Children's Museum

Amery made his first trip to the Austin Children's Museum on Sunday. We took advantage of the free hour offered by the museum from 4 to 5 pm every Sunday. That hour exceeds his toddler attention span by a good 45 minutes so that was plenty of time. Turns out everyone else in Austin takes advantage of the free hour, but we still had fun:

Checking out the wind tunnel.

Taking after mama.

Hanging out with papa.

Building stuff.

Eighteen Month Check Up

This is going to be a pretty boring post because there's not much to say - he's completely healthy! Considering he had one continuous ear infection from November through February this is the best check-up we've had in a long time. His height is 32.5 inches (51st percentile) and his weight is 23 lbs 14.5 oz (21st percentile). He's tall and skinny and perfect.

Amery's favorite words right now are: Neena (Kona), mama, papa (usually said in a whisper, your guess is as good as ours), Dukel (for both cats, not just Feral Dukel), hi, bye, eat (using the sign for 'eat' and said more like eeeeeeeeeeeat), and of course, mine. He says other words, but these are his faves.

We hung out at the park with some friends today:



And that's all we got.

Bluebonnets!

One thing you learn pretty quickly after moving to Texas is that it is tradition to take your kids, plop them down in a field of bluebonnets, and snap as many pictures as possible before they start eating them or throwing a major temper tantrum, whichever happens first. We were lucky to catch Amery on a good day and he seemed to rather enjoy the experience.

Easter Egg Hunt

We met up with a whole bunch of mamas and babies at the park today for an Easter egg hunt. It was Amery's first and I wasn't sure if he'd be into it. He was into it.


Hey, what's this thing?


Whoa, here's another one.


You mean I get to keep 'em? Sweet!


I think I can fit a few more in here.

Don't worry, I gave a few of these to the littler kids. They pretty much crawled around and drooled the whole time. Not like I ever did that.

He was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was stuff to eat inside the eggs.

Your Basic Awesome Weekend

We had a great weekend! Lunch and shopping with Grammy on Friday, the Mamacents sale with my friend Lynda and Luke's first birthday party on Saturday, and a canoe race, family festival, and crafting get-together with some girlfriends on Sunday! Whew, we're tired. This is the BEST time of year to live in Texas. The weather is perfect, the bluebonnets and wildflowers are out, and there are so many free events in Austin right now. Free is good.

Well, the Mamacents sale wasn't so "free" by the time I was done. I justify my spending by stating that I walked away with half a summer wardrobe, an awesome Playskool bus toy, a poseable Spongebob (aka "Bob-Bob"), and this little gem:


We had to pry it out of his little toddler hands to get him in the car, in the high chair, in bed.

On Sunday morning, Jon participated in the First Annual Colorado River Ramble 10-Mile Race at Lady Bird Lake in Austin. Jon and Stacie are used to the 250-mile Texas Water Safari, so this race was walk in the park for these guys. They won first place for their boat class. So what if there was only one boat in their class. Now they have bragging rights for next year.


Jon, Stacy, and Warren before the race.


Hanging out on the shore and cheering for papa.


Jon (front) and Stacy (back) on the lake.


Way to go, papa!


To top off the festival, our friend Collin won a brand spankin new kayak!

**JUST ADDED** There was a professional photographer (Billy Moore) at the Family Clean Water Festival after the canoe race who took this nice photo of the three of us.

I finished off the weekend at a crafting get-together with the ladies, and made these for all the kids at Easter. I figure they'll get enough candy from the Easter bunny. Don't worry, I won't start giving out raisins on Halloween.

Flaskback Friday

I was inspired by Ruby.


St. Patrick's Day 2009

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We tried to get a picture of him in his green shirt this morning, but The Fonz here refuses to take his jacket off. At daycare, he wears it all morning. They can usually coax it off him around lunch time, but if he sees it in his cubby later in the afternoon he will insist on wearing it again.

Go Fly a Kite

This past Saturday we made the trek to the annual Zilker Park Kite Festival. We met Grammy and some other family members there for lunch. The weather was gorgeous and there had to be a thousand different kites there.

A nice couple handed us their bumblebee kite on our way in and we graciously accepted as we showed up to the Kite Festival with no kite. We named the kite FreeBee.


Amery was very into everyone else's kite. It turns out free bumblebee kites don't fly very well.

Here, lemme help you with that.

Amery, Mama, and FreeBee.

Not a single person we know in this picture, but it gives you an idea of how many people were there.


See, lots of people and lots of kites.

Happy Birthday Uncle Derek!

We had a fun surprise party for Jon's brother, Derek, last night.

He was pretty surpised when he walked in the door expecting the annual family lobster dinner only to be adorned with a sombrero, a homemade Bacardi lei, and a cane.

We had a grim reaper pinata filled with mini (plastic) liquor bottles, Bengay, Preparation H Wipes, denture cleaning tablets, and candies.

The streamers were decorated with all sorts of helpful coupons for old people like Uncle Derek: Depends, Metamucil, Colon Health, and Geritol.

Jon had the awesome idea to blow up a photo of Derek with their dad at his 40th birthday party. Grammy made it happen.

There was a ton of food. I mean it, like, a ton.

We managed to float a pony keg of Zeigenbock and plow through one and a half containers of frozen margaritas. Grammy rented the machine from Margarita Mania. She's so smart.

Aunt Jen got an awesomely morbid cake from HEB. The frosting turned everyone's lips and teeth blue.

Here's a rundown of the party menu:

Appetizers:

cream cheese tortilla rolls

southwest egg rolls

cheesy-meaty things (Grammy knows the real name)

Texas Trash

drunken weiners

Dinner:

crockpot chicken tacos (Katie's recipe)

beef enchilada casserole (Paula Dean's recipe)

homemade salsa

taco fixins

charro beans

flour tortillas and crunchy taco shells

Dessert:

cake

fruit salad

Amery helped clean up the streamers this morning.

In case you were wondering what toddler help looks like.

After a while he decided it was just more fun to climb on papa.

First Hockey Game

We took Amery to his first Texas Stars hockey game last night and he loved it:

He started off a little freaked out by the noise but he got into it pretty quickly. He also sat pretty still throughout most of the game. French fries helped. Lots of french fries.

Jon bought him a little Texas Stars hockey stick at the game, and he insisted on taking it along in the car on the way to daycare this morning. We had to trick him to let go of it last night or I think he would have slept with it.

Three Generations

Amery's First Haircut

This afternoon we made a trip to Pigtails & Crewcuts for Amery's first cut. It was a lot of fun. I definitely recommend this place for kids' haircuts. They have locations all over the country - even Honolulu. At the Austin location they have chairs shaped like a firetruck, a plane, and a police car. There's a train table to play with while you're waiting your turn, Disney movies playing on big flat screen TVs at each chair, a place for birthday parties in the back room, all the animal crackers you want, and you get to choose a prize (or three) from the treasure chest on your way out.


Here's a "before" picture on the way there. He constantly had to push his hair out of his eyes, and mama got a "she's cute" comment the other day. Yeah, time for a little boy cut.

We think he questioned our judgment a bit when his stylist showed up with pink and blue hair. She was very nice and clearly very talented when it came to cutting the hair of a wiggly toddler. I forgot her name so we need to call back and get her every time. We loved her!

He actually sat pretty still. Most of the time.

Full view of the cool police car chair.

And after. He looks like a big [little] boy! Mama misses the curls in back, but they'll grow back soon enough.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Quick Update

Sorry for the lack of blogging. We've been all kinds of busy and we're still dealing with the never-ending ear infection. Throw in a couple of lower molars and you have one grumpy kid and two tired parents. Speaking of ears, Amery's pediatrician referred us to a pediatric ear, nose, and throat specialist whom we will meet on Friday afternoon. I suspect ear tubes are in his future. I found a pretty good article on the ear tube surgery procedure if you'd like to see what our little man is in for.

He's not without a few smiles here and there:

How to use a spoon

Amery style.