moms was too much for me because I started to lose my voice on top of everything.  BTW, LOOOOOOVED that season finale, yay Chloe!! So awesome husband that he is, Tommy did some finagling and found an appt. for me yesterday and we got me some medicine. 

So after that Tommy left me to take care of Zach while he went off to class, no biggy I've been doing this all week anyways.  But within a half hour of me starting my medicine, I got super sick to my stomach.  I threw Zach over my shoulder, ran upstairs and set him up in his bouncer and set myself up at the toilet.  I've never moved that fast while being sick.  We called the doctor and they got us a new prescription.  So we all trudged back to the pharmacy at Walmart later that day and I went out in my sick glory:  black t shirt, blue striped pajama pants, no bra, and my leopard slip on flats (first easy pair I saw).  Clearly I was staying in the car.  After 20 minutes of waiting in the car for Tommy I realized I had his phone with me and decided to go see if something was the matter.

It took the biggest swallowing of pride to step out of that car, knowing too well that I could probably end up on the People at Walmart website.  At least I had my child to carry in front of me to hide the fact I had no bra on.  Tommy was just waiting for them to finish filling the prescription but it turned out to be a good idea anyways because they needed my signature.

So this has been quite a fun past three weeks.  It could be worse, it could be better.  Zach has been the best part about these weeks.  He bring so much joy to us and he's so entertaining.  Tommy really has enjoyed his time with Zach while I've been banished to bed, which by the way I picked the worst time to get sick.  At first it was awesome because I just plowed through the Percy Jackson series and finished that bad boy in less than a week.  But this is the time in between summer and fall t.v. series and there is literally NOTHING on.  So I'm stuck in bed with nothing to do.  (Except write this post I guess.) Luckily Zach has not gotten sick yet but I pray it doesn't end that way.  Here are some super adorable pictures of Zach 

Loves the vacuum

Kind of looks like he just finished a really cool dance move

my emo picture

Expelliarmus!

He LOVES cheerios

And loves the blinds

Okay so one time Zach and I went shopping and he kept slipping on the shopping cart so I unbuckled him and this was the result. 

 

He rode like this for the rest of the shopping trip.  Don't worry concerned parents, I held onto him the whole time (except for when I was taking this picture, as my dad pointed out).  He rode around waving to people which was doubly awesome.

Lastly some videos: 

My apologies...

So I know it's been a while, but not much has been going on.  And when it has, I have been lazy and not taken any pictures.  We took another trip down to Chicago and all the grandkiddos got to be together.  Of course I forgot my camera. So for some really adorable photos/videos of that trip I will direct you here.  There are some pretty adorable pictures I must say.  Brady is sooo cute, I haven't seen him since he was a newborn so it was fun to get to know him and see his personality.  He loves these little videos that are kind of cute.  Here's my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbbKjDjMDok

Shellie also introduced me to a really cute song that takes you on a bear hunt.  It's an action song but the babies were mesmerized every time she did it.  So if you're having problems entertaining your child here's a great song: The Bear Hunt 

Delainie was super close to walking and I got her to take her first few steps by bribing her with my phone.  But she caught on real quick when we kept trying to bribe her and quit.  She did start walking this week though so YAY!

I realize I missed Zach's 8 month birthday post.  (Mother of the year right here) But Tommy's parents were coming in to town and we had a lot going on.  We had a blast with Tommy's parents.  They came to visit before they head off to their mission in San Fransisco/Oakland, CA (luckies)  Again, I didn't use the camera. 


Here are the updates on Zach:

•   We got Zach a walker and he LOVES it.  There's a video below but it's not his best attempt but still, I've got the evidence for those non believers out there.
• He loves trying out new sounds.  He has said ba and da and I think he's saying "maaaaaaa" when he's upset and pulling on my pant leg
• He loves hanging out in the kitchen with me.  
• He likes micro machine cars already.   The other day he played with them on the kitchen floor for about 10 minutes (that's like an hour in baby attention time).  It was really cute seeing him push them around on the floor
• Zach gets really excited when he is being carried up the stairs by one parent and being chased by the other
• He loves being laid on his back at the end of bath time because that's when he gets to splash and kick as hard as he can.  (Make sure and avoid the splash zone.  I think Zach imagines he is shamoo sometimes...)
• Zach loves eating and snacks.  I swear I am feeding him more now than when he was a newborn (can't wait for when he's a teenager?)
• Zach has now successfully fallen of the bed twice.  Each time he was being supervised by a different parent. Both parents have now learned their lesson (no babies on the bed)
• Zach LOVES cruising around and crawling and getting into stuff.  I love watching him explore his world.  Sometimes I don't get much done because he's just that entertaining chewing on that spatula or opening and shutting a door 10,000 times.  (Clearly, I have a low standards for entertainment)

My phone had stopped texting which was super fun for me.  I think that's part of the reason I haven't posted much as well.  No texting equals avoiding the phone because it's a bummer to see no texts from anyone so that means no picture taking. Also, Zach doesn't sit very well for photos anymore so that equals not using the camera as much because I get to frustrated because my baby doesn't understand the importance of capturing his cuteness on camera so that I can bore his future wife 20 + years down the road and be THAT mom.  So Sorry folks.  But I  did get a new phone yesterday so the picture begin again!  and I do have some awesome videos.

First video: I got the hiccups the other night and Zach that they were pretty entertaining
Second video: Zach walking.  He looks like he's got a bum leg which is only accentuated by his pjs which are a little long in the leg
Third video: Where Zach spends 80% of his time it seems

It's Dinner Time!

So two days ago I randomly decided to feed Zach in just his diaper.  Boy was that true inspiration because he decided this was the moment he was going to get down and dirty with his food.  He's normally a pretty clean eater too.  He was being so funny that we had to record it...8 minutes worth.  The last minute's pretty boring and don't feel like you have to watch the whole thing.  We think it's funny because it's our kid.  I could probably watch 2 hours of him eating and still be entertained.  Oh and please forgive Tommy's and my commentary, I've realized that we've become a lot less funny, maybe there's something in the water or maybe we've been too kind to one another and laughed at things that really aren't that funny too often for the sake of the other's feelings. 

 And here are the pictures from the meal:

PROBABLY A NEW FAVORITE PICTURE

 You can't see it very well but it's on his hands, the whole bottom half of his face, his eyebrows, chest and belly. 

<3

It's all about the Zach!

Well there haven't been a lot of pictures up lately so here are some great ones.  The other day we had a pool party and that's where most of the pictures come from.  Don't be afraid to scroll down to the end.  There are some great videos!

HE KEPT TRYING TO GRAB AT THE GRASS

 Once we left the pool, Zach missed the water so he started crawling on the "river" in our house.

 I found this monkey in one of three garbage bags full of my childhood stuffed animals (And I wonder why I didn't have more friends in high school...)  Zach either didn't notice or didn't care about the monkey being on his back for 20 minutes.  He never once even acknowledged its presence.  Oh well, we still got some cute pictures out of it!

 So I've been trying to tap into my inner crafty-ness.  There's not much there but here's what I came up with.  I printed those pictures out and colored them in.  I think it's pretty cute actually.

 So the story behind this is this was originally white.  We decided to spray paint it blue because every home improvement show always talks about how easy it is to change the look of something with just a little bit of spray paint.  Yeah...right.  Tommy sprayed the panels and then realized that primer is needed first because EVERYTHING started flaking off.  So then we had to scrape of the first layer.  Then we had to prime it and we started spraying one side in our garage.  But then everything in our garage had a little bit of spray paint on it even though we were painting halfway out on the driveway away from everything.  This included some of my shoes (I died a little inside), Zach's pool (at least it covers some of the pink??), even up our noses (gross I know), and on the garage floor.  I also was doing the spraying in flip flops which meant my feet were blue for about 5 days after, no matter how much I scrubbed.  Since we didn't want to add to the mess we decided the next layer would be done in the back yard.

Well every time we stepped out to add another layer there was always some kind of grass or bug or leaf that had blown onto the panels and added what some may have called artistic design but I just called it one more thing to worry about.  Then I stepped over a piece of panel and scattered a footstep full of dried grass over a panel piece.  At that point I was done, done, DONE!  So Tommy completed it.  But not before tracking some blue paint into our house unknowingly on his shoes... Now that it's done, I actually love it, but I probably won't try something like that anytime in the near future (which means my dream of ending up on one of those remodeling tv shows may have to be put on hold indefinitely) That hat box will be painted yellow once the house is blue spray paint free (I swear, it would have been easier to clean up after 6 year olds playing with glitter all day)

 And last, here are some cute videos of Zach.  Don't worry, the bath one doesn't show anything!

On this one the best part is around the 40 second mark.  Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary!

Whoo! Okay so much has been going on at our house.  And by so much I mean Zach and I have been taking lots of pictures.  But I feel it necessary to post about something more important for the moment.  Tommy and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary.  It was operation adventure initiative.  My parental units are coming into town this weekend so Tommy and I have a great date planned then but how do you not celebrate on your actually anniversary. 

It all started with the day before our anniversary when we gave each other our gifts.  If you know our family at all you know we're not ones to wait to give gifts at all.  Our gifts were really simple but we loved them.  Tommy got me the movie Emma (he said unless it was a chick flick he felt he would have self interest vested in the gift) and finished this awful mess of a project that had defeated me and I got him...drum roll please...TOYS!  Why? Well Tommy has been hinted to me about getting a remote control something.  Well that would have been a whole lot more than we budgeted for so I got the next best thing: a legos set that builds two types of planes and a boat.

TOMMY GETTING DOWN TO THE BUSINESS OF PLAYING

THE AWFUL PROJECT THAT'S NOT SO AWFUL

 The next day we just planned on having dinner.  But Tommy decided to take a half day at work and it was time for play!  We set out to explore Mt. Pleasant.  I led to initiative which is totally unlike me.  We first went to this super super lame but we knew that going in so it was still fun.  We were literally the only people there.

NO JOKE THIS WAS PART OF THE EXHIBIT

WE FOUND BATMAN'S CAVE!

HANGING OUT IN THE CHILDREN'S SECTION

A DISPLAY ABOUT COLLECTIBLES.  TOMMY AND I FOUND THINGS WE LIKED

Next it was on to a used bookstore...

  

And then we found this really cute malt shop and drug store where we got ourselves a couple of cream sodas

 Next it was on to dinner time!  We had steak, garlic mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and broccoli.  The broccoli was ruined so we left out the healthiest part of the meal, oh well...

OUR LOVELY DINNER SETTING

MMM...GOOD VIEW

EH..NOT BAD

 

Oh yeah, I forgot we had a special little guy with us for our 'romantic' meal.  But how can you complain with a face like that!

 

And since our anniversary also happened to be Zach's seven month birthday we will devote a little bit of blog space to this adorable little guy. He now:

• army crawls like a pro
• growls like a monster
• babbles on and on all day
• eats solid food like there's no tomorrow.  Favorite foods are pears, squash, and sweet potatoes.  Foods he puts up with are avacado and bananas.  I usually have to mix them with something else to get him to eat them.  But he will enjoy avacado if its the only thing I teach him because I LOVE avacado
• He gave me my first near death experience when he pulled the rubber stopper off of the spring door stopper and was in the process of trying to pick it up when I got him
• He is working on pulling himself up into standing position.  He can go from sitting in my lap to standing but not from sitting on his bum to standing.  But he does make a valiant effort and gets caught in a mid pull up with no arm strength left to finish it (he gets that from his mom)
• He's ticklish
• He knows how to turn the pages when I read to him
• He gets the biggest grin on his face when he sees Tommy or I

WE LOVE THIS KID!!!!!!!!