Hanging out

Anderson had his picture last week and they were perfect...until the computer ate them or something ridiculous, which caused me to have a small stroke! I mean, look how adorable they are! I love that his sit/lean was captured. I knew he would be sitting up alone soon & I was so sad. Luckily, they found them the next day! Even luckier, I got them all free. It's like I am a magnet for something free...AAAGGH! I just caught a glimpse at the adorableness and got lost in his little face.

A picture of Brandon at 6 months to compare...

One of my favorite things is when he wakes up from a nap. It really is impossible to capture the adorableness.

This sitting business is new, by the way.

I carried a watermelon.

We went to storytime with Clare & Jack and Anderson seemed much more interested in Jack's toys than the story.

Playing with a shark from Uncle Zack. From his text message, "I thought he needed it." Of course.
Chloe has had a really hard few weeks. It's rough to bark 23 hours a day and run around the house whenever anyone comes to visit. Please ignore the un-ladylike pose and the fact that she is not supposed to actually be on the chair.

Anderson will pull up on anything that is at his height! Since we are not the tallest family his options are limited.

Anderson spent a lot of time with GG the past few weeks! They both have been loving it, of course. She even watched him one day and I just ran some errands. I went to CVS, Petco, Kohls....LIKE A NORMAL PERSON! No baby, diaper bag, bouncing in the check out line, distracting with random things from my purse. I forgot that it existed.

This is what happens when Anderson is with Brandon. He was encouraging the stair climbing! He made it up 5 by himself. I am not ready for this. I was watching "Teen Mom" ( It's a guily pleasure-don't judge) & was in awe at one point when Farrah just put Sophia down, pacifier in her mouth, in a room and put some pillows in the doorway to prevent her from escaping the room...and it worked! Never. Anderson would have crawled over the pillows in about 2 seconds. Oh, and Sophia was 11months old or something ridiculous. Is this why these moms survive at 16? Their kids sleep, take pacifiers, like the car seat and now, don't move?? They probably even like the swing! Seriously, I was just kind of staring at the TV. Then I had to run and grab Anderson from the other room where he had crawled in that 30 seconds.

Lily & Aunt Sissa Time!

Lily spent the week at Camp Noni & Bop's, which meant lots of time for me to see her! This is the first time Lily has been around me without Nicole. We've always wondered what our kids were going to think of us, what with the twin thing and all. Poor girl. She was so confused. Clearly, I am not her mom and she realizes that. But, there is something (definitely the voice, the fro hair, the loudness) that is like her mom. I guess if it is between no mom and no mom/sissa fill in, she will take me. By "take" I mean, be obsessed with me. Secretly, I was loving it because she has never really snuggled with me or preferred me. Finally, the girl realizes how much I love her!Trying to get in my lap, which is taken at the moment.
Lily +Sissa= BFF

Mom bought them all these matching outfits & we had really big plans of all of the cute pics we were going to take. I keep forgetting that lesson about having no expectations.

I don't know why Nicole complains about being busy. I mean, she has this adorable little helper.

Back to the expectation lesson, I took Lily to my neighbor's trampoline with high hopes. She was really just interested in trying to get the stuff that was outside of the net. Yes, she is still in her jammies. It's summer, ok?

A snack with Chloe on the floor.

And here's a little video of us hanging out...

Hot Dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog!

Leftovers from when we grilled out last weekend. Delicious.

Well, the trial of childhood, the double ear infection, has entered our house. It is going much better than I expected, since Gabbi can't really cry or be fussy. She is such a trooper. She got a special new bone since she had to get shots & medicine. She is handling the whole thing quite well, actually. Also, we are SO proud of our girl because the note on her file at the vet has been moved down from "WILL bite" to "MIGHT bite". I no longer have the biggest bully at the playground.

Meanwhile, Chloe has not really come to accept the fact that her needs aren't quite met with the readiness that Anderson's are. For example, she wants dinner when she wants it and not in 5 minutes when I have a spare hand to get it. She will pout & stare at the pantry until I feed her. She will seriously plant herself on the floor and not move even if you step on her.

Speaking of special needs, Chloe has only eaten one toy in the last 6 months. This is monumental and has been recorded on her permanent file. She is acting pitiful hoping she won't get in trouble (it didn't work).

Because they have not made near enough appearances on the blog, here are my nephews! So grown up.

Less than 1 week into 6 months, Anderson is really addicted to trying to find places to pull up. He has found this chair and will beeline toward it every time we set him down. I don't think this is normal at his age. I think I am saying this out of fear more than pride...

It's a good thing there can't be too much love!

We had LOTS of love/fun in the house this week! My cousins from Memphis came to visit & it was great to see them! Anderson loved Shannon & spent lots of time being snuggled by her. Jacob was hilarious & made me realize how excited I am about a boy in my life!

Shannon also snuggled Chloe so everyone in the fam was glad she was here!

Hanging out! The rest of her family was here, too, but were busy ziplining when I had the camera out! Shout out to Job, Hallie, Abigail & Brooke!

Then, Great Aunt Lori stopped by for a visit. She loved on Anderson, gave him a bottle, fed him dinner & brought him some awesome teething rings! Too much love.

We had a little celebration of the 1/2 birthday, too! This picture is fuzzy, but I wanted to include everyone!
Great Aunt Donna loved on him until he went to bed. She brought some really fun musical toys that Lily & Anderson played with/fought over.

How much fun is this? Just having some dinner with Mom.

Yes, I have a cookie cake for my son's 1/2 birthday party. 6 months is a milestone! And, I had a coupon for a free one. I bought the pirate plates on clearance before he was born. I really have to get a life. GG and Noni brought pirate themed gifts, which I think means we all need to get lives...

Playing with Lils. Pigtails!

Brandon & I went to dinner for our anniversary so Anderson had his first sleepover!

I missed him terribly, but I think he was a little loved at Noni & Bop's.

On an unrelated note, I have enough body wash to last for a few years. This is half of it. Ridiculous. I either got these free or made money by matching coupons/sales/rebates. I am not sure when it turns from a hobby to an unhealthy obsession.

6 months!!

the hair is starting to look a little crazy in his old age...

still loving a shoe ( a pirate shoe, which is especially tasty)

He keeps trying to pull up on everything but he is not tall enough! On the day he turned 6 months, he had pulled up in his crib when I went to get him in the morning! I had to take the bumper pads out again because I think they are aiding in his attempts at breaking out of the crib.

I was SO excited because the library had a "Pirate Mask" activity on his half birthday! Talk about fate. Except for I forgot to inform Anderson because he felt asleep on the way there. Please note the pirate outfit he wore for the occasion. Well, the planned occasion.

I am a huge fan of a half birthday, so 6 months is my favorite so far! It is crazy that he is closer to a year than newborn. It is also pretty amazing because as much as I loved a snuggly chest sleeper, I LOVE giggling, smiles, excitement, stage 1&2 baby foods and SLEEP!!!

Check out the SWAT shirt. Thanks, Ben!! Also, lots of drool.

I have got to get this boy to a pool. A float in the living room is just not the same.

Anderson updates: (mostly for my benefit when I print the blog)

• He has not been a huge fan of the the bottle lately-much more interested in real food. This is probably because I am an idiot & still had the size 1 nipples on them. Oops. We are now on size 3, thanks to Aunt Cole & Clare, so hopefully it will help. He usually takes a bottle about 5 or 5:30, eats oatmeal with some kind of fruit about 7:30, has some bottle midmorning, about 1/2 of a veggie and 1/2 of a fruit for lunch, an afternoon bottle, a veggie and maybe rice cereal for dinner and maybe another bottle before bed. I find myself counting the ounces throughout the day to make sure he is getting at least the minimum amount. His favorite is oatmeal with almost an entire banana smushed into it. LOVES it! In addition to all of the stage 1 foods (and some of the stage 2-I got excited), he has had mango, kiwi, blueberry, watermelon, avocado and pumpkin. He didn't really care for any of them except mango & pumpkin. I probably should work on eating the fruits & veggies myself, also.

• He is crazy mobile. He is not consistently doing the alternating hand/knee crawling thing, but can be across the room in about 5 seconds. He loves the kitchen floor. I am hoping he also loves dog hair because there is a lot of that. He has just starting sitting up on his own-gorilla style, he isn't straight up yet. It is odd because everything I read says they are supposed to sit before they crawl and he has been crawling for about a month. I am not sure what that means, but I hope it is that he is going to earn a really great college scholarship one day. Also, he LOVES to climb! It is his favorite hobby for sure. He will climb pillows, his boppy, legs, couches, bodies, toys, mountains...
  


• He drools maybe a gallon or 2 a day. Seriously. LOTS of spit. It's a great thing we are related because I am constantly covered in his spit. Also, he will chew everything. He gave me a hickey on my arm that looks terrible. He has tried to give me matching ones on my ankle, leg, wrist and eye. I think I terrify people in public as I yell, "no more hickeys!" at my infant. Despite the symptoms, no actual teeth yet.
  


• He loves to play with the piano thing, his exersaucer (the office), feet, Lily's driving toy, the dogs' tails, plastic spoons, his crinkly book and remote controls.
  
  
• We are working on consistent naps during the day-he never wants to sleep when he knows there are legs waiting to be climbed. He is a great night sleeper, though. This is not an accident-this is because I made him cry it out! Once or twice over the past month he woke up in the middle of the night & I checked on him (and totally hovered outside his door) but didn't get him. He still loved me in the morning so I think it worked.
  

Here is a little video at his impatience while waiting for his oatmeal.

Thank you, Thomas Jefferson!

And Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston and, of course, John Adams!!! I LOVE the Declaration of Independence so today is one of my favorite days because we celebrate the most amazing document ever written. I am just so inspired by the fact that the men who signed it were literally willing to give up everything to try out this democracy idea. They were so committed. I can't even make a definite committment to what kind of ice cream I want. I'm all nervous while they're scooping thinking that I really wanted chocolate chip. Seriously, they risked their lives to create the foundation of our country! It just makes me love America. I cried when I saw it for the first time at the Archives. Very embarrasing in hindsight because I was 26, but really I think it is that cool. Brandon even proposed 5 years ago on July 4th, which is part of the reason I said yes. He obviously knows me pretty well. Enough of my nerdy babbling.

Speaking of nerdy....I have actually signed it myself -look at the bottom left! You can too (you know you want t0!)

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_sign.html

We celebrated America all weekend. The cheerleaders are always in the parade & Anderson joined them this year! He didn't actually walk, but he still contributed to the spread of democracy by looking adorable!

One of my former students is campaiging for governor candidate, Ned McWherter, and brought him over to meet me during the parade. He said my class helped his interest in politics, which is sweet and probably just him being nice. I decided that I am a politician's dream: teacher, police officer husband and a baby.

The Brimer family had us over to celebrate and Anderson & Jack wore matching shirts for the occasion! They are high fiving how awesome America is. Jack's crib must be really cozy because Anderson napped there again today! It is so nice to hang out with Clare because we are both learning this mommy thing. It is nice to have someone in the trenches with you:)

We had yummy hot dogs and Anderson had squash & pears. He is covered in food every time I feed him. I think that is my fault.