All over the Place

Liam is an even more content baby now that he can crawl. Kale likes to imitate him and tries to ride on his back.

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Working from Home

Kale has seen me sitting at this desk working on my computer a lot lately. The beginning of the year for a college instructor is the same as the beginning of the year for an elementary teacher. Very busy times! I am relieved to have all of my trainings done. Now we can get on a regular schedule. These past couple of weeks have been very, very busy.


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Ear Tubes

Liam got ear tubes on Monday. We are really hoping this helps the problem with his chronic ear infections. The procedure went well. Liam recovered very quickly. He came out the anesthesia just fine. Much easier than Kale did when he got tubes....but pretty much everything about him is easier than Kale!


The worst part was waiting for the procedure. We had to wait about an hour and a half to get a five minute procedure done. Liam got a little antsy.


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Liam is Crawling!!!

I took these videos of Liam practicing his crawling skills. The video is not the best, but you can get the idea! I still cannot believe my sweet baby is growing up so quickly. 

Dancing!

On Friday night, we went to a concert that was held at the park in our subdivision. To attend, you had to be a member of the subdivision. There was a decent number of people there, but everything was laid back, as there were tons of families. They gave away free pizza and lemonade. They had beer and wine (for the adults) and an ice-cream truck for the kids. They had various activities for the kids to do as well, such as hula hooping and drawing with sidewalk chalk. We took 2 folding chairs and a blanket for the boys. Unfortunately, Kris spent most of the time on the blanket, while Kale sat in Kris' chair. We left around 8:30, which is WAY past our boys' bedtimes. I took his video right before we left. Kale was absolutely bouncing off the walls!

Busy Times

Liam is working very hard on his crawling. He is excellent at crawling backwards. He can do a few paces forward. He is also great at rolling wherever he wants to go. He gets around, that's for sure!

He's focusing very hard....

Almost there!

Kale loves to wake Liam up from his morning nap each morning. He knocks on Liam's door and calls, "Liam, Liam" (which sounds more like e-um, e-um). He then clambers right up the side of Liam's crib and over the top. He lays with him, hugs him, gives him his paci and blankie. 

Look at those baby blues!

Liam has been learning alot lately. He says mama and dada on a regular basis. I will have to admit that he said "dada" first. Shortly after, he started saying "mama." I didn't think he was really talking, just babbling, but when he wants something, he sure can holler out, "mama, mama, mama" pretty loudly. 

This week, Liam also learned to get himself from his tummy/back to sitting. He did it once and now he is completely adept at this skill. I went in one morning to get him from his crib and he was just sitting there looking at me! He is also starting to pull-up. He has wiped out a few times and has a few battle scars to prove it!

In other news, our precious baby gets ear tubes on Monday. After battling with chronic ear infections, like 8 in 5-6 months, we decided to get ahead and do tubes. Say a prayer that everything goes smoothly on Monday. This momma is scared of anesthesia!

In other news, I started teaching at the college this week. I teach on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. I am gone from about 12:30-4 p.m. We found a wonderful nanny who stays with the boys during those times, as well as a few extra hours each week so I can plan and grade papers. It is nice to get out of the house for a few hours each week, yet still get to spend so much quality time with my boys. 

Forgotten Pictures

I have downloaded all of the pictures from my mom's camera and put them on the blog. Then, I remembered that I had a few pictures on my camera and I needed to download those. I found that I had a few good ones! I had a couple of really good ones of Kris and Liam. 

Kale and Liam both love going to the pool. They are both excellent whenever we are there. Kale is getting  more and more brave. He imitates the older kids and tries to dive under water. 

Jumping in!

You can kind of see how much hair Liam has in this pic. 

Here is a picture from one of the vineyards my mom and I visited. So beautiful. I think this was Trump.

The last winery we visited didn't have a very good tasting room. The counter top was a piece of board. But we took advantage of it and wrote our names on the board!

Mom and I at one of the wineries. You can see my teeth are purple from tasting the red wine. 

Richmond Zoo

While Gram was visiting, we decided to take her to the zoo. We had not been to the Richmond zoo yet, so we wanted to explore it ourselves. We went on a day that was overcast and threatening rain. Luckily, the rain held off and the temperature was perfect for the day outside. 

Kale was enamored by all of the animals. It was so fun to watch the zoo through his eyes. His only other experience with the zoo was in Amarillo....compared to that, the Richmond zoo was quite the treat! 

There were lots of different animals that you could feed. I thought these black swans were interesting. I don't think I have ever seen black swans before. 

We loved feeding the giraffes.Kale has a picture of a giraffe in his room and he always calls it a horse. He knows the difference now!

Kiss, Kiss!

There was a petting portion at this zoo. This little guy had escaped and was getting all of the treats from people. He was very friendly. Kale and Liam both loved him!

Kale was  not too into this baby deer, but that is probably because he saw my reaction. I do not really like animals that are not dogs or cats. I am kinda scared of them and I think Kale picked up on that. 

Liam practiced making his monkey sounds when we got finished looking at the monkeys. 

I did not like this guy, but he was pretty friendly. Kale was a little timid to go up to the glass as well.  

We went on an African Safari train ride. We got to ride out in the middle of an open area where the animals run essentially "free." Many of them came right up to the train--freaked me out!

Look at this guy's stripes. 

We ended our zoo visit with a ride on the carousel. At first, Kale didn't want to go. He cried but I made him get on. As you can see, he came to enjoy himself. As a matter of fact, he cried again when he had to get off!

A Visit from Gram

My mom came to visit us last week. It was great to see her and get to spend an entire week with her. We kept her busy with shopping and showing her our new city. 

Mom and I went for a girl's night out one evening. We went to eat Sushi (our favorite--and it was delicious!) and then to see Magic Mike...which was entertaining...

We went downtown to Cary Street, which is a street that has a ton of local boutiques. We were planning to walk around and do a little shopping, but once we got there, we discovered the Watermelon Festival was going on, so there were vendors in all of the streets. 

We walked around and looked in many of the booths and had some delicious street food. It got pretty hot though, so we only made it for a couple of hours. 

Kale enjoyed riding the fair rides while at the Festival. 

We spent some time at the pool. Kale got to show off his swimming skills for Gram. 

We took Gram to the children's museum. Kale showed Gram his favorite exhibit--the real fire truck! 

Liam people-watched, as usual!

My mom and I also did a ton of shopping while she was here. My boys are growing like weeds and I am having a very hard time keeping them in clothes. The picture above and below is one of the new outfits I bought Liam--adorable, right??

On Thursday, we went to our favorite outdoor mall at Short Pump. They have concerts in the center of the mall each Thursday. We listened to some music and ate dinner at a restaurant that had an outside seating area. 

I fixed Liam's hair for the concert. He had a faux hawk like Kale. He actually has a ton of hair. It is very difficult to see from the pictures because it's so blond, but his hair is quite long. 

Kale decided to eat a lemon while we were at dinner. The next several pictures document his reaction...

We spent a ton of time playing outside with Gram.

We love you, Gram! Thanks for coming to visit us! Can't wait to see you again.

My mom and I snuck away for a night in Charlottesville, VA, which is about an hour from our house. Charlottesville has a ton of vineyards and wineries. We didn't take too many pictures, but got to walk around the downtown mall area, which was a lot of fun. We then hit up as many wineries as we could...only got through 5. Those tastings catch up to you! We then had dinner at an Italian restaurant. We spent the night in Charlottesville, had breakfast the next morning, and headed to the airport to drop mom off. 

We went to Jefferson Vineyard (which was originally owned by Thomas Jefferson), then we headed to Trump Vineyards (owned by Eric Trump), and also hit up Blenheim Vineyards (owned by Dave Matthews). I got lots of wine for my collection. My wine rack is currently full. We had lots of fun tasting and looking at the beautiful vineyards.