Tie One On

Here's Kyle, ready for church. He received many compliments on his tie, today. People kept telling me he looked so grown up! They also said that he looks a lot like Jordan. You can make your own judgments, but here's a face that may make the decision a little easier (this is a face for you, Uncle Bando:)


After church, Kyle decided to relax on the couch.


"Hey, Mom! Will you bring me a drink while I chill for a bit?"

Teeth....Plural!

Kyle actually has teeth...not just gums, not just one tooth, but TEETH! You can see his two bottom teeth in this extreme close-up!

What better way to put these new teeth to use than by having a little snack? He's still learning fine motor skills, as you can see from the way he tries to pick up a piece of cracker with his index finger.


After finally getting it in the hand, he shoves it up into the mouth. This awkward motion reminds me of a drunk person trying to reach his hand out and touch his nose. It's hit-and-miss.

CHEESE!!!!!

He loves to make faces and squeal/scream, since he can't talk. It's pretty funny.

MORE!!!

What a nice Saturday it has been, especially after a not-so-pleasant week. School was okay this week, but hard to get back to after spring break. I lost a night of sleep over some stuff I'd rather not go in to, and agonized about it for the next day and into that night. I think there's been a good compromise made, but still feel frustrated that it got out of control and happened at all. Today, it was nice to talk to the person who I most wanted to about all of this and feel reassured that things are good. It was also nice to be home and to clean my home. It's weird, but I like to vacuum and do laundry and dishes when I don't feel under the pressure of my work-day time constraints. I also got to spend the whole day with Kyle. How glad I am that he's back to his normal, not-sick, self! Hopefully, this day will be a sign of good things to come in the following weeks!

Kyle Burrito

Kyle is REALLY close to crawling. Actually, he scoots around, but not with enough coordination to make a video....yet.

After we got home this afternoon, I put him down on the floor to practice crawling and to play with some toys. Stephen and I were talking and trying to get dinner going, and we heard Kyle squealing. We came around the corner to find this:

A KYLE BURRITO!!!

He had wrapped himself up, toys and all, inside this blanket. It wasn't just one layer. He had rolled, and rolled, and rolled. About 2 seconds after this picture, he started to get REALLY scared that he wasn't going to ever get out of there. How happy he was when he saw the light of day and our faces when we unrolled him!

Future Yell Leader

The Aggies ALMOST pulled it out against UCLA. Too bad....we were hoping for a "Sweet 16" celebration. Kyle still told me that he wanted to support our team. Couldn't he just about pass for a yell leader? We're still working on "Gig 'em!"


Sadly, we all had to go back to normal life today. Dad and Mom were back at work and Kyle back to the Linder's....he has it the best of all of us!

Easter

Happy Easter, everyone! Good ol' Midland doesn't disappoint with the crazy weather: 40 degrees, rainy, freezing wind. Great for all those new Easter outfits. (It snowed last year! CRAZY!) Oh, well. We still wore our cute, spring clothes!



Grandma Lou had to fly home today! It's been so much fun having her here with Kyle! Thanks for taking such good care of the little man while we were gone!

For Easter, we got Kyle JUST what he needs: new clothes. Actually, we found a lot of good deals in Vegas, so we bought clothes in bigger sizes for him to have for later.

I'm sure he's just THRILLED with his first Easter presents. We didn't even get a basket. Sorry, Kyle. We'll do better next year!!!

What Happens in Vegas....

Of course, some things that happened in Vegas will stay there ;) I mean, just check out our room!!! We stayed at the Palazzo Hotel, one of the newest in Vegas.

How could you not have a great time there?

Okay, since I'm not going to go into details on EVERYTHING, here's a summary of the some of the fun we had on spring break:

After flying in on Monday, we jumped in a cab, checked into our room, and grabbed some breakfast/lunch at the Grand Lux Cafe. YUM.

Then, Ashley (Stephen's cousin) drove over to hang out with us. We chatted for awhile in our room, then walked around the Palazzo and Venetian. That night, Dave (her husband) met us at P.F. Chang's for dinner. After that, Stephen and I went to see a show called Le Reve. It's a Cirque du Soleil, based around a water stage. It was pretty cool. Here's a few pictures:


Tuesday, we slept in a little, and Ashley came down to pick us up. We ate lunch at In-N-Out and went shopping. We took the tour of Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay and went down to a local frozen custard dive.


That night, we met Dave at Maggiano's Little Italy Restaurant. They said it's the best Italian in town, and they were right! Here's a picture of us waiting to get a table. The restaurant is right across the street from the Palazzo, so we took a picture in front of it.


On Wednesday, we headed out to the Paris, Las Vegas. First, we went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower to see the view above the strip.


Here's another view of the Palazzo...it's the tall one in the middle.


Then, we ate at one of our FAVORITE places of the trip: Mon Ami Gabi. It's a little French bistro that sits outside, overlooking the strip. We had some of the BEST French Onion soup EVER and a great Bananas Foster crepe.
At the end of our meal, the water show at the Bellagio (right across the street) started. It was a great lunch!


Then, we went to the Tropicana to see Bodies: The Exhibition. First of all, let me just say: how is the Tropicana still making it? It's as old as dirt, broken down, nasty, and was cool in the 50's. I guess these exhibitions are keeping it alive. Anyway, back to the exhibit. Being science people, we REALLY enjoyed it. Very interesting and educational.


After that, we went back to the hotel and took a nap. Actually, before the nap, we had to switch rooms. Our t.v. kept messing up, and they just moved us to another room so we wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of repairmen working. That night, we went to Grand Lux Cafe again.

Thursday morning we had to check out of our hotel. :( We drove to Ashley and Dave's house and went to eat at In-N-Out. Yes, again! This time we ordered our burgers "animal style," from the "secret" menu. We almost felt local!


To work off the burgers and fries, we drove up to Red Rock Canyon and "hiked" around. By "hiked," I mean "walked" on the paved nature trail. Hey, it's a start. It was beautiful and great weather to get into nature. I'm sure our lungs needed some fresh air after being down around all that smoke for three days. Here's a bunch of photos from our "hike."

We spent the next two days with Dave and Ashley. We did some more shopping, talked and laughed, met some of their friends, relaxed, barbecued, and just had a wonderful time.

Sadly, we had to return to real life on Saturday. One last meal at Pei Wei, some dessert at Cold Stone, and off to the airport. It was a great trip. See ya, Vegas!

What Shall We Do With the Drunken Baby?

Since we were going to be in Las Vegas for Spring Break and wanted some pictures of Kyle, Liz let her mom borrow a camera. Lou was able to take a few pictures of Kyle for St. Patrick's Day and his 8 month b-day. When I say "a few," I DO mean a few. Photographing babies is NOT the easiest thing in the world. In addition, Liz's camera has a VERY long flash. It's been difficult to get good pictures of adults...there's been many pic's with closed eyes or missed smiles.

For your enjoyment: a collection of photos that DON'T work. Usually, only the good photos make the cut for the blog, but there were just too many "drunken baby" photos to not dedicate an entire post to them. Liz....when you have kids, you might want to get a camera that has a a shorter flash!!!