A Chuck E. Cheese birthday

Yesterday was my birthday and I decided to go to Chuck E. Cheese. Actually those two things had absolutely nothing to do with each other, but it sounds funny.

August 22 is also my friend E's little girl's birthday, and yesterday was her first. We went to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate her birthday. It was Thomas's first time there and he had a ball.

He finally attempted sliding down the slide by himself and he did quite well. He probably enjoyed the slide most of all. The one free thing there. :-)


And he had pizza for the first time (he's had a bite a couple of times before, but this was his first whole slice). He did have a little rash later (because he still has a minor dairy intolerance), but he enjoyed it (the pizza, not the rash. That didn't seem to bother him at all). :-)

(he was mesmerized by the somewhat-stationary "performing" Chuck E Cheese on the stage next to him)

The motley crew, minus a few who had to leave early:




The birthday girl (watching the aforementioned Chuck E Cheese):


We had a ball and Thomas took a very good nap once we got home!

16 months old

Today Thomas is 16 months old! People always tell you that your children grow up in the blink of an eye, and it sounds so cliche. But it is so true. I don't know where the time goes but it seems to be getting away from me much faster than I'd like. He is such a joy to raise (even though he had absolutely no desire to cooperate with taking pictures today).









It is amazing watching him learn. He still is not saying many "words" (if any, really), but he understands so much of what is said to him. We can easily tell him to go get something or go do something and he will do it (if he feels like it, that is). He is not good at obeying "no," but we are working on it.

Food is still a difficult issue. If he could live off chicken fingers, french fries, burgers and the like, he'd be perfectly content. I, however, would not. We continue to give him baby food veggies every night (this takes considerable effort on our part) because he will not even attempt to eat them in their actual form. I keep trying with them and I know one day he will eat it, but for now, we continue with the purees. He eats a lot of sweet potato fries and veggie-packed "fries" since I'm determined to not let him eat things with barely any nutritional value (unless we're out). It's a struggle sometimes and I look forward to the days when he might be willing to eat more. He's still not tolerating all dairy products, but he's doing better. In the meantime, he seems to love soymilk. Oh, and he used to eat pears and mandarin orange slices (and often bananas too) with no problem. Now he's decided it's much more fun to squeeze them in his hands and make a mess. Oh joy!

He's a good sleeper. He goes to bed around 8:00 and usually sleeps until 7 or 7:30. He naps for 3-3.5 hours every afternoon and it is my own personal heaven. :)

For as much as he is a picky eater, you sure wouldn't know it to look at him. A month ago he measured 32 1/4 inches (I think it was) and nearly 26 pounds. I feel like lately he's gone through a bit of a growth spurt and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if those numbers have increased quite a bit.

He loves all things with wheels. We have added many trucks and cars to his toy collection and he is very happy with them all. He has become quite adept at maneuvering his little sit-on car and scoots around the house on it. He also loves playing chase and hide-and-seek When we are upstairs, he's almost always hiding in our closet or his and peeking out every few seconds. It's funny how easily entertained children can be! Thomas also enjoys climbing on the furniture and pulling things out of the pantry. I'll just blame our not-so-tidy house on him. ;-)

"Where's Thomas?!?!?"


"There he is!!!" (ignore the closet contents!)


"This is so much fun!!!" (Yes, those are THREE containers full of clothes he has already outgrown!)


Speaking of entertainment, Sully (our dog) is all he needs sometimes. She tolerates him "riding" on her as she sits on the floor (at least for short periods of time) and he loves to go lay on her and give her lots of hugs.

Oh, and he also fancies himself quite the piano player:


Don't ask why he's not wearing clothes.

Despite the minor frustrations here and there, he is such a complete joy in our lives. I don't know what we did before him, and I cannot imagine life without him. He brings so much happiness to our lives just by being himself. It's an honor and a gift being his mom.

Pooltime and the pink hat

This afternoon we decided to let Thomas enjoy the beautiful day from his super-big pool. Either he has grown bigger or it has gotten smaller. :) Between playing around in that or running around the yard or playing with the hose, he had a ball.

And these are a couple from this past week.

He was being silly while eating his dinner so I decided to snap a few pictures. I think this is funny because you can see Sully in the background. She is always closeby at mealtime, hoping for a bite to fall. And they always do.


And here he is sporting his mom's pink hat. His dad just LOVES it when he wears a pink hat. :-)

Tomorrow he turns 16 months! Where does the time go???

More from the aquarium

I forgot to add a couple other pictures from our trip to the aquarium. Every time we go, Thomas engages more with the animals and fish. It's been amazing to see him grow and develop and become more interested in the things around him.

I'll start with showing this one again because I really like it. When the picture is bigger, you can see the fish swimming in the tank behind him and of course his reflection is a little clearer.


Once he gets out of the stroller (usually about after 30 minutes or so), he is all over the place, running from exhibit to exhibit. It's a bit exhausting for me! Here he is checking out the special jellyfish exhibit:


And when he's not running around, he's pushing (or trying to push) his stroller all over the place. He doesn't much care who or what is in his path. It's every man for himself!


On our last visit we were there long enough to see the live animal show at noon. On that day the anteater was the star. Every time we go to the aquarium that thing is sleeping. So this was the first time I really ever saw it. And yeah, you might be thinking, "Why is an anteater at an aquarium?" It's in their Amazon exhibit. It just IS. :) See him?


I can't believe tomorrow is already Friday. We went to storytime today and the week has just flown by. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Hot town, summer in the city...

Has it been over a week already? With Thomas's dad home now, it's hard for me to remember to get in here and post something.

Let's see...in the past week we've gone to the waterpark, the aquarium, storytime at Barnes & Noble and various errands here and there. No playgroup this week or last week, so we're looking forward to getting back with that next week when the host is back in town. We're also planning to try out a new playgroup next Friday. I'm hoping that goes well. Anyway, in the meantime, here are some recent pictures of our favorite little fella.

Last week at the aquarium:


Playing around yesterday after we got back from the waterpark (no pictures from the waterpark as I just don't like to leave valuables sitting around in the bag when I'm all over the waterpark not paying a bit of attention to my stuff):




A few weeks ago when we visited Thomas's Nana & Grandaddy, he really enjoyed "riding" the tractor out on the farm.






He also spent a little time hanging out with Trey's childhood friend's son. I hate being so cryptic on here...but you never know who is reading. Anyway, it's B's (and L's!) son, J. Truly, it's like herding cats to try to get a picture of two or more children together.


They were not interested in cooperating at all. Oh well. Just for fun, here's a picture of them almost exactly a year before. They grow quickly, don't they?


Time for me to go tell him goodnight. I hope whoever is reading (no one ever comments but his uncle...but I know more are out there!) enjoyed the pictures. I'll do my best to update again before another week has passed!

A morning at the beach

Yesterday we made a last-minute decision to meet some friends out at the beach. My friend EP is in town at a local beach on vacation with her family. We lived together in graduate school and worked together in Charlotte and I don't get to see her and her boys nearly enough. So it was fun, albeit a quick visit. And as usual, Thomas LOVED the beach. For fear of dropping the camera in the water, I only snapped pictures of him further up on shore.


The color is not the best, but the smile is pretty cute. :-)




He looks well-fed in this picture, no?


He was intently listening to E's dad tell him how to throw the ball:


Unfortunately I didn't get any great pictures of Thomas with E's boys. They were cute as ever and we had a wonderful time!

Videos and Photoshop

Sorry I haven't been updating. Trey's been home and that has been very nice. And I couldn't find the camera cord for a few days, but now we have it. Anyway, cue up the Final Jeopardy tune because these videos and photos will just have to hold any readers over until I can find a minute to post the other photos I uploaded earlier tonight.

We took Thomas to his first baseball game tonight (the Charleston Riverdogs) and besides being a bit warm, it was fun. Too bad I forgot the camera. Anyway, enjoy these few little peeks of Thomas!

He's really enjoying his bouncing zebra these days. On the day I took this video, I caught him at the tail end of his fun so I didn't catch him on there long, but some days he just has a ball for minutes and minutes at a time! (in this video he's wearing the shirt his Dad proudly bought for him during his recent visit back to campus)


When Thomas tries to get into the trash or something equally disgusting I usually say, "That's yucky! Nasty! Yuck!" and I stick out my tongue making that sound you know you know, "Blehhhh!" (or something like that). Well, Thomas has his own imitation for that sound and now everytime I say something is "yucky/nasty/gross" he makes that noise. See for yourself:



Last week I played around with Photoshop a little trying to add effects to a few pictures. I posted this one before unedited...here's it is with a little "glow":


And this one I washed out a little. I'll have to try again because I think it's a cute picture...it just needs a little something else. This was Thomas at a friend's neighborhood pool:


A few more from our trip to the lake a couple of weeks ago:






(The bump on his head in that last photo was his only "battle scar" from his tumble down the stairs. He was very lucky. And so were we.)

I'm going to bed now. Will try to get back soon with pictures from last weekend with his Nana and Grandaddy.