Daddy's Boy

A few days ago my visiting teachers were here and one of them asked, "Does Damon just look exactly like Nate did as a baby?" A lot of people say that Damon looks like Nate, but I had looked at baby pictures of Nate a few months ago and thought they looked nothing like Damon. So I got out my book of pictures of Nate as a baby to show her that they look nothing alike. This is what I found.

Nate

Damon

Now, I'm not saying they look like twins or anything...

Nate

Damon

(isn't he just the cutest thing? His mom thinks so.)

But the resemblence is hard to overlook. Let's just say, he doesn't belong to the milkman.

I felt a little stupid after pulling out that book to prove that Damon doesn't look like his daddy.

Zonked out

I was looking through my August folder of pictures on the computer and I started to notice a trend. I thought it was kind of funny...

Here is Natalie. She is actually asleep for the night--in our bed because we can't put her to sleep in her room because Kelton is in there and they just play. (I'm sure that NO ONE reading this post has ANY idea of what I'm talking about.) Anyway, I thought each arm wrapped around a doll was too cute not to take a picture.
Then we have Kelton. That's him under the towel. Poor kid. Didn't get a bath until lunchtime, then no one dressed him (I'm sure at his insistence--is that even a word?), then he just couldn't make it through lunch.

Now Damon. He really only falls asleep in his crib, or sometimes in your arms if you are trying really hard to get him to sleep. The other night we were trying to make him last until bedtime, and he just didn't make it. All of a sudden, he was just gone. It was funny because he just never does this.

This picture was not my idea. I think I look strange. But yesterday Kelton was refusing to take a nap--which is also a rarity. Usually we have no problems with naptime. (Bedtime is another story...) Natalie was at school and Damon was sleeping. Nate and I were very tired so we both layed down on the couch to take a nap. When Kelton saw this, he got very upset. I guess he figured it was kind of pointless to be the only one awake. So he crawled up with me and went right to sleep.

Now there are no sleeping pictures of Nate, but I can guarantee you, they would be plentiful if I wanted them to be. Also, don't have any picture of this one, but Natalie has fallen asleep on the bus ride home twice (that I know of) this past week. So, do you think maybe none of us are getting enough sleep at night? I sure think so.

Good mood

The other day after school, Natalie wanted to hold Damon. He was in such a happy mood. Just look at that face! I thought, wow, I could get a really cute picture if I could get Kelton up on the couch too. But no such luck. He flat out refused.

3 1/2 months old

Damon is already approaching 4 months old! He will be 4 months old on the 20th. We are still working with his schedule. He seems to want one as much as we want him to have one, but he just can't quite get it down--at least not with naps. (I have him on an eating schedule during the day.) He falls into a pattern at night, but not so much during the day. But as long as he isn't tired or thinking that he's hungry, he is the sweetest baby. He loves to play. It is really easy to make his chubby little cheeks smile and he loves to laugh. Sometimes he will burst out laughing just because Natalie is looking at him. His newest love is pat-a-cake. The other day I was singing "wheels on the bus" with him and he was smiling and having fun, but as soon as I started "pat-a-cake" he wouldn't stop smiling and laughing. It's so cute how he is old enough to understand when we are playing games with him.

Second day of Kindergarten

Natalie rode the bus to school for the first time this morning. She was very excited. Notice that today she is in shorts and sandals. I think she was a bit too hot yesterday in pants and socks and shoes.
My sister-in-law makes a cake for her kids' first day of school, and I thought it was a great idea. However, I didn't remember this until today. So Natalie got a "second day of school cake" instead. Good thing she doesn't care. She's just happy to have a cake. I think my sister-in-law only does cakes on the first day of Kindergarten (right, Erica?) but I think it might be a fun tradition to do a cake every year. As of right now we don't have any summer birthdays, so it's been a while since we've had cake. We need more excuses to eat cake, right? Right.

Please don't pay too much attention to detail. I actually remembered about the cake about one hour before I needed to get Natalie from the bus stop. So by the time the cake cooked and was cool, I didn't have much time to be a perfectionist with the frosting.

Natalie seems to be having a good time at school. She doesn't tell us a whole lot. So either they aren't doing much yet, or she just doesn't remember. Her favorite part is, of course, playing on the playground. We've been having on major issue though. She has yet, in two full days, to go to the bathroom at school. She says she doesn't know where it is. And we think she is embarassed to tell the teacher when she needs to go to the bathroom. And she is afraid that she will miss something fun. We sent a note, explaining the situation, with Natalie to give to the teacher, but it didn't seem to help today. So, I am going to go with her tomorrow and try to talk to the teacher and find out what is going on. And show this little girl where the bathroom is. Fun. Hopefully we can straighten all this out.

It all starts...First day of School!

Natalie's first day of Kindergarten is here. We were all up (way too early) and Natalie was off at 6:45. Normally, she will ride the bus, but today, Nate took her. When she came out of the bathroom from taking a shower and getting dressed, she had the cutest look on her face. Like she was trying to contain her excitement, but couldn't.
Getting ready to go...putting on her new shoes. They are about the only thing we have any choice on. They have to wear uniforms to school, so we are limited to collared shirts that are navy, light blue, white, or gray. But she was pretty excited about the shoes.

"Natalie, show me how excited you are!" And this is what I got...

And there she goes. (Not to return until after 2:00--long day.) I just can't believe that she is old enough for this!

When the daddy's away, the kids will play

So Nate is off in Phoenix taking the bar exam and we are here alone for a few days. We got a really good monsoon storm this afternoon and it rained really heavy for about an hour and then continued to rain for a few more hours. It was nice. The kids decided to go play outside, which was really nice because they never do that. It's just too hot and we have no shade. After a little while, I discovered that they looked like this... (and yes, they are both losing their pants.)
And here is the reason why. According to Natalie's imagination, its a big pile of chocolate.

After they were good and muddy, I made them strip down so I could spray them off with the hose. I thought they would hate that. But despite the cooler temperatures due to the rain, the hose water still came out warm. So they thought it was pretty fun to be sprayed off by mom. Even Kelton didn't cry when I sprayed off his head and face. (This kid cries if he gets any water on his face while taking a bath.)

I realized that I haven't posted any pictures in a while and I just moved pictures from the camera to the computer, so here's a few favorites. Some are not super recent, but they are all from July.

I love how it looks like he is doing the dishes. Ha! He's just playing with the bubbles.

I absolutely love this little face...

And this one too. This is one of my favorite faces. It's really hard to get it on camera because it doesn't last long. I think most babies make this face and it is just sooo cute.

Here's Damon all ready for church in his cute tie.

And it's starting... Seconds after the first picture, the tie headed straight for the mouth.

These pictures are from one of the first monsoon rains. It was sprinkling and I knew Kelton had gone outside. I went to check on him, and this is what I found.

He's not asleep--just enjoying the rain. Because he is only two and a half, I'm sure he doesn't remember the last monsoon season, so he doesn't really remember rain. I remember Natalie reacting about the same way when she was this age. I love the picture below. It's like he's looking into the sky trying to figure out where its all coming from.

We recently got back from Snowflake. We went for the 24th of July celebration. We took our camera, but it never made it out of the car, so I don't have any pictures. We had a lot of fun though. We got to see the town's production of Beauty and the Beast, staring my neice Delsy as Belle. We took Natalie with us and she had a lot of fun. She wasn't too happy when the Beast ripped Belle's dress (it was supposed to happen) and said, "Grandma, he ripped the dress you made!" Nate's mom made all of Delsy's dresses for the play and Natalie knew that. So she wasn't too keen on the Beast messing up Grandma's hard work.

Nate got to play in the golf tournament with my dad and brother, Rob. They won most of their entry fee back plus got some tomatoes and cucumbers and matching shirts. Aren't they cute?

The highlight of our trip was our fun visit to the Summit Hospital ER in Show Low. After having my whole body hurt for a few days (and thinking I was just getting sick) I woke up on Thursday morning with everything hurting, I was freezing, despite all the blankets piled on me, and I was shaking violently and could not stop. That's when I realized that for the second time in my life, I had a kidney infection. So off to the hospital we went and spent all morning and part of the afternoon there. All just to get some antibiotics. Gotta love the ER. So I didn't feel too great for the first part of our trip, but I am feeling better now. Thank goodness for being born into a time with modern medicine.

And while I am rambling on... Damon rolled over for the first time today. I put him down for a nap on his tummy (and am no longer ashamed to admit it--I've found that despite what they tell you, most people but their babies on their tummies) and when I went in to get him after he woke up, he was staring up at me, on his back. Also, his crazy long hair got a trim today. It looks a lot better.

Cute

Kelton says some very cute things too. Right now, here are two of my current favorites that make me smile every time.

"I wanna want some!" This phrase comes out everytime he sees something he wants to eat--usually something we are eating.

"I have a sneaky diaper." This is how he informs us that he is 'stinky.' I love it.

I usually correct my kids when they say something wrong. But sometimes it is just too cute to fix and I am sad for the day when they figure it out on their own.

Sweetheart

Me: "Natalie, I love you. Do you love me?"

Natalie: "Yes."

Me: "How much do you love me?"

Natalie: "All of the numbers!"

Shower curtain playmat

I saw this idea the other day on filthwizardry.com and it looked like a lot of fun. So today we devoted our afternoon to making a playmat out of a shower curtain liner. The kids already had the matchbox cars out before I really started drawing all the buildings.
And here's the finished product! They love it. Natalie especially. She drives the cars over to the gas station so that they can drive up to the zoo, etc... The little poly pocket type dolls have gotten involved too. What I love, is that its huge and fun, but folds up as small as I want for storage.

For any of you thinking, wow, that is a great idea... Here's a few tips. Tape it to the floor before you start. The roads are really easy and fast to do if you tape two Sharpies to opposites sides of something like a bottle. I used my shaving cream can. Then you can draw both sides of the road nice and evenly and at the same time. Also, on the other site, they colored it with crayon. So I colored ours with Natalie. The crayon went on really well. However, it kind of comes off if you set your hand down on a colored spot for a minute or so. So...I might skip the coloring with crayons part and use colored Sharpies if you want it colored. Although, I wouldn't really want Natalie let loose with colored permanent markers... Even though the crayon kind of comes off, she had a TON of fun coloring it. So, I guess its up to you. Have fun! We did.

Gotta love this time of year

Natalie came up to me the other day and said, "There is no more cold water in my sink. Only warm and hot." For those of us in southern AZ, that is the sad truth once summer rolls around. No more cold water. It reminds me of a time a few years ago when my sister-in-law, Jen was at our house and needed to take a shower. After the water being on for a few minutes she had to come out wrapped in a towel in order to tell me that she couldn't get the water to not be burning hot. I then had to show her that you have to make sure the dial isn't pointed anywhere near the hot side. I remember when I first moved here--I was shocked to come to this realization about the water here. Now its just a way of life. The only cold water to be found is in the fridge.

Smiles

If you chance to meet a frown

Do not let it stay...

Okay, so Damon has been smiling for weeks now, but we have failed to really try to get a good picture of it. Part of the problem is that Nate is gone all day studying for the bar, even on Saturdays (poor Nate) so I have no one to take the picture. I'm sure Natalie's trigger finger wouldn't be fast enough. It's almost impossible (almost, because I did take these pictures) to be the one trying to make the baby smile and taking the picture. Damon sees that camera appear right next to my face and all of a sudden it becomes far more interresting than me, and he zones out into another dimension while staring at it. Anyway, Damon has a really cute smile. He is a pro at the open-mouthed smile. He's getting good at laughing as well. It's so much fun. Natalie loves to see him smile and can't stand to miss a single one. If she is in the other room and hears me talking to Damon in the "I'm trying to get a smile voice" she will yell, "Mom, don't let Damon smile!" and then comes running in. So hopefully I will get some better pictures soon, but for now, these are the best I have. :)

Damon's blessing

We had Damon's blessing yesterday at church. We had a lot of family come to be with us. It was really fun to see everyone and to cram everyone into our little house! Fortunately, the weather was unseasonably "cool" for mid-June and we were able to sit out in the back yard under canopies without being too uncomfortably hot while eating our lunch.

Our handsome little man.

Go Diamondbacks!

With advertising this cute, do you think we would get put on TV if we went to a game? Although, I haven't been keeping up much--I'm not sure we even have Brandon Webb anymore... But that's okay. WE still have Kelton and Damon and that's all that matters.

Just another cute picture of the kids.

Damon's photo shoot

My neice, Delsy took these awesome pictures of my cute little baby. She did such a great job!