Family Reunion

This past weekend was our first W family reunion.  Mommy, Daddy, Matthew, Buzz, and Aunt Keely all piled in the car for a 6-7 hour road trip and it was a blast!  The entire weekend was filled with laughter, love, and lots of Mexican food from the restaurant/bar attached to our hotel.  I could insert several wise cracks here but I'm tired tonight.  I mean we even saw a woman pass out and make herself really comfy on the floor.  It was H.O.G. weekend afterall.  ANYWAY, Matthew was in heaven from all of the attention.  Every time I looked around he was reaching out to be held by family member after family member.  He even got to meet his 2nd cousin who is only two weeks older than him (and so precious).  After a full day of trying to impress her with his newly discovered Viking yell (yeah, that one's fun lemme tell ya), he suddenly became shy when she decided to take a turn as the aggressor.  Such fun!  I really hope we do this again sooner rather than later!

Praying Mantis Whisperer... and it did attack.

Cousins!

Dirty Hiney! (and socks, and hands, and everything)

Real Man Hiney! 
Real men carry stuffed animals in their pockets.

 

Aunt Sue, Aunt Sue!

DawDEEs!

Shenanigans.

11 Months

Holy Moly this little guy is so close to being a full year old!

 Mommy and baby celebrated their birthdays together this weekend.

Matthew is cruising along quite nicely in terms of his development.  He's finally clapping on command.  He can walk around holding only one of our hands, but he's still rather crawl so it's a fight to get him to practice walking.  He likes to make up his own games: pretends to feed us, likes to jump on his bed and do this hilarious butt drop, and he's finally figured out that he doesn't need our hands to do So Big.

 

His vocab is, um, interesting.  Dawdee (Doggie - except he's forgotten that he can say his g's) has come to mean all furry animals with 4 legs.  He's added Fa (fan), Ook (book), and Cock.  Yep, that's right.  I was going on and on about needing to find some caulk for the woodwork and guess what started popping out of his mouth. 

I guess the mimicking has commenced.

 

Bath time has improved greatly.  The highlight is relaxing and laying back so that mom can rinse his hair and pour water all over him.  Whew!  Bedtime, however, is a bit of a nightmare lately.  No pun intended.  I think a combination of teething (we have 6 now), crazy bad diaper rash, and the onset of separation anxiety has torpedoed sleeping through the night.  I feel a bit like I have a newborn again.  Ryan has reiterated that I need to drink at least a little water in place of coffee so that I don't die.  Funny man.

This boy loves his toys and I love this grin.  It's so charming and is usually successful in getting him whatever he wants. 

First Blanket Fort

Nashville Wrap Up

We went to Nashville at the end of July and I still haven't gotten around to posting the rest of the summer road travel pics.  Here is my abbreviated Nashville wrap-up! 

 

We spent some quality time in the condo. 

 Trying on KK's hat.

 Pointing out noses on the iPad.

 Checking out the Nashville brochure to find fun things for us to do.

Reading with KK.

Reading with Grandpa.

 

After the distillery tour Ryan found a DDD location.  YUMMY!

We took a tour of Belle Meade.  I personally make a point to have absolutely nothing to do with horse racing, but the history of that place is fascinating. 

 Mommy took a tumble on the steps.

Whenever we travel Ryan and I make it a point of trying to find some local art.  It was something my parents started almost 20 years ago, so when we were on our honeymoon we decided to continue the tradition.  We were on the hunt when we stopped by the American Pickers Nashville location.  I find it hilarious that we live down the road from the original store and have never been there, but go to Nashville and can't miss it. 

We also couldn't pass up the opportunity to check out Cooter's.  I think they have every singe piece of 80's Dukes of Hazzard paraphernalia with the exception of the kiddie pool that I had as a child. 

On the road trip home Uncle Steve allowed us to crash at his pad.  Little did he know that would include getting food, formula, and poop on his new floor, formula on his new sofa, and pee on his new bathroom vanity.  Thanks, Steve!  We love you!

 

Over all it was a great trip.  Thank you Grandpa and KK!!!

Matthew's Room!!!

I'm just going to overlook the fact that my child is almost 11 months old and instead enjoy the fact that I HAVE FINALLY COMPLETELY TOTALLY FINISHED HIS ROOM!!!  This room, like every incomplete room in our house, has been 5 years in the making.  That's embarrassing to admit, but I can lean on the excuse that we weren't expecting Matthew for a full 5 years therefore this particular room wasn't a real priority until the last year.  I'm so excited to share that I'll actually start with the Before & Afters and then tack on a few of the work in progress pics at the end.

 

Looking in from the door:


 Looking at the closet:

Standing by the window, looking at the door:

 

Now for the embarrassing pics...

 These are my mom's favorite pants.  Really, she tells me all the time how much she LOVES them and how happy she is that I still own them.  $7-Walmart-2005.

 Smokey continually decided to track his black fur into the stark white primed room.  Have you ever tried to vacuum dog hair off of primed subflooring?  Just sayin'.

 Umm, not sure.  Pretend murder shot action shot?

I like to do my remodeling in my pj's.  If I ever get around to finishing other rooms then you'll see a lot of my pj's.  It's really too much to ask that I both work on the house AND shower and dress.

 And then there was storage.  I swear we're not hoarders.

 

This weekend...

... 7 years ago we had our official 1st date!

(I let Smokey lick my Push-Pop and gained a friend for life.)

 

... 6 years ago Ryan proposed.

... 5 years ago we got married.

I love our anniversary weekend!  Happy 5th Anniversary!