12 on the 12th - double time

October 12th

I forgot it was the 12th until late in the afternoon, so we got some snapshots of a typical afternoon. Billy was out of town for a conference, so it was just me and the boys this time. There are a couple of pictures of the boys entertaining themselves while I cooked dinner. They like to crawl around the kitchen and rummage through the cabinets. Asher likes to crawl under the kitchen table, and if I don't watch carefully, Mo might get his tail (or ears or legs) yanked around. As you can see, I try to sneak in as many vegetables as possible where I can because Noah and Asher are both pretty picky when it comes to any veggie. While dinner was finishing up, we spent some time outside in the beautiful weather. After we ate, we spent some time wrestling on the floor and the boys had fun attacking me! Then it was bathtime and Asher is learning that he has more fun standing up than sitting down. The boys were wiped out and fell asleep looking like little angels!

November12th

Today was a Friday and we went on a road trip to visit Grandma on the farm.  Kari was able to come with us too.  So Asher and I started out with a yummy breakfast and then played for a bit.  He likes to make an Indian sound by moving his hand on and off his mouth quickly.  He also like to entertain himself with Mo, but Mo is getting bigger and  putting up more of a fight!  Then Kari arrived and made friends with him quickly with some snacks.  We loaded up the car, waited for Billy to get home, and then picked Noah up on the way out of San Antonio.  It was a long four hours, but we had some fun.  Noah watched a couple of videos, Asher got his carseat changed to forward facing for the first time, we saw a little rain with a rainbow, and Kari and I played scrabble on my Iphone.  Noah slept in my old room, and he saw a picture on the dresser of me, Kari, and my cousin Lee, when I graduated college.  He kept pointing at the picture and saying, "who is that?".  Then he got ready for bed and found one of our old books to read. 

Zoo Trip

The weather in San Antonio has been amazing!  It's perfect by my standards, so we've been trying to enjoy it as much as possible.  We took the boys out for a trip to the zoo this past Saturday.  Groupon had a great deal on Friday where a $65 year long membership to the zoo was selling for $30.  We were already planning on going anyway, so this just made it that much sweeter. Unfortunately, we had to stand in line a little longer because 8,000 other people took advantage of the same deal, but it was worth it.  The trip to that area of San Antonio reminded me more of why I like this place so much.  The boys seemed to like the zoo, but I know Asher will like it so much more when he can run around without the confines of the stroller.  Poor guy couldn't see a whole lot of animals, but he was watching the people, which I think he finds just as interesting.  And there was a train!  Of course that was the highlight of the day for Noah.  The train took us on a nice relaxing ride around Brackenridge Park.  Here are some of the highlights of the day.

Asher's Big Laugh

This is a video of Asher.  His laugh is so contagious, I just had to share it!



September 12th

1. 
   
   Asher took a mini nap on my lap before we headed out for church.
2. 
   
   Waking up on the weekend usually consists of playing around in our bed and bedroom.  Here, Noah is covering Billy with pillows
3. 
   
   We had to finish up putting a dresser together so Noah and Asher were playing in our bedroom.
4. 
   
   We went to Red Robin for lunch... yummy!
5. 
   
   Billy cooked his famous "stew".  This is what he lived on while he was in Turkey.  It has chicken and then pretty much everything but the kitchen sink.
6. 
   
   I was giving Noah a shoulder ride.
7. 
   
   The boys playing on the bed.
8. 
   
   We're still looking for a church and the one we visited this morning had a "train" to take us from the main sanctuary to the children's rooms.
9. 
   
   Noah and Billy having a good time at lunch.
10. 
    
    More playing in the bedroom while we were working.
11. 
    
    A family picture - those are hard to come by.
12. 
    
    Asher showing off his smile for the camera.  He is such a ham!

We're back!

I can't believe how overwhelming the last six weeks has been. I need to do a lot of backtracking to go through everything, but the short version of it all is that we're in San Antonio and we're alive. We have a house, but we're still living among quite a few boxes. Noah started day care yesterday, but I still don't have a job. I slacked a little on the 12th of July and August so I'm just going to have to throw something together pretty soon so I can catch up.

Since our house is still a wreck, I took some pictures of the backyard so I can at least share those. And the backyard was a significant factor in buying this house. If you haven't heard yet, there is a basketball court in our back yard. Yes, you read that right. A basketball court. And it's blue. If you go to Google Earth, you can actually see this big blue thing from pretty far away. 

Here is the view of our yard from our back door.

The basketball hoop

There is actually electricity hooked up and there is a light opposite the hoop

There are even hooks on both posts to set up volleyball nets.

Noah's basketball hoop

Asher enjoying his walker on the court

And last but not least, this is Noah and Billy right before they headed out for Noah's first day of school.

Noah wasn't exactly excited at 6:00 am to go to a new school, but he actually had a great day.  And today he just walked in like he owned the place.  He gave Billy a hug and kiss bye, and then walked away.  Our little guy is growing up!