Fireman Gman

Don't you just love those simpler times when you didn't even need to pay the quarter to make the firetruck move in order to have a good time?

I love this easy to please child.

Saturday Playin

We love spending Saturdays together since we hardly see each other during the week. This said, we don't usually do really awesome activities or go to really cool places. One frequent Saturday was one of those days when we just went to the mall for some sunglasses and later to the park. We got some hilarious footage though.

I need to preface some of the folowing videos by pointing out that I have an EXTREMELY cautious child. He does not do anything adventuresome like climb on things or jump off places. Stairs are taken with extreme care whether it is walking or climbing them and even sliding off of the couch is proud moment for him. With that said I nearly peed my pants laughing when we took him to the park and introduced him the the slides.

We started him off nice and easy on the little slide that slows him down half way. After dozens of rides we took it up a notch and introduced him to the twisty slide.

The Man took him to the top and without hesitation this is what GMan did over and over. I also must note that this was his slowest ride down. Most were pretty fast.

I don't know what it is about the slides that brings out the daredevil in my child but I guess we all have our thrills. :)

Funny boy

I don't know if I have ever mentioned that my child has some funny quirks (sp?). I won't mention them all here but the one that has always cracked me up is his love of floor mats. He loves to sit on them and play. There was a point on this childs young life that whenever you went looking for him he was sitting on the mat by the front door playing with his toys. That love extended to the rug by the kitchen sink and then progressed to even the mats in the bathroom. I do not profess to understand this strange infatuation but it reached new heights during a recent snow storm. We got something like 10 inches of snow overnight so The Man went out the next day to shovel our walks and driveway. I was cleaning the house and I came into the living room to this sight

Yup. Gman couldn't watch dad shovel the walks with the mat in the kitchen, so he dragged the kitchen rug to the window to watch. He was sitting earlier but by the time I got the camera he stood up in order to yell directions through the window. See the pointed finger? It was hilarious.

Not already!?!?!?

One morning I walked into the living room to this sight:

Yup, that's my handsome husband teaching my sweet baby how to play video games. I thought my eyes were deceiving me or that I was still dreaming but no such luck. Lucky for me Gman was not good at all yet. Hopefully he will get frustrated and give up video games and stick with the books he loves so much. :)

A few minutes later he decided he was done being under dad's tutelage and took a stab by himself. He was no good. Woo hoo!

Play time!

We had the opportunity to watch our friend Mr. T the other day. Gman and Mr T are true best buddies. Whenever GMan sees Mr T he yells out T (or maybe B but I can't quite tell). It is so cute to see how excited these two get around each other. Let's just say we hope we have more play time with each other.

These two love playing with the music table.

Lindsay, I know your boys out grew this thing

a long time ago but I am not sure my kid

could ever give up the music.

Thanks for letting us borrow such a remarkable toy.

The other big activity of the day was pushing each other on the car. It was totally hilarious to watch them give each other rides.

It amazed Mr T's mom and I that these two play so well together. They both have such laid back temperaments that even if the other steals a toy they just move onto something else. I'm glad that after our move GMan is able to make friends too. :)

Fort Hood

The title is a little decieving because while I passed Fort Hood and our friends are based at Fort Hood, I never actually set foot in Fort Hood. We took a little weekend trip to visit our dear friends Dave and Katie in Texas before Dave was deployed to Baghdad.

Even thought we were there for a day and a half we had so much fun with them. We took our adventure down to Austin. If you are asking why we would drive an additional hour after coming 6.5 the answer is simple.....donuts. Being the nerd that I am, I love the Food Network Channel/HGTV/Travel Channel etc. The shows fascinate me and encourage me to try new cooking and home decor techinques. Well, a show on the Travel Channel recently was 101 Chowdown Countdown that listed the top 101 places to eat in the country. One such place was in Austin, TX and I was not going to pass this chance up. The Restaurant......RoundRock Donuts, their claim to fame......a 3 pound donut. This thing was DELICIOUS! We all thought it would be dry or gross but we were wrong on all counts. It was moist, chewy and perfectly glazed. I was in sweet sugary heaven. The best part, the little donuts were even better. So I went from amazing to AMAZING and my tastebuds were in pastry delight.

Check out the size of this sucker!?!

It is roughly the size of a dozen donuts in one.

To help, Dave is holding a normal size donut in the back.
Yup, it's that big.

Even Baby G got in on the action of trying to complete it.
We did fail because we had to try more than just the incredibly ginormous donut.

They also served cinnamon rolls (not great)

regular donuts (Fantastic)

and sausage rolls (don't know, didn't try one)

After engorging ourselves, and while we were on a sugar high that we knew wouldn't last, we headed downtown to check out the capital and other known spots.

This is the view looking up into the capital dome. Cool, huh?

Austin dowtown is pretty cool and I would love to go there on a Saturday night. There's a street with a ton of restaurants and bars called 6th that on the weekends they actually shut down to vehicles.

The street is then taken over with partyers and musicians.

It seems like it would be a lot of fun. Maybe next time......
Katie and I walking down Congress Ave

Family photo with Austin Art on the street.

This is a pretty typical pic of us,

Me looking beautiful, The Man making faces and Gman not even noticing.

It's a wonder we get Christmas cards out. :)

Dave and Katie, thanks so much for having us. It was blast! By now Dave has been deployed so Katie, I hope you are hanging in there. You know our home is always open if you need to escape. You both are in our prayers!

18 months means Nursery!

It was a week ago today that my baby turned 18 months. For those of you who are not mormon that might simply seem like another age milestone but for those of us who are mormon that age means so much more. For the last 18 months we have had to take our babies to our classes at church. Now while they are small and cuddly or even sitting up and playing it is not a problem. Even crawlers aren't that bad. You position yourself in the back of the room , create a playzone and there is general silence through the lesson. Then you hit 1 year and the walking starts. Now said child wants to walk around the room disrupting the lesson, yelling "da" or "ma" or "no,no,no", or my personal favorite hitting the nearest breathing target with a ball or book. Oh the joys. As they progress for the next 6 months it does not get any better. The yelling becomes more pronounced, the walking around becomes running, and the hitting becomes throwing with amazing accurancy. It is roughly this time that you question why you even go to church because you spend most of it in the halls so you don't disturb everyone else. Then the glorious 18 month birthday arrives and life becomes joyous. The nursery opens it's doors and your child is now old enough to enter. It was delightful to have both of us go to class and not have to leave at any time. It was even better to watch other people's kids causing chaos and having to go to the hall.
While it wasn't easy, GMan was a champ. The first week he only whimpered a little. Today he flat out cried but it was only for a few minutes. It doesn't help that nursery time also happens to be nap time but we will get through it.

When I told GMan I wanted to take his picture he walked over to the wall and gave me this pose. I knew I should have made him a baby model. Dang it.