Uncle Vallen

We are the luckiest people ever!! Vallen came to Dallas on business and he pushed back his flight so that we could see him...thanks so much for doing that Vallen, we loved seeing you; you are so much fun to be around. Alex decided that we would go to his favorite BBQ place so these are the pictures that we took while we were there.
alex put his arms around Alex and Vallen. He wasn't very happy that we were making him stay at the table after he had finished eating though.

If you look close you can see alex eating a rib I didn't notice he had stolen from Vallen until it was to late.
Here he is again still working on it.
After BBQ we went and walked around a Hotel just because, and here is what alex decided that he would do to impress his uncle. They spent the drive over to the BBQ place bonding...who doesn't love being driven all over, having cars thrown at them and being smacked in the face (sorry about that Vallen)?

And just because we are who we are, here is a picture that my husband took of our son when he wasn't watching, I wonder who he learned this from.

Nap Time

To all of you who have never locked your child in his or her bedroom, please don't read the following, disregard the picture above and I'll just pretend I am as good a parent as you are- when in fact I'm not. The transition of alex going from his crib to his bed was actually amazingly smooth. We would go in, do his normal bedtime routine, ask him if he wanted to sleep in his crib or his bed and he would always pick his bed; we would lay him down, sing him a song, kiss him goodnight and then leave and he would go right to bed. Then he started asking for us to stay with him for a little bit, we love being with him so we would say okay and then lay down or sit in the chair and he would go right to sleep again. Then he started staying awake to make sure that we didn't leave. One night I laid in his bedroom for two hors and finally decided that this had gone far enough. I got up and left he cried for 30 seconds and then he was asleep.

Now we say good night, leave, shut the door and he goes to the door and cries for -it feels like forever but has never gone above 8 minuets, I know because Alex makes me wait for at least 15 minuets before I can go in there and I have never had to go back in- and then he falls asleep with various extremities poking out from under the door (see above). Because he's blocking the door we can't go in to: make sure that his covers are on, he's breathing okay, etc. So we have to wait until he wakes up again (after about an hour) and knocks on the door; then we can come in pick him up and put him in his bed for real and he will then go right to sleep. I can't witl until I'm putting two to sleep, I'm sure that it'll be so much fun!

Note for the blog below

The shoes that we have on in the picture below are called Crocs. I got mine about three years ago (wow maybe it's time to get some new shoes), then we got Alex a pair because they are super comfortable and he would always steal mine-that was on our anniversary of this year. This past week we finally got a pair for our son so now we all match-there's not really a point to the blog just how I think that it's funny that we now all have a pair of these funny looking shoes.

Crocs

Don't we look so cute. We finally bought some for our son, they are his sandals for this summer. My new favorite thing to do with them is to wear them in the pool when I run from one side to the other; it makes your feet bounce up and you don't get all the little cuts on your feet form the bottom of the pool.

Some more movies form the Nields

We have had a nice couple of days here at the Nield household...the only thing that would make it better is if you were here. Yesterday we went shopping, which isn't really fun except for the fact that we got grapes, then we came home and went swimming where alex amazed us all with his skills and then had dinner, where alex ate about a pound of broccoli. Before bed we played some baseball and as always happens we didn't get him hitting it as well as he was before I got the camera (he hit is across the room about ten times in a row and each time I thought "oh, that was just chance he won't be able to do it again" and then he did...again and again) maybe next time I'll go and get the camera before he gets tired of it and moves on.

Then today we stayed in and relaxed with plans for going swimming latter on. The best part of today has been the food. For breakfast we had pancakes which alex poured about three times the called for amount of sugar in so they were extra sweet and made with extra love. But the best part we lunch. Alex made us Ruben sandwichs which were to die for and we had Claussen pickles which are our favorite and some diet 7 up (we got for when alex had his cold and we ended up thinking that it was one of the best sodas ever). Hopefully dinner will fit right in with the rest of the day.

And just for the heck of it here is video of alex jumping off the bed ...and one of him dancing around in his underwear.

King of the Daddy

We think that this is why alex has such good balance because he loves to climb on his daddy; Alex usually doesn't catch him (if they are on the bed) he just lets him fall...which is where most of the fun comes in.

A Beautiful Place

I have talked about the Dallas Arboretum before, and shown pictures, but this time when we went I was excited because I could take all the pictures that I wanted and just put them on a slideshow so it would be kind of like a tour I was taking you on through the garden, with us....but then my camera died. So for all of you who didn't get Harry Potter on the first day here are some pictures of the Arboretum but not even a forth of the way through; I wish you were here so we could take you in person!

My Genius Sister...

My sister truly is a genius. She is attending UNM and is in the program to get her degree in Nuclear Engineering way faster than I thought possible (I, who probably won't get my degree in the next decade). She is always doing a TON of stuff I'm amazed she doesn't have a melt down.... I'm always impressed with her and could take up all the memory on this computer talking about how great she is but she would get mad at me; I'm probably already in the red as it is. Currently, she is in Washington working as an intern at a national lab. However, she took enough time off to come to Arizona with us for the family reunion and that is where my story takes place...

alex got sick at the reunion (still is actually) and one morning I enlisted my sisters help in administering the medicine; why would I do it myself when I have so many helpers around? So while I was holding alex and getting him dressed I asked my genius sister to measure out the proper amount of medicine. It was taking her a while so I looked over to see what was going on, she was holding the syringe up at eye level and then she squirted it all out and then pulled some more in and did it all over again, and then again. Finally I asked what she was doing, while holding it up again at eye level she answered distractedly, "I can't tell exactly where the meniscus is..." I MISS you Teda!!!!

Love you a ton!

Lily Humphrey's 3rd Birthday Party

So, I tried to get more pictures of the Humphreys' so that you could see them, but at a pool part my attention can't be spent too much on taking pictures and off of the edge of the pool... so sorry. I put up the whole album, so you only have to look at all of the pictures if you want to (there are a lot) however there are some really cute ones. We had a great time and can't wait to meet their next child...should be any day now!

All Aboard

These are stickers that you can put on your wall (or where ever you want) that my mother sells. We put them on the toy box and alex really liked them. After he figured out that his little animals were indeed not going to be able to ride on the train (he tried to put them in the window a couple of times) he dumped everything out and got on him self. Thanks, mom, these are so cool!

Playing at the park

This picture was susposed to be at the end of the movie and it didn't turn out; rather than fixing the movie I'll just post it here so that you'll still get to see it and I don't have to go back and fix the movie.

Here is a video of us playing at the park.

Family Reunion

For about a year my Dad's Family has been planning a family reunion and it finally happened and it was great! We rented a cabin right off a lake (about 3 feet away) and everyone piled in. His only sibling that wasn't able to be there was his brother Mike, but we still were able to have his kids there....We missed you a ton!!! Here are some pictures of the time there with more posts to follow.

Bad to the Bone

We are in a Flood.....for the last month

I have been wanting get across how much rain we have been having but have been forgetting to take pictures; I finally remembered. These are taken after five minuets of pretty light rain. The weather warning people are pretty much telling us that if it starts to rain it's best to just stay in, but if you are out to pull over until it stops and then NEVER go through any kind of water because it is swifter and deeper then you think.

We used to walk across this field to get to a park in a near by neighborhood, now it's out of the question; you sink every time that you take a step, and it's so saturated that by just walking slowly you uproot the grass and slip in the mud... we tried it exactly one time and it has only gotten worse since then.

You can kind of see the river but I took a video of this guy driving in it so you can see how deep it is. Again, today we didn't get much about 10 minuets total and I took there right after it started so that I wouldn't forget, it has been raining so much lately that this is what happens when it starts, but when we get a lot of rain it is worse. I watched a man going to get his mail when it had rained a lot and just the watter running through our parking lot knocked him over...we only splash in puddles when they are actually puddles...How on earth can you stand to live in Washington?

Babbling

Why am I doing another post you ask...many reasons.

1. I have an unexplainable urge to scrapbook my pictures but I don't want to deal with the mess of actually getting out all my stuff to do it; more specifically I don't want to deal with putting it all away. I'm hopping that this will help me not want to do it.
2. I'm pretty sure that my friend is moving, it wasn't going to be until the beginning of next year but it is starting to look like the next couple of weeks and I'm felling super lonely even though she hasn't left yet. I'm hopping that this will help me feel connected.
3. alex is taking his second nap today. Usually he only takes one but I woke him up with a coughing fit for his first nap; he is so tired that he feel asleep right in the middle of his cars so I'm going to let him sleep some more. He also hasn't recovered from our firework adventure. I'm hopping that this will take up time.
   
4. I'm trying to escape from potty training for a little while. alex has now discovered the amazing talent he has of aiming. He sits on the toilet and leans back so that it makes a "fountain" right onto the floor; what was I thinking listening to all those books telling me to let them watch their dad. Maybe I am excited for a girl. I'm hoping that this will help me forget about Clorx wipes.

Now for the pictures. These are all of the pictures that were taken when we went to see the fire works and unfortunately I think that these are all that you are going to see of our Forth because unless Alex is extremely convincing I'm not doing that again this year.
Here's Kiley and alex hanging out.
alex waiting for the show. Everyone was amazed that he just sat there and waited for them to start.
The Humphreys.
Alex and Gail with Lily.
Kiley again.

Sunday Clothes

This was the outfit that I dressed him in on Sunday. It stayed on for about 5 seconds, you can see how happy he was about it-he had to go pick out his clothes after this and I had to just deal with him not matching in his blue shorts and purple tie. This pretty much describes how church was that day and why I don't want to go and see fire works for at least another year.

alex Being Thrown on the Bed Here is another movie of alex and my husband playing (no one was injured seriously in the making of this film).

I think that I hear him stirring so I hope that you are all well and I wish I could see you.

Karate Chopping the Door

alex just doing his thing. I hope that nobody is getting offended that he is always in his underwear. When we have people come over or we go out I actually do dress my child.

Mopping the floor

A video of alex mopping the floor, and the wall, and the carpet, and anything that he felt needed to be mopped.

Our Home

Alex has figured out that if alex doesn't want to get his clothes on (which is quite often now that it is getting hot) you can take a picture to show him how handsome he is and he will leave on his tie, overalls, hat, etc. Obviously we are now way to modern to use a mirror.

I haven't written a decent blog in a while because our computer was broken; meaning you could get it to function for short periods of time but then you had to turn it off or it would start to smoke. Since we are pretty much unable to function without a computer we had to go and get a new one, but this wasn't too much of a stretch because we were talking about upgrading our 200 and some memory and 60 gigs of hard drive anyway...we were just hoping that it would be after we paid for this baby. Boy does it make a difference, I'm actually listening to music while I type this and I don't have to stop to let the computer catch up, imagine that.

If you haven't read my husbands blog on our washing machine adventures you really should, I think that it is my most favorite of anything he has written.

And now for the title, here is a tour of our apartment.

What About Bobby

This is one of alex's best friend "Bobby". He was given to alex for his first birthday and alex loves him. Here is a slide show of a fun night that the boys had I hope that it will work for you.

"Camping"

For fathers day we got Alex camping equipment and good camping food and then packed everything so that he wouldn't have to do anything and could just enjoy a trip. Then, when we talked the day before I was planning to go (Thursday), he said that he didn't want to go this weekend (we had been talking about it tentatively) so I started to unpack all of the stuff. The reason that he decided that he didn't want to go was because there was a 70% chance of it raining the entire time....not that much fun. When he found out what we had been doing I think that he felt bad that we had done all of the work for nothing so he said that we would go and try it and then if it didn't work out we could just come home. So we packed everything (he being the gentleman that he is insisted on helping this time) and we started off. We got to the campsite around 11 and started the fire so the we could have lunch. All of these pictures were taking in the first 30 minuets that we go to the camp and do not do anywhere close to justice with regard to how dirty alex got. The ash pile in the background was his favorite place to play and he was covered in it. I ended up taking all his clothes off and giving him a "shower" with the water spout in case we were going to stay the night-it was warm and he liked it. Because of the weather prediction there was no one else there all day and the weather was overcast but not wet-the most perfect it could be. We also went on a walk and found a worm, a new experience for us; we looked at it picked it up and then he put it in his mouth and ate half of it, i thought I was going to get sick....but I didn't.


Helping clean out the fire pit.
Daddy had to go out into the woods to find wood (harder than it sounds because it has been so wet here lately) and while he was gone we thought that he had died. All of a sudden we hear this big crash and I call out and get no answer. I start over in the direction of the crash, again still calling out, and finally we hear a "I'm alright". When he comes back he has a big bump on his head and his arm is all scratched up and he is talking about how lucky his is-"a lot worse could happen when you pull a tree down on yourself". He's okay, and he built the best fire I have ever seen...perfect.


At the end of the day after dinner we decided (probably mostly me) the the clouds looked too stormy and we didn't want to chance it so we started to pack everything up. After a while I looked over and alex wasn't playing with the rocks anymore, his second favorite thing to do. So I went over and found that he had pulled all of the pillows and bedding that were blocking him from his car seat out of the car, climbed in, and was trying to get his seat buckled. I'm not sure if he didn't like camping or if he was just ready to go home. When we got home it took me about 30 minuets to scrub all of his clothes clean (he had gone through 4 outfits in the time that we had been there) and alex sat in the tub for at least as long and he still has dirt I can't get off of him, sorry I didn't think to take pictures.

We love you dad, thanks for going camping with us. We can't wait until we do it again so we can try out the tent.

To train...Or not to train?

We decided that since alex was asking to go to the bathroom every time that he needed to go that PERHAPS he was ready to be potty trained. So out came the training pants and the carpet cleaner.......but that was before the washer broke. Life sure is funny sometimes. We only have three of the thick, actually absorb some of the accident, underwear and three of, his favorite, Lighting McQueen undies. He doesn't seem to mind going pee in the underwear as much as he did in the diaper (probably because it gets taken off so promptly) and I am SERIOUSLY considering putting off the training until the washer is repaired...by my husband....with directions off the internet; maybe I'll never have to train him. just kidding sweetheart, I think that you can do it.

The pictures are of alex pulling up his own underwear which of course he has to do by himself.

Note: We decided that we were going to try and fix it ourselves this time because it just broke a couple of months ago and we ended up paying a few hundred dollars for something that Alex could of done in a timely manner and for around $40, I guess that you learn as you go.

The cleanest house ever

Why do I have the cleanest house ever you ask? Because of my cleaning person of course. Whenever alex needs something to do, I have him help with the chores and that calms him right down...I wonder how long that will work for...

Of course, all of you who have had help know that when your helper gets involved it takes about 50 times longer to do anything, but it sure is more fun.

It's a bird, It's a plane, It's....

alex. Luckily I have been around children being played with like this for my entire life thanks to my dad's treatment of us otherwise this would probably scare the crap out of me. Before Alex came and had me take this video they had already been doing this for about 10 minuets.



I couldn't get my regular video upload place to work, so I hope that you can see this one okay.

Best Picture Ever

How can I be so lucky to be surrounded by such beautiful people all the time? Alex has been using the camera almost non stop it seems like the past couple of days, to make up for my lack of using it the last couple of months most likely, and I think that this is my most favorite yet. They're wrestling on the bed with the camera...I wonder how the camera broke last time, we're so careful with it.

My music

Like Keary, I don't really consider myself that much of a music lover. There are times though when I do like to have it on and for those times my wonderful husband has paid attention to the songs I said I liked and put together my very own file that I can put on the shuffle if I feel so inclined. Here is a list of everything that is in it in alphabetical order:

1. Another Saturday Night - Cat Stevens
2. Beyond the Sea- Bobby Darin
3. Can't Keep it in - Cat Stevens
4. Cecilia - Simon and Garfunkel (I could listen to this song over and over for hours if Alex would let me)
5. Come and Get Your Love - Redbone
6. Dummy Song- Louie Armstrong
7. El Desierto - Maná
8. Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
9. Hollywood Swinging - Kool and the Gang
10. I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash
11. I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City - Harry Nilson
12. I Will Follow - U2
13. Johnny B Goode - Chuck Berry
14. L-O-V-E - Nat King Cole
15. La Chula - Maná
16. Lady Marmalade - Labelle
17. Le Freak - Chic
18. Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens
19. Mr. Big Stuff - Jean Knight
20. Rockin Robin
21. Signed Sealed Delivered - Stevie Wonder
22. Too good to be true
23. Twist 'n Shout - The Beatles
24. With Or Without You - U2

I must say that it looks rather skimpy when compared to Cathy's.

Videos

Here are some more videos of alex. This one is him dancing....again. And this one is just him rolling an ab wheel. You would think that we would take more exciting videos but the truth is we're pretty boring people.

Hey mom...

Alex was working on "the biggest fire that Bonham has ever seen" last night so he didn't get to go to sleep until this morning after he got home. I took alex shopping to be sure that Alex would get at least a couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep. We came home around 11 so that alex could go down for his nap and my husband could still sleep. I gave alex a snack and a drink and then put him in his bed for his nap; he was a little fussier than usual but after about a minuet he stopped fussing and I assume that he laid down. I went in to lay next to Alex for MY nap andafter about five minuets alex starts saying "hey mom, hey mom, hey mom, hey mom" over and over. This has never happened before and so I stayed in bed trying to decide what to do; after about two minuets of continues "hey mom" without any different intonations or getting upset I finally got up to go and see what was going on - yes, I realize that is probably a long time to wait but I was tired. I go into his room and alex is all happy standing with his bear and his blanket ready to get out of bed. I say, "No, alex it's time to take a nap." He calmly looks at me and replies, "Boo-pa" and points at his diaper.

side note: We still aren't potty training because I have no idea when he is going pee and he doesn't mind having his diaper wet at all (and I find the whole potty training situation completely intimidating-especially because he has equipment that I can't demonstrate). When we moved here, and his new hide and go poo-poo spot moved to the back porch with a view instead of the kitchen, he found that he had a problem- he needed assistance to get to the designated area. He would take me to the door and say "boo-pa" and point to the door or his diaper and I would say no (thinking mostly of the neighbors and my hope to raise modest children) and take him to the potty and tell him that he could go there AND he could get a skittle if he did. Since that time I've only had to change wet diapers.

Back to the story: I say, "Oh" and take him to the bathroom. He had already gone a little in his diaper (that'll teach me to think about coming) but he still had some more to contribute for his skittle......I think that I need to change the name of my blog, no matter what I do I can't get away from it.

And because I haven't posted any pictures in awhile here are some that Alex took when we were just hanging out this weekend.
He's pretty good and swinging a bat and finally understands that if he uses two hands it really turns out best.
If you look close enough you can see one the five teeth that he is getting as you read this.
alex is trying to steal my pop sickle stick.
Could this beautiful boy ever do anything disgusting? Never. That's not really bread that he just spit out on to the carpet, that would never happen.
Alex learned how to take action shots. alex is using the ab wheel to drive around the living room.

You could be next

Currently I'm "it". My friend has tagged me and in the interest of teaching my son the proper way to play tag I'm continuing the game. You see alex always wants to be the one that is running away and never "it" so hopefully this is have an effect on him. To "tag" someone else you must tell seven things about yourself on your blog and then you are free to "tag" seven other people that they may do the same thing to someone else. So here are mine.

1. I LOVE being a mom, but I hate 9 months that it takes to get there. I absolutely can't understand the people who enjoy what I have come to think of as the 48 hundred hour flu.

2. My favorite thing to do is make desserts....however, in our house we don't really like to eat sweets so I don't get to make them that often.

3. I secretly wish that my hair would grow to my waist in a week so that I could always decide if I wanted it short or long and then the next week it could be different. I also with that I had gray or white hair.

4. I can't wait until I go back to school but I'm afraid that our family will suffer when I do.

5. When I was younger the ONLY place that I said I would never live is in Texas. Now, I love it here and I don't think that we are ever going to move away.

6. I wish that we were rich so that we could visit our family whenever we wanted and not have to eat beans and rice every night so that we can save enough to see them.

7. I love beans and rice.

And now for the people that I am tagging.....if you have a link on my blog then consider yourself tagged that is Alex, dad, mom, Kelsey, Keary, Diana, Cathy, Kristy, Ciria, Adam, Nate and Calixta...yes, that is more then seven but I didn't know how to divide them up, have fun blogging.

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall...

I looked back over the blogs that I have written and didn't notice any blogs about alex's suit so I hope that you have not already heard this story. My parents bought this suit for alex for Easter. When we were buying it alex was there so that he could try on what we were considering buying to make sure that it would fit. After walking around and letting us see how cute he was the first thing that I took off was the vest; he got kind of mad came and got the vest kind of draped it around his neck and then looked at us expectantly. We again praised him on his handsomeness and I finally coaxed it off of him so that we could buy it. Since that time it has been a favorite Sunday outfit. When I dress him in other clothes for church he always goes and finds this suit and wants it to be put on; he takes good care of it and when something is spilled on it he gets sad and helps me to get it off immediately. Sadly it is getting to hot to wear it for the summer so we are going to look for a short white sleeve shirt so that he can at least wear the vest-how will he bear the deprivation?

Note: After these pictures were taken even though our apartment was around 80 and he was sweating he still didn't want to take his suit off, but who would when they look this good?

Dancing

Here is a video of my two boys dancing. Hopefully I'll be able to write a longer blog soon. We are doing well and hope that you are, too.

"1 for 2"

I thought that I had nothing positive to write about and then I remembered that you don't know yet. This one's a girl. Alex told me that if we found out it was he was going to make a really depressed look and say "darn, 1 for 2" but luckily he didn't. We were thinking a girl we would name Elizabeth but in the last few weeks that just hasn't felt right-even after the temple. Alex has always teased me because he says I was naming my baby after Elizabeth Bennet and whenever I would be thinking of middle names he would tell me that I should just name her Elizabeth Jane and get it over with. After we got pregnant with this baby we went to the temple and the name that I got was Elizabeth Jane. I thought that it was so funny that I have been saying that it was a sign and she was a girl and we were going to name her Elizabeth Jane, but as I said it hasn't felt right lately. I think that we are going to go with Xela (haven't picked a middle name yet, any suggestions?) I don't want Xela Elizabeth because I still want to use Elizabeth for another baby.

This is good because then I can just teach all my kids four letters and be done with it-they'll all know their name. So the next one will be Lexa and then Elxa and so on.

A look in our lives

I guess that the reason that it feel like I haven't blogged in a while is because I haven't. Today I feel really good so I can finally get this done even though I'm putting off more unpacking. So here is a little look at what we've been up to.

Each paragraph is about something different so if you don't want to have to read a lot (Calixta) you can just pick the things you want to hear about.

Our Move
The longest that it has ever taken me to unpack in all our moves is 2 days; that includes hanging all of our cricked pictures, putting up all our decorations, and getting the furniture where I want it. That is not how this move is-and I mean to put is because we are still in the middle of it. We still have boxes and a lot of things that we'll "get to when we have a chance" (never a good think to have add up). Some things that are good about the apartment- it has the most amazing breeze that comes through our window, right over our bed, then through the kitchen and then finally out the living room window, it really helps to cool the house off because sometimes it gets hot. This is a video of alex finding his own means of cooling off.

Today
Today alex and I slept for FIVE hours in total naps. We have church here at noon so alex takes a nap around 10 on Sundays so that he will be happy and rested in church-this makes it easier for everyone. Then we came home and went to bed again; I was planning on waking him up from his second nap after he had slept for an hour or so but I feel asleep too and he actually was the one that came and got me up. So tonight he got to stay up latter than usually because by the time that we ate and took his bath it was already an hour past his bed time; because he was in such a good mood and I was in a good mood we stayed up and played and unpacked more. I wasn't allowed in on all the fun though. This movie is kind of long AND I'm having a phone conversation in the background AND you don't get to actually see alex's face but for 20 seconds out of the whole thing BUT if you have been feeling deprived of getting to see the day-to-day going-ons of my son then this move is for you (also note the wind that you can hear in the background-that is our breeze). There is a description of what is happening on that page.

Nursery
alex is finally able to go to nursery. We were worried because he went in our last ward for one week and wasn't able to make it all the way through. Then we were moving so he wasn't going to know any of the little kids in there but apparently that isn't an issue for him. The Nursery leaders say that he is wonderful and an absolute pleasure to have in the class. They were learning about being nice so he went around and tried to give everyone kisses-especially a very cute little girl with pigtails-luckily they were supervised and it didn't get out of hand, I'll have to keep an eye on them at playgroup.

Hard time for alex
He doesn't seem to be bothered by moving at all this time. By all of my accounts I would think that this is the worst week of his life but he is just happy as can be. We left him for the first time ever with people that weren't family and that seem to be thing that he disliked the most. The other things that he has to compare them too are: getting all of his things packed up so he can't play with them, having no cheese for his food (that one he might of actually hated the most), having to drink instant milk, falling almost 5 feet right onto his head from the moving truck, having a hot iron burn is foot. Also the poor thing was covered in bruises that I have no idea where they came from. Now he is back to normal-besides the burn- and I feel awful for him but he doesn't care. Here are a few of HIS most favorite moments from everything that has been going on.

This is baby powder and by the time that I got in there that little bottle was empty.

Softball Tournament
Yesterday was one of the best days that I have had in a really long time. Alex played in his softball tournament and little alex and I went to watch him. The first time that Alex got up to bat alex was so excited he could hardly hold it in. I was standing up holding him right next to the fence and he was bouncing so much I thought I was going to drop him. He was yelling and pointing and clapping and everyone in the bleachers thought it was so cute they were all laughing and clapping with him. Then Alex took him in the dugout with him and after that mom was just no fun. It was all that I could do to keep him from running on to the field or into the dugout with dad. I forgot to bring the camera but that turned out to be a good thing because it rained for the whole time so sorry about that. We can't wait until they do it again next year!

Hair
I have had a ton of people say how cute alex's hair looks and one lady when she found out that I cut it even asked if I was a beautician (that is the first time that I've ever been asked that let me tell you) so it's good to know that he doesn't look too ridiculous. Alex has even gone so far as to concede that it looks good and say that I should cut it that way next time too. On my hair though he has a different opinion. He is constantly telling me to fix it or do something with it... or he keeps his distance when we go out into public together j/k. He is the one that brought me here so as far as I see it this is what he is stuck with. It's even more humid here than it was in Dallas so my hair is even more frizzy. I really don't understand how people can have straight hair here, it seems impossible to me. I'm loading a picture that I just took to give you an idea.
Actually looking at the picture I think that it looks okay. I guess it's hard to convey all the little hairs that make it so frizzy. I have to go to bed, good night.

Iwalani's T-shirts

My sister is on a mission in Oakland California. So was so sweet and when she found out that I was pregnant she went out and got matching T-shirts so that when the baby was born they could both wear them and match and be able to have something from her until she got back to see them (when the baby is 3 months old). They both say "Someone who loves me got me this T-shirt from... California" I'm sure that they will fit right when the baby is born don't you think so too?

This is the T-shirt for alex and the one above is for the baby.

Haircut

So, being a woman of course I can blame my mistake that happened when my husband wasn't home and he had no idea about on my husband, so I will. Alex broke the cutter size "2", and if I would have had that size I would of done a good job but because of him alex looks ridiculous and is Alex's fault. Don't you agree? lol.

I wanted to go to the store today and I couldn't find a brush for alex (his hair is too thin for combs to make it look good), even though I wouldn't think twice about going out if it were me I hate it when alex isn't well groomed to go out into public. So I took the easy(or so I thought) way out and gave him a hair cut. I gave him the first hair cut with size three on the bottom and four in the middle and then five on top and it looked okay but I wanted it to be shorter so I went the next size down which is three on the top and one on the bottom and then nothing in the middle because that is all that I have. Hopefully in about a week it well blend in a little better and Alex won't want to kill me...which I hope that he won't...I love you sweety and did you see the nice blog that I wrote earlier today?

The man I love

Sometimes Alex can be so cute. Whenever we go to the Arboretum he is always so excited to feed the goldfish. He literally runs over to me jumping up and down begging for some of alex's snacks so that he can feed them; that's right this is my husband that I'm talking about, I meant to capitalize the "A". It really is cool watching them eat. They all climb all over each other to get the food and one time one of the fish even got pushed up one to the rock for a second. So the last time that we went the only snacks that I had to give him were...
Yep, Alex turned them in to cannibals (or whatever you call it when goldfish eat goldfish).

Scrapbooking...

Written for the Nield readers

I was hoping to get this blog written before you received the pages but I haven't really been up to doing anything so sorry it's late.

As is now apparent, scrapbooking isn't really my strong suite and after a couple of pitiful attempts at making envelopes out of boxes so the pages would fit I figured that it really wouldn't make that much of a difference if I folded the pages and sent them in a regular envelope. I hope that they turned up at your end looking relatively decent and that you were able to make them look okay. The little tags are supposed to have one at the top (alex started the year looking like this...) by the picture where he looks like a blob, and one at the bottom (...and finished as this handsome young man) artistically placed so that it doesn't cover the whole Christmas picture and kind of off sets the now present fold.

I need to go and do more moving "stuff" sorry I'm not writing very often but I've suddenly become very fond of sleep.

a short video blog

alex is the kid in jeans and a red shirt. You can't tell very well from the video, but alex kind of scrunches up his face in anticipation and walks face first into the water. All the dads who were standing around were impressed with what a "brave kid" he was.



Here is a video of alex sliding on a table in our front room. After this we got out a cookie sheet and slid him down it so that he would go faster.