First, I wanted to let you all know that I am participating in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life this Memorial Day weekend. Cancer has touched the lives of people in both Bob and my families. Most recently, Bob lost his Aunt Barbara to cancer last fall. If you would like to help fight against cancer, you may make a donation online my page on the American Cancer Society's website: my Relay for Life page

Here's a picture of Alexander posing for the camera. He goes into this position often when he stops crawling and is deciding where to go next:


Glenn is enjoying playing with Alexander more. He was showing him how this toy works the other day:


We worked more on the garden this weekend. Glenn enjoyed spreading the dirt. I think he looks so old in this picture:


In this picture, I was standing at one end of the garden. You can see how long it is. And no, we didn't get another dog. The dog in the picture is my brother's dog, Zoe (Brad was visiting for the night).

We have planted all the plants and seeds and are now just waiting for everything to grow. I have a lot of herbs planted- I love cooking with fresh herbs. We also planted some colorful peppers, onions, chives, egg plant, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, string beans, and sugar snap peas.

Bob's parents sent us a cool cookbook with fun snack ideas for kids. Glenn enjoyed looking through the book telling me what he wanted us to make (pretty much everything). Tonight, he had a banana caterpillar.

Nebraska Trip

We left last Tuesday to go to Nebraska to stay with my grandmother. It was the first time she got to see Alexander. But before we get to all of that, we'll start with the plane rides. We got to the airport and found out that our first plane was actually two flights, stopping over in Nashville before getting to Chicago where we changed planes. So, we had 3 flights!!! Glenn of course was happy with that, although on the third plane, he said something like, "We're going up again?!?" Alexander didn't get to be in his car seat because the plane was too full, and really only wanted Mommy, so my arms were pretty sore. Plus, he's not used to falling asleep in our arms because we trained him to fall asleep in the crib. Can't have it both ways, I guess. He did reasonably well, though. Then we had a little over 3 1/2 hours drive to my grandmother's house from Denver airport (she lives in Western NE, which is why we flew into Denver rather than Omaha. My parents also flew into Denver, so we could drive to NE together.

My grandmother was very excited to see us all, but I think especially the boys. I warned them they would get their squeezes. Glenn was afraid he was going to cry. I think he thought she was going to squeeze him really hard. So, I had to explain to him that just meant she was going to hug him. He was okay with that. My Uncle Gale, who I haven't seen for about 10 years because he lives on the West coast, was also there... a bit of a family reunion. Plus, my Uncle Byron and his family live in NE. It was so nice to see them again and just sit around the table and chatting. Alexander kept staring at them but then would eventually give his sweet smile while tilting his head after he had studied their faces.

While there, we went to the train yard. My grandmother's house is down the road from the largest train yard in the country. Here's a picture of Glenn inside the museum:

And here's a picture of the train yard from the lookout tower:

My grandmother always has had tea parties with all of her grandchildren. So, now it was time to have one with her first great grandchild. Glenn was very serious about the affair, insisting on wearing his Taggie as a hat, and had a serious expression throughout the tea party. He poured us all some milk and we had Teddy Grahams and strawberries:

I finally got him to smile at me:


Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of Alexander with my grandmother. I just discovered this. :(

We were a bit nervous about getting home since a snow storm was coming to Denver the day we were to fly out (Friday). But thankfully the snow stayed to the west until after we left. The boys had a hard time sleeping again on the plane (again it was too full for Alexander's car seat and he only wanted Mommy). Next time I fly, I'll book a seat for Alexander because he's too squirmy to keep on my lap the whole way. We got home around midnight and slept as much as we could the next day.

On Sunday, we (I should say mostly Bob) started putting in a vegetable garden in our back yard. It's going all along one length of the fence. I'll take pictures after we finish it. It's going to take a lot of vegetables to make up for how much it's costing to put this in. But I really enjoy gardening and I think it will be a fun thing for Glenn to see, too.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! Here's what we've been up to this holiday weekend. Yesterday was our community's egg hunt. It was a great spot for it on a lawn surrounded by bushes behind one of the club houses. Here are some pictures from the egg hunt:

Glenn and his friends:


hunting for eggs:


Alexander being goofy


This morning, Glenn slept in and Daddy couldn't wait anymore for Glenn to find what the Easter bunny had left him. So, he woke Glenn up just after 8:00. He found a Leap Frog Tag reading system on his little table where he eats breakfast (it's like an over-sized pen that you point to pictures and words on the book and it read it and makes sounds). After playing with that for a bit, he went out side to look for eggs. The Easter bunny (Daddy) hid them in the flower bed, so it was painful for me to see my flowers stomped on. He was too into looking for eggs to notice where he was stepping.




While we were waiting for Daddy to get ready for church, I took pictures of the boys. It took a bit for Alexander to smile, but once he started playing with his brother, the smiles came:



It took a bit of setting up, but we finally got our picture, although it was impossible to get Alexander to look at the camera since there wasn't anyone behind it:


Earlier this week, Alexander had his 9 month check-up (can you believe he's 9 months old already?). He weighed 18 lb 3 oz and was 27 inches long. That's at the 25th percentile for his age for both. 3 months ago he was a the 50th percentile, but nothing to worry about. He's been so active crawling around that he's not gaining weight as quickly. I'm actually happy he's at the 25th percentile for length (unlike his brother who was at the top of the charts for length at this point) because that means he'll stay small for longer. I want my baby to be a baby for as long as possible. :)

I also had my first Etsy sale this week. I have had my bags posted on etsy.com, which sells everything homemade. So, this is the first stranger that has bought one of my bags. Yay! I hope she'll leave some positive feedback on that site. That's how you get more sales.

Kashi Update & Silly Daddy

I finally heard from Kashi today. They asked me about the worm and when I found it. They are sending me a bunch of coupons for free Kashi food (you were right, Sintia). Of course I won't be buying any frozen dinners and told them that. They are going to give all the info I gave them to their quality control team to find out where it came from and why it got missed.

Bob was shaving last night and thought aloud that he wondered what he'd look like with just a mustache. I told him not to do it, but that just gave him even more of a reason. So, I told him that if he didn't shave it off, I'd take a picture of him and put it on the blog. It took me several minutes of bugging him to get the picture, that's why he doesn't look too happy. He doesn't like it either and won't go in public with it, but it bothers me enough that he won't shave it, yet. He asked Glenn what he thought of it this morning and Glenn laughed. I asked Glenn if it looked silly or nice. He said silly.



Alexander is crawling as fast as is possible for a baby to crawl. When he's not contained I have to be very alert and follow him around the house. I told Bob that if he doesn't want me to put up gates around the living room, then he needs to take care of him for a day and then tell me we don't need gates. It's impossible to do anything when he's crawling every where. And he doesn't like his jumpy seat, exersaucer, or play pen for long at all. I think my time is about up before I let him out of his jumpy seat again.

Glenn is on spring break this week. I have things planned for him to do here at home, but he hasn't been into it, yet. So, tomorrow we're going to decorate Easter eggs. He's excited about that.

Time's up! Alexander wants out!

We've gone from a full house to an empty house. We had Bob's parents for an extended weekend. They enjoyed seeing how the boys have changed since New Years. They left on Tuesday and Bob left today.

I had an interesting afternoon. Poor Alex went down for his nap then started crying. I went in to check on him and he was just sitting there crying. So, I laid him down and he started crying a few minutes later. I went in and he had vomited. So, he must have not felt well the first time I went in. So, I cleaned him up and his crib, and he went right to sleep. He hasn't thrown up again, but has an elevated temp. Glenn spilled an entire cup of milk at dinner, but stuff like that is to be expected. However, what is not to be expected is what I found in my dinner. Keep in mind this is NOT and April fools joke, unless it's on me. I got one of those new Kashi frozen meals for when Bob was gone. I was really enjoying it, until I saw an inch worm in my meal. Yuck! I know they are about being all natural, but that's taking it to the extreme. I took a picture of it (see below) and put the dinner in the freezer. I emailed the company and am awaiting to hear what they have to say. Bob thinks I should sue. I haven't eaten anything else for dinner.



I won't be buying any more Kashi products.

Time to watch "Letter Wheel" with Glenn (Wheel of Fortune- he loves it and it calms him down before going to bed).