Watford Boys

Greg's local soccer team back home in London is Watford. He has been a rabid fan since long before I ever met him. And after his recent trip back, he brought the boys home some presents.


They read "When I Grow Up I Want To Be a Watford Fan".


And, boys, I'm afraid to say you have no choice in the matter.


You were born into it.


And indoctrination has already begun.



The boys are 9 months, 3 weeks and 5 days old.

Funny Faces

Yes. Yes, they are a handful.



Several, in fact. :)



The boys are 9 months, 3 weeks & 3 days old.

Trouble

I'm not sure about this mobility thing...

First he's into my booze.


Then he raids my wallet.




Hmmmm....


Luke is 9 months & 3 weeks old.

At Least Someone Thinks I'm Funny

Joseph is 9 months, 2 weeks & 5 days old.

More? More! Ok, More!

I think Joseph just made the sign for 'more'! I can't believe it! But I think that's what I just saw.

He was sitting in his booster seat, out of Cheerios, and he was looking up at me & smiling. Then I looked down at his hands. He was bumping them together with his curled fingers touching. Pretty close, right!

That's really the only sign I've been using consistently. I don't know. Maybe it was just a happy coincidence, but I'm going to let myself believe for a while that my baby was telling me More Cheerios, woman!


Joseph is 9 months, 2 weeks & 5 days old.

Ta-Daaaaaah!

Three years really is too long to have the same blog look, isn't it? I mean, everyone & everything needs a good sprucing up after 3 years, right. So here it is.

Big thanks to Amy for the inspiration. When she changed her template to add bigger pictures and videos, I emailed her to ask her how? How did you do that? And she kindly sent me a long, detailed explanation via her husband to edit the code. Great! I'll get right on that!

Ummm, maybe not.

The idea of sitting down to learn & re-learn my rusty & very limited html code skillz was a little daunting. When I was whining about this to my friend Tabatha, who also recently reworked her own blog, she said Hey, I'm bored. Why don't I see what I can do! And that's what she did. She did this all. So a huge, HUGE thank you to her! ::smoooooch::

Obviously I'm not done. I still have to change everything in the sidebar ---->
And find a site to host my bigger pictures. But in the meantime, I am a happy, happy camper blogger.

Thanks girls!

More blog posts to come. I'm trying to catch up, Mom. I swear!

Luke Crawls!

Finally! Forward momentum!

Luke just needed the proper motivation. The remote control. Of course.



I love, love, love the jerky, uncoordinated movements and the maniacal laugh. Such joy! We're so proud of him. He's been working on crawling for what seems like, oh, forever. He's been rocking on all fours, scooting himself backward, even rocking & kinda frog-hopping his back legs forward. But until today there was no actual crawling. Yay!

One person, however, is not too thrilled.



Poor baby. Joseph has never really been too fussed about being mobile. Somehow I think this new development may change his mind.

And yikes! Time to do some serious baby-proofing. I've been putting it off in the hopes that my babies would just stop growing so fast. In hindsight, it wasn't the best of plans...


The boys are 9 months, 1 week & 5 days old.

Sickies

We've got a bug. A bad one. All of us. It ain't pretty, folks. I will spare you the gruesome details but suffice it to say the washing machine has been going non-stop for days now. I think I may have a fair amount of post-traumatic stress coming my way. I'm definitely scarred.

Therapy will have to wait though. In the meantime we've been doling out lots of Pedialyte...


... and cuddles.


And we haven't been out of pajamas for days.

Fortunately the boys have been in pretty high spirits, all things considered. They're still up for playing and laughing and exploring. In fact, it'd almost be nice if they were a little more wiped out. Mommy & Daddy could do with an extra snooze or two. It feels like this thing, as with most baby viruses I'm finding, has hit us a little worse than it's hit them. I'm very thankful for that at least.


We were going to head out to the annual Zilker Park Kite Festival today, but since the danger of more poo-splosions is imminent, we decided to stick a little closer to home. So we loaded the boys into their wagon and headed over to the park.


Yes, we even went to the park in our pajamas - well, not OUR pajamas but their pajamas. Babies in pajamas in public = cuteness. Adults in pajamas in public = just sad & tacky. Hear that, college kids? Sad. And tacky.


We did a little swinging...


...and practiced walking on the castle thingy...



...and went down the slide with daddy...


...and ate some rocks - or attempted to anyway. Mommy's so mean!)


More walking...


...and spit bubbles...


...and then back home again.

Luke planning his next poo-splosion to drive Mommy over the edge.

We have a doctor's appointment this coming week, but I doubt we'll be able to do anything except ride it out. We shall see.

Good times.


The boys are 9 months, 1 week & 4 days old.

Luke Loves the Curly Ribbon

I shared a video of Joseph's giggle fit last week. Now it's Luke's turn.

We were hanging out in the kitchen, and I was wrapping a birthday present. When I used the scissors to curl the ribbon, this is the reaction I got.



I've never seen him laugh so much or so hard, and I love it!


Luke is 9 months & 1 week old.

Nifty Fifty

For Christmas I got a brand new lens for my camera. It's been hiding in the box ever since so I figured it was about time to whip it out (hehehe) and take it for a whirl.

I. Love. It!


It's a 'fast' lens, which makes snapping photos in low light (and without using the ugly flash) much easier. It also has a fixed focal length, meaning no zooming in and out.


For my camera, there is also no auto-focus with this lens so I actually have to practice in order to get the effect I want. This isn't as trivial as it seems. I try to focus on one of the boys' eyes but when I download the photo, I see that I've actually focused on his ear, leaving the eye a blur. Of course, I could solve this problem if I figured out how to change the aperture on my camera. But then the effect isn't quite as cool. And that would require me to actually sit down and read the manual.


I am not using my camera to even a fraction of its potential. I realize this and want to change that. In fact, one of my new year resolutions was to learn more, but that takes time and time is in short supply around here. In the meantime I'll just play with what I know and hope to get some good shots here and there.

Luckily I have two gorgeous models...


...who are easily bribed with Cheerios.



But sometimes even Cheerios can only get you so far. :)


My muses are 9 months and 4 days old.

Music Men

In an effort to encourage the boys to start pulling up more, I thought it was about time to add the legs to one of their favorite distractions, the music table.

Totally bad idea.

That poor little toy has no chance against the heft of my big guys. Imagine a toppling tower of boy and plastic right on top of the twin unfortunate enough to be on the downhill slide of that disaster waiting to happen. Nope. Not ready.

They need to be a little more steady before standing at that thing. Instead I think we'll continue making music on our bottoms for now.

We have Joseph at the piano...


...and Luke on percussion.



Joseph also decided he'd tackle vocals.


Sing it, baby! Sing it!


The guys are 9 months & 2 days old.

Giggle Fit

The boys are 9 months & 1 day old.