Our Week in Review

We are really behind, but we'll give you the update.

Art checking out the swings at Riverside Park.  We were early meeting a friend to go walking.

He thought the ride was so-so.  He had his eyes on the geese instead.

This was more fun than the playground. The geese are used to being fed so they don't mind people.

Joey arrived.  Joey is one of our 'Skins friends.

After fighting with our refrigerator for a year as it decided to overfreeze in the freezer and leak in the fridge, we bought a new fridge.  We had to empty our previous one to prepare for the next one.  The wagon came in handy and I had a little bit of help.

He likes our agent's lockbox and carries it around like weights. 

Here is the best 50 cents we spent on a toy.  He loves this little rake.  Hopefully he gets his practice in for the fall.

Yay!  With the new fridge, we can put the magnetic letters back up!

There is a sprayground nearby where we could cool off.  We met some buddies there to play in the water.

He didn't like it too much and was more scared of the water.  He liked being a wallflower better. This one of the few times that he walked through the fountains.

They have low fountains as well.

Here's a shot of his big belly.

Art Messes with Texas

We took a trip to San Antonio, Texas to visit Art's new cousin, Ryan.  He was born on June 25. It was Art's first excursion on a plane.  He was a busy one.

It was hard to get a picture of him on the plane since we were in close quarters.  I decided to check a bag because I didn't know how it would go pulling a suitcase through the airport while pushing a stroller.  It was worth the $15. 

Here's another attempt at getting his photo. It was a long 2 hours on my own in such a small space.  Luckily, the seat next to me was open so we could stretch out just a little.  The girl in the window was trying to ignore him by sleeping, but he managed to touch her arm at one point to get her attention.  He also played with the tray table (and probably bothered the person in the seat while doing so) and tried reaching for some crazy, greasy curly hair of the person sitting in front of me.  I was happy to "de-plane." (what an odd phrase) 

One of the highlights for Art while we were there was playing with the cats. They enjoyed the attention at points and were quick enough to escape when they didn't want company.

Here's Uncle Al and Art playing with Macy.  She liked the attention.

Ryan just slept most of the time. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the middle of our week long trip to San Antonio, we went to Angie's place in Austin.

We took the car to the car wash one day. He liked watching the cars drive through and get scrubbed down.

We visited the pool two days in a row to beat the Texas heat.  It was hotter than GA and I didn't think that was possible! Here we are at Deep Eddy which is a spring fed pool in Austin.  It had a really shallow wading areas that are 9 inches deep so Art was able to waddle around.

Here he is in the water at Deep Eddy.

Art was probably laughing at Lucy, the new family puppy.

Another highlight of Art's trip was getting a balloon at the HEB.  It had a sucker attached to it.

Here's Art with his Godparents.  They gave him a cute shirt that says "The Godchild."

He got a little hot outside so I stripped him down.

He didn't like the location of the cooler so he moved it around.

Daddy came for the weekend to visit his new nephew.

Here are the boys together!

Watch out cousin Rowan.  These boys are going to get you! (What cutie pies, by the way)

He found one of the cats again!

First Birthday - Part 2

Dad made Art's second cake for him.  Heck, we're out of our element at a rental property and he still managed to make it look pretty good.

Even with some of his favorites, blueberries

Brian is tediously drawing on the cake.

A few finishing touches and we're good to go.

Before the party starts, the cousins need a game of tackle football.  Not really...

Art still likes playing with boxes.

He had to do his chores, too.

Let the party begin. 

He liked this cake more than the other one.  He actually dug into it.

We were able to take it away from him so he wasn't too addicted.

Its not a party unless someone's clothes come off.

I was really thinking he was going to dig into it Cookie Monster style.  I guess I was wrong.  He gingerly picked up little bites.  This was the mess we had to clean up.

Presents!

Ohhh, he's going to be stylin' for the Skins games.

Arthur Visits the Beach

We can't really call this Arthur's first trip to the beach because we did have one failed attempt at the beginning of the year in Marco Island, FL.  Unfortunately, it was in the 40s all week so we didn't get to soak up any sun then.  I will say that we had good karma this time and had beautiful weather all week.  A few more breezes would have been nice, but I won't complain.

I love this picture.  What a cutie pie.

Here was the setup for 3 out of the 4 days.  The tailgating tent was fantastic for the beach.  The sun wasn't always directly overhead so you had to follow the shade, but it was nice to have the option.

This is the first time Art touched sand.  He liked playing in it.  I taught him how to crush sandcastles and say boom while doing so.  It was hilarious.  We did the same thing with blocks inside and you can imagine how happy that made his 3 year old cousin who had just built a tall tower of blocks.

Art and Daddy going to the water.

I can't remember if we touched 5 month old Arthur's feet in the water during the last beach trip.  Well, either way, this is the first time he touched the Atlantic Ocean.

He enjoyed the beach, but on Wednesday when we took him out, he kept rubbing his eye.  Neither of us had clean hands so we had to take him inside.  We tried holding him down and opening his eye so we coudl flush it with saline solution, but he is a strong little man. Thanks to Lynn who had the solution of continually dumping water over his head in the tub.  This was the aftermath.

Staying inside was not such a bad thing after all.  We finally caught the ice cream truck that tempted us with the high pitched midi tunes.  You are thinking of the music now, huh? This is the first time cousin Hugh saw the truck.   

Art got to sample the goodies thanks to Great Grandma.

Here was one of his favorites of the beach house.  He would climb into one of the cabinets and play in there.  Luckily, I filled it with plastic plates at the beginning of the week.  Surprisingly enough, he didn't fall out backwards and bonk his head on the floor.

Giving Uncle Anthony a hug goodnight.

And...due to an evening thunderstorm, we lost our shade. There are two tents here by the way.

This was the setup for the last two days.  We left them out every night because it can be a chore to move them back and forth.  We were able to avoid theft, but Mother Nature decided to take them down instead.  Karma wasn't with us after all.  We still enjoyed ourselves for Art's first dip in the water and play in the sand!