Hall of mirrors

This blog is a mixture of our travel adventures and our new family adventures.
The title comes from a dumb blonde high school girl on a tour with us in Versailles who asked this question in every single room of the Palace.
The picture was taken while on our Honeymoon in China, on the Xian river.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Two more pics

Grandma (GG) Walters just celebrated her 75th birthday this past weekend. There was an impromptu party for her. Fortunately for our little Ares, my mom's mom and dad's mom grew up together, and even though my mom's parents are separated, they still talk and get along, so (way long story short), all of Ares' Great Grandparents on my side were together at once! This also happened on Father's day, but I forgot to take pictures then.

A good kid

THESE ARE THE PICTURES THAT ADAM TOOK BEFORE ARES' SCHOOL PICTURES. IT'S A GOOD THING HE TOOK THESE, BECAUSE I'VE HEARD FROM MANY PEOPLE THAT HE WAS NOT HAPPY DURING THE ONES TAKEN AT SCHOOL.


Lets hear it for 12.5 hour nights! Hip Hip.... I love my son. Even more so when he's not teething. He goes to bed so well, sleeps through the night (well, not last night, but our house was dry, we forgot to put the humidifier on, and even I got up twice for water, so I can't blame him).

Aunt Cindy, Mike, and Kassi watched Ares this weekend. He even went to church! I was told he was good. He did talk and "sing" a little bit, but I guess it just entertained those around him. I'm so grateful that they watched him this weekend while we were in Pittsburgh for a wedding.

We were very excited to go to Pittsburgh. We haven't seen some of Adam's frat brothers in a while (and when we did, it was for a viewing), so it was good to get together and have a good time. We were VERY excited that someone volunteered to watch the baby all night Saturday night, so Adam and I decided to splurge and get a hotel room so we could sleep in and have some alone time. No surprise that Doug didn't get themselves a hotel room in advanced, so he and his wife slept on our floor. Since the hotel was less than 2 hours away from our house, and the wedding ended around 9, we should have driven home. Would have slept better, thanks to our dog and us worrying about him jumping off the bed and waking doug and shawna up. Wasted $100 that night. Frustrating. It was nice to see them though, it had been a while since they've gotten together with us. Wish I could do things over again there.

The wedding was nice, we enjoyed ourselves (Thanks Sarah! You were beautiful!) and even got to see Pat for breakfast, which was an awesome surprise! Ballpark freaked out in the hotel room, and barked like crazy when we weren't there, so he stayed in the car during the ceremony and reception. He slept the whole time, he was a good dog, we're grateful that the weather wasn't too hot or cold so that we could do that and not worry.
THESE PICS ARE FROM THE PUMPKIN FEST IN CINCINNATI

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Random Pics

I've used an entire 1 gig card now with my camera (and Adam's the one who takes the most pics with his). I need to buy a new card soon!!

He is getting so big, and I have to say, he's freakin' adorable here. I have yet to get the pics from our Cinci trip last weekend from Adam. I hope to get that card soon!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Lots O' Videos

Here's a sweet - close up of the baby. He likes to grab at the camera now.

This one I was taking in the evening after day-care, and Adam walked in from work in the middle. Ares LOVES his daddy. Grandma Karen and I have decided that he's a "man's man" and already prefers to hang out with the men rather than women. This might have started in day-care, cuz Addison steals all of his toys. ;-)

His new favorite thing (next to blowing raspberries)

Here's Ares doing his favorite thing.... raspberries. If he didn't blow so many raspberries, we would probably be able to see his cute outfits rather than his bibs. You can hear Adam helping him out a little bit. This video was probably from last week.

Monday, October 19, 2009

On the radio

This morning, the radio DJ's were talking about the words "cougars" and "MILFs" and if the listeners thought it was OK to be called one or the other. I walked into the doors of the office this morning, and the security guard says " 'morning ma'am". Happy Monday.

Pics from the weekend to come soon.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Ohhh no.....

Ares slept like crap. We slept worse. Once he was up, he was up. He'd start to drift to sleep, and if he saw that we weren't there, he'd cry. He'd cry if we weren't patting his tummy. He'd just cry. All night. Cry. Is it Karma? I decided this past weekend that I needed time to myself and I needed to start going to the gym during my lunch. My goal is to start that next month (Which means I need to get Ares used to formula.) Last night he got formula for the first time (well, 1/2 his bottle was formula). I'm starting to think that I'm being selfish about wanting to get to the gym and he being up all night was telling me that. Or perhaps the teething thing is getting to him even worse. Either way, I'm hoping I can make it through the day today.

Our team won our softball games on Monday! Yay! We're 2-12 now! lol Our team made way less errors than we normally do (and the team we played was drinking on their bench). Adam didn't do too well in the field, but batted in some important RBI's. In the last inning of the first game, we were down by 1. (I hadn't had a hit all game). I get up to the plate, and crush the ball over the center fielder's head. FINALLY! Needless to say, we won the game. (I only got a double, but I drove in some runs.) We went out to celebrate as Monday nights Aunt Cindy watches the baby (well, Kassi did this time), and I only got 5 hours of sleep that night. Adam, (who always complains that he's tired and doesn't think he sleeps longer than I do) managed to get 7 hours cuz he doesn't start work for another 2 1/4 hours after I do.

Runnin' on empty! Excited about this weekend in Cinci though!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

It's 10:18, and I just sat down...


I come out of the house as we get to leave for my eye glass appointment first thing this morning, and here's what I come out to... Ares is hanging on for dear life. (Adam is about 6" away ready to catch him). I just shook my head.
Then, we get into my Pilot, and I flip through the pictures on Adam's camera, and here's what I see: WHAT A GOOF! These made me burst out laughing. Ares obviously enjoyed himself here.

This has been one heck of a day! First, I'd like to say that my husband ROCKS! This is not an understatement. I went to get my oil changed on Tuesday, and I asked if they would check out my brakes because they seemed to shimmy a little bit. (OK, and sometimes didn't stop properly when it rained.) Well, turns out, they're 90% worn. $550 they said it would cost to fix. Adam to the rescue! $114 in parts, and 2 hours in time, and I have brand new (working) brakes!
Before we did the brakes, we all went to pick out some new glasses for me, went to my parents house to find a C-clamp and see their new carpeting in their newly finished basement that Adam did.
We stopped at Mo's for lunch, it's kind of like Chipotle, but they give you bigger burritos and have a small salsa bar with chips. It was so great!
We are now members of BJ Wholesale Club, Adam and I walked around for 2 hours and spent $450! That's after the $65 in coupons we had! ($65!!!) We then had to rearrange our tiny kitchen to be able to accommodate all of the bulk items. I hope (other than some meat products) that we don't have to go shopping for years!
After shopping, we came home and made Oreo truffles for a clam bake tomorrow, and about 15lbs of baby food. Applesauce, banana applesauce, apple blackberry, chicken and apple, green beans and a medley of veggies. I still have some more to do, but I'm exhausted. It's 10:18, and other than 15 or 20 minutes in the car, this is the first time I've sat down all day.
NOW: Here's the awesome part. Ares is cutting a tooth (well, two). We were in BJ's, and I noticed his gums were bleeding. Did he care? NOPE. This kid was the perfect child all day long. I hope he's like that tomorrow too! He also took NO naps today other than two naps when in the car, one for 15 and one for 20 mins. He's so much like his daddy!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Frustrating HTML!

I am trying to change the background color of the page, as well as make the text less narrow. Meanwhile just bear with me please.

Ares 6 mo.



I never put together a list of Ares' accomplishments for 6 months.
Ares can now:
-sit up all by himself
-crawl backwards
- roll all over the place
-eat solid foods (his favorite is definitely avocado, followed by applesauce and sweet potato)
-he weighs 17lbs 8 oz and is 26 3/4" long
-he is the only one his age (3 kids w/in 5 days of each other) at daycare that jumps in the jumparoo
-loves the swimming pool
-laughs
-pulls Ballpark's ears
-will stand holding on to my fingers. He puts all of his weight on his feet
-puts his paci in all by himself (unless he's in his crib!)
-has a splash zone that Shamu would envy at bath time!

His favorite things:
-the outdoors
-drool
-the outdoors
-pulling his shoes off
-the outdoors
-fart noises (Thanks Clayton and Donovan!!)
-bath time
-food/bottles
-have I mentioned that he likes to be outside?

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Oh please Lord, please let the Browns win at least once in my lifetime!

Ares enjoyed banging on this pumpkin. We just had to buy it,
he loved it so much.

We left the house at 11, went out to eat, to Starbucks, to a pumpkin farm, and then to another pumkin farm. Ares stayed awake the entier time, and was SUCH a good boy. The. Whole. Time.