The hidden halo...

Even though you can’t see it… he has it.. and it’s a BIG ONE. His halo… This is how I see him.. whether the halo is showing or not :).

(Brad was working alot in the evenings, I sent him this one morning telling him Good Morning Daddy because he wasn't getting to see Brady before he went to bed.. I love the squinty "just woke up eyes"! He is in his big boy carseat!)

The kid is learning that he has charm and just how that charm can be put to work. I am pretty sure that he bats his eyelashes at you.. He will give you the cutest lips pursing, cheeks fluffed up grin that you ever did see… then non chalantly look away as if to say.. there now leave me alone. HAHA! Kind of like if he was saying this..

OK, OK, OK… new tub.. need a picture.. will this "thinking about a smile" smile work for you?

He really has such a sweet demeanor and is gently holding things and giving sweet “leans” towards you.. He just makes me smile… I need to take a picture of the smile I get every day I walk into GiGi/Ruff’s (oh I forgot to tell you that Pappy (my dad) has taken on the name of “RUFF” by Jackson! I hope it sticks because it is unique and sooooo cute!)! That miiiiight be the greatest thing ever!

Big Boy Tub! And he loves it.. although it is yet ANOTHER one of those things that oh how you wish they would get out of that little baby bath tub so I don’t have to drape him over my arm to wash his back. AGAIN, I take it back…. I think I am going to bathe him in the “too small” newborn bath until he is 5 and take the first of the lesser evils because trying to “clean the jewels” when THIS is his new posture..

NOT HAPPENING.. You just have to hope that you get everything in the under carriage clean hahaha! He loves to splash the ENTIRE time we are in there.. dear…dear…dear… Trying to get his head back far enough to wash the shampoo out is VERY EXCITING AND FUN.. nooooooot! He literally has little floatie toys that he wants to play with and splash with the whole time! It is fun though.. and I recommend them because, well they just spell fun with their QUACKING beak.. can’t beat it! I see many a bath time battles in our future trying to get him outta there… Hmmmmm… we shall see!

The weekend of June 12th we took a trip to Pleasanton to see Jen, Curtis, Deva, Randy, and Scott…. We had a great time! It was good seeing everyone.. it’s crazy how the times have changed. We usually would have been up at 1 am when we should have given it up at 10 and gone to bed.. well now- where was I at 10? Yep, in bed… Amen! Good thing too because pops wasn’t feelin’ his bestest when we headed out. So when we got home momma had to keep working double time… all weekend! Had quite a few “firsts” on our trip though! On Sunday he officially started rolling from back to tummy as he always has, AND WE CAN NOW ADD TUMMY TO BACK to the “Been There, Done That” list! It’s funny when he does it.. he will turn back to his back and then put both arms and legs straight out like WHOA.. hold on to the carpet, I just fell! Then he will give you a huge smile like did youuuuu seeeee that! So funny! And another thing on the “scary” list because now he can move around a lot while doing his full circle rolling over! I am so scared for him to crawl! What a whooooole new world that will be! I am perfectly content with him just staying put hahaha! No rush for that at all from this momma!

The kiddo has taken on a love for fruit/ veggies.. I am going to claim that he is taking after me with that fondness. Only because I can not claim any of his outside features since he is his father’s twin.. So I will grab at the other thing whether it is true or not hahaha!

He loved the orange slice! The next day we gave him some cantaloupe in this mesh bag teether thing that we have that allows them to taste and feel the texture (and coolness) of what you put in it but they can’t get any chunks and choke, very clever.. He loves it! The other foods that he has had thus far are apples, a ham/pineapple/rice baby food (had to give him seconds on that one :) HE GETS IT FROM HIS MOOOOMMMMMMAAA!) and a chicken/rice dish! He is loving the baby food so far…. Besides this one brand that has chicken/broth and turkey/broth I haven’t received the gag face at all! Loves him some food!

Showing off his best Veggie Mustachio!

I am going to keep him far, far away from ever peeking on Brad’s plate and the lack of veggies that he eats! I am excited because I will soon be able to fill our pantry with different kinds of veggies since he can eat them with me :). He is eating solids twice a day (can’t remember if I have put that in any of my other marathon blog entries).. cereal and fruit when he gets up from his morning nap and then veggie and “meat” when we get home in the evenings. He is doing soooo good and is not spitting it back out as much.. I swear, I know I am retarded but he is a quick learner.. even if I do think he hung the moon with anything he does :).

While we were there I got this prrrecious shot of Brady and Auntie Deva taking a nap :).

Call me a horrible mom, but the lovebug is starting to love on TV and movies.. So far you can get him entertained with Finding Nemo and kiiiiind of with Monsters Inc. although I haven’t really played with that one much… I really need to start working on our DVD collection of the good Disney movies. I noticed that my favorites are on … VHS TAPES.. who would have thunk it? Now I can’t use them.. grrrr… well I guess I can go buy a player… anyways… just can’t believe that one day could we be unable to use our DVD players????? HMMM… I admire the momma’s who are strict to NO TV when they are little.. but tell you what… just put a check by my name on the chalkboard because that electronic device helps me when I am a “single” momma :).

He is getting very fascinated with lips and the many noises that they can make :)… He wants to grab at them and feel them. It’s really cute… He is becoming VERY GRABBY (word or not.. there you go)! Here he just haaad to have the camera..

I think this picture is heeeelarious! It will be on my desk soon!

GIMMEEEEE!

I just want to touch it for a second!

This was soooo worth the chase :)!

We are now having to clear the area around him of items that we do not want his precious little fingers grabbing! Dinner time.. once he sits in that chair it is like a windmill with those arms everywhere .. or like an octopus.. if there is nothing close to him on the table.. oh that is ok.. the table cloth will do haha.. Pretty soon we are going to have him sitting in the middle of the kitchen with nothing in his reach sitting by himself hahaha! The activity level is definitely “kicking up” with him! When holding him he can make your arms numb if you give him enough “holding time”! It’s twisting here and there.. if you have him chest to chest holding him.. he is half turned with his body wanting to go this way, NO THAT WAY.. no this way, NO THAT WAY. Haha! Hold on tight! He has also started this “OOOHHHHH” face, and noises! It is a face like OH SO EXCITING! And he does it allllllll the time! I love it! OH! OH! OH! OH!

He has such enthusiasm and is so happy.. He continues to make me so very happy and wanting to be that “super” mom that can bring him all the happiness in the world.

Brad had his first FATHER’S DAY! We had a family BBQ and enjoyed being around our friends and family… Here are some pics from that fun day in the sun! It was toasty out, as you will see with the pink cheeks (but it doesn't take much :)), but it was so breezy under the pavilion.. really a beautiful day!

My sweet rock of love!

This pic. rocks! Taryn loves her some fruit haha!

Is she not the most precious thing in the world! Niece, Payton!

Sydney and her "Marilyn Monroe" impression :)! Darn things will pop up on ya!

Unckie Steve! I swear he is a human pillow.. Brady loves conking out with him!

Jen and I, this pic. cracks me up.. look at how ginormous my head is next to hers haha!

Jackson eating some watamelon!! Didn't get a good shot of his face at all!.. Sorry Bubba!

Toby, Heather's husband, Smith :)

Sorry, this picture cracks me up.. and I strategically placed a star so that you can not see anything that need not be seen :). When you gotta go, you gotta go!

Auntie Ashley and Payton.. such a big girl, drinkin' out of a sippy cup!

I just noticed I got noooo pics. of my own POPS! Good night nurse.. I am getting better, most of the time I bring the camera and don't pull it out of it's case :). Apparently I still have a lot of work to do. :)

Brady got his first “sun-kissin’” but it was nothing too bad.. Just got a little pink WALKING FROM THE TRUCK TO THE PAVILION before I could even think about getting suntan lotion on him.. Poor pasty baby :)! They have a water park at the park we went to with lots of spraying “contraptions”.. it was fun.. but you never knew where the next sprinkle would be coming from!

I think Brad almost pulled out his lady scream when this water hit his back! :)

Daddy and Brady using the public bidet.. haha! (and yes, I had to look up how in the heck to spell that "toilet shower head thing" haha!)

Maybe when he is like 7 I can get him to not focus on the water and give momma a smile :)

Pullin' his spin move, this is his new "hold on tight" move.

Sprinklin' the toes..

Doing his "look off in the distance" pose..

OOOOOVER IT..

For Father’s Day, Brad got some new “threads” and lawn services 2 times a month for the rest of the year.. I just don’t know how he does it.. climbing in and out of the 140 degree attics EVERY DAY.. I think the least Brady and I could do was to make him able to not have to jump BACK in the heat to mow the yard… Hopefully he loves it!

If you haven't noticed, when I think I have a hold of how to use my camera... I am proven wrong and here comes a blurry pic.. if you haven't ALSO noticed, because they usually happen to be some of my fav's that my picture taking skills mess up, they get put to black and white as it camo's the blurriness a little haha!

Clearly a good photo shoot was not in our future :)...

We officially turned “7 months” last Monday.. why does that seem like such a big jump to me? It’s like as long as they are not more than 6 months then they are still less than half way to a year or something like that.. Now that he is 7 months I have less than half a year of my baby boy being a BABY! Like after a year he is going to be driving off to college or something hahaha... I feel kind of bad because I have no urge to have him crawling or walking, I mean I would never “hold him back” I know that it is something that he will do.... but I am A-ok with him doing it at his own pace… I don’t worry one bit. The longer he takes the younger he seems to me :). It is coming though…. I don’t think he will take long to get up and going.. He will already get in somewhat of a “crawling” posture when I am laying with him on my chest… It seems that once he grabs a hold of how to do something that he has the drive to keep going until he “conquers”… so I just don’t know what we have in our VERY near in our future… But I think it’s A LOT!!
I will conclude this now.. hope the week brings you lots of good stuff and that you get a nice looonnnng holiday weekend! XOXO.. until next time!

GET YOUR FLOATIES READY!!

Wow, what a week last week was weather wise here in good ol’ Cedar Park, TX! I am pretty sure that at 2 am on Wed. morning we endured the worst lightning and thunder that I have been through in all of my 33 years (oh gross that is a ridiculously high number FOR ME… where is all that time, where has it gone!)!

I have found that although I have always had a fear of storms, although really only those that have TORNADO POTENTIAL (gives me chills to even type that :)), my anxiety now with little guy is way worse fearing that he will have fear. For those that do not know, I am horrified, but fascinated, by tornadoes. If I could be a storm chaser, but have the promise of life that I would not be swept away by the huge ungodly sized vacuum (tornado), I WOULD DO IT IN A HEARTBEAT. I am thinking that if I could ride in THIS… I might do it…

But I would have fear and anxiety out the wazoo the whole time… Maybe it was my love for the Wizard of Oz (There’s no place like home!) when I was smaller and the tornado on that movie or something??

Hahaha… Who knows, but when I am not entranced by a show about them and instead experiencing a storm that they could pop up in.. I am the one that would be cuddled in a closet with pillows covering me (because pillows can stop 2X4’s and glass- just leave me be :))… I have many a funny stories about doing that when I was younger :). The beep…beep…beep…. Of a storm warning running on the bottom of the TV screen will make me run in the room to see what the chance of a “tornado” warning or watch is! And man I hate it at night.. I can still picture that scene at the drive in from the movie Twister.. and the light barely shining on the huge tornado that came through in that scene… Although I am thinking as long as I run like this..

I mean they didn’t get swept away or anything, so maybe I shouldn’t be such a weiner :).. Movies, gotta love them! Scares the poo out of me though, but yet maybe it is because I do feel like I know a lot about them from the science projects in my younger days that I did on them :). Maybe I learned TOO MUCH? NOOOO, I refuse to believe that there is anything that you can know too much about :).
Anyways, I have began to realize that I am now getting scared during storms again! Not the kind of fear that took me running into mom/dad’s room blanket and all ready to settle down on the floor beside their bed, but just scared that Brady will be scared! Isn’t it amazing how your parents can make you feel like there is a bubble of protection around you when you are with them!! I mean it’s not like the exact same storm that had me scared in my jammies, is not right down those stairs in their room as well! I hope I can be a safe haven for Brady the way my parents always were for me!!

So back to Wed. morning… I was woken up by the storm, I would say right at 2 am… at that time it was just raining hard.. but then BOOOOOOOM! Here came the loudest thunder I have ever heard.. AND IT WAS OVER AND OVER AND OVER… you know that Tom Cruise movie ***WAR OF THE WORLDS*** at the beginning with the lightning and thunder???

Yup.. it was WAR AT THE CONNELL RESIDENCE. I literally looked up at the sky outside and said ARE YOU KIDDING! It was soooo loud, over and over again like a machine gun.. and a couple of times shook the house and we could have sworn it hit in the back yard. I swear it looked like this outside... if I would have not had my weiner face on and looked :)...

I go into a HUGE PANIC when storms are loud like that.. fearing that Brady will be frightened. I don’t want him to ever feel any fear…. WHICH I don’t think I will have to worry about him feeling it because he has been a champ…. He usually sleeps right through any cracklin’, and honestly he made it through some of the loudest booms during this storm as well.. but the point in time where it was over and over like there was a cannon battle going on outside, it woke him up. I was already standing in his room shhhhhssshhh’ing him when he would make some sounds and movements starting to wake up, I went in there when I heard the first little noise. I wanted to make sure that if he did wake up that I was in there when he woke up and try to let him know not to be scared (even though momma was a huge wiener herself :), in fact I think I will start wearing this in situations like this, just so he appreciates me putting aside my weinerisms :)).

When he did raise his head up (he loves rollin’ to his belly and sleepin’ now once he is down for the night :)) it was right after a loud boom and he kind of jumped and then looked at me… I was like OHHHH MY GOODNESS BUG IT’S BOOMIE ;0) lol.. and just talked in my best x-smoker trying to talk high voice.. lol. He just smiled.. and was absolutely fine.. no cryin’, no poutie lip, no nuttin’. It makes me feel so good because you just don’t want your kiddo to ever be frightened!! I am still conjuring up a fantastic story (or so I hope it turns out to be a good ‘un) about the thunder and lightning to help him when he gets older so he isn’t scared. I told Brad that right now, although the loudness may startle babies and cause them to cry.. I don’t think they associate scary and thunder just yet… but I could be wrong. Such a frightening storm.. I am going to start including in my prayers to please never do that kind of a storm again dear Lord :).. The ACC that is about 2 miles from us was hit by lightening so I have no doubts, especially after the sirens, that it hit close as heck to us. Very, very frightening… even little Clyde was by our sides whining. But he has always been “in the closet” with his momma during storms :).

There was some really bad flooding in New Braunfels… really sad.

Some very memorable times at some of the places hit the hardest! We always take off on our tubing “adventures” from this place- The Rockin’ R.. the roof collapsed :(… although I know it will be rebuilt.. still weird to see it in such dismal shape!

This is an older style home that they have on the Rockin' R property that has as a shop and it has restrooms and stuff in it.. It is 2 levels with a huge wrap around porch around the first level with stairs up to it.. This picture is crazy to me as you can't see the stairs anymore...

For those that haven't been there, they transport you in these old school busses back to the place that you take off from to get to your car and stuff if you exit at different places along the ride and don't go the full circle (man we should have gotten off early a few times, HAHAHA!). They had busses like this one.. others SPLIT IN 1/2... so crazy.

Here is one that they are pulling out of the river!! I don't think I will be tubing anytime soon!! Not gonna be a happy camper if I scrape my bootie that of course hangs out the bottom of the tube haha, on a window of a bus.. creepy.

 

Or here is SCHLITTERBAHN!! The part that feeds off of the Comal is a MESS!! SOOOO sad, I can’t imagine all of the tourists that will now have to reschedule, or were already here for a great vacation….to have this happen..

Most definitely pray for that community and the recovery..

Well onto a better note and a new thing that Brady has been doing… have you ever held your hand out as to admire a great nail job? Like your arm outstretched and holding your hand flexed? Well, Brady has found his hands in that manner and keeps holding them out like that as if he is thinking.. YOU KNOW, THAT IS A GREAT LOOKING HAND! It’s pretty funny.. just stares at it!

Food wise I think I am getting a hold of his new yearnings and realizing that he doesn’t want as much or I should say, as many bottles at night. He has cut our nights down even shorter and is becoming quite the bear if we aren’t started on getting him to bed by 7. In all honesty, it could probably be even earlier, like 645 is what I am going to start trying. By 7 he is whiney which to me from my mad reading in the early days, that means he is overtired…. Sheesh.. I just feel like when we get home we are so busy trying to get all these bottles in him AND give him the solids now which he has started that he is like GOOD NIGHT, let me have an empty mouth for a sec hahaha! Our schedule right now, or how it is running is we get home about 545… I give him a bottle… he normally only takes a few ounces before he is doing the head turn fighting you :)… Then after he has fully rejected the bottle and momma- I get him entertained with something and start on our dinner.. Then we sit down (by this time it’s getting too late and he is whiney usually) and I try to get him to take the solid, which he does OK, but gets annoyed with it quickly.. then from there we take a bath, and then it’s bedtime bottle and he is out. All this happens between 545 and 7-715- we are sitting down for the bedtime bottle and then 745’ish is when he is done, and burped, and held with the reflux stuff :) is when he is usually down in his crib. But I think we are going to have to start getting him to bed earlier.. sheesh- gonna get no time with him… but I guess that will all come in due time :) and we will be wishin’ we had the early bed times again hahaha! SO I think that I am going to give up my whole idea of family dinner with him being 7 months old and feed him his baby food while I am cooking maybe? And then he can play with stuff while we are eating??? Don’t know.. it is a constant guessing game on what is best, but I do know that it eventually works out from our experiences :).. So I will just keep rolling with what comes to my head to try and hope that it doesn’t fail me now hahaha! Anyways, so far we have tried peas (doing good), green beans (could take it or leave it), bananas (loves of course :)), prunes (super loves!!), chicken in broth (could take it or leave it), turkey in broth (that brought about the GAG FACE.. gosh it’s so funny, but horrible at the same time haha!- I think we will hold off on this one for a bit, seems like a little too bumpy and thick for him right now), and squash (loves it!)! We have had great luck and so far so good on him being pretty open with the different kinds of foods and liking them!

We were invited to our friends Becky & Alistair's son Drew's second birthday party and got to have our first experience in a "pool" as well!! He had a good time although he wouldn’t lift his head for nothin’ to smile at the camera! He was obsessed with looking down at the water and splashin’! It’s another one of those things that I just take in that he does.. the amazement of the simple things that we all pay no attention to anymore.. I love it. He brings me back to the little details and enjoyment so often, and I thank you baby boy for doing that. He was cute as can be in his big ol’ Sponge Bob swimsuit!!

I am totally digging this "no shirt" policy we have going here!

Dad, will you please take me from her.. haha!

Oh for the love of Pete.. I do not need to look like a greasy baby bodybuilder mom haha!

Really, you need to put sunscreen on my toes??

That is not drool.. this boy was a splashin' fool!!

LEEEEET GO! I want to taste this stuff :)!

The splashing water was AAMMMMAAAZING to him :)!

I officially had to do a “toe trimmin’” on the rest of the little piggies :(.. Forever, it's just been the big toe :)... He is officially a big boy and has shed the last pieces of evidence of his time spent in momma.. The tops of the nails were paper thin… Fresh out of the womb.. Which by the way.. I compared this..

To this…

And the sappy button got stuck.. Amazing! I was reading the blog from where I was last year compared to now… We didn’t even know this little treasure was going to have a “man jewels” yet!! And now here is with us making our lives a better place :)! It’s crazy as all get out to me!!

He is super fun, getting a super personality even more supererererer then it is now :), and just thrills me to death to hang out with him any time I can! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!!