Bloops and Blunders of Picture Taking

Trying to get a picture for our Christmas card gets more challenging every year. Neither kid looks at the camera or smiles at the same time and inevitably someone is crying. We took about 300 photos and got a lot of duds! These are just a few of the "attempts".

This was the best one of Jack and pretty good overall, so it was the "chosen one". :)

Joe Learning To Sign

We were feeding Joe his 3rd solid food today (sweet potatoes) and I decided to model the sign for "more" for Joe and put his hands together to show him how to do it while saying "more". After a few times I stopped because I didn't think he was really absorbing it and he was probably too young. I called Brent in to video us because we had not taken any photos or anything of Joe's first solids yet. You know how it is with the second child - poor kid. When Brent started video taping, our miraculously smart baby Joe signed for "more" over and over again all by himself to my utter amazement! It was no fluke. We were stunned and very excited to say the least. You all know how long we've waited to have a child communicate with us in any way, shape or form. He is not babbling consonants yet but this is a nice start at communicating and we will take it!

Halloween 2007

Sweet Dreams

This is actually a picture from our September trip to Indiana (other pictures on earlier post) but I found it on our older camera and I couldn't help but post such a sweet moment caught on film. Jack and Boppo really got to spend a lot of time together on this trip and this picture is priceless.

Whitt, Texas

Daddy and Jack exploring

We went to Grammy and Grandpap's land in Whitt, TX (1 hour, 20 minutes west of Arlington) on Saturday to just have kick around and be together. Grandpap was there with his friend Dick and they were "running their bird dogs" which means they were letting the dogs "stretch their legs" in translation. There are 80 some odd acres and Grandpap is slowly acquiring enough animals for a small wildlife preserve. :) He has 40-50 goats, a donkey, 2 longhorns and about 1,000 fish in his stock tank. There are 2 barns being built right now, one for humans equipped with a bathroom and one for the animals so they have shelter in those crazy Texas storms. They are also eventually going to build a weekend home somewhere on the land after they finish building the new home they are currently building down the road from us in Arlington. We had a blast in Whitt and Jack really enjoyed stretching his legs just as much as the dogs did.

Mommy and her boys Daddy feeding Joe on the Barn Deck

Daddy hangin' with the boys on the Barn Deck

Jenny the Donkey

A few of the Bird Dogs (Grandpap's - Ross, Betty & Bob and Dick's - Grits & dont' know the other dog's name?) FYI...the black dots you see all over the ground in this picture are goat poop pellets!!!!! YUCK!

The Goats

The Barn (human barn where the bathroom will be)

Mommy and boys on Polaris cart (I actually drove everyone around with Jack in between Mommy and Daddy up front, Joe securely on Daddy's lap and Grandpap and Dick in the back directing me)

Jack pretending to drive (he actually initiated this on his own which is rare)

Jack doing some more driving and Grandpap and Dick fillin' us up with gas

All the boys checkin' out the tank and looking for fish

Jack beaming at his Grandpap and lovin' life

Jack relaxing after all the fun - laying in the trunk eating pretzels

Fall Evening Walks

We started taking nightly walks every evening after dinner since the weather cooled off. At first Jack wasn't too keen to sit next to Joe though Joe LOVED looking over to see Jack sitting next to him. After about the first two nights of this Jack warmed up to the concept of sitting next to and sharing a stroller ride with his baby brother, or at least he "tolerates" it. Brent and I are LOVING our nightly walks as the weather is so uncharacteristically beautiful right now - our temp in the evenings has been in the 60's.

Joe Catching zzzzz's Anywhere He Can