Leaving on a Jet Plane!

Okay, I'm not really leaving on a Jet Plane, but I am leaving!!! I'm leaving for a much needed Girls Weekend with my mom and sister. We are headed to San Marcos to shop til' we drop! My bags are packed, the pantry is full, and the house is clean (and yes I realize it won't be this way when I get back!) I'm so excited I'm almost giddy! This is the first time in about 8 months that I have been away from the kiddos for more than a couple of hours here and there. It will be so nice and hopefully we will find some good deals at the outlets. Thanks to my wonderful husband for agreeing to keep the kids by himself for the weekend (Like he really had a choice!). You might just want to go ahead and lift him up in prayer as you read this because this is the first time he has kept both kids by himself for a weekend. I know the boys will love spending so much time with their Daddy! I think Uncle Ross, Aunt Kim, and Shelby may come to visit and help out on Saturday and play. 4 hours and counting!

Happy Easter!

We just got back from Tyler where we spent Easter weekend with my parents. The kiddos had a great time at Gram and Papa's house. Saturday morning we went to an Easter Egg Hunt at my parents church where they had lots of different activities for the kids. Tyler had a good time. He participated in the Egg Hunt but he wasn't too sure what to do in the beginning. After he picked up the first egg he found and realized there were treats inside he went to go find more. He only found two eggs before all the eggs were gone! He didn't seem to worried, he just wanted me to open his treat!

I think we played outside the rest of the day because the weather was gorgeous! Sunday we went to church and then to lunch with some of my mom's family. We went to have barbecue and Papa was trying to get on Cooper's good side. He gave him a rib bone since he is teething and Cooper loved it! Then Papa also gave him some of his ice cream to "help ease the pain!" Only with a second child would we have let him get away with such shenanigans! Before the kids naps we had a little Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard for Tyler. He knew exactly what to do this time and of course had to have a treat afterward!

Cooper enjoying his Easter ribs!

Topping it off with some ice cream! Yummy!

Tyler is very focused on his ice cream!

Hunting for Easter Eggs!

Showing off his treat!

8 Months!

Cooper is 8 months! He is growing so fast and is now on the move... kind of. He is trying to start to crawl and he can pretty much get to what he wants if it is pretty close by. He is up on all fours rocking and he sort of dives forward. I actually wish he would skip crawling and just move on to walking. I'm so ready for him to be walking so I don't have to lug him around all day. You see, Cooper is a BIG Mama's boy! Maybe not necessarily a Mama's boy, but a "I want to be held all day by anyone who will hold me" boy! If he is sitting there happily playing and I get up to go do something really quick like throw a dirty diaper away, he starts crying. This gets old for me very fast! So as you can see I'm ready for him to walk so he can keep up with Tyler and me.

The biggest news in Cooper's world is that he got his first tooth last week! He was very sad about it though! I think the other front bottom tooth will probably make its appearance very soon. Here are some pictures from this week.

Cooper giving the lip!

Having fun in the exercauser!

Sweet Cooper!

23 Months!

Tyler will turn 2 in less than a month! I can hardly believe it, but it is so much fun watching him grow into a toddler. He is doing great, but is definitely showing more and more signs of those terrible twos! He has definitely mastered the temper tantrum and loves to try to manipulate us by throwing them. But Tyler is also a sweet boy and is learning tons of new things. His vocabulary is really growing and he is starting to put two and three words together. Here are some things I want to remember about Tyler at 23 months:

• He LOVES Carrots! Everytime I open the refrigerator he is right there opening the veggie drawer asking for a carrot!
  
• He is deathly afraid of the vacuum cleaner. Just at the mere mention of a vacuum cleaner and he is frozen in place.
  
• He loves working his ABC puzzle and is quickly learning all of his letters.
• He loves his friends! He is always asking to go see Abby, Mallie, and Tucker.
• Everything is "MINE"! This drives me crazy!
• He is so unbelievably smart! He is very good with directions. He starts fussing when we turn left off of our street because Abby, Mallie, and Tucker's house is to the right. He also starts fussing when we turn left out of our neighborhood because the park we like to play at is to the right. He also starts fussing when we pass a certain neighborhood because his friend Sam lives there and he likes to go play with him. It really cracks me up that he is so aware of where everything is.
• He continues to love playing outside and playing in the dirt and mud!
• He loves ELMO! In fact his second birthday party will be a Sesame Street theme!
  

Smiling for the camera!

We are getting a patio poured in the backyard and they brought a truck load of dirt yesterday. We had to immediately go outside to play in the mound of dirt! Here he is showing Mama his dirt.

More DIRT!!!

It's Rodeo Time!!!

We ventured out to the rodeo this weekend with the Murthas' since we got awesome tickets through Travis' work. We ended up taking the kiddos with us and I'm pretty sure Tyler had the most fun out of anyone. We were in a box at the rodeo so food and drinks were included and Tyler ate like a pig. But he mostly ate cotton candy, ice cream, brownies, and cornbread muffins. There were several other families there and one family had seven children (they were older), but all of their daughters were loving on our kids all night. They begged me to hold Cooper and help feed him. It was really sweet and actually helped me to enjoy myself more. Tyler cracked us up when the concert started. He immediately started dancing along with his friend, Samuel. The video is of them dancing.

One of the girls holding Cooper. Of course Cooper wouldn't have any of it because he is such a Mama's boy and it was getting close to his bedtime!

Tyler watching the Rodeo festivites.

Tyler watching the Calf Scramble (my favorite part of the rodeo)

The Murtha girls enjoying some cotton candy.

Tyler chowing down on some cotton candy.

Carson Browning Smith

One of my very best friends had her baby last night. It is a sweet baby boy named Carson Browning Smith. Tonight I drove down to Houston to go visit them and hold sweet Carson. He is precious and everyone is doing great. I'm so thankful that everyone is doing well because Callie had a very rough pregnancy. We know Cooper and Carson are going to be great friends!

The Happy Family!

Sweet Baby Carson!

The Cats Meow

Tyler cracks us up every time we ask him what the cat says. He makes this scrunched up face and says "Meow"! It is hilarious and we were finally able to capture it on video.

Peek-A-Boo

Today Tyler rolled Cooper into the Laundry Room in his walker and he closed the door behind them, so I decided to play Peek-A-Boo with them. As we were playing, Cooper started laughing the hardest I've ever heard him. So I ran to get the camera and caught him in action. Turn up your volume pretty high so you can hear. Sorry for my annoying voice!

A, B, C.... Easy as 1, 2, 3

Tyler loves working his ABC puzzle he got for Christmas. He can work the entire puzzle by himself. Sometimes he puts the letters on spaces he knows that the letter doesn't belong and says "NO" (you can see him doing this in the video). He is also starting to learn his letters and has surprised us with how many he knows. He knows A, B, O, P, R, U, Y, and Z. Here is a video of him working his puzzle last night.

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Triple Hookup

Fishing

Heath with a nice 33" red!

Hooked up with a nice red

28" Red

Not too bad a day, eh?

Hello everyone! Travis here. I like to take over the blog from time to time an post various things that don't involve adorable kids. Last weekend, 3 friends and myself took our 3rd annual fishing trip down to the thriving metropolis of Seadrift, TX. We went down on Saturday and fished through Monday. We got down late afternoon on Saturday and did some pond fishing at Grandpa's pond in Port Lavaca. We caught a lot of fish, but nothing too big. A cold front blew through Saturday night and we thought it was going to be rough fishing on Sunday as winds were forecasted at 15-20 mph. We woke up Sunday to beautiful skies and low winds. We took Grandpa Johnson's old boat "The Folly 5" that he gave to Ross and I and took it out to the bay. We were either lucky or good, but the first place we stopped we fished and caught fish all day there. We caught about 30 keepers.This is the first time we actually had a good trip when we guided ourselves so we were pretty happy about that.

Sunday night we went to Bayflats Lodge in Seadrift. They run a really nice operation and it is always fun to go there. We had a dinner of duck, baked potato, and salad with a dessert of cheesecake. Not exactly roughing it. We fished from 6 until 4:30 and caught our limit of reds and then some along with 23 keeper trout and a flounder. It was a lot of fun hanging with the guys. Thanks to Sarah for letting me go :)

Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street

You Might Be A Redneck ...

Could I be any Cuter?

I'm cute even with my fuzzy hair!

I love this sweet face!

Playing on a lazy Sunday afternoon! Click on this picture to zoom in and check out the crazy hair! Now do you see what I'm talking about?

Can you tell Cooper LOVES to swing!

SO FUN!

Seriously?

How do kids manage to mess the computer up so quickly? Last night Tyler wanted to watch the video of him in the bathtub over and over again. So I sat him up in the chair at the desk and I would play it for him again and again. I went to check on Cooper and came back to this:


And no... the picture is not sideways! He had managed to completely rotate the entire screen 90 degrees to the left. It took me awhile to finally fix what he had done and my neck was a little sore afterwards from having to read everything at an angle!

Giggles

Does Tyler Know Your Name?

Sorry for the sideways video. I was using my digital camera and I can't figure out how to rotate the screen!

6 Months!

Cooper will be six months on Thursday! I definitely cannot believe that he is already a half of a year old. He is doing great. We went to the doctor today for his regular checkup and he weighed in at 16 pounds 14.5 ounces and was 28 inches long. That is 1.5 inches longer than Tyler was at this age so I have a feeling we are going to have a big boy on our hands! He is learning how to sit up and will probably be able to sit up unassisted in a couple of weeks. He always wants to be sitting up- he hates laying on the floor. He loves his jumperoo and his new sing along stage from the Johnsons. Tyler also loves his new toy and so we usually end up having a lesson on sharing. Cooper is a sweetheart and loves one on one attention which is sometimes hard these days. Here are some pictures from this week.

Such an intellectual!

Cooper's infamous fuzzy hair! It is at its best after a bath.

Jumperooing

Cooper's favorite toy!

He loves playing with the baby in the mirror.

Showing off his sitting up skills.

21 Months!

Tyler is 21 months! I can hardly believe it! He is turning in to such a little boy. He continues to crack us up on a daily basis and amazes us with all that he is learning. His favorite things these days are ELMO, building blocks, playing outside, going for walks, and playing with his tractors and trucks. He also amazes us with how quickly he can destroy a clean room. He likes to drag EVERYTHING out, but he is a great helper when it is time to clean up. He is such a sweetheart most of the time!

Getting so BIG!

Hijacking Cooper's new toys!

Putting Daddy to bed.

Cooper helped me wake Tyler up from his nap.

Building a big tower of blocks. He likes different people to knock them over once he has built them. Most of the time Cooper or Elmo gets to knock the blocks over!

Bath Time

Cooper has finally decided that he likes his baths!

We have got to teach this kid how to smile!