Getting the blowoff

I knew that someday Joshua would blow me off and pretend not to know me; I just thought it would happen in Middle School, not as a toddler! I am participating in MOPS at a different church than we attend, so the nursery is somewhat new to us. Last week was the third time Joshua was in their nursery. Arriving to pick him up, another child came running and smiling towards me. I explained to the worker that he wasn't actually mine and pointed out the darling little boy in the yellow shirt as my child. The nursery worker called to him, as did I, and then she walked him out of the toy house he was in. The little rascal looked right at me and without so much as a smile turned right back around to keep playing! The nursery worker then asked me if I was sure that was the right one!

Although this age is trying at times, he is still lots of fun. Meal times have been very difficult as he is very demanding with what he will eat and when he'll eat it. He will decide midway through his 10th bite of something he doesn't like it anymore. One day he'll eat Kiwi, the next day- not a chance. We are trying to figure out boundaries and how to encourage his independace while maintaining discipline (and our sanity) too.

Most of the time is mischief is pretty funny. He's fasinated with the toliet and given the opportunity, loves to test what happens when things are put into it. Hopefully his curiosity about the world and his impact in it will continue, until then...

Here he is eating dirt at the neighbor's birthday party. They did have birthday cake, but Joshua apparently didn't want to wait for it. Those are my legs behind him oblivious that he's eating dirt (and I'd like to point out the fact my friend was taking a picture instead of stopping him-hmm, sounds like something I would do.)

Time to move the slide outside???

Here he is with one of his neighborhood girlfriends. He likes to pick the older girls that can drive.

If he can find a way to climb on something, he will. Check out the video for more on this picture.

So at the end of the day, there is sometimes frustration, sometimes even tears, but always lots of giggles, hugs, and kisses.

Horses, and Cowboys, and Bulls, OH MY!

This is my attempt to blog while on hold... Last Sunday we went to The Star of Texas Rodeo and Fair with our international friends. It was lots of fun. Joshua can't wait until he's old enough for mutton racing-only 3 1/2 more years! I was really impressed with a whole Kidztown they had set up. He got to see Elsie, the Borden cow, and Elsie jr. the calf. (and get cheap milk!) The had a great petting zoo, with some baby goats, deer, and even a kangaroo with a baby in her pouch! The kangaroo was in her own pen though. Here's a video, that's our friend Kevin in the red.

We had a well-balanced dinner of Corndogs, Frito Pie, and Funnel Cake. Yummy, they are reason enough to go to the fair and rodeo! We have been to some small town rodeos, but the caliber of riders was a lot more impressive. However, the small town charm is fun too. I got home a realized I didn't take pictures of anyone but Joshua. Oops. So I stole some from other folks that posted them for all to see.

Rocky Mountain High

Last week we returned from a week and a half adventure to Colorado. We skiied five days at Snowmass and then visited Kurt's brother and family in Fort Collins for a long weekend. Having a week of real winter and playing in the snow was lots of fun, but we are glad to be back to warm and sunny Texas...

X-Treme Skiing: Yes, that's actually me in that picture...Stay at Home Mommy meets Terrain Park. Do you notice anything interesting about the picture?

Going into the trip, I was curious if being responsible for another human being would cause me to be more timid on the mountain. Not to mention it had been four years since my legs had carved their way down a snowy hillside. Fortunately, it didn't take long to ease my way back into feeling comfortable. Kurt was looking good on the skis too. He is a good skier and lessons from good ole' Roge always whip him into shape.

Joshua got to hang out with his Mimi while we skiied. Thanks Mimi for all your lovin' care!

The second day of sking we went over to Buttermilk. The sweet thing about skiing Snowmass is that not only do you have Snowmass Mountain, but your lift ticket is good for Aspen, Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk. Really, you couldn't be bored here if you tried. In the afternoon, the sun broke through for a little while and we took a mini-photo shoot. Good thing we did; it snowed the whole rest of the time we were there. It flurried off and on the first two days, but the afternoon of our third day it really started, and we got over 12 inches that night!

By mid-afternoon, on the third day, my confidence was running high. Too high. We were on our way to the condo for lunch when I spotted the Makaha terrain park. Kurt was sent down to catch a photo of me going off the first jump. Dad didn't hear the plan and, therefore, missed the big launch. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.) Once I got the wave from Kurt, I took off towards the jump. About three-quarters of the way up the 10 foot jump, I began to rethink the thought pattern that had led me too that moment. Unfortunately, it was too late for backing out...If you take another look at that picture, you'll notice I'm way too far behind my skis. I went in the air and fell flat on my back, from what Kurt estimates was about 6 feet (the ramp was sloped down instead of a drop off, probably designed for idiots like me). Just in case you were wondering, it hurt. What little breathe was left was spent trying to convice Kurt I was okay and chastizing him for letting me go off the jump in the first place (and asking him if he got a good picture). Then the pain really started and a sound much like a walrus in labor could be heard across the slope as I worked through the pain. Eventually I was able to crawl out from the jump and moan from the side. After a long recovery time, we were able to ski down to the condo. At that point I started to really worry that I had broken some ribs since it hurt to breathe. We headed to the condo and then on to get some Xrays. At the skiier's clinic there was a ski patrol guy there to fill out an incident form with me. It was a little embarrassing when he asked my profession; I wonder how many stay-at-home mommies hurt themselves at the terrain park each year? Nothing was broken (Thanks to my Mom and Dad who made me drink all that milk!) but I had "chest contusions." Basically the muscles around my ribs are bruised because of the compression of everything. It still hurts off and on, but I am truely greatful to God that something more serious didn't come of my serious lack of judgement.

I took the next day off from skiing, the big fresh powder day. Dad and Kurt mostly hit groomed runs as skiing in powder takes a lot out of you. Mimi, Joshua, and I decided to go shopping in Aspen. That didn't go as smoothly as expected, but at least I got a good picture of Aspen. There was so much snow everywhere it was difficult to get an appreciation for the town. Guess we'll have to go back...

The "Silver Bullet" may look good on the slopes, but he still needs his wife to help him get his boots on. Thursday I got back out on the skis. It was enjoyable but very cold. The boys took it easy on me and we went slowly, skipping the terrain park.

Phase two of the Colorado Expedition found us in Fort Collins. Joshua got to hang out with cousin Wyatt. They played well together and seemed to have lots of fun. While there, we went to a little farm, walked around the downtown area, ate good food, and did lots of playing. Kurt and I also snuck out for a hike in which we got a talkin' to by the local park ranger for hiking off trail.

Driving the tractor...

Baa Baa...

"Com'on cuz, can't this thing go any faster?"

Poo-Wee!

The Z boyz.

Wyatt introduced Joshua to the fun of forts.

Thank you to Mimi, Papa, and the Colorado Z family! We had a great vacation with you.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope Cupid gets you this year!

Smarty pants

I see your lips moving, but I can't hear you...

Wise Words from Joshua

Joshua has finally said his first official word. Now that I’m a parent, I realize it’s a little difficult to determine what constitutes as a word versus simple babbling. And if he simple repeats a word, does that count? So, I came up with criteria as to what would constitute as the first official word: He would need to say it on his own initiative and use it in an appropriate setting. For example, looking at a tree and saying, “Daddy” wasn’t going to cut it.

After what seems like months of babbling “Da-Da” and “Ma Ma” with a number of other sounds, I was ready. When asked what a lion (or honestly, what any animal sounds like) and he will roar. He can repeat “uh-oh” and shakes his head “no” when you tell him “no, no.” He constantly chatters in his own little language and will even raise his hand in the air to get your attention when he’s talking to you. (This makes me think he will be a preacher or a rapper some day, or maybe a rapping preacher?)

Several weeks ago, Kurt and I headed out to shop for some accessories to decorate our living room. We went to our local Bassett furniture store because we have a gift card. Now Bassett isn’t the fanciest store in town, but it certainly isn’t Wal-mart. They have an area set out with complimentary coffee, lemonade and cookies. Being the cheap people we are, we always take advantage of their hospitality. After hanging out in the stroller for a while, Joshua was ready to do some walking around on his own. Kurt decided to hang out with him for a little while in the kid’s area while I went to get a cup of coffee. We then ventured around the store a little more and talked about our options. After making some decisions, Kurt stated he was going to put Joshua back in the stroller so we could head back to one of the rooms.

I’m not really sure what happened next. Either I stepped forward while bringing my hand down or Kurt stepped back while reaching down for Joshua. All I know is that my left hand, the one with the diamond ring, made contact with Kurt’s forehead. Hard. Kurt lifted Joshua up while moaning in agony. I tried to suppress my laughter, but I didn’t do a very good job. Kurt, in a very frustrated tone, asked what I was doing, as if he thought I did in intentionally. At that moment I was using all my energy trying not to laugh, knowing it would only make my dear hubby angrier. That’s when Joshua decided it was a good moment to try and steal my coffee. He pulled the cup over, spilling the full cup down the front of my cream sweater and all over the floor of Bassett. By this point I was really laughing and Kurt was not happy. Joshua surveyed the scene; coffee on mommy and the floor, and a mad daddy and proclaimed, “uh oh!” Uh-oh was right little buddy.

Ice storm hits Austin, Terrorizes Texans

Falling behind on blogging has become a trend...I'm sure most of you know by now that Austin got hit by an ice storm recently. But did you know that cold weather animals also attacked? Here, Joshua and I are trying to outrun a vicious polar bear.

Austin in winter weather is pretty humorous. Everything shuts down and they warn people to stay off the roads. News reporters gets worked up and have you thinking a natural disaster to the scale of Katrina is about to hit. Sunday night they were predicting terrible road conditions, loss of power, and stranded people for the next day. The tricky part of the storm was that it was going to be off and on all day, making it difficult to pinpoint safe times to drive. I, believing my trusted news anchors, begged Kurt not to go to work. I wondered what I would do if he got stranded at the office and we lost power and Joshua and I had to fend for ourselves. So, like a good husband, Kurt stayed home. He was the only one in his office that wasn't there. oops. By the end of Monday afternoon we began to realize the apocalypse was not coming and the media folks were overdoing it a bit for the ratings. They predicated even worse weather for Tuesday, leading into Wednesday. Kurt went on into work Tuesday. The schools were closed, business were closing, and his office closed too. Would you East Coasters believe this-even Walmart closed. Walmart never closes! While the bridges were a little icy, Kurt didn't have any problems driving in with the Xterra.
Tuesday Joshua and I ventured outside. It had started snowing, but by the time I wrestled him into his snowsuit it wasn't snowing anymore. He enjoyed walking around and crunching the grass, but definitely needed a hand to keep his balance. But of course I needed to take a picture of the cute boy in his snowsuit, which would leave him on his own. I tried to convince him to stand on his own, but he would cooperate. So of course, he fell down. That didn't bother him so much, but in order to push himself back up he had to put his hands in the cold, icy stuff (he won't keep his mittens on). This made him very upset and he started crying, so I brought him inside and here he is.

What can I say? He's a Texan.


By Wednesday night, I was getting stir crazy. Since Kurt was driving the Xterra I was stuck indoors (the Mazda is a manual and I didn't think this was the time to learn how to drive it). That night, Kurt scraped the Mazda's windshield. Given the fact it had been gathering all the precipitation over three days, it took a while... I stayed inside sipping hot cocoa, thanking the Lord that I didn't have to scrap a thing.

By Thursday at noon, things began to get back into order. As for the Polar Bears, they didn't really attack. Last Tuesday Kurt had a meeting in Tyler, Texas so Joshua and I went along for the ride. We thought it might be a good time to test Joshua's road trip adaptability. All in all he did great. He had two basic dispositions for the ride:

Joshua and I checked out Tyler's Rose Garden and Rose Festival Museum. (I'll save that for another entry though.) By the time we got lunch, Kurt was finished with his meeting. We then all headed to the Brookshire Wildlife Museum for some wild fun. It was actually pretty impressive for a free museum. I guess the Brookshire's have a lot of money? They owned the local grocery chain there in Tyler. We made lots of new friends (see pics below) and had fun together. Besides lots of stuffed animals, the museum has an old time general store. It is set up just like back in the day. While I feel like I have seen examples of these before, this was by far the most well done.

This was the wildest animal we saw that day...

Don't you have anything else to do?

Recently I was asked about You Tube and the fact that our videos were public. I didn't think much of making our videos public. So I went to the site to check out some things and found that you can see how many people have viewed your videos. Would you believe that Joshua doing the Hokie Pokie as been viewed over 1,000 times! I think people have found it because it gets linked with other Hokie and Viginia Tech stuff. One Haircut video was viewed over 200 times and the other over 300 times. Isn't funny that people don't have more to do than watch random videos on YouTube? Then again, Kurt and I love watching random videos on You Tube. Here are two favorites we have come across.

Bush Bloopers. No matter what your political views, this is funny.



Get your groove on to this one.


I have gone back and changed the settings on our videos to Private. I can still post them on the blog, but I don't know if I want thousands or even hundreds of people watching our videos!

Sliding fun

Santa brought Joshua a slide for Christmas. He has already figured out how to climb up on it himself. Here he is having fun with it. (I really need to remember not to talk when I'm videoing!)

Merry Christmas!

Hope you are having a great Christmas! Can you believe this is what we woke up to in Austin Texas? I never would have thought we'd have a White Christmas here, but it was beautiful. We spent most of the morning sledding down the little bank behind our house. Joshua didn't seem to quite know what to think of it all, but he had fun.

okay, really it was cold here, but not enough for snow. I know, I was disappointed too. But we have had a great day, despite no snow. Merry Christmas!

Nothing but Monkey Business

I'm a little behind on the updates, but Joshua turned one a few weeks ago! Mom Mom Zeb came to visit so she was there to celebrate with us. We invited some of his friends over for some "Monkey Fun." I thought for sure that having the party at 3 PM would be perfect for his schedule, but he started acting tired just before his guests arrived. Joshua took the monkey theme seriously; I was standing next to the food and drinks and he reached out and grabbed a pitcher of lemonade, pulling it down onto us. It drenched both of as well as soaking all the napkins and splashing onto the plates. As soon as I headed back to change him his friends started to arrive!

He seemed to enjoy playing with his friends. And of course, his cupcake. We had a monkey cake and some cupcakes too. I have to be honest with Joshua and his cupcake...he crammed so much in that at one point he actually gagged. That can't be a good sign!

After pounding his cupcake Joshua had a little meltdown and left the party for a nap. (It's my party and I'll cry if I want too!)

The party ended on a bit of a sour note when one of his friends hit her head on the corner of the wall. She had to go to the ER, but is doing great now. We were sad that it happened, but are thankful that she is okay.

We invited his friends to bring canned goods to be donated to the local food bank in lieu of gifts. It was cute watching him play with the goods later that night!

Happy Birthday to Joshua and thank you to God for carrying us through the first year! Thanks also for Mom Mom making the trip out to be with us. Joshua loves is Mom Mom!!