My Little Talker!

I have been working on Andrew's one year old scrapbook on shutterfly and I decided that I would do a page with all the words he knows. I spent a few days listening to him talk and thinking about what words he says on a regular basis. I came up with a pretty long list. There are about 85 words that he knows and says with meaning. I was pretty excited! I asked the doctor how many words he should know by age 2 and he said that was pretty normal. I was hoping I had some sort of genius baby, but it turns out he's just an average toddler! HA!

Andrew's words at 22 months: (in no particular order and his pronunciation is a little different!)

Uh-oh * ouch * vaccum * hot * cold * dog * kitty-cat * lights on * lights off * car * truck * maccie (for maccaroni) * bottle * cup * fish sticks * water * agua (Spanish for water) * fish sticks * crackers * no * bite * eat * poo poo * pee pee * diaper * potty * bath * inside * outside * bubbles * phone * go * eye * nose * teeth * feet * blankie * ball * bed * night night * bye bye * TV * book * monkey * clean up * mop * mommy * daddy * Mimi * Mere * Don * Amy * Grandad * Nana * Gracey * Ally * Izzy * Bear Bear * Lucky * loud * open * down * banana * bird * cookie * more * Andrew * alligator * whoa * peaches * light * cream (in reference to lotion or ice cream) * chalk * baby * hand * biscuit * chip * egg * pizza * all done * hello * hi * bowl * tummy * yes * yeah * yummy *

A Much Needed Vacation!

Jason and I decided that we would go to LA for our summer vacation. We had thought about taking Andrew, but we decided that it would just be easier not to. We left on Monday morning and got to LA Monday afternoon and after having a minor spat with the rental car people arrived at The Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica- just 2 blocks from my sisters apartment. It was an awesome hotel. We really enjoyed staying there. Our first night there we went to the Third Street Prominade with Emily and her rooommate Jennifer. We ate at Cabo Cantina where Emily works (she actually works at the one in Venice Beach, but the food was the same). After dinner we went and saw The Hangover. It was a really funny movie- a little graphic for my taste, but I got several good laughs out of it. By the way, this was the first movie I've seen in a theatre since before Andrew was born. The last movie I saw was The Breakup or You, Me, and Dupree.
The next day Jason and I decided to go to Burbank and take the Warner Brothers Studios Tour. I wanted to go to Universal, but they don't let pregnant women ride anything so I would be totally bored! The Warner Brothers Studios Tour was AWESOME. I'm not kidding, we learned so much about the production of television shows and movies. We saw the whole 10,000 + acre lot and there were so many familiar things on the lot that have been used in many different movies and TV shows. It was awesome. I took a ton of pictures and could go into great detail about TV and movie production, but I don't have enough time! We went to lunch at Bob's Big Boy home of the double decker hamburger. Jason and I have seen this place on the travel channel a few times and thought it looked good. The food was good, but the service was not. We had dinner at Ocean Avenue Seafood overlooking the ocean. I had the best halibut I've ever tasted. It was the freshest seafood we've had since Hawaii. Jason had a lobster and he said it was excellent.
On Wednesday we went with Emily and ate at Paradise Cove on the beach in Malibu. I had the best jumbo shrimp ever! You sit outside in the sand, it's really fun! We went to Beverly Hills and walked around the shops. Then, we went to Hermosa Beach to visit our friends Collin and Bekah that moved out there. It was great to see them. Collin grilled steaks and we had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed sitting on their patio and looking at the ocean. They have a really neat house in walking distance to the beach- how fun!
We headed home Thursday after eating lunch at Patrick's in Santa Monica with Emily and two of her friends that came for a visit. Our flight got delayed at LAX (shocking!) causing us to miss our flight to Little Rock from Dallas. Thankfully the airline ended up putting us up for the night at the DFW Ramada so Jason spent our 4 year anniversery eating Domino's pizza at midnight in a very questionable hotel room and getting up at 4:30 am to catch our flight back home!
Here are some pictures from our trip.

Jason and I at Central Perk on the actual set that was used on the final episode.
Warner Bros Studios

Bob's Big Boy

Us on the Santa Monica Pier

Emily and I at Paradise Cove

Recent pictures of Andrew

Here are some recent pictures of Andrew. I've ment to post them earlier, but we've been on vacation!

Mere and Don sent Andrew a new adarondack (sp?) chair. He really likes it! He especially enjoyed helping his Daddy build it.
He got to use the screwdriver to make sure all the screws were in tight!

We went to OKC a couple of weekends ago and he got to see his great grandparents.

He also visited his Nana for her birthday!

One of his new favorite things is to lay in the bed and pretend to go "night night". He will go in the bedrooms and say "bed, night night" and he wants you to put him in the bed. He will get the remote and say "T" for TV and he wants you to turn it on. He doesn't watch TV, but he thinks you have to have it on in bed. I wonder where he learned that??

Confessions Of A Part Time Stay At Home Mom

As most of you know, I don't work during the summers which I love! Recently, I have discovered that I am not a good stay at home mom. I don't think of great projects or fun things to do with Andrew each day, I don't have dinner waiting on the table when Jason gets home, some days I don't wash my hair, I never put on make up- unless I'm seeing friends or going to church, and my house never stays clean for more than an hour. I'll even admit that somedays Andrew and I stay in our pajamas until after naptime and somedays we sleep through breakfast. Why am I admiting this dark little secret? Because, I would like to do a better job when we are at home. Now, let me just say, Andrew has learned a lot over the last month that I've been home with him- and not just good summer sleeping habits! He can say tons of words, he helps do the laundry and vacuum, he picks up his toys (sometimes) and makes lots of new animal sounds! So, I'm not totally failing as a mom, just as a housekeeper!
My biggest question is how do you keep your house in order? I'm not asking for perfection, but I just feel like my house never looks quite presentable for the outside world. I clean it a lot, but it never stays that way for long and I just can't figure out what is causing it. Andrew only creates so much mess and the dog and cats, although they shed, they don't drag anything out. The biggest mess is my kitchen. I don't understand how a freshly mopped floor can go from sparkling to sticky in a matter of minutes, but this is what happens at our house. I don't leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight, we always run the dishwasher before we go to bed, but yet it's still a dirty kitchen. It's little things too, like a load of laundry that didn't get folded so a cat decided to sleep in it and then it needs to be washed again or Andrew decided that it would be really fun to climb up on the bed and throw the laundry all over the bedroom. Then, it's all the little things that he's not supposed to have out, but he somehow manages to get and I just set them on the cabinet or somewhere up high to be put up later, but later never comes and I've got random items throughout my house. Or, like right now Andrew just emptied the upstairs bathroom cabinet and unfolded about 10 towels and threw them all over the floor.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how you keep your house together and does anyone feel the same way that I do? Also, any fun ideas that you do with your kids? We pretty much stay inside all day because it's so hot and do our outside playing after dinner. I'm hoping to get better at this staying home thing, because I'll be home this fall and winter as well- and I'll have two kids to clean up after!

Happy 4th of July!

We had a fun 4th of July this year! Melanie and Kit and Drew, Mel and Penny came over and we cooked steaks, baked potatoes, salad, and lots of desserts- including homemade ice-cream! After we had stuffed ourselves with dinner, we went outside and watched the fireworks displays going on all around us and had a little show of our own. Andrew did not like the fireworks- or bubbles as he called them. I thought that was pretty creative of him to think that they were bubbles! He would not let go of me when we were shooting off the fireworks!

Here we are with our terrified little boy who kept wanting to go inside! He never wants to go inside!
He did enjoy the party poppers (also called bubbles)

We had to shoot off all the party poppers before everyone got there, because he was having a meltdown! Probably because he had not taken a nap in two days!

Melanie let Andrew and Penny walk Jack. You can hardly see him, he was running way too fast!

Andrew enjoyed watching his dad set off the fireworks from the safety of Kit's lap!

He only sat by himself for a second!

Giving Penny a kiss goodbye!

A Trip to the Gentry Zoo

On Friday, we decided that since Jason was off work we would take Andrew to the Gentry Zoo. He really enjoyed the petting zoo, being able to run around and pet the animals. He was a little shy at first, he didn't really want to touch anything- that is surprising since he loves to pet Ally and Gracey! He finally warmed up to the animals and really enjoyed himself. He especially liked getting to feed some of the horses and goats. He even liked feeding the people. When someone would throw the food to the animals, he would pick it up and give it back to them. It was pretty sweet! He didn't really pay much attention to the drive thru part of the zoo. I let him sit in my lap so he could see, but he was more interested in all the buttons and lights in the car that he didn't really pay much attention- even when the emu put its beak up to the window!

Andrew really liked petting the bunnies

Here he is feeding a Zebra/Horse (we couldn't tell exactly what it was...)