Happy 1 1/2 Birthday to B!

The little man turned 1 1/2 already! Not quite sure where the time went. We celebrated with the traditional cupcake.

At 18 months the Beck-a-roo:

• Finally decided he was ready to talk, He says Dada (for me) Mama ( for Beckett) , Sissy, Down, Dog, Bird , bye bye, two, but it seems like the flood gates are open and he says new things every single day. He'll repeat almost anything. 
• He can make many of the animal noises and actions, he knows everything from a camel to a penguin, to a butterfly. 

• Can do most of the "transportation noises: boat, train, car
• He is very into make crazy noises like this and going " ha-HA!" at the end

• Love, love, LOVES to dance and sing
• Will sign along with you, espeically at night when he's getting tired
• Has all of 8 teeth
• Is the pickiest eater I have ever seen. He wants all junk all the time. He does like eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, little smokies (a LOT) and waffles, LOTS of waffles (and syrup of course), and corn 
• He usually sleeps like a champ, but will wake up about once every three to five weeks at about 3 am and will stay up ALL NIGHT LONG
• Is still just full of personality, will walk up to every single person at the grocery store and wave at them and say Hi until the respond. Flirts up a storm
• The "Cheese" face is in full effect. If he sees a phone he automatically "cheeses" because of course you're taking a picture of him

• It's probably time to get a haircut, but I refuse. He's got my hair, wiry, thick, and a little crazy
• Is just starting to like to read books, his favorites are "red hat green hat" and anything that he can open, feel, or touch.
• We have a saying that "what the emmy do, the beckett do" - because, well it's true
• I've never seen anyone so obsessed with pouring. Two solo cups and something to pour back and forth and he's happy for an hour. The bathtub is a favorite place
• He's happy to play cars or read books by himself. He'll play in the playroom and keep himself quietly busy (Big change from his sister!)
• Still knows what he wants. If you're tickling his foot and he wants you to keep doing it, he'll grab your hand and put it on his foot until you finally concede and do what he wants
• Wants to be a big kid pretty badly, wants out of his highchair seat, and to do what the big kids are doing.

He Talks to Somebody

Some pictures are just too cute not to document =)

Emmy and Blake went to Father's Night at Emmy's school which was western themed. Emmy was beyond excited to show him her room and all the stations, since he doesn't get to take her to school very much.

Emmy had to answer some questions about Blake and what his favorite things were. This is what she said:

His favorite food is: Steak

His Favorite TV show is : Football

My favorite this to do with Daddy is: Play princesses

When I'm at school Daddy : TALKS TO SOMEBODY

At least she's partially right ;) 

Picking up Pecans

While Mommy took a little girls weekend to Galveston, Daddy took the kids to Gandy's. They decided to spend an entire day picking up pecans, honestly FORTY POUNDS of pecans.

Blake brought two giant shopping bags full and had them cracked. We worked an entire night shelling them and managed to make 2 ziploc bags worth. I don't think the rest of them are happening ;)

Park fun

We're lucky to have a lot of really great parks in our neighborhood  In good weather it's time to get out and play and let Daddy have some practice time with his camera.

B wants to carry ALL the balls, every single ball he can see, and all at the same time. 

Check out these kicks! Maybe we shouldn't skip a year of soccer!

Go Texan Day

I love Go Texas Day because it's the one day of the year when every stereotype about Texans is actually true. We all wear boots and cowboy hats, and there are actually even horses coming down the freeway. Emmy was a Cupcake Cowgirl and Beckett decided he was way too cool for all that and just wore his shades.

Happy Birthday Paw Paw

We finished up Valentine's weekend by celebrating Paw Paw's 85th birthday. 

 All the Sansom family came in to town, and we all went to GiGi and Pops for a big party.

Emmy instantly took to her cousins even thought it was the first time she'd met them.

Be my Valentine!

Since Valentines started very very early this year, we postponed our traditional Valentine's hunt until after work. We sent Daddy a morning pic. 

 and then you know that I made everyone go outside to take our official holiday front yard pic.

 Lannie and Boppa came to eat dinner with us and RIGHT before we went to bed we squeezed in our clues.  Once again Emmy was ALL over it. Next year I'm going to have to make about 20. She has much more fun racing from room to room than she did opening her little prizes.

B, of course, was most excited about the toothpaste!

Facepainting fun

At Abby's school soc hop this year they had all kind of fun things set up for the kids to do. After eating tons of candy and doing a million cakewalks (for some reason this was a really big draw. I don't really get it. ) they decided to do some face painting. Abby told the lady that she wanted to be a cat. Emmy told the poor little middle school girl painting faces that she wanted to be a  half dog/half cat of course! 

I can say that it took everything I had not to grab the brush out of the poor girl's hand while she was painting it. Blake and I were standing there l looking at each other like "what the hell!?" She also will hopefully not pick art as her second elective, because let's face it, there's no future there. It did make a LOT more sense when Emmy finally told me what she asked for. 

As a little fun take away from this experience, you guessed it! An eye infection the very next day, just in that circled eye. SO fun!

Zoo Kids

We haven't been to the zoo in a long time so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and head out. There weren't many people there so we ran right back to the giraffes and Beckett got to his first official giraffe feeding. Emmy is an expert so she ran right up and got her leaves in.
 

Of course a ride on the carousel was next. B wasn't so sure about it.


Then we had to head over to pet some goats. Emmy grabbed the brush and started chasing all the sheep. Beckett took a few steps in before he started saying 'no, no, no, no' and ran right back out.



He had more fun washing his hands than he did in the petting zoo. We did manage to catch a keeper's talk with the elephants where we got to watch them swim and take a semi bath.



Emmy had a great time as usual, but overall I think Becks was much more excited about the snacks than the animals;)

Singing and dancing

Emmy loves singing in the chior at church. They only do about two performances a year, so Emmy is usually enamored with the giant TV and watches it the entire time, or eats her hair, or kind of sings. She was feeling this song! She got the hip action going!!!

Her chior teacher came up to us after and said told us how surprised they were to see Emmy dancing like that on stage because she's usually so quiet at choir. We're noticing that home Emmy and public Emmy are two very different people. At home it's a nonstop performance. Wondering if performing is going to be her "thing" or if she sometimes just feels it ;)

Here's what a typical morning/noon/night looks like at our house. B is doing his best Tom Cruise and his version of "dancing" which he loves just as much as his sissy. A lot of rocking back and forth and running around. He will even copy the very dramatic hand moves that she usually does. She has some set ones that she does to all of her Princess songs and he will follow her move for move. They will dance all day long if you let them.

And proof that this song was everywhere this year, when it's on the car Emmy will sing all the words and Becket will do the "heys" and raise his hands . They sing the whole song together. I kind of love it. I hope that they will always love each other this much. 

Brusha Teef and the first trip to the dentist

Beckett has recently become OBSESSED with brushing his teeth. He will fight Emmy for the stool to get to the water and will just crack up the entire time he "brushes" them. If you can't find him, there's a good chance he's snuck upstairs and is in Emmy's room brushing his teeth by himself and laughing. We have a "brusha brusha brusha , brusha brusha teef" song that we sing (you know we do) and at the end you have to show everyone your beautiful teeth. Here's B's version. 

When we went to his year checkup they asked me if we had been to see the dentist yet.Seriously? He has like 4 teeth! Since I had to add him to the insurance anyway I figured what the hell. I thought he might be a little nervous but he was cool as a cucumber. The actual visit took all of 15 seconds. He was a champ for all 15 and gave the dentist a hi-five and had a major death grip on his new toothbrush. He wouldn't even give it up for a toy. The boy is obsessed!

Playing at Kate's House

Kate invited everyone over for a playdate at her house. The girls have gotten to hang out quite a bit over the holidays, and they immediately decided that they of course needed to dress up. Being the fashionista that she is, Kate of course had princess dressed to fit everyone. 

I'm getting spoiled spending so much time with these girls

Flu 3, Vaceks 1 (and he ran a marathon to show off)

We decided to go ahead and start the new year out with a bang and ALL get the flu, except of course Blake, who is the only one of our family with an actual immune system. After a week of sniffles I finally gave in and took the kids to the doctor. Flu B for everyone! We even managed to infect Berta, our nanny, who claimed she has not been sick in 7 years. Leave it to us!!!!! Being the brave mother that I am, I put us in to seclusion and suffered through a week of flu for me and two kids with flu. To pass the time we watched LOTS of movies, Emmy did some unsupervised testing of her new make up kit she got for Christmas (leg lip gloss is the new thing)

ate lots of popsicles, and of course, made flu cakes. I can't help but want to do some kind of testing to see JUST how many germs are in each one of these. Who wants one? 

Just to show off, Blake ran the Houston Half Marathon that weekend. He trained with his friend Josh and they ran all 13.1 in the pouring down rain and freezing cold. He finished in just over 2 hours and we are VERY very proud of him! It must've been that Olive Garden meal we ate at 11 pm the night before. Race approved for sure!