More Houston Pictures...

I realized I did not post any of the pictures from Houston that my mom took, and some are really fun. Enjoy some more pics from Houston!

-L



Tyler with his Great Aunt Polly...




Aunt Julie got Natalie to put her face in a little to blow bubbles! Momentous! And then she would not do it again.




Natalie checks out the turtle that Uncle Andy found in the pool!


All the swimming wears you out...especially after Uncle Andy feeds you!


Tyler with Bobo...

July's Trip to Houston!

Natalie, Tyler, and I traveled to Houston for Meredith's wedding. Meredith is a sorority sister from SMU and great friend, and since we both grew up in Houston, we've gotten to see each other pretty much every year. I have to say that I was so excited to be at Meredith's wedding, but I was not quite as excited to be in the Houston heat and humidity in July...but Meredith is worth a trip. It's honestly been 9 years since I've been in Houston during the summer. I've very purposely come between the months of November-April since graduating college. Jon stayed home since Natalie is now another plane ticket, and I pretty much figured I would not have a ride from the airport (or a place to stay) if I arrived without grandkids. This was Tyler's first flight!

We enjoyed some great time in the pool (well, Tyler literally loved it and floated around completely content for 30 minutes at a time; Natalie spend about 5-10 min max in the pool and then preferred to be "fish out of water") and great time with family - and even Andy was in from CHINA...yea!

Now, I have to give a big disclaimer about the pictures...these are ones I took...with a point-and-shoot...so they are a far cry from Jon's pictures from everywhere else we go. And looking through these, I realize why it does not make any sense for me to have a camera when Jon's around!

-L

Commemorating Tyler's first flight (I'm attempting the picture)...


Doing better now that I'm holding him and a complete stranger is taking the picture...


Pool time!








Julie and I having fun testing out the underwater aspect of our point-and-shoot camera...




Natalie really wanted to wear my goggles...


Rehearsal Dinner at the Cadillac Bar...it was SO GREAT to see old friends!
Gamma Phis...
Britta, Kelly, and Meredith


The Wedding Day...






All the Gamma Phis...Kelly, Britta, Meredith, Dani, and me. And I'd like to point out that Meredith and I are the only ones NOT pregnant in this picture!


I took my sister as my date...Andy got to come with me to the horse races for Meredith & Chris' party a couple days before the wedding.


SUSHI DINNER...boy I love it when we get treated to this! In this picture, Natalie is eating a bunch of rice, but earlier in the meal, she ate ROE by the SPOONFUL. It was hilarious. It IS colorful and looks fun...

Ice Cream at the Park...

At the start of July, we did a little event for our photography business at our local park. It was a Bebe Reunion so that we could catch up with families we have not seen for at least a year since completing their baby's first year photography. We served ice cream and offered mini-sessions for updated family portraits for the families who came. It was a really fun time and a perfect evening for the event. Natalie ate her whole ice cream cone over the span of about 30 min, so needless to say, she wore much of it all over her, but again, she loved it! Tyler had some funny moments too...



Tyler loves putting things in his mouth, and this was no exception...

Lindsay's 32nd Birthday!

Okay, so yes, my birthday was back on June 28th, but all of you know that we're pretty far behind on posts...

This was the day after our rafting trip, and Jenny and Jeremy took me out to Pei Wei for dinner (yum!) and then we took them to Josh & John's for ice cream. This is our local place that is just awesome. It was Natalie's first time to have an actual ice cream cone! As you'd expect, that was a messy experience, but she loved it (of course!). Natalie thought the huge "tropical bird" (this is from Baby Einstein's World Animals DVD) was pretty cool to see as well. It was after the ice cream that we had this gorgeous sunset and went to the park where the "dizzy" movie was filmed...

Back to that movie... every so often, I'll be upstairs and I'll be able to hear Jon laughing hysterically downstairs. Every time it's because he's on our blog watching that video. I don't know if everyone thinks it's as funny as we do, but any time we need a laugh, we watch it!

-L







Aunt Jenny with her niece and nephew!

Surprises in Parenting...

So, I think we all know intrinsically that parenting is full of surprises, yet, when it actually happens to you, the shock is still there. I had one of those moments on Monday. Tyler was blissfully still napping when Natalie woke up. Oh, on that note, her newest milestone is that she officially (at the age of 28 months) became able to get in and out of her crib independently, regardless of the toybox at the foot of her crib. We therefore, just removed the one crib wall and put up a mesh half-wall to prevent middle-of-the-night falls. She is now on night 2 of her "big girl bed" and doing GREAT. Okay, back to the original story!

So, Tyler still sleeping but Natalie now awake, I (like always) have a few things that really need to get done for our business. So, I set Natalie up with a movie and run down to the office to try and get those things done. Just about 10 minutes later, I hear her at the top of the stairs saying to me, "Mom, big mess. I made big mess..." Well, I'm thinking to myself that I didn't leave her with food or drink, so what in the world could really be a "big mess." NEVER think this... it's ALWAYS possible I guess. So, I get upstairs to find that she somehow got into the TUB of Vaseline (which was half full and is now EMPTY) and smeared it all over the following:

- The bottom half of the wooden TV stand
- The ENTIRE TV screen and part of the speakers built into the TV
- At least one part of all of our leather furniture
- 60% of the gate at the top of the stairs
- Her clothes, face, arms, and HAIR (ALL OVER HER HAIR)

I'm mortified and she thinks it's just hilarious. That's when discipline kicked in so that she stopped thinking this was so funny. I mean, of course it IS pretty funny, but you don't really want your 2 year old to think it's funny. So, 45 minutes later, I've cleaned up everything but her. She's been in the bath this whole time, mind you, partly as punishment but also because Tyler has been up at this point and I had to clean up everything else first so as not to have him making things even worse. Now, in her defense, I have to say that she did avoid key areas, such as the carpet, and I'm quite thankful to have leather (vs. cloth) furniture. Our TV has never been so shiny, and there's newly hydrated portions to all our furniture...

Little did I know going into this cleaning process that Natalie would actually be the most difficult part of the whole thing! We shampooed twice and when Jon got home, he totally thought her hair was still wet. Nope, 4 hours later, it looked exactly the same since it was just coated with Vaseline that is quite stubborn to get out. So we get to Tuesday and again do 2 shampoos in the am and 2 shampoos at night, all day still looking like we have wet hair. Gross! So, today, I decide I need to do online research. I find that you can either rub cornstarch into the hair or combine some baking soda with your shampoo. We do this and viola! her hair is BEGINNING to look like normal. I'm sure it is some of the most nourished hair at this point but I personally would like it to stop looking like it's wet all the time and feeling sticky/tacky. So, all this to share a funny story and also let you know that if YOU need to get Vaseline out of hair, the baking soda works amazingly well! So now you know.