happy birthday, macy

Today is Macy's 4th birthday! While this is not a recent picture of her, I thought her party dress picture was perfect for the occasion. Macy had a wonderful birthday. My parents were watching Bryce tonight while we taught the middle schoolers at church so they took Macy to Bruster's for a doggy sundae. She enjoys the ice cream, but she loves the dog bone that comes with it!

A while back I did a post about Bryce and his tongue. Well he remembered he had a tongue today and it hung out of his mouth all afternoon! I couldn't decide which pictures to use, so I used them all, ha!

Just like his daddy. Jason always sticks out his tongue when he is concentrating on a task!

curls

Who needs water anyway?

We had a showing on the house yesterday so we had to pack the whole house up into the car so it would be clean and clutter free. I finally got around to bringing Bryce's bathtub in tonight so I could give him a bath. He enjoyed playing in the tub in his clothes before bath time.

This little boy has some curls! He gets that from me. The curls look so cute when they are wet, but if we don't brush them out, it just turns into a mohawk in the morning. I decided to capture the curls since we are the only ones who ever get to enjoy them.

Bryce has just recently started making a fish face. This was the best I could get tonight. He can contort his mouth into many different fish faces and he makes the silliest sounds while doing it.

preppy boy

Precious Baby

Bryce loves to read!

He enjoys pulling EVERY book off the shelf!

I can't wait until Bryce can help clean up his messes!

Hopefully he will still like to read when he gets older.

bryce update, birthday planning, and such

Oh how I would love to be a stay-at-home mom. As you can tell, a life of working and being a mom and a wife leaves little time to snap a picture or two throughout the week of my precious boy. Since I don't have any pictures to share this week, I thought I could at least update you with ALL of the amazing things Bryce is doing these days.

His vocabulary is growing daily. He can say da-da, ma-ma, na-na (sometimes is means banana and sometimes it means Nana), duck, dog, book, ball, fish, tiger (his newest word), bye-bye, and he can tell you what a cow and a sheep say. He can even make the sound of the animal when he sees the picture of it. We have attempted to get a video of his new words this week, but he gets camera shy when we film!

I'm slowly getting into birthday party planning mode. I have had the invitations made, but I am having a hard time getting them printed in a color that I like. I ordered a whole set from snapfish, but when they came in, the color was totally wrong. Now I'm getting sample ones printed from various places so I can order new ones. I will post a sample once I have a chance to get them in the mail.

If anyone is wondering, our house is STILL on the market and the original house we put a contract on is STILL available. We are desperate to get a contract on our house so we can move and get Bryce a play room. I know more people follow the blog than actually "follow" on my sidebar, so if you know of anyone who (especially a first time home buyer) wants a house in Mechanicsville, send them our way.

I'm off Monday, thank you MLK, so I will try to get a picture or two so you don't forget what Bryce looks like, ha!

a day at the park

Bryce got to go the park the other day with Kelly, Chase, and Taylor. I think he likes swinging!

a little more Christmas

We had dinner with some friends tonight and Bryce got another Christmas present!

Bryce pulling the tissue paper out of the bag. As you can see, Macy is in the background helping.

Pulling the gift out.

Showing off the goods.

Playing with the cars. (Please excuse my foot with the hole in the sock. You think I could have cropped that out. Oops!)

The gift wrap is still the best part. I can't tell you how many pieces he shredded the tissue paper into. Thanks for the gift, Kathryn. Bryce loves it!

a new discovery

Bryce discovered his tongue today!

It was hanging out of his mouth all day.

He kept touching it.

He can't quite show you his tongue on command, but we will get there.

great day

We got snow! Not enough to get us out of school, but enough for a 2 hour delay. I cut the tv on this morning when my alarm went off and the first school announcement on the bottom of the screen said Hanover had a 2 hour delay. I cut the tv and my alarm off and went back to bed! Bryce and I had so much fun playing this morning. I snapped this picture of him walking on his hands and feet. This is what he did the other day when he stood up for the first time. No standing today, but almost.

I was finishing up getting ready this morning and peeked out of the bathroom to check on Bryce and he was sitting on the floor starring up at the tv. I just thought it was the cutest thing. He actually looked like he had an attention span of more than 5 seconds. (Don't tell Jason he was watching figure skating on the Today show). We'll just assume he liked the music and not the actual skating, ha!

When I picked Bryce up from Kelly's today, she said she was taking Chase to Inflatable Palace. I'm sure you have all heard of these things, maybe just under a different name. Jason and I had considered taking Bryce last weekend so Bryce and I decided to tag along.

Bryce and Chase enjoyed playing in the ball pool.

We actually stayed there for 2 hours! Jason was even able to stop by on his way home from work. Here we are in the toddler sized inflatable getting ready to go down the slide.

Here is Bryce coming out at the end. I would love to know what in the world that expression means!

Chase coming out at the end.

I am so excited that we tagged along. Bryce had so much fun! He enjoyed crawling through the inflatables and he didn't seem scared by them. They also had a ton of toys for the kids to play with. We even lucked out because kids under a year are free. We will definitely be going back soon!

random update with no pictures

Well, I'm 3 days back in to the swing of things and I'm already ready for summer vacation. The weather man keeps teasing me with that "s" word and I'm getting my hopes up. I'm sure it will pass or barely drop a flake since school is back in and I REALLY want a snow day! If I'm lucky, maybe we will have a delay on Friday morning.

I have found it very difficult getting myself and Bryce ready in time in the mornings. It wasn't until I had dropped Bryce off and I was well on my way to work yesterday that I realized I hadn't eaten breakfast, ugh. I know it will get easier and I will fall back in to my routine at some point.

The worst part of it all has been fixing dinner. It is very hard to fix a meal with a baby on your hip. I can only entertain Bryce with the measuring cups, spoons, and bowls for so long before he is crawling up my leg and begging me to pick him up. It doesn't help that we have had something to do every night this week. I get home, cook dinner, eat dinner, clean up dinner, run an errand, put Bryce to bed, pick up around the house, and then maybe relax for a few minutes before heading to bed. I am E.X.H.A.U.S.T.E.D. I told Jason that we are ordering pizza tomorrow night and all hopes of dieting are going out the window. Cooking healthy meals (or any meal for that matter) has taken a toll on me and I just want to relax and let somebody do the cooking for me! OK there.........I have vented all my frustration that working brings (and it's only be 3 days, THREE)! I feel much better now.

On a more interesting note, Bryce stood up unassisted (no furniture or help from us) last night! He was crawling around his room and then started walking around the floor on his hands and feet and then just stood up. Of course he had fallen down onto his bottom before he was totally vertical, but it counts because he did it ALL by himself! I'll try to post some pictures soon. In the mean time, do a snow dance for me. THANKS!

square peg in a round hole....or not!!

Jason and I have enjoyed being home with Bryce this past week. He is learning something new everyday and we have gotten to witness it! He has been waving "hi" and "bye" for a while, but it just consisted of him raising his hand in the air. Just this week he has started opening and closing his fingers. Too cute!

We have also been trying to get him to say "more" using sign language. It has always been hit or miss, but just today he has started doing it and I really think he knows what it means.

Also in the last few days, he has started standing for longer periods of time. His balance isn't great, and he can't go from sitting to standing, but if he is already standing and he lets go of something, he can stand on his own and balance himself.

But best of all, what makes me think he is an absolute genius, is his ability to put the circle shaped block in the right hole. Maybe all 10 month old babies can do this and we just don't have anyone to compare him to, but we were quite impressed. Bryce is also quite impressed because he claps once he has done it correctly. Enjoy!

This video really does work. I've watched it twice, but sometimes it says that the video is currently unavailable. Will you leave me a comment and let me know if the video worked for you? Thanks!