Vernon Volumes text

Vernon Volumes text

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Paige 15 months old


Today Paige turned 15 months old. She has been growing and changing so much in the last three months, it's neat to see how independent she's becoming and how her little personality has developed. She is a headstrong little girl, extremely brave, and self confident to the point of being sassy.

She had her 15 month checkup on Thursday of last week and got 4 shots, ouch! Her checkup went well and her stats are below:

Weight: 21 lbs 2 oz - 30th percentile
Height: 31" - 70th percentile
Head: 18.5" - 55th percentile

She's has had trouble with her ears lately; four ear infections (5/23, 6/22, 7/6, 7/21) in the last two months. She has been on antibiotics almost constantly. This coming Friday, we're planning to take her to get tubes put in and hopefully that will solve her troubles.

Playing at Independence Center





We've gone shopping at Independence Center a few times lately and the kids always enjoy it. There's a little train that drives around the mall that Connor loves to watch, and we keep meaning to ride it but we never have figured out where to get aboard. There's also a big play area and we always let the kids ride on one of the rides together.

Connor liked the ATV when we visited a couple weeks ago.


They liked riding together on the airplane today.


Thursday, July 28, 2011

Playing in the sprinkler



It's too hot outside to really do much other than play in the water. We let the kids play for a bit in the backyard since it was shaded and they had a good time. They both ended up filthy and the bathwater was dirty brown when we washed them off. It was worth it though, they both enjoyed getting wet and cooling off.




Sunday, July 24, 2011

Connor feeding Paige


Connor just has to sit on the end of the table when we eat. Typically, it works best if both Mommy and Daddy sit near Paige so we can share the responsibility of slowing Paige down while she tries to snarf down everything on the table. Connor insisted on sitting near Paige and agreed to help feed her. Paige was thrilled with the arrangement, even though she was slowed down quite a bit as Connor worked on her macaroni.



What a great big brother!

McDonalds Picnic


It doesn't get much better than McDonalds when you're a kid. We've taken Connor to great restaurants all over the place, but nothing beats a hamburger from McDonalds. On Friday, Daddy and Connor went to get their hair cut and Daddy told Connor that if he did a good job, they'd go to McDonalds afterward. Connor played on the iPhone the entire haircut and although he jerked his head once while playing a motorcycle game, he sat quietly and cooperated.

Daddy and Connor went to McDonalds and originally planned to take it home, but Connor wanted to eat inside. We got him a happy meal with a toy lightsaber (his new favorite toy that he brings everywhere) and he was thrilled with his treat. He told Daddy "This is the best picnic ever!"

Connor's full name


This summer, we've been working hard to keep Connor on track with school. Ms Cindy, his teacher, told us to keep working on his name every day and we were a bit lax early in the summer but have been trying to make up for it. Lately, Mommy's been playing teacher a lot with Connor and she's gotten him to spell AND write his last name! Connor's also knows his entire birthday including the year and also the city and state where we live. He's going to be doing great when school starts!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Wanna go for a ride?



We were outside briefly this morning before the heat became unbearable. Connor was driving around Paige and we started thinking about all the wheeled toys and strollers we've acquired for the kids over the years. There are lots of toys to ride! Andrea decided we should drag them all out together for a picture.




Connor did a good job driving Paige around.

That didn't come out right...



Paige can be a bit of a nightmare to eat with at times. Once she's got her bib on, it's her opinion that she should have handfuls of food stuffed in her mouth constantly. If you're not assisting her, or if she thinks you're moving too slowly, she will squeal at you and throw a fit. It's hard work with her once she gets going.

Today at lunch, Mommy was tired of hearing it and decided to tear up little bites of pizza for Paige to work with on her own. Andrea said: "She'll probably choke herself, but at least she'll be quiet." It took us both a minute to realize what she'd said, then we couldn't help but laugh. Obviously she meant that Paige feeding herself would keep her busy and quiet, we don't want baby sister to choke...

Yummy!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Mommy's race car


We realized that we forgot to post a picture of Mommy's new race car! She actually got it back in February on Valentine's day. We didn't take pictures right away since we planned to get the windows tinted and a sunroof shield. Eventually we got busy and forgot, so today we're finally getting to it.

Andrea's really enjoyed driving it, and I've been surprised at how enjoyable it is to drive. Consumer Reports rated it as one of the most fun cars to drive, and it's true. It definitely handles better than anything else we've driven and Connor loves to ride in it as well. He calls it "Mommy's race car".

We had been looking around for a while and Andrea found this one online at Baron BMW. She went alone on Valentine's Day knowing exactly how much we were willing to pay, after the Altima trade-in. She talked them down and stuck to her guns and they gave us a great deal! So Andrea wrote them a check and the car is ours! She did a great job!

New exterior look



The houses in our area are all around the same age and it's time for everyone to do some painting. The new construction houses have been painted with darker trim, and we decided if we were going to pay someone to paint it we may as well go with a different look.

We actually got the house painted back in March, but thought we'd wait to do the pictures until our flowers were blooming and the sun was shining. It's taken some getting used to, but we like it!





We also got the entire interior painted as well. No pics of that, it wasn't a change in color, but the paint is washable and hopefully won't show marks every time someone touches it.

The house didn't look so hot between the prep stage and the painting...


Thursday, July 14, 2011

Britney Spears Femme Fatale Concert in Dallas


Andrea and Amanda flew to Texas on Monday to see Britney Spears's Femme Fatale concert. The concert wasn't until Tuesday so they were able to do some shopping and met up with their Dallas cousins, Kate and Madi, for dinner and a city tour. The next day, they were able to have lunch with Aunt Karen and Uncle Eric (oops, we forgot to take a picture). It was nice for them to see their Dallas family. Thanks guys for a great lunch and dinner out!


Tuesday night was the big concert. Britney had 3 opening acts: Nervo, Jessie and the Toy Boys, and Nicki Minaj. Andrea said it was a great concert and enjoyed her short getaway with Amanda.


Go Britney, shake that thing!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Gulf Shores Getaway


The Anders extended family went to Gulf Shores for the 4th of July weekend and the following week. It was a great trip and we enjoyed spending time with everyone. Grandpa and Grandma shared a condo with the Rudolphs and we shared one with the Gobles a few doors down.

Everyone else drove down, but we decided that we would probably be better off flying with two little ones. It was still a lot of traveling since we had to drive to the airport, fly two planes, then rent a car and drive for fifty miles to get to the beach. The trip was broken up a bit in to segments and both kids did fairly well with it. Paige is constantly restless on the plane and just doesn't understand that she can't get down to play around.


Connor did really well on the plane. He was a great listener and mostly just played on the iPad and iPhones.


Mammy FINALLY fell asleep on the second flight.

Once we got in to Mobile, we got our rental car and stopped by McAlister's Deli, which was close to the airport.


After lunch, we continued our journey to the condo. It was supposed to be an hour, but apparently everyone in Alabama had the same idea for the weekend and it was a four hour drive. We averaged about 15 mph the entire time with bumper to bumper traffic. Finally, it was over though and we were at the beach house!

The vacation from there mostly consisted of relaxing on the beach or at the pool.

Paige was doing better on the beach, although she was still pretty high maintenance in the sand.


Connor got over his early apprehension about getting in the ocean water and had fun playing in the waves and floating around.

He even let everyone bury him in the sand!




The pool was great too. It was nice and big and had a deep end too. It was pretty warm, especially on the hot days it almost seemed like warm bath water. On such hot days there wasn't anything better than playing in the water, you couldn't really even be outside unless you got in the pool or ocean.




Connor got very good at holding his breath and going underwater. He's still not swimming independently without his swim jacket, but he did a lot of going underwater to retrieve his toys on the steps.


Mostly, Connor just loved to wear his swim jacket, run and jump in the pool.


There wasn't a diving board at the pool, so Nate helped Connor improvise.



On Monday, Grandpa Garry took some of us out deep sea fishing.


We all caught a bunch of fish, but Alli hooked the two biggest. She snagged a King Mackerel and a Cobia. The Cobia got away, but not the King. Holy Mackerel it was big!

Mostly, we caught Red Snappers.


Drew caught a Mackerel too, not quite as big as the one Alli had.


A pic of the crew with the day's haul.


Drew holding Alli's monster


Throughout the week, we went to various places to eat. There were lots of great places to eat with nice outside views and fresh seafood.









On the fourth, Grandma Genie fixed a bunch of sides and bought everyone fried chicken. It was delicious and we all got stuffed.

Mommy got some cute 4th of July shirts for the kids, so we had to get a few pics.



Afterwards, the little kids had to go to bed, but Mommy and the rest of the crew went down to the beach to watch the fireworks.







We had such a great looking group, so we got lots of pictures of our cute guys.







Thanks to the Gobles for sharing a place with us! We had a blast!


The later part of the week, both kids got sick. Paige seemed awfully hot, so we took her to an Urgent care clinic and after a 3 hour wait, it turned out she had a double ear infection again. Two days later Connor seemed hot and Daddy looked in his mouth and saw some ulcers in the back of his throat. Andrea took him to the same Urgent care clinic and after a two hour wait the doctor thought it was probably strep. Both kids started antibiotics and have been mostly asymptomatic since then.

The trip home was long, but at least the traffic wasn't as bad as when we drove down. The kids had some fun playing at the airports.

Paige took a 20 minute cat nap on one of the flights, but for the most part it was a constant struggle to keep her happy and from screaming. Of course, the moment they got in the car, they both fell asleep.


We had a great vacation! Can't wait to go back!