That place where everyone takes their kids in October

It's been almost two weeks ago now since the boys and I went to the pumpkin patch. We had a nice cool Monday morning and decided to go. Last year Drew was so little, so pumpkin patches weren't tops on my priority list. I remember driving past the (very picked over) field a few days before Halloween last year and being mad at myself for not going sooner. So this year we went with plenty of time to spare.....and I think this particular church must have just gotten a new shipment of them.....there was hardly any room to walk or sit!

The boys had fun....Grant was being his outdoor self and running and jumping all over the place. He had fun collecting all of the small pumpkins in the wheelbarrow, and of course he wanted to play chase (meaning we chase him). He'd notice an especially large one and say, "look at this big pumpkin!" And he had fun jumping off the hay bales.

Drew was my photogenic one this year.....he's always loved being outside, but I think even more so now that he can walk. He was giddy just walking around exploring the place. Especially at the beginning, he was interested in the pumpkins, trying to move them and even trying to taste them. And I was able to make funny noises to get him to smile for the camera. It's actually very difficult taking a good smiling picture of Grant right now. In the first picture, I had asked him to stand next to Drew. He knows what this means.....he walks over, looks at the camera and says "cheese!" about three times before running off. But his "cheese" face never ends up being a very good smile!

I don't know what it is, but pumpkin pictures are just so darn cute. It probably has a lot to do with all the colors.....the green of the trees and grass and the bright orange of the pumpkins.....it just makes for a great background. For me, I have to take some pictures and then step back and just enjoy watching the boys for a while. My tendency is to take pictures every second because the place just lends itself to great photos!

A first

Both boys went to sleep around 12:15. Grant woke up about ten minutes ago (it's 3:20 now) and Drew is still asleep! I'm pretty sure that Drew has never taken a longer nap than Grant. But he's had croup for a couple of days and isn't feeling very well, so he definitely needs the sleep.

My post from last Friday seems too old to even post.....so I'll just have to start something else. The past couple of days I've been trying to order pictures from Kodak (I had a credit that had to be used by yesterday). And today I've been working on making a BookSmart book from some of our early blog posts. I got so much done during the past few hours! So I've been neglecting the blog....hopefully I'll get back on track next week.....

ah, man!!!

I was just about to finish a post I'd started on Friday.....Grant and Drew both took 3-hour naps on Saturday and Sunday (somewhat normal for Grant but not Drew), so I was hoping they'd do the same today. But Drew is crying right now....after sleeping for an hour. Boooo.....

Why is it that they both sleep so well for me when Dean is home to help out? Then when I'm here by myself, it's back to the one-hour naps?

Oh well.....maybe tomorrow......

Interesting.....

Recently I became curious and went on a search to find out more about blood types. You always hear about universal donors and universal recipients, but I can never remember the details. So I found these charts that I thought were interesting. Here's the breakdown of the U.S. population:

I always assumed that every blood type was just about as common as every other, but apparently the majority of people in the U.S. (over 70%) are either O positive or A positive. So then you can look at this next chart and see what types of blood you can receive for your blood type. I'm A negative.....so it's a little scary to think that if I ever need blood, I'd have to get it from a person who's either A negative or O negative (only 13% of the population, combined). It makes me want to go donate!!

If your blood type is:	You can receive:
	O-	O+	B-	B+	A-	A+	AB-	AB+
AB+	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
AB-	yes		yes		yes		yes
A+	yes	yes			yes	yes
A-	yes				yes
B+	yes	yes	yes	yes
B-	yes		yes
O+	yes	yes
O-	yes

Thirteen months

Drew is 13 months old today! He's got quite a little personality and tries very hard to be a big boy!

Some things about Drew at 13 months:

He pulls books off his bookshelf and likes to flip through them. His favorites are the books that have kitties in them. He screams/shreiks "TEEE!" when he sees a picture of a kitty. He doesn't really care about any other animals except the cats!

He's not a big fan of shoes right now.....he learned how to walk without them, so now he tries pulling them off as soon as I put them on.

He loves going outside, and he always makes a beeline for the pot full of dirt on our patio. The other night he started digging and make quite a mess before Dean noticed!

He also loves climbing up the ladder on the playground. There are some pieces of rotting wood at the top, and it grosses me out when he digs around in it. So I try keeping him off the playground at all, but he gets so angry when I don't let him go up there.

We play on the swings all the time.....probably every day. Lately, Grant will grab Drew's swing and they swing together. Drew gets such a kick out of this.

He'll make car noises with his mouth while he's playing with cars and trucks (something he definitely learned from big brother).

Drew eats a waffle every morning for breakfast. When he hears the toaster pop, he starts squealing and gets so excited!

Some other favorite foods: hot dogs/sausage, cereal bars, grapes, tortillas, goldfish, pineapples, pancakes, Pringles! And of course any bites of cookies/sweets we give him. Unfortunately, he refuses any veggies......of course I must admit that at this point I hardly even try. It's hard enough to just get something on the table, so most of the time even Dean and I don't eat vegetables!

He loves playing on top of beds....he always gets so excited when I'm holding him and I walk remotely close to our bed. He and Grant have a fun time wrestling up there, and on our guest bed. It's also an easy way for him to get into things on my bedside table!

When he sees a soccer ball (or any ball), he'll walk up to it and kick it along with him as he walks. He laughs and thinks this is so funny!

He loves waving to people.....I'll tell Grant to say hi to someone, and Drew starts waving at them too!

A few other pictures.......

Finally!

It was finally cool this weekend, after a warm early October. On Friday morning, the boys played outside in the sand and actually had to wear jackets! It's about time!!


Later that morning I took the boys up to Hermann Park.....we ate lunch near the reflecting pool and then rode the train. Grant had a good time waving to people as we rode along. And a couple of times he looked at me and said, "I love this train ride." Drew didn't enjoy it so much.....he kept wanting to climb into the seat in front of us, but there were people sitting there! I tried giving him his blanky at one point (usually it settles him down, especially when he's tired....which he was). But he immediately threw it to the side, and out the train it flew! Thankfully we were about 50 feet from one of the stops, so one of the workers ran back and got it for us.




Our friend the squirrel....he thoroughly enjoyed the bites of peanut butter sandwich that we shared with him.
For some reason, I remembered that I took Grant to Hermann Park in October when he was Drew's age. Sure enough, Grant and I were there exactly two years before, on October 16, 2007. Grant and I had a blast up in town that day (visiting a lot of my favorite Houston places), so I remember these pictures like I took them yesterday. It's amazing how fast two years goes by!

Dude perfect

Maybe a lot of you Aggies already know about this group, but I hadn't heard of them until I saw them interviewed on Fox News last week. This is amazing!!




Go to dudeperfect.com and it'll give you a link to all of their YouTube videos. They also seem like quality guys. In these days of worse-than-mediocre Aggie football, at least here is something we can be proud of! :)

Nighty night time

Drew is often in a silly, playful mood at bedtime. He doesn't really like to sit and read books in my lap yet (unless he's in charge, which means he just turns the pages back and forth and doesn't let me read a book start to finish), but lately he enjoys playing in his crib for a few minutes before going to sleep.

We've been having so much fun with Drew this past week. He's just becoming such a funny little guy....he wants to be a big boy so badly. If he hears everybody laughing, he'll laugh loudly too. He gets up on Grant's mini trampoline and does his own little version of jumping. He walks into a room with something sticking out of his mouth, smiling, because he knows we'll laugh at him.

Last week I said "eewww" and I scrunched up my nose when he had a poopy diaper, and he got such a kick out of it. He let out a little yelp to tell me to do it again. So I did it again....he laughed and laughed, then screamed again. We went back and forth for probably 12 times.....I've never heard him laugh so hard.

He will put food in our hands, then push our hands towards us as if to say, "here, eat this." And he'll grab the shopping cart to push it down the hall, then turn and wave bye-bye to us as he's walking away.

Tonight we had small group at our house, and I made a Halloween funfetti cake. All of us were having a piece so Drew wanted one too. I put him in his seat, and I set a small piece on his tray and crumbled it up for him. He did NOT like that....he started fussing instantly. I should have known. He never likes me to tear his waffle apart.....he wants to eat it whole (like a big boy). Sure enough, we got him a new piece of cake and he ate it, no problem!

Evening at the park

Dean worked late a few nights last week, so one night I took the boys to Clear Lake park to play for a while. Grant watched Peter Pan on the way over (this was apparently a bit of a scarier part)......Drew always loves climbing around on playground equipment:
He had such fun crawling up, then falling down the slide:

We stood by the lake and watched a big boat go by......

We stopped at a picnic bench by the water and ate our animal crackers for a few minutes. Drew just wanted to sit and pick at the debris on the shore, so we couldn't stay for long!


We walked a little more, but it was so wet from raining the day before. So that meant there were multitudes of mosquitos, especially as we walked down the shore a little farther. So I started panicking and we headed for the car (it really grosses me out when I glance down my back and see four mosquitos feasting on my arms and legs at one time!).


Notice Grant's shaggy hair in those pictures? He got it chopped off on Saturday. This is the shortest he's ever had it, and I'm still getting used to it. But it was getting embarrassingly long. I'd rather it be a tiny bit longer, but I don't want to pay to have it cut more than every couple of months. I haven't taken many pictures of him since then, but here he and Drew are fighting over play-doh (Drew always wants whatever is in Grant's hands at that particular moment). And another shot of his short hair (being silly and not smiling for the camera):