Jon and Kate + Eight season premiere tonight!

Anyone else totally pumped about this besides me?? Jon and Kate are going to talk for the first time since all the rumors started! I swore I would not watch the show anymore because I think all of those children are going to suffer from what is happening between their parents, but it's a little like a car wreck. I can't turn away. Especially with all the controversy. I think it's going to be a big let down, though....I think my day dreams about an honest face-to-face between Jon and Kate where truth finally surfaces will never be realized...seeing as they have already aired trailers from future episodes that they are both in. No no, I am 100% certain they will kiss and make up and go on with season like nothing is wrong and collect their big paycheck (all amidst the rumors that will undoubtedly continue to swirl). And yes, sadly, I'm totally aware that my fascination with this family is what fuels the fire that is destroying them.

In other news, we had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend. We took a road trip to San Antonio for my niece's 3rd birthday party on Saturday (it was a dress up/tutu theme - it was precious!). Sunday I slept pretty much all day while Mr. C had some mandatory quality time with Little C, last night we watched Twilight on Mr. C's new Blue-ray player that he got for his birthday (his favorite present I would venture to say :). Then, this afternoon, we took the munchkin to our local YMCA because the outdoor pool is (finally) open!! We had so much fun, my cheeks hurt from all the smiling I did. We only stayed for about an hour, but for that hour we completely doted over every little expression and reaction and smile and laugh. I swear every other parent was staring at us like "what schmucks, just wait until they have more kids, then they'll realize what dorks they look like" but we could not have cared less. It was great to have the opportunity to be completely engrossed in one kid. As I type, Mr. C is grilling hot dogs and corn and as soon as I'm done I'll be slicing into a big delicious watermelon. And pictures?? Do you think we took a single picture?? Of course not!! Haven't you been paying attention to my other posts?? We are horrible. :)

Here are few pics from memorial day weekend last year, though - Little C was barely a week old - oh how time flies!!


Hope you all had a wonderful weekend too!

1 Year

Little C turned 1 year old yesterday. On Sunday we had a birthday party and welcomed lots of friends and family, so yesterday seemed a little uneventful as we had done most of our celebrating over the weekend.

We did start the day by sneaking into the munchkin's bedroom while he was sleeping to pick him up and hold him and just cherish those few small still moments. Mr. C and I just smiled and held him - we had made it, were officially the parents of a 1 year old!

Once the day got going, I had a thing to go to, and since my mom was still staying with us, she watched the munchkin while I took off for the meeting. Little C's friend Caroline stopped by after lunch for some splash time in the baby pool that was still out from the birthday party the day before, and Mr. C picked up Boston Market for dinner since I had spent a lot of time in the kitchen over the weekend for the party and was really boycotting cooking.

Even without much hoopla, it was a special day, and I was a lot more emotional about it than I thought I would be. There's just something about your first child's first birthday that is monumental. You are thrilled you survived, even more thrilled your child survived, and yet it is a slightly bittersweet day because that first year just flies by so much faster than you anticipate.

This past year has been filled with ups and downs, lots and lots of trips to the doctor, grand goals for parenting (and realistic adjustments), and many many milestones.

As of late, the munchkin has taken to walking EVERYWHERE. He's been 'walking' for a while, but for weeks and weeks, he would only take 2 steps. Then it was four steps. He'd get going with so much momentum and we'd eagerly count, one-two-three-four....then he would fall, sit or slide down to his knees to crawl the rest of the way. About a week before his birthday, though, he took 7 steps. It was completely out of the blue, and the next day he took 9, the next day 14, the next day 17, and after that we stopped counting because he walked from one end of the living room to the other. He had proven he could walk as far as he wanted, but despite the steady progression, crawling was the preferred form of transportation.

That all changed this past weekend. He just decided it was faster (or at least more entertaining) to walk from point to A to B than to crawl. It's still comically unsteady, but he'll run around, hands in the air, delighted with his new found skill.

He has also figured out how to take his diaper off. I left him for three seconds to run to the bathroom and when I came back, the munchkin had stripped himself down and was streaking around the living room, diaper held proudly over his head. No more pantless naps for you!!

The funniest new achievement is how well Little C can now use his voice. It's hilarious to see him point and jabber (loudly) at just about anything or anyone. He even scared a little boy at the park the other day when he walked right up to him and started pointing and shouting in his face. I tried to explain to the little boy that it was just his way of 'talking', but the three year old started crying. Guess he didn't think this new found method of communication was quite as cute as I did. :)

As for teeth, we're up to 6. Four on top and the 2 on the bottom. More to come soon, I think. He's been tugging at his ears but according to the doctor doesn't have an ear infection, so hopefully we'll be seeing a few more pearly whites soon!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from Little C's 1 year photo shoot with Mackenzie Wheatley of Chubbyfoot Photography.

Happy Birthday little man!! Your daddy and I love you more than you can imagine - you are truly the light of our world. This past year has been the most joyful, fun, challenging and rewarding year of our lives. We have loved watching you grow and learn and hope and pray we have many many more years to enjoy more of the same. We can't wait to see what the future has in store for you. All our love to you on your first birthday, mommy and daddy.

Easter and (mainly) Bluebonnet Pics

Pics as promised from Easter weekend. We took advantage of Mr. C having Good Friday off and took a mini road trip to Austin to visit his old high school/college friend in from Chicago for the holiday. On the way there we came across a huge open field of bluebonnets outside of Brenham (best known as the home of Blue Bell ice cream). There were cars lined up for at least a mile and paths through the bluebonnets for people to wind their way back to find the perfect picture spot. We couldn't resist, so we pulled over to take a few (hundred) pictures of little C.

We had a great visit in Austin with Mr. C's friend and then it was off to Mr. C's grandparents for some home cooking and some visiting. Mr. C has four living grandparents - it's remarkable, and they all still live independently in Austin, so we treasure any opportunity to get up that way to visit them.

Saturday we headed home, and Sunday morning we took a sec to go through the loot the bunny brought before heading off to church for worship and pancakes. Then that afternoon we loaded back into the car to visit my parents for Easter lunch/dinner.

A great weekend and wonderful first Easter for the munchkin, but sadly we didn't take many pictures after the bluebonnets. We are just horrible about that sometimes. I was even asked to take a picture of a family at the pancake breakfast at church on Easter morning, and as they all huddled together I thought, we should do this! Then forgot. We are just NOT good picture parents. If we ever have a second or third, God help them...they'll be lucky to get any pictures at all!

Cat Commotion

Sorry for not posting the Easter & Bluebonnet pics yet - I've been temporarily unplugged. Had to send the computer to an IT guru for a little tlc and defragmenting. I'm currently on Mr. C's work laptop, and I must say it's nice to be laying in bed in my jammies while on the computer. I think we may have to look into this laptop thing a little more closely. Too bad we just got a nice computer desk for our flex room!

Anyway, a little back story on the cat drama. We have two cats, and one is a problem child. I didn't ever anticipate letting either of our cats out on a regular basis because I didn't want them tracking in dirt, but after a few choice 'accidents' he left us by the back door, I finally caved in (see: threw him out and didn't care what happened to him at that point I was so ticked off). We even installed a locking cat door to allow him to go in and out at his leisure in hopes we might be able to do away with a little box (no such luck....just the other morning he came in to use the potty to turn around and run right back outside. sigh.).

The cat door is heavy duty and has a nice locking feature on it with four setting...open in and out, closed in and out, only open out, and only open in. We usually just leave it open at all times....in fact, when we were out of town for Easter, we left it open the whole weekend we were gone. Until now...

A few nights ago we woke up to a the horrific sounds of a cat fight IN OUR BEDROOM! I can not even begin to tell you how terrifying this is to wake up to. Freaking out, I screamed and pulled the covers over my head. Mr. C was a bit more useful. He immediately flipped on the lights and started looking for what happened. Our initial thought was a stray cat had gotten in because we had both heard a cat fight in the back yard about a month ago and run outside to see a dark cat taking off over the fence. Well, after searching high and low for almost an hour, we decided the cats must have been fighting with themselves and separated them, but locked the cat door 'just in case'.

Our problem child had an appointment with the vet the next day for his bi-annual haircut (fluffy cat goes in, a rat comes out). At the vet they noticed a cut on his back paw that was infected and gave him a shot of antibiotics and suggested we keep him in doors for a week or so until it healed. So we ruled to keep the cat door shut for a few more days.

Last night we woke up AGAIN to the horrible sounds of cat fighting, this time coming from the living room. I didn't even get up when Mr. C rolled out of bed to investigate. About five minutes later, though, I was up in a panic when i heard him yell out and then our house alarm go off. I bolted out of bed to find him in our laundry room white as a ghost wiping poo from his foot.

Apparently a stray tom cat had MUSCLED his way past our LOCKED cat door to get at our cat food, left a calling card in our laundry room before getting into an altercation with one of our cats and spraying his face! Mr. C had scared him off when he came in to break up the fight, and when he saw him muscle his way BACK out the (still locked) cat door, he took off after him (not sure why, but it must be a guy thing). Anyway, I guess that's when he set off the alarm, and when he came back in to turn it off, well, that's when he stepped in the poo, and that's when I found him.

Once our heart rates came down out of the 200 range, we spent the next two hours cleaning up disgusting messes, calming the baby back down after all the commotion and boarding up the cat door which now looks beautifully ghettofied just in time for Little C's first birthday party next month. Yippee.

The kicker, the stray cat apparently lives in the storm drain in front of our house (disgusting) and, if you've been following along, was IN OUR ROOM the other night when I had convinced myself it was just our cats fighting. Needless to say, once I got the image in my head of a disgusting storm-drain stinky cat slinking around our room, sleep did not come easy. ::SHIVER:: Even in broad daylight, it still gives me the creeps to think about.

This morning when we were talking about it, we both remarked that as stressed as we were from having a cat break in, can you imagine how those families that have been burglarized feel?? I mean, we did A LOT of research before buying our home and chose a very safe area, but we've had a lot of break-ins lately. Mr. C assures me it is just a sign of the economic times, but it's still incredibly disconcerting. And to all those families that have had their sense of safety and security ripped out from underneath them along with their personal belongings, my heart goes out to you.

Walking!

Well, I never thought it would happen, but Little C is walking! It first happened on April 8th, and it wasn't anything like I imagined. I guess I pictured first steps happening with a lot of hoopla as a small child who had only just been pulling up, turns and heads across the room for something or someone. It didn't happen like that at all for us. He's been pulling up and 'cruising' along furniture for quite some time. First it was only along the same surface (like the couch), and if he wanted to move from the couch to the ottoman, he'd sit and crawl over, then pull himself back up again. After a month or so of doing this, he finally started going from one surface to another (like the couch to the ottoman) while staying on his feet, but always hanging on to something for balance. Even now, he's pretty unsteady. He wants to move faster than his legs will carry him so the top half of his body tends to get ahead of the bottom half and he crashes on his little face or at least ends up back on his knees where he'll take off crawling. But last week he turned around from the ottoman and took two steps towards me. It was such a natural progression, Mr. C and I were sitting right there and looked at one another and were both kind of amazed by our un-amazement.

He's still not ready to head out across the room, and he mainly crawls everywhere, but he goes from one surface to another, and will often let go and take a step or two when cruising along a long surface like the couch. Just this past weekend he stood, unassisted for a few seconds (much to our astonishment). I know it sounds bizarre that he walked before he stood, but he could crawl and pull up before he could sit. It's just how he works I guess :)

Well, just wanted to get a quick post in before I forgot the date. Also, today (April 13th) he cut his first top tooth! What a relief to me. He had been so fussy the past few weeks, I had been hoping it was a tooth and not the return of an ear infection (his first) he had earlier this month.

More on Little C's first Easter and our trip to Austin later, I promise...I've got some incredible shots in the Bluebonnets I can't wait to share with the Grandparents. For now, I've got to get to the gym, though. I completely fell off the wagon this past weekend!!

The new (and improved) TV stand.

Childproofing 101:
Rule #1. Whatever you think is childproof isn't.
Rule #2. If you aren't sure whether it is childproof, then just assume it isn't.
Rule #3. If you aren't sure why it isn't childproof, just let your 10 month old have a go at it for about 3 seconds and you will immediately see 50 different faults with whatever it is you thought was childproof.

Exhibit A: The new TV stand.


So our old TV stand was fine...
It was from IKEA, but it served its purpose well and was fairly attractive for an IKEA piece of furniture. However, once Little C started crawling we knew we needed something new. The doors could be latched with those plastic child-lock things, but the DVR and DVD player were completely open to attack....
So when Mr. C got his new flat screen last month, I went shopping for a new TV stand with one goal in mind...protect the electronics.

Only thing is, unless you are willing to invest in blue tooth technology, you need to be able to see your electronics for the remotes to work. In other words, your DVR and DVD player have to be open or enclosed in glass. Glass makes me nervous for a lot of reasons...I just envision toy cars flying at it at 100 miles per hour, or children colliding into it. So when I saw this piece, I was ecstatic!!

You can't see it very well it the picture above, but it has iron scrolling that completely encloses the electronics while still allowing remote access AND it has these handy wooden latches to keep the doors closed!!
As soon as we got it home, though, I realized how heavy and unsturdy it was, and this was before we put a 200lb TV on it. Plus the openings in the iron scrolling are just big enough for Little C to stick his arms through, and while they aren't nearly as sharp as they look, I kept imagining the munchkin sticking his arm in a hole, losing his footing and snapping his arm off and/or ripping an artery open.

But, where there's a will there's a way! It took two trips to Babies R Us, two trips to the hardware store and one trip to a glass cutting store, but we've (knock on wood) child-proofed the TV stand for the time-being.

First, we had to saw a hole in the back of it for the cords to all the electronics to fit through (hazard of buying a side board instead of a media stand).
Then we had to strap the whole thing to the wall (TWO studs in the wall to be exact) with two pairs of furniture straps. Then we had to bolt the TV to a third stud in the wall...

And finally, four pieces of plexi glass and 32 mirror clips later, we took care of those pesky openings int he iron scrolling.

And that's just the short version of the story! I'll spare you the details of two very non-handy people trying to navigate hole saws and stud-finding.

But, the TV is now attractively displayed and (knock on serious wood) the DVR is safe from tiny fingers for the next month or so. I'm well aware those wooden latches won't last for very long, but for the time being, I'm done messing with this piece of furniture.

As an added bonus for listening to my long story, Little C will now sing the alphabet for you (well, most of it at least :).

Playing catch-up (not mustard)

Alright, I can't take credit for the clever title...it was my sister-in-law's facebook status several months back and I just thought it was so clever, I've repeated it probably 100,000 times since I saw her post it. Oddly Mr. C doesn't seem to think it's so clever after all those repeats, but I still think it's cute :).

If you don't know who my sister-in-law is, I am shocked, because she is famous. Check out her interview with Fox 7 News on weddings and the economy!

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/good_day/030109_Saving_Money_On_Weddings

Also, if you need a fantastic event coordinator for YOUR special event (in the Austin area), check out 36th street events!

Ok, enough plugging...onto the catching up (not the mustarding)! Hahahah....get it?? Get it?? Oh forget it. Here are some videos we took this past month...

First up, Carter copying the weird fishy sound Mr. C makes. He's CLEARLY a genius.


Clapping for the first time (yea yea yea, I realize most kids clap before now, but we've been busy with fishy noises, so there.)


And last, but not least...learning to walk. He's so CUTE!!!


That's it!