This is one of the happiest pictures I've taken! It's an almost finished yogurt. To be more specific, it's Aaron's almost finished yogurt.
Yes, my extremely picky, only wants to feed himself, snacks but not real food child FINALLY let me feed him! I was eating my yogurt yesterday and he kept acting like he wanted some. After a few tiny tastes of mine, I opened a Dora yogurt and he ate part of it. At lunch today he almost finished his yogurt!
On top of that, he's been eating little pieces of chicken, pasta and veggies at lunch and dinner. Real food!
This Momma couldn't be more excited that Aaron is eating real food!
As Sarah and the girls left last week, we had more family arrive in town! This time it was my side of the family. My Aunt Wanda and Uncle Joel came from a visit from South Carolina. We went to my grandparent's house for dinner on Tuesday to spend some time with everyone and were surprised that Derrill was ready to do some fishing.
It was pretty warm outside and, besides occasional gusts, there was no breeze. We didn't last long out fishing, but did manage to catch a few small catfish and croaker. We then cooled off and enjoyed dinner inside! Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any pictures after we went inside, but I got quite a few outside.
Caleb and Pops started fishing while Derrill and Joel got ready
Caleb and Pops
Pops held the pole as Caleb took care of the reel!
Joel with the cane pole
GG and Aaron watching the fishermen
Derrill and Caleb with the first catfish of the day
Jonathan and Caleb
We enjoyed the afternoon with Wanda and Joel! I'm glad we've had so much family here lately! It's been great catching up with everyone.
Ok....maybe these videos weren't lost...I just forgot they were on my camera!
On their last evening here, Sarah and the girls came over for dinner and more cousin play time. We got some cute videos of all of the cousins having fun!
On Wednesday, Grandma Deb came over to watch the boys while I had my end of the year work day at school. I spent the day cleaning chairs, emptying cabinets and drawers and getting my classroom ready for summer. It was a busy day, but so gratifying to clean it all out!
On Thursday (yesterday), Grandma Deb came over AGAIN to watch Aaron while Caleb and I went to Water Day! I could have brought Aaron with me, but it would have been a long day out in the heat and he would've wanted me to hold him the whole time.. not so much fun for mommy! Grandma Mal came over at 11 to trade out with Grandma Deb so she wasn't there all day two days in a row. (Thanks Grandma Mal and Grandma Deb for taking care of the boys this week - you were both lifesavers!)
As for water day... Caleb had a BLAST! He climbed up the big water slide first thing and froze up top. Luckily, one of my 5 year olds went up and held his hand to go down! He needed Evan to go with him a few times and then he was good on his own. I'm so thankful Evan went up so I didn't have to get wet before water day officially began!
Soon after he got comfortable on the water slide, his best bud, Samir, found him. Those boys went down the water slide about a billion times before the day was over! Forget the little kid stuff, they are both big kids now!
(Samir & Caleb)
Around 11, Caleb came to find me at my monitoring post (teachers had to monitor the different "rides"). He kept saying, "Mommy I want wunch!" Lunch wasn't ready yet, but luckily I had been given a teacher gift that morning with dried fruits...he ate almost the whole thing and then ate a whole hot dog and bag of chips when lunch was ready! He played so hard he worked up an appetite!
Caleb taking a break and eating Mommy's snack
After he ate lunch, he was ready to play again! He found one of the other slides and stayed on that one for the rest of the day. At 1 we sent all the families home and started to clean up from the day. Teachers were given the opportunity to go on the slides before the company took them down. I was talked into going down with Caleb! It was a lot of fun, so much so that we went a couple times before leaving! I was soaked by the time I got in the car, what a great way to end a fun morning!
When we got home, I gave Caleb a quick bath and put him in bed for some down time (the stinker never actually fell asleep, but did have some quiet reading time). I got the chance to take a shower and get into dry clothes before Mal went home. It was so nice to feel clean after baking outside for 4 hours! Caleb and I are now sporting some great tans!
Yesterday was Sarah's last evening in town, so we had Mal, Sarah and the girls over for dinner last night even though we were so tired from water day! The kids got to play a little more and we talked before they left to go back to Mal's house. I'm glad we had the chance to visit one more time before they flew out today!
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I'm finally caught up on the blog! If you're just checking, I did about 6 posts today...so keep scrolling down to see all the fun we've been having the past two weeks!
Tuesday was our last regular day of school at PWS and our end of the year program. This year has gone by so quickly! It's hard to believe that Aaron was 5 weeks old when our work days started (I spent a lot of time with him in my wrap on those days!) and just 7 weeks old on the first day of school when I left him with his teachers! He's a big 10 month old by now! And Caleb has changed SO much! Just this morning he was going through magnetic letters on our fridge and saying "H for Harrison, A for Ava, B for Brody, M for Mason, where's Samir?" He then went in search of the S and found it in the playroom! He was happy to put "Samir" back on the fridge!
The first day of school - Aaron 7 weeks, Caleb - 1 year, 11 months
After a full day at school, we came home to rest for a few hours and then went back up to school for the end of the year program. The teacher's kids class (Tiny Neighbors) and Caleb's class (Little Neighbors) joined together for their end of the year song...so both my boys were lions at the circus! I'm thankful that Jonathan could video the performance since I was back stage with my class (the soon to be graduates!). Of course, neither of the boys really did much on stage, but it was still cute to see them standing with all their friends!
Aaron and Ms. Karen
Cute boy found Daddy!
Both of the boys with their classes.
Love this one of Aaron...just watching everyone else!
There's not much to the video...you really can't even hear the music well. But I like having the memory of all the kids (not just mine) when they were so little! It won't be too long until they are graduating from preschool and they won't be so little any more!
On Monday night, the whole family came over to hang out and celebrate Juliana and Lana's birthdays. Yes, those birthdays aren't until June, but this was a good way to make them feel special since we can't be with them on their birthdays. Apparently I was over taking lots of picture by then, so we don't have many from the evening. (I was also working on some things that needed last minute attention for school, so I was a bit distracted through the evening)
Kaylee playing with Aaron's elephant...she loved this toy so much that Grandma Mal bought her one before she went home!
After a long day it was hard to even get the kids to sit on the couch together, so this is the best we could get for Grandma!
I just love this one...Aaron looks ready to freak out and Kaylee is trying to get Caleb away!
Relaxing and eating cupcakes! So thankful for the Kroger bakery, I don't know when I would have done any baking during the weekend!
Roger and Jonathan had to pull out the tray of Lego people parts....I still am not quite sure why, but they had fun putting together some people : )
The girls both got some clothes, books and toys to bring home! I was worried that Caleb might feel left out and started to have a little fit when he didn't get anything, but he never fussed. He did come curl up in my lap for a while (very uncharacteristic of him), but that was probably because he was so tired! He passed out as soon as the family left!
This was our last visit with Roger and his family. They didn't leave until Wednesday morning, but we were busy on Tuesday with the last regular day of school and our end of year program in the evening! I'm so glad they got to come visit even if just for a few days. We'll be heading up to Iowa sometime in October/November to meet Juliana's new brother or sister!
Since Roger, Jill, and Juliana were only here for a few days we wanted to make the most of their time here. Instead of resting after such a busy Mother's day, we jumped into Moody Gardens fun first thing on Monday morning! We were there as they opened so we could get in as much as possible!
I decided to get a membership so the boys and I can go to Palm Beach (well...more like Caleb and I can go while Grandma watches Aaron) on nice days and on super hot days we can go in the air conditioned exhibits all summer long! Jonathan was even able to take the day off to join us!
Walking to our first pyramid of the day...the aquarium!
Two cousins! (Lana had gotten sick the night before so only joined us for a short time while we were there)
Watching the seals swim by! They had several seals, a few babies and one HUGE one!
So cool to be able to watch (going up a level we could also see them above the water too!)
We learned that Caleb is the size of a king penguin...
... and Juliana is the size of an emperor penguin!
Aaron LOVED the penguins, they kept swimming right up to him!
Happy penguin watcher
Four cousins checking out the penguins!
So cool!
After the aquarium pyramid, we walked over to the rainforest pyramid. The aquarium was more interesting for the kids since there is so much movement under water. It was harder to find animals to watch at the rainforest, but the kids still had a fun time looking around.
Two silly frogs
Looking down at something...I have no idea what it was!
Pretty birds!
Best "cheese" we could get!
We left right after lunch since Aaron wouldn't nap in his stroller and Caleb was getting tired. Roger, Jill, Juliana and Mal stayed for several more hours and went to the Imax theater, a 4d film and took a paddleboat ride. Before we left, the four of us went over to the aquarium gift shop to get something for the boys. We started the tradition early with Caleb of getting a stuffed animal on our first visit to somewhere. On his first zoo visit he got an elephant, when we went to the Texas State aquarium he got a crocodile puppet and we wanted to complete this first visit with an animal for both boys.
We got a penguin for Aaron since he loved the penguins so much and a Nemo and seal for Caleb. I wanted to get him the seal, but he saw the Nemo and only wanted it. I talked him into both and he's been attached ever since!
Exhausted boy with both seal and Nemo.
Two happy boys with their animals.
Caleb has slept with his seal and Nemo every night since we went to Moody Gardens and even had the penguin with him last night! He's ended up with so many animals in his bed each night, we may have to start limiting to a certain number!
We had tons of fun at Moody Gardens and got home in time to prepare for all the family to come over for dinner that evening!
Roger and his family arrived on Saturday afternoon. We joined them for dinner that evening along with Laura and Drew, however I didn't get any good pictures of the evening!
Mother's day was a crazy, busy day but we got to see nearly all of our combined families! I went to church on my own that morning so that the boys could sleep in and rest to prepare for the day ahead. I went straight from church to Jonathan's dad's house for lunch with his family. This was the only day we could figure out for all of Jonathan's siblings to get together at the same time with their dad.
Jill and Aaron hanging out.
Aaron enjoyed eating and playing with Dao's spoon : ) Not sure how much she actually got to eat!
Laura and a sleepy Aaron
Wrestle time...always happens when Roger and Ron get together! This time the kids joined in!
"Hee haw" with Uncle Roger!
Grandpa Ron with all 5 grandkids. It's hard to get 5 kids under the age of 5 to smile at the same time...in fact I'm pretty sure it's impossible!
Grandpa and Dao with all four kids and their families!
After lunch and play time we stopped by the house for about 30 minutes and then headed over to Kemah for a Mother's Day fish fry! Jonathan's mom and siblings joined my family for a great dinner cooked by my dad and Uncle Derrill! It was a perfect warm (not hot) day on the water!
Lana going to check out the water
Caleb and Lana watching the birds
Grandma Mal and all four siblings with their families
Aaron chewing on Pops while the rest of us finished eating
Caleb and Juliana enjoying their fish and cupcakes
Mother's day 2012 with my boys!
Uncle Derrill helping Aaron walk...this mommas not ready!
An exhausted Caleb right before we left!
I had a great Mother's day this year! During our mini break at home, Caleb and Jonathan gave me my mother's day present... a cover for my wii balance board. I've been using it to work out and the surface is very hard. This makes it more of a gel mat so it won't hurt my hands or knees so much!
We were ready to crash at the end of the day and get ready for Moody Gardens the next morning!
