This Guy

Man oh man! This little boy. 

Here is a quick update on this guy.....

He loves being outside. 

Hats? He loves them all! This one in particular though. He puts it on and wears it all day!

He LOVES his brothers. And boy, do they love him! He can say all of their names now, but Owey is by far his favorite to say! 

We wait at the window every morning and afternoon waiting for the bus. He loves all trucks and cars! Garbage trucks are his truck of choice this week.

He is such a good eater! He wants to try it all! I can not think of a food he has not liked. His favorites are taco meat, pizza, peas, watermelon (or really any fruit) and he just discovered Z Bars and loves them. He is not afraid to get messy with his meals and pretty much has to bathe after each meal!

He LOVES Pop! When we go over there on Sundays, he starts saying "Pop, Pop, Pop" and runs up to him and jumps in his arms everytime he sees him. Melts my heart.

Poor, poor Maggie. He loves her so much. So much that he has a hard time leaving her alone....and pulls on the hair on her face, sits on her, jumps on her, tries to ride her, grabs her tail, steals her toys. She may not always make great choices, but she sure is amazing with Tripp! I couldnt ask for anything more.

Leave any door or cabinet open, turn around for .01 seconds, and this is what happens.....chess pieces, a Costco size bag of cereal, and a collander. But he was oh so proud of himself, and I couldnt even get mad with that cute face.

He absolutely loves to read books. I am pretty certain that he has enjoyed reading books the most out of all of our babies. This is what he does....he grabs a books, runs up to you, snuggles up in the most perfect little spot on your lap, hands you the book, sits for 3 pages and then he is done. Repeat. Repeat.

At night when he is winding down, we actually get through a few books in its entirety. And if a brother enters the room during his bedtime routine, he is absolutely going to read him a book because he will force himself onto their lap!

He loves animals and making animal sounds! We went to The Austin Zoo last week and he loved it! He was in awe over the tigers....did not care for the goats as much, though:)
He can say all of his animal sounds! And it is th cutest think ever!

I mean, look at this face. I am just still in awe over this little human. He is always happy. He enjoys going to Mothers Day Out. He waves to everyone and everything all the time. He loves helping Eli and Owen feed Maggie. His vocabulary in the last two weeks has skyrocketed!!! His new favorite words are-- cookies, mine, up, bar (for a cereal bar), baseball, help me--sounds more like hellme, but its by far my fave, hat, up, Bubble Guppies, momo (what he calls a motorcycle), Costco:)
In fact, he repeats everything these days, and he is just a little chatter box!

At least once a day, I still look at him and just can not believe he is ours. We are so lucky! 

Surprise Day Out with Mom

The other day I decided I wanted to pull the boys out of school early and take them out to do something fun. Blaine was home (and had been at that time for about 6 weeks with a hurt back) and Tripp was at school that morning. 

So at around 10:30 I headed up to school and grabbed them! We went straight to Whole Foods to go ice skating...something they had been asking to do. We took a break in the middle and went downstairs to eat lunch. I told them they could have whatever they wanted that day. Owen had cherry pie. Eli had pizza and garlic knots, and Cash had some fruit and cookies. The best part--we had the rink all to ourselves! It was so fun!

 Since we were so close, our next stop was to go by the store to see my dad.  They all love going there! On this particular day, they were trying to find the most expensive item in the store and to add up all the items in one case.

 Our last stop was to Cosmic Coffee, one of our favorite spots!

It was a really fun afternoon with my big boys. We all had a great time (with the exception of Eli, he said it was only kinda-fun)!

Starting The New Year Right!

Last year we started doing a family "picnic" on the living room floor...it was an ode to the family picnic we did when we were little on Christmas Eve. I just have so many fond memories of doing this. My mom would prepare lots of little foods that we all loved. I just remember every year she would make Rachel little potatos with sour cream and caviar. We would have pickles and olives and all of our favroite foods! I am not sure why that stands out so much in my mind! But the boys really loved it last year, so we did it again on New Years Eve! They requested sushi, different olives, pickles, pickled okra, fun breads, baby corn (Cash's fav), different meats, and cheeses, sparkling "wine," mini sliders. After dinner the big boys and I went to the Ladd's house for a New Years Eve party. Blaine stayed home with Tripp and put him down for bed. We actually made it to midnight this year......the next morning I am not sure that it was worth it, but the boys had a great time.

New Years Day, we woke up and headed out to the Polar Bear Plunge. I have all three big boys jumping with me now! Like I have said before, Blaine is an awful photographer, so all I have is a very long, shaky video. We were able to snap a quick family pic on our way out though. After our jump, we went to our old Starbucks and ran into an old pal-Kirk Tuck. We met him when we were dating at Starbucks, we were both regulars there and became friendly with eachother. He was kind enough to take our engangement and wedding photos for us as a wedding gift! So kind this man is!!!!

I love starting out the year with the plunge, what a fun tradition!