It's time to give it up !

I really am not making time for this blog, so one last 3 month update.

Since December 9th, 2009:

1) We went through our first whirlwind Christmas holiday with a "mobile" Lucas. :) We made a pact to make a Simple Christmas next year, for real.

2) Decorating the tree, making cookies, having fun, family in town, leaving to go out of town for almost 2 weeks, buy/wrap gifts, see #1 and Simple Christmas to really enjoy the REason for the Season-next year's goal!

3) Trip to San Antonio, including Sea World on New Year's Day (and an awesome 75 degrees)-which was a blast.

4) Back to the grind after the holidays and catching up on 2 weeks worth of work-ew.

5) The rest of the time just enjoying watching our son grow up, it goes so darn fast!

It takes so long to add pictures on here compared to FAcebook. I just uploaded a whole bunch-please check them out. :) I just added one picture to show how much he is growing.

Take care everyone!

Three Months, Really?

No excuses this time. I have to mention that my sisters have cumulatively posted like 25 blogs since my last posting in September. I believe that is somewhere around the right number, I may have lost count along the way. It is particularly sad that Michele has two kids (as compared to Sta and my respective one kid each) and has beat us both by like at least 7 or 8 blogs... :)

Anyway, instead of listing a long outline of events over the past 3 months, I thought I'd take the easier route by telling the story in pictures. I decided to do it in reverse, just for giggles-starting at Lucas' 1 year birthday and going back to September... Enjoy!

11/14/09 ONE YEAR OLD ALREADY, WHERE IN THE WORLD DOES THE TIME GO? Yes, all caps since I am still in awe that he is now considered a toddler.

Birthday cake, uh yummmm.

Favorite part of it-chasing all the balloons we blew up. Jer's parents made it from San Antonio and Jer's Grandparents drove from Davenport, IA for the party. Mom also made it to the shindig.

Isn't this what dishwashers are for?

Halloween-The Toy Story gang (Meggan as JEssie, Woody's girlfriend; Lucas as Buzz Lightyear, and Jordan as Woody).

10/25/09 Brown County trip, hard to get everyone looking at the camera...

Honorable Mention-between these 2 pictures, Matt and Crystal visited to celebrate both Jordan's 2nd birthday and Lucas' 1st birthday the weekend of 10/17/09. Sadly, our cameras died and all the pics from the celebration were on other people's cameras.

10/11/09 Infant Dedication ceremony at church for Lucas

10/04/09 Baby "sword", so much fun...

09/24/09 Fight with mashed potatos. Hard to say who actually won.

09/19/09 Trip to the zoo with Dawny and Grandma-Lucas was excited about the event.

That's all folks! Talk to you (not so) soon!

It's Only Been A Week, Hide Your Astonishment!

It's been a great week since the last posting! There really isn't many things that are better than a holiday weekend!

We stayed home for the first Labor Day weekend for the first time since we moved to Indy. It was quite weird and admittedly different, but very enjoyable. Included in the weekend "festivities", if you will, was a little bit of hitting (Lucas is dangerous when wielding his toy bat), some crawling (over us, the dog, and anything else in his way, that is), some standing without assistance (yikes), family walking time, playing and more playing, beginning discussions on our wills (I am truly struggling to hold back my utter excitement on this topic), and completing the rest of our childproofing. Add a couple naps (for all), snuggle time with each other and each of us with the baby, and you have the perfect weekend! I can't believe it's already time to go back to work! Bummer!

I hope you enjoy the pictures from the weekend!

Naptime with Daddy...

A boy has to eat too, right?

I love applesauce! I think I'll lick the bowl clean!

I don't know why Mommy thinks I need a bath-it's just a little applesauce!

Forget MC Hammer Time, It's Mobile Time!

Despite my best intentions, it has now been over a month since my last post. I think it is time to call a spade a spade and just admit that I am lousy at this blogging thing. Oh well, you win some and you lose some, right?

So yet another month to summarize. Let's just deal with the fact that this is going to be my M.O. :) Other than Lucas crawling everywhere, and pulling up on everything in sight (my legs included), here are the events of the last month or so.

August in Review (No Particular Order):

1) Project Fat you-know-what has been successful thus far, despite my lousiness at truly sticking to the original plan. The first 30 days yielded a total loss of 11 lbs., so I am now officially over 1/3 of the way to my 6 month goal. I was actually proud of myself for meeting my 1st and 2nd month goals in 30 days. However, this is really hard to stick to since I am my own worst enemy. Pleas pray for me on this one!

2) I finally got around to updating the baby book, less a baby shower invite. Did you know that they don't produce the same invitations for long? Three Wal-Marts and one Target later I finally gave up. So far my search of the internet has produced nada. Word to the wise, do not wait 9 months to work on a baby book-it sucks back-tracking! :0) Anyway, I'm glad to say I'm as caught up on that as I'm going to get. Now, to get caught up on the scrapbook-I'm about two months or so behind at this point. :) I must say, however, I truly enjoy scrapbooking-it is now officially my new hobby.

3) The weekend before last Jer went to Davenport to visit with both his Dad who was visiting from San Antonio and his Grandma and Grandpa Munden (a.k.a. Grandma and Grandpa Moose). They had quite a time, here they are in the Moose's backyard.

4) Crystal and Jackson were here last weekend while Jer, Jesse and Don Kampman (Jesse's boss at the Grundy County Courthouse) went to the Bristol night race. The guys had a blast, as did we for the most part. Unfortunately, I was Oscar the Grouch since I felt like I'd been hit by a bus then a Mack truck shortly thereafter. Both Jordan and Lucas weren't feeling well either. It's just that time of the year I suppose.

5) Meggan and Jordan spent the night the last weekend in July. They had a blast playing together and with Lucas. It really is quite cute to watch them all play together. Anyway, below is the result of them "feeding" Lucas. Meggan has helped him (finally) master holding his bottle. He really only does it for her anyway, for the most part. Lazy fella!

Also, Meggan and I made chocolate chip cookies for the first time. Yum!

6) This weekend Jer and I had our first official Date Night sans Lucas. We love the little guy, but we were both SO excited for a night on the town, less the standard chasing. We went to see The Proposal at the theater, followed by a visit to Maggiano's less the diaper disaster. Much better the second time around, if I do say so myself. We talked about everything, including the future. It was fun to talk seriously about our dreams and other ideas we rarely take the time to share with each other in the midst of the day-to-day grind. We had a blast and are so thankful to Michele and Jas for keeping Lucas all afternoon, evening and through church the next day! Woo hoo, sleeping in never felt so good! Now they'll have to go on their adventure after Labor Day so we can hang out with the little ones for the weekend! :)

Anyway, back to the daily grind (and reality). We are eagerly awaiting the holiday weekend to relax and enjoy the extended time together. We might try out either Eagle Creek Park up North or Brown County State Park, we're not sure. We'll just go with the flow. I'm eager for some family time, it'll be a lot of fun.

Alright already, adios for now! Here are a few more parting pictures below.

The 'Do. It pays to have really long hair. Not on purpose, of course! Man itreally grows fast. Hopefully Grandma can fit it in this week...

Hanging out in the loft with Mommy tonight.

I Couldn't Resist

It's definitely sooner, rather than later for once. It is officially a record, two posts in one day!

I couldn't resist posting a few pictures of him playing (and crawling/army crawling) tonight in the loft. Time goes so fast, you just wonder where it all goes! :)

Enjoy!

That's a wrap!

Keeping Busy

It's been the classic month, and a busy month it was. Also, I promised Donna I'd post something for once. :) She told me she checks this blog every day-which may be a motivator to not be so lazy and post more often!

The last month's highlights:

1) We went to see the Vintage Base Ball game and enjoy some fun in the sun sans kids the weekend after Father's Day. It was marvelous! The rooms were discounted, so we got to experience being rich and enjoying the "good life" for a while. It was great fun!

2) We got home from West Baden (the kid didn't even miss us a bit) and turned around and went to Iowa for the 4 th of July two days later. We stopped in Davenport, IA to stay the night with Jer's Grandparents-Lucas thought Grandma's kitchen gadgets were awesome!

We then traveled to Grundy Center and stayed at Crystal's for the rest of the week. It was pretty fun, we went grocery shopping and regular shopping with Lucas and Jackson while the boys went golfing. It was pretty fun, especially hitting Perkins, which I haven't been to since Crystal's Bachelorette party. We were exhausted by the time we went six places with the babies and traveled back to GC from Waterloo-but it was worth it. Lucas was thrilled to see his first Iowa 4th of July parade, tractors and firetrucks included. Doesn't he look mesmerized?

We also got to see Jackson getting baptized, which was a special moment going back to my old church and seeing all kinds of people I haven't seen since I was a teenager! Small Town Iowa... Then Darla made us all an excellent lunch. She refused my offer to be my personal chef-Darn. She is so good to us-our clan is quite large and she jumps in and does all the work while we're trying to get out of town to drive home. She's great!

3) Crystal decided to go to Indy on a whim, at Mom's suggestion (hide your surprise). I hope Mom just read that... LOL. Anyway, she stayed in Indy and hung out with us for her last week before she went back to work. Mom also brought Lily for the week. The girls played their hearts out and had a great time! You don't forget those special times hanging out with family that lives far away when you get older-it was pretty neat. Here they are taking a bath and then crashing for the night in their "sleeping bag" in the loft. How cute!]

4) Lucas claps even when he's crying, which we all find hilarious.

5) Lucas has evolved from army crawling when he really wants something to army crawling rapidly even when he doesn't want something...and thus the chasing begins. :) Anyway, he does actually sleep after crawling all over the place. Jer caught him sleeping in a position where he looks like a caged animal-but still cute! Aren't we cruel?

6) Jer isn't playing Vintage Base Ball the rest of the season.

7) This past weekend the guys went to the Brickyard Nascar race and the ladies, including Jason's brother Jared and his girlfriend Sonny and her two girls, Jess and Randie, came to Indy for the weekend. It was fun-we went to the pool and then went to Michele and Jason's house and hung out mostly outside while the kids played.

8) I had an epiphany-I'm getting way larger than I ever thought possible. IT WAS TIME TO GET SERIOUS. Hence, the lifestyle change that I have dubbed (please cover your ears) Project Fat F*#$. I have put together about 50 diet, exercise, fitness, and happiness tips. I also developed a weekly menu based on the Weight Watchers plan and have begun exercising. As you all know I don't really do anything halfway, hence the PSYCHO nature of the whole thing. My poor husband! For all of you that know me well, this plan basically sucks, but it can't hurt to try to be healthier in the long run. It is worth a try. Wish me luck on my journey...

Thanks for being loyal followers, even if I am a slow poke in posting blogs.

Talk to you all later, hopefully sooner rather than later. :)

Daddy's Day Weekend

Alright, I'll give everyone a moment to recover from the shock of three posts in one week. Turning over a new leaf? Doubt it.

So on a more serious note, what a fun weekend!

On Saturday afternoon/evening, we went to Meggan's annual dance recital. Here she is with the bouquet of bright pink roses we gave her and the flower from her teacher that they got at the end of the recital.

After the recital we went to GT South's BBQ (yum), followed by Dairy Queen ice cream cake (double yum). Jer had mentioned how much he loves ice cream cakes a few weeks ago-and he thought I never listened to him...

Onto Father's Day-we had a marvelous "family day." Yes, I am totally gay, Crystal. LOL.

Lucas started the day at 5:30 am-well, Mommy and Daddy were able to stretch it until 7 am by laying him in between us. We headed to Brown County at about 8:30 am, after a quick stop at Long's Bakery for donuts for the trip. Here we are outside some of the shops in Nashville, IN (a small artist colony known for it's shops and scenery).

After lunch at the Harvest Moon pizzeria, we headed to Brown County State Park. Lucas fell asleep in less than 5 minutes and missed the drive. They have a lodge with an indoor pool, camping, lakes, trails, etc. It's a pretty cool place for future outings. I took some lame scenic pictures since the Little Dude was napping. Then we headed home to open the gifts. Lucas is helping Daddy read one of his cards here...

Here is the "DAD" picture that we had taken on the sly.

Lucas is more interested in the wrapping paper than the "I May Be Small, But I Know These Big Things" project. It's a craft project including Father's Day quotes such as "A father carries pictures where his money used to be" by Unknown and "Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope" by Bill Cosby. Yes, I came up with this one all on my own-believe it or not. :)
Lucas seems enthralled with his picture for Daddy's office-the kung fu picture from Monday's post (6/15).

Here is another picture-a collage of the "DAD" session for Jer's work. I promised him I would never do pictures again for Father's Day. He is secretly very happy about that! :)

Jer thought a little arm wrestling was in order after opening all those silly pictures. Seems more manly, right. Lucas was game.

What a ham!

Hammin' it up some more...

The end of Jer's first Father's Day. What a fun day it was!