To Infinity and Beyond!

Half joke... half for real... the prom theme was To Infinity and Beyond for Riverside this year. Originally I thought it would be cool so that I could lift the extra decorations for Bryce's birthday, but since Mickey Mouse is much cooler to him than Buzz or Woody, oh well. I will say that Emerson helped make all the centerpieces! For real! Our balloon guy is awesome and made an amazing arch and rockets and the like. The place looked sweet... but five minutes into prom it was destroyed by the excitement of teenagers and candy. Oh well!

Thanks Great Lakes Brewing Company...

Bryce has been struggling with the sippy cup thing. He likes to have his bottle feed to him and he loves drinking out of a straw, so sippy cups were not on his "do" list... until last night. Since he hit 10 months I see the end of the bottle. Emerson kicked it at exactly one year. Not even a bedtime bottle. We are not a good tapering family, we tend to play the cold turkey thing. So, when Bryce has yet to even try a sippy cup I have been kinda frazzled on what we are going to do. And then I sat down next to him with a beer bottle for me and a sippy cup for him. I showed him how I drank from the bottle by tipping it back and after a few times Bryce tipped the cup up and his head back and done! The kid loves it. He even fed himself half a bottle today! So, thank you Great Lakes Brewing Company. I feel as if you had a small part in getting Bryce a step closer to independence.

Roller Derby and Messy Babies...

Bryce eats naked now. I gave up. The mess is so outta control that at least naked, I only have the chair, floor and the rest of the kitchen to clean! On the flip side, Emerson has discovered roller skates... well actually, she has discovered all things with wheels. Today she managed to take a one mile bike ride and only stopped a few times for broken sidewalks. She has also managed to get some serious skate time in and can lap the kitchen without a problem. BRRG here she comes!

10 MONTHS!!!!

I hate this getting older thing... for myself and the kids! Bryce is still the happiest baby on the Earth. He goes with the flow on almost everything. Naps when you want him to, eats when you want him to... so easy. Now that he is able to feed himself his cups and bottles he feels much more in control of everything. He loves to mimic us on the phone. He will steal it, dial a few numbers and then place it behind his head and drop it. The process is repeated at least five times till he figures out that he has it wrong and moves on! The other day I put shoes on him (I don't do baby shoes, but these puppies were meant to keep the socks on) and left him in his room with the gate shut. After helping Emerson out I returned to find him standing free form a foot away from the gate. I probably shouldn't have yelled, from excitement, for he plopped back down from the shock... but he proved that he is getting there! He still doesn't care that much for the standing thing, but he will pull up and stand crawl every once and a while. Mama and Dada are good and he is working on hi and Jager. He knows who Emerson is, but can't crack the Emme yet. No bye-bye, but he does wave and clap at everything. His favorite is watching Emerson at gymnastics and clapping for all the kids! He is a doll and we are so blessed to have him!

Nice Try!

I scheduled an appointment for Emerson and Bryce to get their pictures taken. That morning Bryce woke up with a semi black-eye. So, I canceled the appointment. The next day his eye was fine, so we decided to try to take a couple of picture on a beautiful sunny day. After 60 pictures I have a new appreciation for photographers. One kid... cake. One kid and a baby... not so bad. One kid and a crawling 9 month old... insanity. Thank goodness I really do not like posed photos (which is why I dislike taking them to the studios), because not a single pic from the 60 worked into the concept of posed! Although Bryce with the microphone may just work for American Idol 24.

SLOW DOWN!!!

Bryce is a mad man. He doesn't settle long on any one item, instead he is focused on knocking over and dismantling as many items in his path as he can. Nanny had a tent at her house that was never used. We brought it home. It was meant for Emerson, but Bryce has taken it over. He crawls in and then knocks it over and laughs hysterically. He crawls out and waits for you to set it back up and then repeats the process. IF you don't set it back up, he just crawls around until he finds something else to destroy. I hope this is a phase!

No pacifier... but a frog?

Neither Bryce nor Emerson ever enjoyed a pacifier. Mind you, I tried. I had hoped it would settle them to sleep but they both refused. Emerson would suck on her fingers, but that passed. Bryce has taken to sucking on his frog and/or hippo. Kinda weird, but comforting. The only downfall to this is that the frog and hippo need to be washed a heck of a lot more!