We're okay!

Well, it has been an interesting few days to say the least. We survived Ike with minimal damage to the house (just a few window screens blown off and lots of debris to clean up). We are all doing fine, just without power.

We are VERY thankful to our friends Jen and John and Jamie and Andy for taking us in during the storm aftermath. Jen and John took us in on Saturday night. It felt soooo good to get some AC again. Unfortunately, the transformer in their neighborhood blew out the next morning. So, after a stop at home to clean out the fridge, we moved our power-mooching down to Pearland to stay with our friends Jamie and Andy, which is where we are today. It's ironic - Pearland was close to one of the mandatory evacuation zones, so before the storm, we were urging Jamie and Andy to come up and stay with us.

We are calling our house frequently in the hopes that the answering machine will pick up...so far, no luck.

Thanks to all who have called and e-mailed to check in on us!

1st Birthday!

I can't believe it, but Matty turned 1 year old this past Sunday. We had a BBQ at our house and were so happy to have many friends join us. Matty had a great time crawling around after the other kids. He wasn't quite sure what to do with cake. The icing was defnitely too sweet for his taste buds, so he enjoyed playing with it more than eating it. And, when the door closed after our last guests left, Matty broke out in tears. Stuck with boring old mom and dad again.

Check out the birthday party album below...

Trip to Montana and Yellowstone

We returned last week from a vacation in Montana and visits to Yellowstone National Park with my family. It was so nice to spend time with my family and to see Matty playing with his big cousins, Sam and Jack. He found them very entertaining. Click on the picture below to see our album from the trip. We highly recommend a trip to Yellowstone for anyone who hasn't been there yet! We were only able to scratch the surface, we would love to go back again.

Yellowstone

In other news, Matty is amazing us with how much he learns and changes every day. He is now an accomplished peek-a-boo player and knows how to wave bye-bye. Both skills came in very handy on the plane rides to and from Montana as he entertained the people behind us. Hs is also getting pretty comfortable on his feet. he can scoot his way around the couch in record time. He has taken a few steps between pieces of furniture, but is still crawling as his primary method of getting around. He also likes talking on the "phone" using the remote control. See below for a video of this, plus some other pictures from around the house.

Matty is on the move

I am sorry it's been so long since I've posted any new pictures, things have been busy! Since our last post, Matty has learned many new things:

• How to feed himself
• How to crawl with his belly OFF the ground (and fast!!!)
• How to clap his hands
• How to find, within seconds, any uncovered outlet in any room
• How to high five (sort of...sometimes he just grabs my hand)
• How to climb stairs (with CLOSE parental supervision of course)
• How to inflict great injury by kicking his legs when we take him away from something he shouldn't be playing with

In addition to all of that, we also took a nice trip to Minnesota recently. Our friends Sean and Meghan decided to host a Rice reunion at their home in Minneapolis, so in addition to catching up with many of our good friends from Rice, we also got to spend a couple days with my parents, and meet up with some of my cousins. Sadly, our camera ran out of batteries on day 1 and we were too lazy to go buy more, so we have very few pictures from the trip. But, here are some from around the house...

Grandma and Grandpa with Matty



Not only can I feed myself, but I can style my own hair! Oatmeal is a great hair gel.


Kissy face


The blinds provide hours of fun




Who needs toys when you have a cardboard box?


And, a video of him grooving to some music...but someone needs to tell the camera woman not to dance along with him.

Puppies!!!

Our friend Steve's labrador retriever just had 8 puppies, so we took Matty over to check them out. What could be cuter than a little boy and some puppies? Not much! See below for the pictures...

In other news, he is now pulling himself up on the furniture and in his crib. Bedtime is a bit more challenging now since he stands himself up as soon as we put him in the crib. I keep trying to tell him that its hard to fall asleep when you are standing, but he doesn't seem to listen. He's just so excited that he can stand up. And, he's starting to eat table food. I think about 90% of the food ends up in his lap, but he's learning!

Standing up!

9 months old!

Matty had his 9 month check up a couple of weeks ago. He's now over 20lbs and continues to be tall for his age. We took him to the pool for the first time over Memorial Day weekend, and again last weekend, he liked it quite a bit! Here's a picture of him in his swim gear -



Other than that, we've been just enjoying hanging out and watching him explore. Here's a video of him army crawling his way around the house -

And, another one of him giggling his head off. Who knew that Juan clearing his throat was so funny?

Riverdance

Matty is turning into a very active and squirmy little boy. Changing his diaper is nearly impossible now since he tries to flip onto his stomach to crawl as soon as we lay him down. Argh! His army crawling is getting faster and faster and every now and then he manages to get his tummy off the ground. We also got him a walker which has been fun for him, and fun for us to watch him exploring. He can really get moving in that thing! And, the tooth count is up to 8 now - 4 on top and 4 on the bottom. We hope that will be the end of 2am teething pain for awhile...

And, here is a little video we call "Matty's Riverdance". I think you'll see why.

And, of course, some pictures - you can see his new teeth in the 2nd one.