Sunday, September 09, 2007

Brothers

More Photos ... (now I am finally caught up!)

Andrew & Tyler




Andrew looking super cool in his shades




Tyler - All Smiles




Tyler's first night in his crib

Frio River Vacation Pictures

Frio River Trip

Douglas feeding a cow


Daddy and Andrew


Flat Rock Pass (lots of photos to show off the amazing view!)








Family Photo


Mommy and Tyler(snoozing away)


At the River

Tyler napping in the tent


Andrew and Daddy rope swinging


Andrew playing in the river


Andrew & Madeleine

Dozing versus Sleeping ...

Is there really a difference? My dear, sweet husband tried to convince me this afternoon that dozing while watching tv was somehow different than me taking an afternoon nap (also on the couch) while watching tv. I tried to explain that if he was "dozing" that meant that I could not take a nap because someone had to stay awake to watch Tyler. Also, if he was "dozing" I should get to watch something other than his TIVO'd NASCAR race, but apparently he is "watching" the race while he is dozing so the race should stay on TV. To-may-toes, to-mat-toes - right?

Andrew: The next American Idol? Future Grammy Winner?

Number 100

For those of you who don't blog (and by the way, you really should), Blogger tells you what post number you are on each time you log in to do a new post. Earlier this week I realized that I was quickly approaching post number 100 - wow!

So bear with me for a moment while I write a self-serving, reflective post to commemorate post number 100.

When I decided to try out this blogging thing, I did it to document the lives and times of the Moore family and as I look back over the past 6 months or so, I am so incredibly happy that I decided to start blogging. Neither of my boys have completed baby books, but they will be able to read first hand in gory detail what cute / funny / frustrating / etc. things that they did as little boys, and that makes me very happy. Now, I just need to come up with a way to preserve the blog and its contents for the future, just in case something happens to Blogger.

The other thing that amazes me is how much life has changed in the last 6+ months. Tyler's birth and all of his milestones. My maternity leave and new job. Andrew's 3rd birthday and potty training progress. Zeke's passing, Major's diagnosis, Indy's adoption. Allie's wedding, Petro's wedding, Mandy's wedding, Ashley and Julie's impending births, my mom's 60th birthday ...

I hope that everyone reading this has enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed writing it - may my little piece of the world wide web provide a bit of humor (even if you are laughing at me), fun or distraction to your day to day activities. Thanks for reading!

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Here Comes Trouble!




... and just like that my baby is scooting around! He is growing up so fast!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Introducing Indy ...

... our 4 month old Chocolate Lab!







After hearing how much Major enjoyed himself with his canine aunts and uncles this weekend (my in-laws have Boxers), we decided it was time to expand our family by 4 paws. I know - we are crazy or I am a total push over (no need to share your opinion on which it is!). In reference to the post below on sleep, I am sure having this darling pup is only going to improve that situation, right?!?

It was serendipity ...

We have been talking about getting another dog and Doug got the itch this week. We looked at www.petfinder.com and found a couple of labs through the local lab rescues, but they were older and/or recovering from various illnesses and as previously mentioned Doug wanted a younger dog. So, on a whim Doug went to the SPCA at lunch on Wednesday and he saw two precious 4 month old labs, one chocolate and one yellow. They were brand new to the SPCA (they had just been admitted Wednesday morning). So, Doug sent me a link to their photos online and we decided to go take a closer look after work with the understanding that if they were still there, we would likely be taking one of them home. We immediately started coming up with names.

Well, Doug got to the SPCA around 5:00 and they were both still in the cage. So, he filled out the necessary paperwork to play with the pups (you have to get pre-approved to adopt) and then around 5:20 he spent some quality time with the chocolate lab until I arrived at 5:40 or so. After playing with the chocolate lab for a bit, we decided to trade dogs and spend some time with her sister, the yellow lab. I was really torn between the two pups, so I thought it would be a good idea to compare them side by side. Doug was on his way out to get the chocolate lab when he saw an SPCA volunteer walking her with another potential adoptive owner. The gentleman agreed to let the pups play together so that we could all watch.

As it turns out, Doug was partial to the chocolate lab (which the other gentleman had dibs over at the time) and the other gentleman was partial to the yellow lab (which we had dibs over) so we agreed to switch, and just like that the chocolate lab became part of our family.

As we were paying our adoption fee, several families inquired as to whether the 2 lab pups were already adopted. One family had even come in to adopt one of the girls after seeing their photos online. I am pretty confident that both girls would have been adopted Wednesday evening, so it was just perfect timing on our part ... it was serendipity.

So, with the adoption behind us we set out on picking a name. We went round and round with names and ultimately we were down to Indy and Scout. I was partial to the name Scout, but when we went to pick her up this afternoon I asked Andrew which name he preferred and he just started calling her Indy and insisting that Indy was her name ... so just like that, our newest family member was named Indy.

Andrew walked her to the car and as you can see from the photo above he is really excited about his new pup!

Tonight (her first night at home) has been pretty good. Major is not sure what to think of her quite yet but she still follows him around like the pup that she is! She seems to love Andrew too (the love is definitely mutual), so I would call her first night at home a success. She only whined a little bit at bed time and she had one accident in the house - we will see what her crate looks like in the morning! Just when I am almost finished potty training Andrew ... :)

"Laygees"

So, for the first night in almost a week, Tyler slept all night Tuesday night and didn't stir until 6:30 a.m. ... but Andrew was up at 1:30 and 2:30 crying because he was scared of the "Laygees" in his room. Laygees is his term for bugs. He used to call all bugs (regardless of type) Lady Bugs, and now he has shortened it to laygees. Why does he call all bugs lady bugs, you ask? I am not sure, but I just realized that he is still calling them laygees because I have not corrected him since it is just so darn cute.

Anyhow, regardless of what he calls them, he doesn't like them one bit, and last night he was sure he had some in his room and he did not want to stay in his room with them (for the record there were no bugs in his room!) Doug tried to convince him to stay in his bed, but he kept asking to go downstairs. So, we finally relented and let him sleep with us -- except he didn't sleep right away. So imagine - Doug and I are both trying to sleep and Andrew takes turns going between myself and Doug and trying to open our eyes, caressing our faces, and doing just about anything he could quietly do to not let us sleep. He finally passed out across the bed! Now that was a quality night of sleep ...

Then Wednesday night after we finally got both boys to bed and to sleep through the night, Major woke us up whining (and he never does this) ... it is always something I guess!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

And the winner is ...

You all voted, and the winner is (receiving 85% of the votes)...



My 2 other favorites that are frame worthy:





Thanks for your input!

On the Road Again

We took our first big road trip as a family of four for Labor Day weekend. With our car packed with everything you can imagine (with literally no extra room), we headed 300 miles Northwest to Leakey, Texas to stay in cabins on the Frio River with our friends Ryan and Tracey and their son Jack (age 1) and his daughter Madeleine (age 7).

We pulled out of Katy, Texas around 9:00 a.m. on Friday morning and stopped only once so Andrew could potty before reaching San Antonio. For reasons that are not altogether clear to me now, we decided to stop in San Antonio to grocery shop rather than shopping in Houston. While the boys shopped, I nursed Tyler in the car and then we all grabbed lunch at Central Market. The fun part was attempting to get all of the groceries we just purchased into the coolers in the already over packed cars.

With that 2 hour stop behind us, we got back in the cars for part II of the drive. It rained most of the way on this leg of the trip and we finally pulled into Leakey around 4:30, unpacked the cars and decided to explore our surroundings. The rain stopped just in time!

**An important note – Andrew did great on our road trip and did not have any accidents in the car!!! Yeah! **

The genesis of this trip began with a discussion about going camping. We were all interested in camping, but thought it might be better to wait until the youngest boys were a bit older and more independent, so we settled on renting cabins on the river instead. Just in case you are thinking that we were roughing it – let me quickly dispel that idea – this was a $210 a night, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom cabin fully furnished with 2 queen sized beds, a sleeper sofa, washer and dryer, TV and DVD player and yes, wireless internet. The only downside is that we were outside of cell phone range so we felt completely shut off from the rest of civilization.

Our cabin had a patio that overlooked the Frio River – not the main part of the river an offshoot of sorts, but it was really nice. We even saw deer and wild hogs on the other bank eating out of a deer feeder.

The first night the kids played in a watering hole. Andrew was too impatient to wait for us to go get his bathing suit so he just jumped in the water in his Thomas the Train underwear. After splashing around, we had a late dinner made smores and then called it a night. Doug said it was the first time he went to bed around 10:00 since he was 9 years old  … he fell straight to sleep though and slept like a baby (that is until our baby woke him up around 4:00 a.m. because he was hungry). Andrew slept on his Thomas bed (the same bed that we took with us to Italy … it was great investment) and Tyler slept with us. In retrospect, I should have brought the Pack N’ Play, but we are using it as Tyler’s changing table and dresser in our bedroom at home, so we didn’t want to break it all down. The boys were both total champs – they just rolled with the punches.

Saturday we (meaning Anne, Doug and the boys) woke up around 8:00 (Tracey and Jack always get up super early thus waking up Ryan and Madeleine) and had breakfast. I took the boys for a walk through town and scouted out the best place for us to go swimming while Doug tidied up the cabin. I found a spot just a couple of minutes away from our cabins, so we packed up our swimming supplies and drove to the spot. This particular area was said to be good for children because it is not a busy and the river is not as fast. We got there around 11:00 and it was not very crowded and it was a nice blend of shallow / deep water and slow /fast moving water. Doug skipped rocks and Andrew threw rocks and splashed in the very cold water. Apparently, Frio means cold is Spanish! We found a spot that was fairly shallow where the water was moving pretty fast and the kids had a great time letting the current take them downstream where Doug and Ryan were waiting to catch them. Andrew had his first accident of the trip while we were playing in the water and I made the mistake of telling him it was ok since he was in the water and blah, blah, blah. I just didn’t want him to feel badly because he had been on such a roll. Then, when I was changing him out of his wet clothes to get back into the car, I turned around and there he was -- going pee pee on the rocks -- right there in front of God and everyone. I was pretty embarrassed, but alas, that is what little boys do, I guess!

After playing in the river it was time for lunch and then it was back in the car for a trip to Campwood, Texas. My friend and colleague Amy and her family have a ranch in Campwood so we thought it would be fun to get the kids together to play and have a cookout. We got to the ranch around 3:30, right before the skies opened up, but lady luck was on our side and after brief showers, we were able to enjoy the ranch. The older kids and the dads got in the back of a truck that had a wood bench seat and the moms and little ones got into the Suburban and we headed off for Flat Rock Pass (the spot where we were having the cook out). On the way to Flat Rock Pass we stopped to feed the cows. It was really one of the coolest things I have seen … we honked the horns and they just came running. Apparently, they know food is associated with the honking horns. It was a lot fun to watch the kids feeding the cows and being tickled by their long blue-ish tongues. I was even brave enough to get out of the cars to snap a couple of photos and to feed a couple of cows … that is until Doug and Steve started throwing the food pellets at me so the cows got a little too close for comfort.  Andrew loved it!

The ride out to Flat Rock Pass took about 45 minutes, but it was well worth the drive. The path up to the top was extremely steep and rocky, but it was cool to see what an SUV is really capable of off road using four wheel drive. The view was incredible and the sunset was beautiful – had we not seen the rain you would not have believed that just an hour before it was stormy. We had hamburgers and hotdogs, baked beans, some of the best dip I have ever had (avocado, tomato, black bean dip), fruit and of course, smores! Around dark, we headed back into the main house for delicious brownies before calling it a night. It was one of the highlights of the trip for us and especially for the boys!

Sunday morning we woke up around 8:00 a.m. and had breakfast, packed up lunch and headed to Garner State Park for the afternoon. Right as we were walking out the door Andrew stood on the front porch and peed in his swimming trunks on to the porch. This is why I said earlier it was a mistake for me to tell him it was ok that he peed in his swimming trunks the day before. He clearly misunderstood what I meant. So, I had to take him inside rinse him off and put on his other swimming trunks. I scolded him left and right for going in his pants on purpose and he really seemed to understand that it is not ok to potty in his pants.

We got to Garner State Park around lunch time. I am not sure what we were expecting … but it was extremely crowded and not really anything we could not have found outside of the park (Doug asked why we didn’t just go back to the quaint spot we found the day before). We dubbed it the “Red Neck Riviera” … Jeff Foxworthy could have had a field day here. Now, I can only say this, because ultimately we fit right in. We pitched a 5 man tent in the rocks for some shade (thank God we had it because it would have been completely miserable without it) and the kids played in the water for hours. We had lunch in the tent and Andrew and Doug even went off the rope swing together. Three or four times without warning we would look over and see Andrew peeing on rocks – not far away out of the way rocks, right in front of everyone in broad daylight rocks. I told you we fit right in! It was actually pretty hilarious, although we finally got him to understand that he need to potty in private. The thing is with Andrew, when he says he has to potty, he has to potty RIGHT NOW.

After the park, Andrew and Tyler took a nap and the big kids (ok, the adults and Madeleine) played Life. Then the boys grilled up filets and baked potatoes for dinner – it was quite a feast, and we made one more round of smores before calling it a night.

Monday morning came all too quickly. After breakfast we packed back up and pulled out of Leakey around 11:00 a.m. Douglas and I decided to take a detour through San Marcos to do a little shopping at the outlet mall. So, we stopped for lunch at Wendy’s (my favorite since you can actually eat healthy there, if you want to … although I did have a vanilla frosty and a taste of Doug’s fries …) and then did a quick tour of the outlet. We have done this sort of fast shopping before and I have come to realize that each hour we spend at the outlets equates to about $100. So, keep that in mind the next time you are planning a shopping trip 

We finally got home around 8:00 – tired but happy. It was a great trip. All in all, the boys were so well behaved; I really can’t get over it. We are very lucky parents! Now, with both of my boys resting peacefully in their own beds, it is time for me to do the same. Phew – that was a long post!