Blake ~ 11 Months

Holy cow! Blake is going to be ONE next month. Craziness! We have been so busy the past couple of months I never documented anything at his 10 month mark. So, in the past two months a lot of things have changed with Blakers.

• He now has SIX teeth (the two middle-top and the two middle-bottom and one to the right of both of these sets)
• He's "walking" all over the place with help from furniture, toys, mommy & daddy, etc
• He's getting brave and will stand without holding anything for a few seconds. He always has the biggest smile on his face when he's doing it and probably gets a little too excited and that's probably why he falls so quickly. :0)
• Is starting to wave "hi" and "bye" but he waves with his hand facing him. It's so cute!
• He loves to clap
•  He also loves to do the Indian chant thing with his hand and mouth
• He's a huge flirt and loves to be the center of attention. When all eyes are on him he'll start laughing, and in return, make others laugh.......and he'll keep laughing his very fake sounding laugh until he's not the center of attention anymore
• LOVES food.......and just about any food at that. If we put anything in front of him he will shovel it all in his mouth.
• Unlike the girls he loves meat. Our girls didn't eat meat for the longest time (except for hot dogs but I don't know if that qualifies as meat!) Makes meal time so much easier (when we're actually at home) because he can just eat what we're eating.
• He's not a big fan of pasta. He'll eat it but we can still tell there's something about it that he doesn't care for. The girls aren't big fans of pasta either.......
• He is such a jabberbox! This is fairly new. He'll just jabber away like he's having a real conversation. It's so fun and extremely cute!
• His favorite toys are balls and cars. No matter how many girly toys are around he always manages to find those. He's all boy!
• He's a great sleeper. It took him a while to get used to his bed after being gone for so long but I think he's finally back to (or almost back to) his usual sleep habits. Before we left he knew it was time for bed and went to sleep as soon as we would lay him down. Now he'll jump back up and cry for a while, but that's gradually slowing down. Once he's asleep he's out for the night. He'll usually go to bed between 7 and 8pm and wake up anywhere between 6 and 8am (depending on how much sleep he gets during the day with naps).
• Ideally he gets two naps a day but that doesn't always work out since he has two older sisters and so much going on. Lately he has only been getting one and sometimes NONE! It's been rough. Just three more weeks until school starts and then we'll be back on a good schedule.
• Oh, and yes, he's already learning how to cheese it up for the camera! ;)

clapping

being loved on by his sisters

playing with a car.....so what if it's pink!

driving around with big sis

Forgot to add that he is such a man.........loves the remote!

Missions Baseball

Last Wednesday night we went to a minor league baseball game....San Antonio Missions vs Corpus Christi Hooks. The Missions won 5-1 but we didn't stay the entire game. We left at the start of the 5th inning.....the game was dragging on and the kids were getting tired. It was still fun to go to.

Phone pics

I was just going through pictures on my phone and realized I have some pretty good ones that are worth sharing. I always forget to get these off whenever I'm posting pictures!

@ Dallas Children's Museum

@ Wegerzyn Gardens - Ohio

Witte Museum - San Antonio

Witte Museum

my first ever picture on the phone --- @ IHOP. Funny story. It was just me and the kids. Derek was out of town. I left the house without my wallet and had no way to pay for our food!!! I had to get a manager and tell him my story. I left my new phone with them while the kids and I left to go get money.

Pizza King - Lafayette, IN

Pizza King. Allie is grabbing our drinks from the train that delivered them to our seats

Blake meeting Jackie @ GG's house

Blake (thinks he's already ONE) @ Mony & Papa's

@ Dallas Airport (awesome USO)

Blake showing off his new skills and pushing around his Great Wolf Lodge animal

this was taken at our most recent camping trip at Canyon Lake. There were SO many deer out.

taking a night walk while camping. The girls were using their new toys to help light the way

feeling the warm water at the lake @ night

Allie captured this goofy pic while on the boat

picture we took before headed out on the boat

Allie!

the girls went to a Princess birthday party. Belle was there! Avery was too nervous to get in the picture

by the end of the party she was ready to jump in

she broke her sunglasses while shopping today. They are still pretty stylish! :)

Canyon Lake

Now that Derek has a little more free time (well, a lot compared to the very little he got before) he's able to take some time off work. He took Monday off so we could get the boat out and take it for a little joy ride. Good thing we started prepping the boat on Saturday because the battery was dead. Guess that's what happens when it's been over a year since it's been out of the garage!

In the end we decided to make a camping trip out of it. We left after church on Sunday and had such a great time. I always talk about how much work a one day camping trip is.......and is it really worth it all. We made this one so low maintenance, which I believe is the way to go on short trips and with little ones in tow. The only thing we cooked over the campfire were some marshmallows! Breakfast was cereal and everything else was just grabbing fast food or easy snacks. It made it much more relaxing!

none of the kids have liked this life jacket

in the end he tolerated it pretty well

someone doesn't want to go tubing

Avery would rather be swimming

we were always going "too fast"

Blakers fell asleep while Derek was driving/pulling Allie & I on the tube

the kids favorite part.......the beach!

I enjoyed the beach too. Loved that we could sit in the water and just relax.

We had a great time. We're planning to go again soon!

Sleepover, Letter & Starved???

The Sleepover
Ever wonder what happened at the sleepover the girls went to? For those of you that really know our girls you probably already guessed. When I went to pick them up, the first thing Tonya (the brave Mom that hosted) said, "Avery's going to need a nap today!"  Right away I can hear Avery screaming in the kitchen. I quickly run over to assess the situation. Avery wasn't getting her way........she wanted a Gogurt and didn't have one. Allie quickly handed over hers to get Avery to stop screaming. She is seriously the BEST big sister EVER! 
Tonya proceeded to tell me that they put the kids in the bedrooms to go to sleep somewhere between 9 and 10. Her and her husband went back downstairs. Two hours later they go to check on the girls and Avery is still awake and playing with toys! They ask her to go back to bed but she tells them "no". They weren't sure if she went to sleep at all because when Scott got up at 5am to go workout Avery met him on the stairs and asked for a drink! He did get her a drink but asked her to just be really quiet because everyone else was still sleeping.
The rest of the story came from Allie. She said she was probably the first one to go to sleep and everyone else was already up and had eaten breakfast by the time she got up. That's not a surprise if you know Allie.

After we left we went home and got ready for story time at Barnes and Noble. As we were leaving story time Avery said she was really hungry (it was lunch time) but she wanted to take a nap first. She fell asleep on the way home and slept for 2 1/2 hours. The kids also had their first day of swim lessons that day. Good thing she had the nap! After swim lessons and an early dinner Avery was asking to go to bed. That never happens!!!


The Letter
I forgot to post this sweet letter that Allie wrote at our hotel in Dallas (when we were on our way to Idaho).
She did this without any help.

so sweet

Starved????
You would think our boy was starved. He goes crazy whenever he sees food and no matter how much he eats he always wants more. This morning I was in the kitchen fixing his breakfast. He was in the living room with Avery......or so I thought. Now, thinking back, he was very quiet. He's always really hungry in the morning and screaming for food. I finished getting his cereal ready and took it over to the kitchen table by his chair. I turned around and Blake was standing at the girls little table with his mouth stuffed full of animal crackers! Both girls had a small bag of crackers left on the table from last night. He found one and had completely finished one of the bags!