Time Flies

Wow, Fisher is already five months old today, and Barrett is only one month away from being a two year old.

I looked back at my post from exactly 18 months ago when Barrett was 5 months old.

I can hardly remember him at that age, and it's strange to think about not remembering exactly what Fisher is like right now.

It scares me to think that with Barrett at this age, I was talking about rolling over being somewhat new. Fisher mastered that a LONG time ago. He's now on to bigger things.

Scary, isn't it?

Ok, maybe not for you, but I am going to be chasing two boys soon.

I was trying to take a picture of both boys today, but I had to give up. Barrett was not cooperating. He thinks he has better things to do.

Fisher, on the other hand, was all about the camera.

Besides working on crawling, Fisher loves to play with anything. Lately, he's happy for quite a while in the exersaucer thingy.

When I looked back at pictures of Barrett at 5 months old, he apparently was happy playing there too!

Time is going too fast. I'm afraid that I am going to wake up one day and suddenly have teenagers.

One Down, Too Many to Go

After about 6 weeks of bad sleeping, gallons of drool, and countless hours of chewing, Fisher has finally cut his first tooth!

Three days ago, I could feel the tooth had broken through, but you couldn't really see the little white chomper. Today, you can see it. It's only a little white spot, but it is there.

I'm not sure which day to say he got it.

With Barrett, I always saw it the same day you could feel it.

Although, I know if I went ahead in time about 8 years and asked Fisher, he would tell me he cut it on the 10th not the 13th.

I know with having boys this close in age, there will always be competition.

If I write the 10th in the baby book, it will be one less thing they can argue about.

There would be no way to say who was better or faster in the category of first teeth.

There could be no argument because Fisher getting his first tooth on July 10th would mean that Barrett and Fisher were the EXACT same age when they got their first teeth.

And everyone has told me that siblings will never do anything the same!

Feet

For some reason both of my boys have been obsessed with feet lately.

Whenever it is time for us to put on shoes to go somewhere, Barrett either wants to pick out which pair of shoes or he insists on, "bare feet, no shoes."

I don't mind him picking which pair of shoes to wear, but occasionally, he insists on the rubber boots that Doug's cousin passed on to us. That might not be too bad, but he can't really walk in them either.

The other night after his bath, he wanted to put shoes on. He ran to his room, barely gave me a chance to get a diaper on him, and he grabbed the boots.

It's a nice look, isn't it?

Fisher seems to love his own feet lately. He is always grabbing them and smiling.

Although he loves to pull on them, he likes chewing on them even better.


His feet must taste really good because he's not the only one that loves them.

Barrett is constantly grabbing Fisher's feet, saying, "kiss Isher's feet," and then kissing them over and over again.

I'm sure when they are teenagers, Fisher will love reminding his big brother how much he loved kissing his feet!

My New Favorite Memory

Just a little while ago, Barrett and Fisher were both playing on their own in the living room while I sat on the couch enjoying a few minutes of television that wasn't Dora, Diego, Barney, or Baby Einstein.

Barrett climbed on the couch and obvioulsly wanted my attention. I muted the tv and asked what he wanted me to do.

We read Everybody Poops, his new favorite book, and then he stood up and put his nose to mine.

He does this when he really wants me to listen to what he has to say.

With his nose still against mine, he put his hand gently on my cheek, looked in my eyes and said, "Love you Mommy."

I almost cried.

I told him I loved him too, then he kissed my nose and again said, "Love Mommy."

Because I giggled, he continued to keep his hand on my cheek as he kissed both my cheeks, my chin, my forehead, and then my lips.

After he gave me all the kisses, he put his nose on me again and said, "Mommy loves Barrett."

I cried.

I cried and told him I didn't want him to get any bigger.

One day, he won't want to kiss me and tell me he loves me and that breaks my heart.

Why do sweet little boys have to grow up to be men that don't love and kiss on their mommies?

Boom Boom Boom

We've been listening to fireworks for days!

Our neighborhood is great. It's not in the middle of Houston, there isn't a ton of traffic, there are a tons of kids all around us, but there is one downside...

Fireworks.

There is no law against any person setting off as many as they'd like at any hour.

I like them on the 4th of July, but I do not like them until 2 in the morning for days on end.

Barrett, on the other hand, loves them.

He loves saying boom after hearing them. The first night we heard them going off, he ran around saying, "boom, boom, boom." I think he thought it was guns being fired.

Last night, he actually got to see fireworks. We went to Doug's aunt and uncle's house to celebrate the 4th and to celebrate his cousin, Christopher, who is in the Army, being home from overseas.

When we first got to the party, Barrett immediately spotted Nana, and then he saw the bouncy castle.

He loved to bounce almost as much as he loved getting in and out of it. He pretty much blocked the entrance the whole time he was near the thing.

Once some big kids bounced with him, he started to understand what it was about. He was completely unafraid of other kids landing on him.

Nana even got in to bounce with him!

He was MAD when we made him get out so the big kids could really bounce.

Fisher just enjoyed being held.

Great-Grandpa held him for a long time, but once he sat down, Fisher wanted to bounce like his brother. Grandpa said he was just too hard to hold while he jumped on his lap. Paw took over, and Fisher stood on his lap and jumped and jumped!

Once it was dark, the fireworks started, and Barrett was loving watching them.

Fisher was less than thrilled with the noise, but he liked the bright light.


Unfortunately, with the dark came the mosquitoes, so we didn't stay for all the fireworks.

When we got home, our street was full of people setting off fireworks. Barrett and I headed down to watch for a while.

He was having a blast with all the little girls. He ended up laying on a blanket with NeeNee and another little girl to watch the fireworks. He was less than thrilled when I picked him up to take him home, but it was 10:30.

He went to sleep as soon as his head hit the bed, and he is still asleep at 9:20 this morning.

Maybe fireworks aren't so annoying after all! :)

He's Fine?

The other day while Barrett was napping and I was arguing with the computer, Doug was in the living room "taking care of" Fisher.

After about 20 minutes, Doug came in to inform me that Fisher was asleep in his bouncy seat so he was going to go outside to do whatever it was that he thought he needed to do.

I guess I was crazy to assume that "asleep in his bouncy seat" meant that he was safely buckled in.

Here is what I found when I went to check on Fisher a little while later.

Doug swears he wasn't like that when he went outside to play.

I guess since Fisher survived, it's ok. After all, he looks pretty happy to me.

Fisher Playing

Here is a short video of Fisher playing. He loves to lay on his mat and pull on the toys.

I think I figured out what went wrong on the video of Barrett when it had a blank black screen after the clip ended. Sorry if it made you think you missed something. :)

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Dancing Fool

Yesterday, we were really bored because of the bad weather.

Hopefully, today might get better. When Barrett got up this morning, he walked into the living room, pointed outside at the falling rain, and said, "rain, no, rain again."

Since we didn't have much else to do, I ended up taking a bunch of pictures and videos.

I haven't tried to upload video yet because to be honest, I hadn't gotten anything blog worthy on film until now...

Barrett was having fun dancing, and as you'll see, he obviously got his dancing ability from me.

(Ignore the mess in the background. Like I said, we were inside all day.)



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You couldn't actually hear the kiss he gave himself, but that's one of his newest things. I think he got tired on waiting for me to kiss things better, so now he just kisses his own boo boos and moves on.



I'll try and add a video of Fisher soon, but now that I have Barrett's video here, I can't remember how I did it. Ugh!

Arizona

Our trip to Arizona was lots of fun especially for Barrett.

We started our trip by driving to Austin the afternoon before we left so we could watch my cousin play baseball.

He has made it to AAA, and while I am anxiously waiting for him to make it to Houston, I liked the minor league stadium much better than the stadium here. It had all kinds of activities for kids and was very clean. Even though Mark didn't win the game, I loved going to see him. Barrett was way more excited about the mascot than the actual game.

The real adventure in Austin was staying in a hotel with both kids. Barrett thought of a king size bed as more of a play land and not a place to sleep.

While Doug was getting Fisher to sleep, I went to bed with Barrett. I tried everything I could to get him to calm down and sleep. I did not have any luck. Doug put Fisher in the portable crib, and he came to bed.

We had Barrett surrounded, but that didn't help.

He just kept talking, rolling, jumping, laughing, and NOT sleeping. We considered putting him in the crib and having Fisher with us, but the thought of possibly waking the only sleeping kid we had was just too risky.

Finally, Doug and I turned our backs to him and ignored him. He got really still and quiet, and just as I started to think I was going to sleep, Barrett scooted close to me, wiggled his fingers, and said, "tickle, tickle, tickle."

I laughed which led to another half hour of his bed aerobics.

Eventually either he fell asleep or we did, I'm really not sure.

At one point in the night, after Barrett had busted my lip with a kick to the face, I was sleeping across the bottom of the bed, Doug had his pillow on the nightstand, and Barrett was happily snoring.

Mental note to self: NEVER try that again. Barrett will be in the crib next time.

On Friday morning, we made it the the airport with no problems.

Barrett was thrilled to watch all the planes.





When we got on the plane, we had a 45 minute delay, so Barrett was pretty restless.

Fortunately, as soon as we were in the air, I turned on the DVD player, and he was perfect the whole flight with the exception of requesting DVD changes every 5 minutes. (Thank you Gigi for that wonderful Christmas gift!)


Fisher slept through his entire first flight.



Once we got to Tucson, Barrett was excited to see Papa, but more excited to see Digger and Brandy, the dogs.




When we made it outside, Barrett saw that Papa had a "big pool" in his yard. He ended up in the water before we even got his suit on. So, I ran in, found my suit, and swam with him. We hadn't even been there 15 minutes.

Later that night, Uncle Ray and Kristin drove in from Phoenix to stay for the weekend. Fisher was already out cold, and Barrett was nice and grumpy by then.

On Saturday morning, all the men went to play golf, and Kristin and I swam with Barrett.


While we swam, Mary held Fisher inside. (Fisher was held the WHOLE trip.)






Once the men came home, we all played in the pool while, once again, Mary held Fisher in the air-conditioned house or in the shade outside. We did the same thing on Sunday too.

Barrett loved swimming with Uncle Ray, Papa, and Daddy.


Barrett became an expert with the water gun. He could shoot anyone at any distance.

He also shot himself a few times too!

His other pool time entertainment was throwing golf balls in the pool for all of us to fetch. Papa was kind enough to pull out the bucket of 50 yellow range balls that Doug and I dove for over and over again.

He doesn't have the balls in this picture, but this is one of the places where he sat to throw and roll the balls in.

Doug thought that he was going to get to play with Papa's cool water toys, the remote control jet ski and boat, but Barrett had other plans.

On Sunday evening, Ray and Kristin went home, but the water fun continued the rest of the trip anyway. We just had less pairs of hands to help us.

Barrett not only loved the pool, but he also loved the sprinklers. He thought running through them was big fun, and he was mesmerized by the wet footprints on the ground.

Here is his footprint next to Papa's.

On our last day there, we of course, swam all day again. This time, Fisher actually made it into the pool once it was shaded in the evening. He didn't like the cold water at first, but once he got over the initial shock, he loved it.

He even managed to hang out in the big float too.

Overall, the trip was lots of fun with the the exception of the journey home. Barrett is still talking about the big pool with guns and golf balls.







Thank you Mary and Papa for having us out to your house. Maybe next year the boys will come on their own for a week or two! :)

Vacation?

I realized half way through my "vacation" that I never even mentioned on the blog that we were going to visit my dad in Arizona. We planned the trip at the last minute, so I guess things just got to busy.

We are now home, and I am EXHAUSTED! The trip itself wasn't too tiring, but the journey home was no fun at all.

A 3+ hour delay at the airport, a closed road which turned into an hour extra of driving, and a storm that required the high speed of about 30 mph to even be able to see, turning a 4 and a half hour trip into a 11 hour trip with two little ones just isn't all that enjoyable.

I'll write more on the trip later.

What are the odds I'll get a nap in today?

I know, not good, not good at all.

I Love Baby Einstein

There is nothing better than both boys being completely amused at the same time!

Happy Anniversary to Me

Today is my wedding anniversary.

One year ago today, I sat in the bathroom unable to believe what I was seeing, a positive pregnancy test.

I was pregnant with Fisher. Since it was a HUGE surprise for me, our anniversary last year was overshadowed by the fear of having two small children.

This morning, there was another surprise in the bathroom.

No, I am not pregnant.

On our wedding night, Doug had our hotel room covered in rose petals. Today, it was our bathroom.

Considering we were up most the night with Fisher, it was a really nice surprise to have all the sweet smelling rose petals and a really cheesy note from Doug written on the mirror.

When Barrett came into our bathroom as I was getting ready, he yelled, "Uh Oh, broke flowers, big mess!"

He was so upset about the mess, he grabbed a few rose petals and went running to tell Gigi about the mess.

This evening when Doug and I came home from dinner, I was changing into my jammies, and Barrett came into the bathroom.

He obviously got over the mess when he found a reason why the rose petals were fun to have all over the place.

He really was proud of himself when he realized he could attack Gigi with his roses...

I'm sure he was just telling Gigi how much he loves her.

Even though Doug can drive me crazy at times, I am really lucky to have a husband who loves me enough to not only talk Glenda, the balloon lady, into tearing apart roses to make the petals he needed, but he also had to ask a neighbor to store the rose petals in their refrigerator. Apparently, he made a mad dash over there last night to get them without me knowing.

This might not be a big deal to some of you who have overly romantic husbands, but for Doug this was WAY out of his comfort zone. :)

I guess I should do something for Father's Day now!

Monday Freeding Frenzy

I realize today isn't Monday, but it's been a busy week!

We woke up too early Monday morning, but somehow we still were running late to my bible study. Fisher was happily on the floor perfecting his rolling techniques as I chased a screaming almost-two-year-old around the house begging him to put pants on.

Fisher not only rolled completely across the room, he also managed to scoot to his brother's animal collection. The only good part of this was that Barrett got so mad at Fisher being near his zoo, that he forgot I was chasing him.

I don't know if it was all the rolling and scooting, or just that I didn't brush his hair after his bath the night before, but Fisher's hair was out of control. Since it was even more crazy than usual, I decided the shirt his Nana bought him was the best wardrobe choice.

We had a pretty good day after a crazy morning, and we ended the day with going out to eat with Gigi, Nana, and Paw.

We went to a Mexican place that we love mainly because they are fast and have free ice cream; two necessities with Barrett.

When I was reading my menu, I noticed that on Mondays, kids eat free. Since Barrett never eats, I've never ordered him anything. Sometimes he'll eat a little rice and cheese, but it's never enough to warrant paying for his own meal.

But, since it was free, I ordered him a queso puff and rice.

When his plate came, it had a giant queso puff and tons of rice. Seriously, there was about three cups of rice on the plate. I handed him a fork, and he started eating. I mean, really eating. Barrett ate the entire puff and about two cups of rice.

Then, I got him ice cream. He ate most of it before asking to eat MORE rice and cheese. He was eating it until the moment we got up from the table.

For the first time ever, I had to say that he needed to stop eating. (I wouldn't normally stop him, but I was concerned he might puke if he ate more.)

Since we had been so successful with Barrett, Doug and I decided that we'd see if the eating would continue at home with Fisher.

When we got home, we prepared everything, and Fisher had his first taste of rice cereal. At first, he had no clue what was going on, but when the spoon hit his mouth, he knew it was something good.

He ate quite a bit, and for the second time in one night, I had to stop one of my kids from eating too much.



If the first night is an indicator, Fisher should be a much better eater than his big brother!

He's Not Sick

This past week has been VERY busy and VERY long.

Normally, I have to look for things to write on the calender, but this week I had vacation bible school all week, a lake trip with a bunch of junior and senior high kids, a graduation party, and my mom was flying in.

As I looked at the calendar last weekend, I was so happy to feel like I had a life outside of my house for a change, but Sunday night made me realize that a full week was not going to be a good thing.

Fisher was up most the night Sunday, so as I drove to VBS Monday morning, I called the doctor to see about getting in. After trying to organize the 37 junior high, 4 high school, and 2 adult volunteers I had "helping" me with the outdoor games while I was on hold for 45 minutes, I knew the week wasn't going to be so fun.

I got an appointment with a doctor, but when you call on a Monday morning along with 3 billion other people, you have to take what you can get. The only good part was that they could see Fisher at 1 which meant that I could be at VBS to lead my area because leaving it with only my volunteers on the first day would have been disastrous considering NONE of them had ever helped with it before.

The first day of VBS wasn't without it glitches, but overall, it was great. I wish I could say the same about the doctor's visit.

When we went to sign in, I learned we'd be seeing a doctor that was in for a doctor that was out of town. He might have been good, but a doctor that is a fill in doctor makes me nervous. I just feel like if he was really good, he'd have his own practice.

I was right. I think we would have been better off driving by, throwing $25 out the window, and getting home in time for Barrett's nap.

The fill-in doctor told me that Fisher isn't sick. The fact that he coughed all night, wasn't sleeping, and wasn't eating meant nothing. His only suggestion was to give Fisher Triaminic or Pediacare. When I asked about dosage, he pointed at Barrett and said he could have what I give him. I know Barrett's not a big kid, but he is a lot bigger that a 3 and a half month old baby.

Monday night was sleepless again. So, Tuesday, I called and left a message for my doctor to call me. My call was returned really quickly, and I was told the correct dosage. (My doctor also wanted to know all the details of the fill-in doctor visit. I don't think he'll ever fill in for her!)

VBS went amazingly smooth all week, but the lack of sleep due to the "not sick" baby was making me insane.

So, Thursday morning, I called for an appointment with our normal doctor. I drove to VBS to get everything as organized as I could, drove to the doctor, and again I was told he's still not sick.

Ugh!

Doug's mom picked the kids up from the doctor's office so I could rush to be on time to go on the retreat with the older kids.

You know it's been a rough week when being on a party boat with 40 junior high and high school kids is relaxing.

Mom flew in Friday morning, and was quick to notice that Fisher was not in a good mood. His mood got worse ALL day.

Friday night was awful, last night was worse. He's not sleeping at all.

Last night, I was up with him from 1 until 4:30, and I gave up and got Doug. Doug was up with him until we went to church.

Fisher is coughing, moody, and not sleeping well at all, but at least I know he's "not sick".

Maybe he's teething. Maybe he's just figured out how to cough. Maybe he's really hungry at night. Whatever it is, I hope he gets over not being sick soon.

Locked Out

This morning, we took a trip to Walmart to get out of the house. We really didn't need anything, but we went anyway. That probably tells you how my morning was going while Doug was out playing golf.

When we returned from Walmart, I took Barrett out of the car and told him to carry his sippy cup in and put it on the kitchen counter while I unloaded the things we didn't need to buy.

He ran to the door, laughed, and shut it.

This is actually a normal thing for him to do. I reminded him I still needed to get Fisher out of the car, and I opened the door to go back into the garage.

As I was unloading Fisher, the door slammed shut again followed by the typical, "uh-oh."

As I was walking to the door, I was lecturing him about not shutting it while Mommy is in the garage. Then, I went to open the door, but it was locked.

Barrett locked me out.

Not on purpose, but somehow he hit the little lock button next to the knob.

I told him to turn the knob, and I could hear him trying. Unfortunately, he wasn't successful.

I went back to my car to get my keys because usually I leave them in it when it's in the garage, but usually wasn't today.

So, now Fisher and I are in the garage while my keys to the house, my cell phone, his bottles, and Barrett are all locked safely in the house.

I look next door, and one of the neighbor's cars is home.

I run next door and bang on the door, but they don't answer. Either they're not home or they are ignoring the door which is very common for them. (Mental note to self: make house key copies for more neighbors!)

I run back to the garage, and I can still hear Barrett messing with the door knob. I am amazed how well he listened to me. I guess I need to sound panicked more often.

I realize that him turning the knob enough to make the lock "pop" may not happen, so I try another approach.

I ask him to go get his stool from his potty and bring it to the front door. To my amazement, he says, "yep."

I run to the front door and look through the glass that I always complain people can see in. (Now I am glad it's there.)

Barrett was just rounding the corner to his bathroom.

He is very easily distracted when we send him on other missions, so I was concerned that the unsupervised bathroom might be way too tempting.

Just a few seconds later, he comes running back around the corner carrying the stool looking extremely proud of himself.

He gets it to the front door, and I tell him to stand on it.

I then begin trying to explain to him to turn the dead bolt lock. He looked confused, but he was trying to listen.

He finally grabbed on to it, and as I cheered for him, I told him to turn it.

He was trying to turn it, and I was encouraging him to keep trying.

He finally stopped and told me it was, "too heavy." I told him to keep trying, but it never worked.

Next, we tried the garage door again, but it wasn't looking good.

I decided that I would have to find another neighbor that was home to let me call Doug or help me break in if he didn't answer on the golf course. I was just worried about leaving Barrett for too long.

As I was walking out of the garage with Fisher, I heard the greatest sound ever, "pop," followed by, "Yea Barrett."

I ran back to the door, and it was unlocked. After 45 minutes of trying, Barrett unlocked a door!

I know the lesson here should be about not leaving a toddler in the house alone even for a second, keeping an extra key hidden somewhere, or having more than one neighbor with a key, but what I learned is that Doug shouldn't leave to play golf on Saturday mornings.

After all, they wouldn't have been driving me crazy, I wouldn't have made a pointless trip to Walmart, and I wouldn't have ever been locked out by my son. Therefore, this was entirely Doug's fault! :)