Coolin' at the Playground

I took Rex to try out the swings at the park a few months ago and he wasn't really into it. I tried again yesterday and he loved it. We went again today and he loved it even more! He does not, however, love wearing the hat but mommy makes him because she is afraid that his giant head will get a giant sunburn.

The Next Sir Hilary

As shown in the previous post, Rex can climb like Sir Edmund Hilary. He can't quite walk on his own but he can climb, cruise and walk if he is holding onto someone. He has been able to pull himself up in the crib for a few weeks now but only if he was sitting. As of yesterday, he can now stand up from a laying down position. Uh oh.



Naptime was a little tricky today, needless to say. He was tired and it was definitely time for a nap, but he decided to pull himself up and do laps around the crib. I listened to all the commotion on the baby monitor for a while and figured out what was going on. I finally took him out and put him in the jumperoo, knowing he would be asleep in no time. About 3 minutes later, he was out. So I scooped him out of the jumperoo and placed him in his crib where he is peacefully slumbering now and probably dreaming of his next big expedition.

He has been doing really good with transitioning to big kid food instead of baby food and I think I'm going to stop buying any more of the baby food. We'll finish what we have here but that's it. We also need to eliminate the morning bottle, which leaves just one in the evening and then get rid of that one too.

Well, I have lots of chores that need to be done and I better get to it before nap time is over!

Scaling New Heights

Rex is not quite walking yet but he is one heck of a climber. I left him for just a minute in the living room, playing with his toys on the floor and returned to find this.



He managed to climb up into his chair and attack the bookshelves! The bottom shelf is for his books and toys- you can see that has already been wiped out. Apparently, he decided he needed to get to mommy's shelf and this was his solution. A smart and creative child who has no fear is a scary combination.

Another Quick Recap

I made my last trip to the Des Moines airport yesterday and sent our last summer visitor back to California (unless someone is planning to surprise us with a last minute trip!) . My dad came to see us for a few days and it was really nice- we had not see him for almost a year. We didn't do a whole lot which was just fine. It was nice to just be together and enjoy the company.




We haven't been up to much lately besides spending time with our visitors. Rob and I made it to one of the three movies we wanted to see this summer, Star Trek (this was several weeks ago). We missed Wolverine but we WILL make it to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. We are going to get a babysitter for Rex and both go. Rex has not been left with anyone (other than grandparents) since I quit working so we'll see how it goes. I think he'll do fine for just 2-3 hours. Let's see, what else have we been up to? Ah. Rex and I did a little shopping in Des Moines yesterday after our trip to the airport. I got a new external hard drive at the Apple Store. Lame, but I am totally excited. We picked up a few other things but if you can believe it, those were even more lame than the hard drive so I will skip that.


It rained last night and today but it had not rained for about 10 days before that. I have to share this picture though of the previous storm. Nothing too shocking except this was taken at 9:00 A.M.!!!



The sky got sooo black. It was so dark and eerie- it totally creeped me out. Rob was at work during this and I was really wishing he was at home. As it turned out, the storm passed pretty quickly and was not too bad really. I have more to share about Rex has been up to lately but I will save that for the next post!

Tiny Dancer

Rex will start moving and dancing around every time he hears music. It is always a lot of fun to watch him bebop around. He was really cracking us up tonight, rocking out to the tunes of the Sit to Stand Giraffe, although he stopped for a while until we turned the volume up on the giraffe.

The Past Three Weeks

In the past three weeks, we've had two groups of visitors who have stayed a week each so it's been really, really busy around here as you can imagine. Our first group, Rob's parents, were here for Rex's first birthday and Father's Day. Father's Day was really nice and I think Rob and Pop had a good day. We had a great time on Rex's birthday which included a dinosaur cake and lots of presents. I made him a special shirt for the day, got party hats for everyone and decorated the house with signs and streamers but no balloons because Rob thought they were dangerous (party pooper). Here a few pictures but there are more on Flickr.





We had six days until group 2A, my parents, arrived last Wednesday. Group 2b, my sister and my niece, arrived on Sunday. They all left yesterday but got stuck in Cincinnati on their way home and did not get home until today. It was so much fun to have them here and to meet my niece for the first time! She had a tough time traveling but I thought she was a peach. So cute and just a lot of fun. We didn't do too much- there isn't a lot to do around here, especially with two one-year-olds- but we had a good time visiting. I drove my sister around a little and showed her the corn. I also discovered on that trip that Rex gets carsick if he is not in the middle of the back seat where he can see out. Poor kid. It wasn't a very long trip. Here are a couple of pictures but again, go to Flickr if you want to see more.




Group 3, which is my father and our final summer visitor, arrives next Wednesday and he will be here for 5 days. He and Rob will go golfing but I have to figure out the rest of my plans for his visit. It gets to be tough trying to plan out meals for everyone and at this point, not repeating those meals over and over. I will be busy for the next few days changing out sheets on all the beds, doing laundry and planning menus. It's a lot of work but I don't mind because I get to spend time with my family and we don't get too much of that here. I'm so appreciative of everyone that makes the effort to come and see us and we are just really looking forward to visiting California in November!

Bye Bye

I have a lot to share about Rex's 1st birthday and our nice visit with Rob's parents but I don't have a lot of time right now and I wanted to post this so bad. Rex had another big milestone besides the 1st birthday in the last few days. He also said his first word!



I have been trying to teach him to wave and whenever we are working on it, I always say, "bye bye" but I never intended for him to pick that up too! On Monday though he started waving and saying "bye bye" at the same time and he totally gets how to use it which is the part that just blows me away. When we try to get him to say "mama" and "dada" (and he can make those sounds), he just points at us. It is cool that he knows who we are but I wish he would say it instead of just pointing! But this bye bye thing is a lot of fun too.

Birthday Preparations

I have been meaning to order Rex's birthday cake for a few days now and it finally made on to my must-do-today list. Luckily, sometimes procrastinating pays off. While I was feeding Rex his lunch, I remembered about this little purchase I made.



I bought this dinosaur cake pan months ago to use for all his birthdays. He may not want another dinosaur cake when he turns 15, but he is going to get one just like he did on the previous 14 birthdays! I took a cake decorating class once upon a time and I did not enjoy it so it will be interesting to see how this all turns out and if you can even tell it is a dinosaur. Rex and I ventured out to Target today for a few items which included some birthday decorations and plates. I wanted to get him a special first birthday t-shirt but waited too long. Procrastination came in handy again for me though- Rob reminded me that we have the iron-on sheets that go in the printer and I can make Rex's shirt myself. Now I just need to pick up a few more presents for him and we will be all ready for Rex's first birthday on Saturday.

It's been raining here quite a bit lately and Rex and I have been either missing some of our walks or getting sprinkled on during them (we go on 2 a day), neither is very fun. We took some pictures this morning while we were waiting for a little shower to pass.

It Worked!

After many attempts, I have managed to post a video of Rex from yesterday. He was playing in his jumperoo while I was flipping through a cookbook. One recipe I came across sounded disgusting so I made a face and said "blech" and he thought that was so funny. I kept doing it for him and he just kept laughing and laughing.



I still can't get any videos on Flickr. I had to drag out my old camera and take the video on it. When I shoot video with my new camera and my video camera, I can't seem to get them uploaded no matter what I try. Not that this one was easy either but at least I finally managed to get it uploaded here. I will continue to try getting videos on Flickr but we'll see.

We have been fairly busy lately and not well, hence the lack of posts. I had what the doctors think was shingles- it started about 2 weeks ago. Thursday morning I noticed a rash on my neck and face. It wasn't too bad but not so attractive either. I was really dizzy too. When I went to the doctor the next morning, I had a fever. She put me on one of the world's most expensive medications and it went away. Shingles on your face is one of the least likely places to get it and the worst place since it can cause complications with one's vision. My vision was not affected at all and I was glad to see the rash go. Not too much happened around here for a week and keeping up with Rex was about all I could manage. This past week, I have been trying to get caught up with my cleaning and chores. Yay. Now that I am, I finally have a few minutes to work on the blog.

We have a lot of family visiting during June and July and the first ones get here next Thursday. I need to get things ready for them and I need to take care of arrangements for Rex's first birthday next Saturday. I am still not having a party for him but I need to get him a few more presents and order a little birthday cake for him to destroy. He'll probably like the cake- he doesn't seem to like much else we give him though. We are trying to give him more food like we eat and not so much baby food but he does not want hardly any of it. Sweet things though usually do just fine for some reason...

Rex Eats at a Restaurant

Rob and I finally got brave enough last night to take Rex to eat at a restaurant. We had to take his food with us and I fed him while I was trying to eat my own dinner. So it's a little more work now but it all went really good.



I don't think we will eat out a lot now or anything like that- it is just nice to know that if we want to go out to eat, we can.