weekend: part 2

The second part of our weekend was just as nice as the first. I could get used to 3 day weekends (or summer vacation.....so close I can taste it). I was able to get a lot of cleaning and laundry done on Sunday. Here is a picture of Bryce riding a horse in the nursery at church. After church we went to a family cook out and then came home and spent the evening in the backyard.

Jason went fishing with a friend today so Bryce and I met Chase, Kelly, Taylor and MeMaw at the pool. We had a nice time, but Bryce didn't have a great start. Apparently it isn't as easy for him to walk in a pool as it is on land. He lost his balance and went face first into the water 3 times in the first minute he was in the pool. What a horrible mother. At least he never came up coughing, just wiping his eyes.

Hopefully he will love the water.

We finished Memorial Day with another family cookout and then a trip to a yummy ice cream shop to treat ourselves to a little weight loss treat. For those of you keeping up with our biggest loser competition, I lost another 1.6 pounds (total weight loss = 6 pounds) and Jason lost .8 pounds. I'm clearly the winner thus far! Guess I better go lift a few weights and burn off the ice cream calories.

weekend: part 1

Jason watched Bryce, Taylor and Chase for a little while on Friday. Looks like Chase and Bryce will be future duck/goose callers, too!

Friday was Nana's birthday so we had dinner at Red Lobster and then came home for some strawberry pie. Bryce enjoyed the cool whip.

Yum-O

Opening presents and being silly.

Jason and Bryce planted some blackberry bushes yesterday morning. Jason heard Bryce say "mmm" so he turned around and Bryce had a spoon full of dirt in his mouth. Who takes spoons outside anyway?!?

Helping DaDa dig holes for the plants.

He wanted to be right in the middle of things.

Macy enjoyed being outside, too.

After the boys got cleaned up from yard work we took Bryce to see Sesame Street Live. I was worried Bryce would get bored after five minutes and then be done. He did pretty well during the first half of the show, but he fell asleep after intermission.

Bryce loves "Elbo"

15 months

I try to make a mental list of things Bryce is doing as the month milestones come up, but this month my brain couldn't hold it all. Bryce is doing SO much these days.

• He can recognize most animals and tell you the sound they make (monkey, cat, and snake are my favorite).
• He has a large vocabulary and calls many things by name when he sees them. He is currently loving airplanes, tractors, geese and ducks.
• He no longer refers to Macy as dog. He calls her by her name, which sounds like "bacy".
• He says thank you and bless you most of the time without prompting.
• He can count to 2. I know that is only two numbers, but he gets it! We are working on counting to 3 because he currently says 1, 2, 5.
• I noticed Bryce's 6th tooth coming in this weekend. I'm no expert on teeth, but I think it's a one year molar. Is there such a thing?
• He weighs 22.2 pounds, which only puts him in the 10-25 percentile. This is nothing new to us. We were just happy he gained weight this time.
• Bryce grew an inch and a half and is now 30 inches tall (also 10-25 percentile).

Today's doctor visit was probably the worst to date. As soon as I took him back to the room, he started screaming. It was quite a challenge getting him undressed and onto the scale. He was not happy about it and it took him a long time to calm down, only to start back up when the doctor finally came in. We were practically yelling at each other during the exam. Tears aside, he checked out just fine! It didn't help that Bryce had gotten stung by a bee earlier in the day (thank goodness for no allergies) and we had to cut his nap short so I could get him to the doctor in time. Luckily our next visit is over the summer so I was able to plan around his schedule and not mine. The doctor felt so bad for him today that she only gave him 2 shots. That means more next time. Poor kid!

biggest loser update

I'm still the winner of our version of The Biggest Loser. I lost 2 pounds last week and Jason lost 0. I don't really think he's dieting. I think he just told me he would diet with me to help motivate me. At any rate, it worked! I'm excited that I've lost 4.4 pounds and I'm excited that today is the fist day I have been able to wear my pre-pregnancy pants. It is pretty sad that Bryce is 15 months old today and it's the first time I have been able to wear something out of my "skinny bin", but oh it's a good feeling!

dirt

This boy loves to play in the dirt. We bought some good dirt toys tonight.....a shovel, bucket, and a tractor. Bryce spots a "tac-tor" everywhere we go!

He quickly caught on to putting the dirt in the bucket. He also put the dirt in his hair and poured it on his shirt and arms, ha!

Of course he wanted to taste it, too!

Da-Da found a worm in the dirt.

He wanted to taste that, too. We didn't let him!

pickin' strawberries

I remember picking strawberries when I was little. We used to always go to the Ashland Berry Farm to pick strawberries in the summer. Or so I thought it was the summer. We decided to go pick some strawberries today. Unfortunately the Ashland Berry Farm no longer does pick your own strawberries. Jason and I went to a local pick your own farm a few years ago and we had hoped to go there today, but they were already out of strawberries for the season. So maybe I didn't go in the summer when I was little.......early spring maybe? We ended up going to another local pick your own farm instead. It was not a great experience.

These berries were right in front of us when we got out of the car so we let Bryce go ahead and pick a few. Turns out, children under 12 were not allowed to be in the field. WHAT?!? How do you make it a family experience when your child has to play on the dilapidated play set while you pick?! We were only able to pick because Jason could watch Bryce while I picked.

We let him break the rules and pick a few more because he was just having so much fun!

The pickin' was fun, but the eatin' was better!

We got enough strawberries to make a strawberry pie. I have my Nanny's recipe and it is the best.

Strawberry Pie

Bring 3T cornstarch, 1c sugar, 1c water, and 3T strawberry Jello to a boil, then cool. Put 1 quart cut strawberries in a baked pie shell and then pour mixture over and chill. We always top it with cool whip. YUM!

i never have my camera

I'm a blog slacker this week. The last time I blogged was Tuesday and I didn't even post any pictures. I always find myself in the backyard with no camera when Bryce is eating digging in the dirt or swinging his little heart out at a baseball. However, I did manage to snap a few pictures last night and tonight. We went shopping for dining room furniture last night and stopped by Chick-Fil-A for some dinner. Bryce enjoyed pushing his stroller through the food court.

The boys quickly got their fill of furniture shopping so we headed to Dick's when we were done. Bryce carried this turkey decoy around the store the entire time!

Chase came over to play with Bryce this afternoon. They both wanted to ride in the car, but they were not keen on riding together. This picture cracks me up. Chase is on the verge of tears and just look at the scowl on Bryce's face. This is how they feel about sharing, ha!

MeMaw got Bryce this personalized license plate a long time ago and we were excited to put it on the cozy coupe when we got it.

Happy Friday!

biggest loser: week 1

Jason and I weighed in yesterday morning as week 1 of Biggest Loser: Whitlock Edition came to an end. I am proud to report that I lost 2.4 pounds. Jason forgot how much he weighed when we started last Monday, so I won this week. Next week we will compare percentage of weight loss because there is no way I could match him pound for pound. I will try and have some Bryce pictures up tomorrow. I had a horrible headache last night and I was asleep on the couch by 8 and then we had friends over for dinner tonight.

ducks and geese

Jason has been talking about the ducks, geese, and baby geese that live in the ponds near his office for weeks now. He wanted really badly to take Bryce out to see them before the babies got too big. Today we went for a picnic lunch and a walk around the pond to feed the ducks and geese.

Snacking on some of DaDa's milkshake before the walk.

These were the newest set of babies. The other babies have gotten much bigger.

Checking out the ducks. He kept saying "pet". I was surprised he was brave enough to get close enough to touch one. He kept his hands off, though.

This is a sport my boys will enjoy together for the rest of their lives. Of course it will involve guns when Bryce is a little older. Sorry to the animal lovers out there (Mama).

Bryce loves to crouch down and scare everything and say "boo".

I'm pretty sure Bryce would have jumped right in if we had let him. He was not scared of the geese like he was of the animals at the last petting zoo.

What a wonderful way to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

cracker barrel

Nanny took us to dinner at Cracker Barrel tonight. Bryce was very good at dinner and he actually ate some healthier foods as opposed to his usual chocolate chip granola bar. He loved Nana's eggs and apples. We have been trying to get him to eat eggs for a while so he could get some protein since he won't eat meat. I think he is finally an egg eater!

a Bryce sized rocking chair

Bryce and Nanny
Everyone was telling him to look at me and he looked at them instead, ha!

We finally got the word today that the DEQ is willing to dig a new well (free to us) at the old house and close the file so the bank will close on the buyer's loan. Hallelujah!

too tired to blog

I had so much that I wanted to blog about last night and I was just too tired. I laid down on the sofa to watch tv and that was it. I was asleep within seconds and it took me forever to drag myself to bed.

Nanny is in town so we went to my parent's house to visit and have dinner on Monday night. My parents have this swan/goose/duck thing that Bryce loves. He has a great memory because even though it is upstairs and out of sight, he always wants the duck. He climbs the stairs saying duck the whole way there.

I used to have all of our cookie cutters in this basket, but Bryce used to dump them out EVERY night and then I would have to play 101 cookie cutter pick up. I finally decided to put them in bags so it would not be such a chore to clean them up. As you can see, he still enjoys dumping them out. However, I guess now that he can't get to them, the basket is just as good of a toy.

Bryce loves going through the tunnel.

He even enjoys going over the tunnel.

And he likes to go under the tunnel.

I couldn't wait to blog about this! I was going to blog about it when I ordered it, but I thought a final product would be better. Do you ever wonder what you would do if blogger crashed and you didn't have your blog anymore? Well the blog is my only way of scrap booking so I'm always concerned I will lose all my documented memories. One day I was blog hopping and I came across this site http://www.blog2print.com/. You can get your blog made into a book. Maybe I'm the last person to learn about this, but I thought it was so cool. I can't wait to place an order for my 2009 book!

We have begun Biggest Loser: Whitlock Edition at our house. I'm still holding onto about 7 pounds of baby weight and Jason feels out of shape. Even Macy is gaining weight thanks to Bryce's poor table manners. Every Monday we will weigh in and get the percentage of weight loss for the week. I've lost weight in the past, but I have not been able to get motivated to lose the rest of this weight (maybe it's been the stress of our housing situation) so maybe a little competition will help.