Busy Weekend

Harry came in to visit for the weekend so we ran all over the place. First stop was to check in the progress of our house. We have a foundation! Next stop was to my parents. The guys played golf and my mother and I entertained Bryce. He loves his wagon that Papa bought for him.

Have fun looking at our pictures.

Cool Slideshows

Trip to San Antonio

Since Dede was going to be in San Antonio for the day, Bryce and I went to visit. Estelle was nice enough to let us take over here house. Dede brought Bryce a great book that plays Old MacDonald. Bryce taught Dede that when you are done reading a book, it makes a great snack.

Estelle made her delicious gumbo but Bryce thought that the bread was the best.

Research Study

I got a letter a few weeks ago asking for Bryce to participate in a UT research study. The study was looking at short term memory of 6 months old. Our appointment was today. Bryce sat on my lap and looked at 2 computers screens. There was music and the screens flashed different shapes. They recorded how long he looked at the objects. The funny part of the s tudy was that I had to keep my eyes closed. Earlier studies showed that babies tend to look at what their moms are watching. It was hard to keep from laughing. There was something silly about sitting in a room with my eyes closed wondering what Bryce was looking at.

Anyway, he loved participating. Smiled and laughed at all the research assistants. They gave him this cute bib for participating.

Trip to San Angelo

My mother took Bryce and me to visit Mimi and Papa for the weekend. Bryce was an excellent traveller as always. We had a wonderful visit. Thank you for having us!!

Papa made his world famous pancakes for breakfast.

Mimi entertained Bryce while my mother and I ate the first batch of pancakes.

Barnaby thought Bryce was taking up too much room on the floor so he had to make do with resting on the chair.

Bryce has discovered his feet lately. Just thought this picture was funny.

6 months old

A lot is going on! At his 6 month checkup on Monday he weighed 15lbs., 7oz (20th%) and was 27in(70th%). Right after the appointment his first tooth popped up. I need to stop sticking my fingers in his mouth becuase that little tooth is sharp.

The other news is that Bryce started food. We did rice cereal for a week and now I'm adding in vegetables. Sweet potatoes were a big hit this morning!

Lucky for me if I run out of food, Bryce is happy to eat his bib :)

Visit from Nana

Myra came to visit last weekend. It was cold and rainy so we did't do much. Here are a couple of pics.

A New Year's wedding nightmare

(Russell posting) This past weekend was Paige's cousin Will's wedding. The wedding was in Jackson, Mississippi (are you saying in your head...i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-pi?). We were a little nervous because we hadn't taken an airplan trip with Bryce before so we were in for some firsts. Well, to cut to the chase, Bryce was the easy part. He slept on all 4 of our flights, seemed happy to entertain everyone in the waiting areas, and even reminded us not to put him through the x-ray machine. Unfortunately, it was everything else that was the problem. Our weekend started with a about 8 hours in the DFW airport. Peggy and Jack only had to spend 4, but that was because they spent the other 4 sitting on their airplane in San Antonio before being cleared to leave.

At about 6 pm, the airport PA system requested that we all move to the corridors...away from the windows. Apprantly that's what you do when there's a TORNADO. Seriously, did they build DFW on a trailer park? How does a tornado touch down at an airport? At that point, we decided that we had enough. Perhaps traveling via a twister works for Dorothy and the Wizard, but we figured the traditional twin jet engine would work better for our needs so we checked in to the airport hotel. I went to Target to buy toiletries and baby food b/c in weather related delays they don't give you your bags back...I thought that was awfully nice of them. At that point, we put ourselves to bed, but our journey was really just beginning.

Next morning we were supposed to head out on the 930 flight. Well, thanks to the remaining chaos from the prior day, there was no crew available for our flight. Peggy was more than willing to serve the drinks and I could certainly tell everyone their seat cushins could be used as floatation devices, but they made us wait...2 more hours. Then, just for grins, they kicked 10 people off the plane...lucky for us (well, I guess that depends on your point of view), Mr. Bryce is the trump card and they won't boot you off if you have an infant.

So...after a long night, a long morning, we finally landed in rainy Jackson, MS. The good news was that loading the rental car would be easy...because we had no bags. Which is typically not a good thing if you a) have been in the same clothes for 2 days and b) have to go to a wedding that night.

Well...to make a long story short, we bought clothes, made the wedding, were delayed 5 more hours coming home, and they lost our bags again...Happy New Year!

Now that we've had a few days to reflect, it still sucked. Hopefully we've paid our penance for 2006 and 2007 so we're good.

Here are a few pictures from the week that was:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid14551423

Cool Slideshows

A Canyon Lake Christmas

On Christmas day, the whole family took a trip out to Mimi and Papa's lake house. Mimi was making her version of Thanksgiving lunch sponsored by Christmas day. Turkey, dressing, cranberries, green beans...the works. So...who could pass up a delicious meal like that? We spent the afternoon watching basketball and building a cozy fire. Lunch was wonderful and we all left a little heavier than we came. Here are some pictures from the afternoon (along with some other misc. pictures from Hanukkah that we didn't get around to posting).

A Canyon Lake Christmas
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid14551036

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A Hanukkah Album
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid14550870

Cool Slideshows

Family Trip

Russell's grandmother and aunt were visting Russell's cousin in Dallas so we were invited to come visit. On the way to the Shouse's house we stopped by Jessica andTyler's. Marty was a great host letting Bryce play in his exersaucer. They weren't so cooperative during picture time though so no photos there.

On to Plano where Bryce met his cousin Morgan. She is about 18 months and very cute. She liked Bryce and kept saying "hi baby". She really liked Russell. She sat on his lap and helped him eat dinner.

Here are some pictures of the weekend!

A new toy...

for Dad :) Well...really it's for the whole family, but i got to the box first. for hanukkah, we bought webcams for bryce, nana & g-bob, and pops & gram. Since ours came first, i was the guinea pig for installation and setup. i was a bit nervous after reading somethings on the tech support forums about the software, but to my delight, it installed just fine. For the record, we all got logitech quickcam pro 5000. the first test was a quick 1 sided video session with my mom on my old AOL instant messenger. i wasn't too happy with the functionality so i upgraded to AOL IM 6.0. Haven't tested it yet, but it certainly looks nicer. But the testing wasn't done. with bryce in his pj's...we did a little photo shoot.

Also...this is my first attempt at posting video to the web, but hopefully you can see some of bryce in action:

Bryce Part I


Bryce Part II


Bryce The Finale


These are just some stills from the webcam...he was a happy camper tonight

Hanukkah a little early

My parents bought Bryce a jumperoo because it was the only large toy I didn't have yet :) Bryce loves sitting in it and playing with the toys.



Big smiles when I push him up and down...how long does it take before he learns how to jump by himself?

Thanksgiving

Bryce enjoyed his first Thanksgiving. We went to my parents' house on Wednesday. We settled the dogs down then went to Mimi and Papa's for chili.

Thursday was turkey day at the Barbans and then we watched the football game on Friday before we came home. Bryce and Josie are worn out from all the attention they got.

Stroller

I was curious to see if Bryce is big enough to sit in his stroller without his car seat. He is! This is not really a significant accomplishment but it was an activity. He loved sitting in it and since it's 85 degrees here today we decided to take a little walk. Josie was thrilled that she got an extra outing. I will still put Bryce in the bjorn for our main walks because Josie isn't great at walking beside the stroller. I guess we'll have to work on that once he gets too big for me to wear...

Happy Halloween

I think that most people know that I'm not a big fan of halloween. I don't like dressing up, I don't eat candy, and the doorbell ringing drives poor Josie crazy. That said, I'm trying to be a good sport for Bryce. He was lucky enough to have 2 costumes to celebrate his first halloween. Take a look at my cutie as a pumpkin and a chili pepper!

Bryce's Naming

Today we held the naming ceremony for Bryce at my parent's house. My great uncle Arnold led the service and we were all impressed with his rabbinical skills. I really want to thank everyone who worked so hard to make this such a special day. I did a lousy job getting pictures but here are the ones from my camera.

This is Bryce's first mongrammed outfit. With my love of monogramming it's certainly not going to be his last!
This is probably the best picture we have taken in a while.
Marty and Bryce loved playing on the floor. Hopefully the boys will become interested in each other soon.
We managed to get the Newman side all together for a photo.

Visit from Grandpa Bob

Bob was in town for work and was nice enough to take us out to dinner. He showed up at 6pm. I wanted pizza, Russ wanted chicken wings so we let Bob decide. He picked Chinese. Always a good choice. Went to PF Changs. Bryce was asleep when Bob got there so I waited to wake him until right before we left. He woke up very happy. When we sat down he was tired of being in his car seat so I put him on my lap. We gave him a chopstick and he banged that on the table till the food arrived. At this point he was tired so I put him over my shoulder and he went right to sleep. I just held him through dinner. Came home right before 8pm which was perfect. Russ and Bob watched football while I fed Bryce and then we all went off to bed. Bryce was worn out from the visit and slept till 5am. I was thrilled.