24 Weeks

Poor baby, you haven't felt very good this week. We took you to the doctor today and you have your third ear infection and are congested. :( We are hoping the medicine they gave you kicks in soon so you will be feeling better.

Our Cool Dudes

Our boys are TOO adorable!!

We are just about out of diapers at our house, so we decided to run to Wal-mart to stock up, and wanted to try out the new denim huggies they have been advertising. Before we left, Carson was listening to my ipod with his headphones (b/c the ear buds don't fit in his). He decided his outfit would look really "cool" if he wore the headphones around his neck for the trip, and made me change his shorts so that he was wearing ones with pockets for the ipod. I HAD to take his picture before we left!


For the first time in a long time, we had a pleasant Wal-mart experience! We couldn't find the blue jean huggies, so we asked for help. The lady helped us look, but said they must be sold out when we couldn't find any. About five minutes later she found us in the store to tell us they were unloading them from the truck! They only had size 3, which fit Deacon's weight, but he is at the very low end, so they are a little big...but he looks so cute in them nonetheless!

Strong Genes

Guess who this is??

If you guessed Carson....

You were wrong!

I found this photo of BRIAN tonight! It didn't have a date on it, but I'm thinking he was about 5 or 6. I always new our boys looked like Brian, but omgosh it is crazy!!!

23 Weeks

This week you made Carson happy by saying "Bubba" for the first time! We're not sure how to classify what you are able to do on the floor now, it's not quite crawling, more like scooting. We are thinking it will be no time before you are all over the house!

Month by Month

5 Months

Deacon-you are 5 months old!!

• You weigh about 16.5 lbs. and are about 26 inches long.
  
  
• You wear size 2-3 diapers and 6-12 month clothes.
  
  
  
• This month your "firsts" consisted of: rolling over back to front, saying "Mama" and "Dada"!!
  
  
• You also tried a few new baby foods: applesauce, green beans, peaches, squash, carrots and pears. You loved them all! Carson has the job of picking out what you eat at every meal.
  
  
• You are starting to enjoy "tummy time" more because you can roll that way yourself. You are getting stronger while you are in this position, so we don't think it will be long before you are crawling. You are getting close to sitting up by yourself as well.
  
  
• You are also becoming more independent. You like to help hold the bottle and spoon when we feed you, and you can sometimes get your pacifier back to your mouth when it falls out.
  
• You love being held and can sometimes wear me out because you always want to be where the action is, which means I am usually carrying you around. But a nice perk is that you are a fabulous cuddler!!
  
  
• You have earned yourself some nicknames around our house: Baby D, Hun-Hun, and Cuddle Bug.
  

San Antonio Math Conference

I have wanted to go to CAMT (a math conference) since I became a teacher. This year was my first time to go, and it was in San Antonio AND I got to go with some of my favorite teacher friends:

Mrs. Olive, Mrs. Allen (who was also MY 8th grade math teacher), and Mrs. Davis

Mrs. Olive was VERY excited to find her name on a street sign, so we had to pull over to get her pic

Our hotel was in a FABULOUS location. It was right on the riverwalk AND attached to a mall!! We were thrilled and decided we immediately needed to shop and play dress up our first night:

I am really surprised we didn't get kicked out of the Disney store...

Then we went and ate at a Mexican restaurant that came highly recommended. After walking a million blocks in July heat we made it. The food was great, the service not so much.

The next morning we got up and went to our classes. Of course our fearless leader volunteered to help in one of the sessions:

One of the best parts of the conference is the exhibits they have in the exhibit hall!! I went crazy and bought a ton of cute teacher shirts and even one for Carson!!!

Kind of hard to read, but says "Queen of My Classroom"

For any of my teacher friends that are interested, most of the places carried shirts for all grades and subjects!! You can visit their websites here, here, here, here, and here.

I also found a booth with an item that I am going to write my next grant for: Math Sing-Alongs!! I love singing to my kids in class, even though I don't have a great voice, and it really helps them remember how to work their problems. Kay Smitherman wrote hundreds of songs about math to familiar tunes. Her workshop was our absolute favorite of the whole conference! We spent an hour singing and laughing! I also lucked out and got to be her helper, so she gave me a free cd!!

Her songs were so catchy that we caught ourselves singing them later in the day. This one was our favorite:

I love addition,

I love subtraction too.

Counting by 5's is just what I like to do.

I love to estimate,

Yes math is really great.

M- I love it.
A- I love it.

T- I love it.

H- I love it.

Yes, I am well aware of my extreme dorkiness.

Our last night we ate dinner at Pat O'Briens and sung along at their piano bar. We had a blast!!

We got a bunch of great ideas, and really enjoyed ourselves, but I was definitely glad to go home and see my boys! My mom was extra nice and stayed at our house to help Brian with the boys while I was gone.

My New Obsession

My high school dance teacher opened a Jazzercise studio when we were in high school and would sometimes practice her routines with us. It was always a great workout, but a lot of fun too because it incorporated popular songs with dance-like routines.

Now that I am post-pregnancy times two, and inching closer to thirty, I've decided I need some exercise in my life. My mother-in-law has been attending the studio where my old teacher is for years and has lost weight and toned up quite a bit, but it's a little too far for me to drive. Luckily, they are all over, including where I live.

I have been going to the gym for the past few months, doing weights, running, and swimming, but none of it prepared me for the first class I took of Jazzercise last week. I talked my neighbor into going with me for moral support. When we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a lady who had to at least be in her 60's dressed in her workout gear, and I immediately thought that if she could do it, it would be a piece of cake!

hah.

By the time we were finished with the "warm-up" I was already drenched! I swear, if my neighbor hadn't gone with me I would have snuck out the back door. I have no idea what my body would have done if I hadn't at least been working out these past couple of months! That 60 year old woman could jazzercise circles around my butt...it was embarrassing. I'm just glad there weren't any cameras, or anyone else I knew. I don't think I have ever been so hot and it was an hour! When Brian saw me a couple of hours later he thought I had gotten sunburned, I was still so flush.

I have now gone to five classes, and each class gets a little easier as my body adjusts and I learn the routine. It is actually a lot of fun. My favorite part is at the end they tell you how many calories the routine burns, and it has fallen between 650-750 calories every time. I can also tell when I hit up the gym how much more endurance I have, which is an extra perk.

My goal now is to run a 5k by the end of the year. Seeing as I'm not an athlete by any stretch, this should be interesting...

Austin Reunion

Every other year my dad's side of the family has a reunion on Father's Day weekend. This year we met in Austin. My nephews rode with my parents, so we somehow conned my sister into riding with us.

It didn't take long for her to regret this decision...

I sat in front of her and kept letting my seat back on her. She sat next to Deacon and was in charge of feeding him when he fussed. Carson called her "stinky" the whole time and Brian [who quite possibly has the worst voice ever] sang. She threatened to rent a car for the ride home. hehe

We finally arrived to the hotel, but not in time for dinner with the rest of the family, so we hit up the pool instead.

The hotel we stayed at was right on Town Lake, which is next to the bridge where about 2 million bats live. A man was selling swords right by the pool for all of the bat watchers and of course Carson & Austin talked their Meme into buying one for them. I think the swords went EVERYWHERE with us.

The next morning we woke up and walked down the street to find breakfast. But, had to make a stop for the grandsons to pose by a giant guitar:

We found a tasty little restaurant that sold crepes.

Mine was SOOO good. I can't remember what it was called but it was a strange combination of brie, pears, and walnuts that came together tastily (is that a word?).

After breakfast we went back to the hotel for our traditional silent auction that helps raise money for the next reunion. Probably against better judgement, I nominated myself president of the next reunion in New Orleans, and because Joni left the meeting early, we decided to make her vice president. :)


Deacon was a little overwhelmed by all of the chaos and decided it was nap time.

Joni took Austin and Carson to the Children's Museum:

...and we took Deacon to the pool. Wal-mart only had pink baby floats, so Deacon was forced to float in the feminine ride.

Brian thought it looked less girly without the shade:

We met back up for lunch at a Mexican restaurant that was really good, but we can't remember the name.

They put us upstairs by ourselves, which was probably a smart strategy on their part...

They made table-side salsa too. I've had table-side guacamole, but never table-side hot sauce. It was really good.

That night our entire family had a boat ride scheduled to watch the bats. We met for dinner first at a bbq place.

There was a little stream that ran behind the restaurant that you could walk down to and see turtles.

There is never a dull moment with us, so Austin felt it was his duty to keep us entertained by accidentally dropping his shoe behind the fence into the water. Somehow my dad ended up cutting his finger while trying to cut bamboo to fish the shoe out, and one of our family members jumped the fence and fetched the shoe.

The boat ride was a definite highlight. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and entertaining, and the weather cooled off to a comfortable level.

This is a picture of the bridge where the bats live, and you can see our hotel in the background too:

We didn't see very many bats because they had just had their pups, but I was okay with not having swarms flying around by my head.

The kids were happy too because they all took a turn to drive the boat.

The next morning we packed up to leave. Our family is usually good about taking group pictures the first day when everyone looks nice, but we somehow overlooked it until right before check-out when we were wearing our comfy driving clothes and just got out of the shower.

We also didn't take the big group picture with all of the family.

For fun, I thought I would post group pictures of our clan from previous reunions.

2006, San Antonio:

1999, Nashville:

1997, Fredericksburg: