feeding our kids

recently, i was making fun of david because of how he feeds his kids their snacks. it's the funniest thing ever. . . . he puts down a couple hands fulls of Cheerios, animal crackers, goldfish or whatever just spread out onto a coffee table at home. then the twins help themselves at their own leisure. it's actually a good idea and one i've tried myself. only, either toby will thrown them all on the floor for the dog to eat or he'll feed them to the dog himself or. . . the dog will just reach up onto the coffee table and help himself. so for my own convenience i've trained my 1 year old to eat all of his food right out of my hand. so he'll sit mouth open and wait for food to enter. (no hands needed). he's become so accustomed to this format that he rarely will even consider using his hands. he'll even let david's twin hand feed him. i should have gotten video of that for AFV!

therefore, we started working on me not feeding him. he will eventually learn to feed himself, but until then, the table's edge is our go-between. here is some video of tobias' new way of eating his meals . . . . hands free.

an evening outside

somewhere between 2 and 5 days out of the week i am at home alone with the kids in the evenings because rod has to work. during this time i am often bored out of my mind especially now that it's summer time. during the school year i'm often too busy yelling at thomas to do his homework, take a bath and brush his teeth that i don't even notice that rod's not home. but this summer thomas has no responsibilities outside of playing halo 3 and blogging on youtube. i do throw in the occasional chore for him to do just to make him feel like he's a "slave .. . A SLAVE WHO HAS TO DO EVERYTHING AROUND HERE!!!" thanks thomas for vacuuming that one rug, now i'm free of all household duties for the whole year!!! --sarcasm : )

therefore, i've tried to incorporate some "outside time" for me and the boys. we started one night by taking a walk. we were off to a bad start the first time because i miscalculated what time it got dark outside and we headed out at 9pm. we ended up taking our walk under street lights, which scared thomas half-to-death. but we've gotten better and have a great route we follow now. however, most nights we just hang out of the front porch for a bit to play with the cat and get some air. i love summer nights in texas; they always remind me of being 16!

GRANDPA!!

our grandpad came to visit us! isn't that crazy. him and my aunt up and left home on saturday afternoon, caught a flight and headed over to my mom's house. they didn't even tell my other aunts! well, we were all glad to see him. he's doing 100xs better than the last time we saw him earlier this year. plus we had an excuse to ALL get together and have great dinners. thanks aunt lydia!!

2008 4th of July

it seems like just yesterday toby was celebrating his very first holiday which was 4th of july 2007 and now he's on round 2! he fell into a whole this year to celebrate. my heart stopped for several seconds until i realized what had happened. my first thought was of "baby jessica" who fell down a well in the late 80's. she was 18 months old and survived 2 1/2 days underground. toby's event wasn't quite as dramatic. . .no media was necessary. we were able to pull him out butt first from the 10 inch deep whole soon to be a water meter in the front yard of someones new home in mckinney. he came out with only a scratch to show for it.

other than that we had a great 4th. vic invited us for for bbqed burgers and our choice of firework shows that surrounded his house. thanks vic, we had a blast!