Family Vacation Continued

I still have tons of pictures from our trip to Ruidoso to share. The last post, we had just arrived in Ruidoso after our exciting morning in Midland. After a good night's rest in our beautiful hotel, we hit the ground running on Monday. J and Daddy cheese it up at lunch at one of our favorite places - The Hummingbird Tearoom. Their chicken salad sandwich is soooooo yummy. We sat outside and enjoyed the amazing weather.

After lunch, we headed to one of those places that guarantee you will catch a fish. Since J has been fishing a couple of times, but had not yet caught anything, we decided it was time for him to experience the excitement of reeling one in (or in this case, pulling one in!)

J and Daddy pose with his first fish!!!

Papa holds up the big catch. Slippery little booger kept falling on the ground. J wanted NO part of holding it. He did watch the owner clean the two fish he caught. Then we took them back to the hotel restaurant to be cooked. wink, wink ;)

Later that evening, we headed to the Flying J Ranch. Here is J (standing in our hotel lobby area) in his authentic western shirt (it was his Daddy's...isn't that neat??? It's a little big, but he insisted on wearing it. It really is so special - thanks Nana for finding it!)

Back to the Flying J - it's an old west town, with a live shoot-em-up show, and real cowboy chuckwagon cookin'. Plus, a sweet little western musical show with a champion yodeler.

L also got in on the cowboy hat action.

"Oh give me a home..."


J's a natural on a horse.


L doesn't looked thrilled here, but we think he liked it!



After a yummy dinner, Cowboy J kicked back to listen to some great music.

Next, a trip to Lincoln (as in Lincoln County Wars and Billy the Kid) and Capitan, home of Smokey Bear!

On this day last year...

...I was HUGE! :) Actually, I wasn't nearly as big as I was when I was 38 weeks pregnant with J. Thank goodness L was a small fry!

Six days and counting...my baby is turning ONE!!!!

Watermelon Jubilee & Rodeo

As those of you near and dear know, the 3rd weekend in June is a special one in the little town where I come from. Every year, on that weekend, our quiet little town turns into a hub of activity for the annual Watermelon Jubilee. This year was the 65th annual, and boy has it changed since I was a kid. Mostly for the better, but more on that later.

Here are two pictures from Friday night. J picked out an oh-so-cool cowboy hat when we were in New Mexico a couple of weeks ago. And he really did pick it out all by himself - walked right over to a WALL of hats, plucked this one off of a hat holder and announced he found "the hat" - and it FIT! Of course, I had to buy him his first real pair of cowboy boots to go with the hat.

Check out our lil' cowboy.



I can't get over how cute he looked! He kept saying, "I'm a REAL cowboy." In fact, he even got in the rodeo arena. It is a tradition to have a calf scramble mid-way through the rodeo. It is for all kids under the age of 12. (Yes, I did it when I was a kid.) At first, J wasn't so sure, but after seeing all the other kids climbing the fence and running in the dirt, he was game. That's him lined up on the end on the left.

He didn't get close to either calf, but he had fun running around, falling down, and running around some more. One of his cousins did get the ribbon off of the calf's tail and won 2nd place! WOOHOO!

More on the Jubilee tomorrow. Tonight, I need sleep...

Xtreme Teething

A quick post (so I don't forget for his baby book later) -

L has officially gone from 4 teeth to 7 teeth in TWO DAYS. An 8th one is on it's way, but yesterday, another bottom tooth (to the left of his two center teeth) broke through, and today, I noticed two more on the top (on either side of his top two) had FINALLY broken through as well. That would explain the moaning I heard from his crib this morning from about 5 a.m. to a little after 6 a.m. Poor baby. Teething is hard work!

The good news - since this little guy is ALL about table food these days, these new teeth just mean more chompers to eat that meat with. So far, he hasn't met a beef, chicken or pork he doesn't like. :) Tonight, he ate a bowl of daddy's yummy spaghetti with meat sauce. And diced apples. And some cheerios. That was just dinner!

Two weeks from today he'll be ONE!

Family Vacation Part 2

I think it's has taken me a couple of days to muster the energy to write this post because a) it's not the best memory of our little trip and b) well, I've been sick. Doesn't that always seem to happen after a trip?

So I left off with what a great time we were having in Midland at Aunt J's house. Wonderful food, great company, a private pool...what more can you ask for? Hmmmm, how about NO drama as you leave on the second part of your trip???

On Sunday morning, the hubby and I woke up early so that we could get dressed and packed before the boys woke up. We wanted to get out the door fairly early since we had another 5 hour drive ahead of us. As we were getting dressed, both boys ended up awake (unusual for being so early). Somehow, L ended up crawling to the edge of a bed he had been sitting on and dove head first onto the bare, brick floors. Cringe. It honestly still makes my stomach turn thinking about it. Long story short, L and I ended up in an ambulance and taking a ride to the Midland ER. This all happened around 7:30 a.m. so the ER was not busy at all. This was blessing #1. They got us straight into a room, and within a matter of minutes, a doctor was by our side. After a thorough check of L and his noggin, the doc discussed some options with us, and on his recommendation, we were taken off for an X-Ray. At this point, L was already terrified of anyone other than his daddy or me, so getting him to lay still (or should I say, the nurse and I holding him still) was not easy. Blessing #2 - no signs of a fracture or crack in his skull or any serious damage. BTW - we were able to see the xray pics come up on a screen as they were taken. His "little" head looked so big and his skull looked very thick. It was the first time we thanked God for making his head so big & hard! We left the hospital shaken, but very thankful it ended with just some bruising and a little swelling. It could have been much worse.

So after heading back to Aunt J's house, we ate an early lunch, made sure L was showing no signs of confusion (kinda hard with an infant btw) or upset tummy and finally left for NM. By this time, Grammy and Papa had met us at Aunt J's house and so off we went on the 2nd leg of our little family vacation. (Grammy and Papa volunteered to tag along to help with the boys so the hubby and I could have a little time to ourselves...which was much needed after all of this!)

The third blessing we discovered, is that our little guy heals FAST! His daddy nicknamed him baby wolverine because just two days after his fall, his bruise had already started to fade so much that you really could just see a light gray/light purple outline of it. Plus, more of it was in his hairline than we originally thought, and that helped cover it up too. At any rate, this kid has one tough noggin!

The picture of L below is after arriving at the resort in NM. This was roughly 12 hours after the fall. You can see the purple about an inch or two above his nose, kinda going a bit more to the left and it continued up into his hairline. I didn't take too many pictures of him up close on this day (I had to enlarge this one). Maybe my subconscious didn't want any reminders!

Yes, we made the boys get out for the traditional "crossing the state line" picture. Hey, this was L's first time out of the state of TX!

One of many pictures we took from our balcony. This just happened to be the first one that the hubby took so I thought I would share it here. There is a lake, golf course, casino, and obviously mountains at this resort. So pretty!

Happy 11 Months Baby!

I have to interrupt the vacation posts for L's monthly birthday post. He turned 11 months while we were in New Mexico last week. I choose the picture of L and his daddy (on his bday) for this post because it really captures his personality. See him grinding those teeth and squirming? He's trying to figure out the best way to wiggle out of daddy's arms and get to whatever it is he wanted at that moment. He is a determined child, that is for sure.

Anyway, it was a BIG week for him, packed full of tons of "firsts." Here is a quick list of his latest accomplishments:

• first trip to Aunt J and Uncle T's house
• first trip out of our home state
• first time to clap his hands (really clap...up until last week it was with only one hand opened, or both closed)
• first swim in a pool
• first time to wave while saying "Hi" (with a serious southern accent to it)
• first time to sit on a horse (just sit, no riding)
• first ambulance ride to the ER (isn't this just the highlight of this list? Details in the next post.)

While standing up a couple of weeks ago, he also let go of his daddy's hands and stood on his own for a couple of seconds. He'll be trying to take those first steps any day now...I really am not pushing it though. ;)

He is starting to babble more and more. And he is becoming VERY vocal about what he wants, and he wants it NOW. He also wasn't too thrilled about the car trip, but more about that later. Despite him becoming more vocal, he is still an incredibly sweet little guy. He still loves to give kisses and cuddles, and still melts my heart with his funny giggle. I cannot believe that in less than one month, he'll be turning one. Amazing...

Family Vacation Part 1

We are home after braving our first trip out of state with two kiddos. There is so much to blog about that I'm not even sure where to begin. Since I have so many fun pictures and stories to share, I have decided to break it up into parts - so this is Part 1 and it took place in good ol' Midland Texas.

This first leg of our trip was a special stop. We traveled to Midland to spend a couple of nights with Aunt J, Uncle T and their twin boys. We were all so excited - we hadn't seen them since Christmas, and the twins turned 1 in February so they had grown so much! We had a great car ride up on Friday, and then were treated to dinner with the family that night. Three high chairs at one table can make some people nervous, but our boys were great.

The next day was totally a day of leisure. We were in and out of the pool all day, and L took his first real swim (which he loved as you can tell from the picture above). Then Uncle T grilled out and we had a fabulous dinner - we even got to meet some of Aunt J's nice friends (who happen to have two very adorable kids of their own). At one point, we did kinda feel like we had a little daycare happening, but all of the kids were so well behaved!

Both J and L LOVED the pool. And both J and L LOVED their cousins. I think J thought it was so cool to have two little guys that could walk and follow him around. And the boys thought big cousin J was pretty funny. It was heartwarming to see them all get along so well. I know both of my boys will want to go back to Midland SOON! (But it's a good thing they come our way too...I'm not too eager to be in the car again for at least a month or two! The trip to Midland isn't bad - it was driving all the way home from NM at the end of our journey that was brutal.)

Thanks again Aunt J and Uncle T...we had a WONDERFUL time at your house. We can't tell you how much we appreciate all you did for us. :) Check back soon...I'm working on posting Part 2 of our vacation...and it includes a trip to the ER. Until then, enjoy these pictures of four of the cutest boys you will EVER see. ;)

J "shooting" cousin B with a gift from Uncle T's mom (thanks again...that was so sweet of you to bring surprises over for the boys!)

L lovin' the swing.

O lovin' on cousin J (my FAV picture from the trip)

The twins walked all over J...and he loved every minute of it!

Is this boy cute or what?

J tries to control the crowd. How funny is that? We decided that when they are all a little bit older, J will have fun bossing the boys around.

Success! A cute picture of the blue-eyed beauties.