A Special Visit

We were blessed by a special visit from part of our Florida family this month - having Aunt Gloria, Cousin Candi & Tyler come to stay for a long weekend. With them in town, the rest of Texas family was sure to follow, so we had a fun, family - filled home for several days and had a blast with everyone.


The Martinez family had quite the extended trip getting here, thanks to crazy Texas weather, but made it to our Benbrook home late Friday night, shortly followed by the Glienke's (Grandpa, Nana & Uncle Kevin). Saturday was all about having fun with the boys, with a trip to the zoo, playing outside, in the water hose and in the pool, I think we succeeded!




Sunday, we said goodbye to the Glienke family, and we took the boys to a nearby park, where there was lots of time in the swings, and some fun, and falls, from the slides!


Monday we spent relaxing around the house before we had to say our goodbyes. There's was fear of another big storm, causing a little bit of delay again for the Martinez family to get back, but all were safe in the end. Though, we are pretty sure they've put in there 'time' for traveling to Texas - we will have to repay them soon, but hopefully with less eventful travel :)!

Toddler Transition

Well, this Mother's Day weekend was quite eventful. We had a wonderful celebration with the Palmer family over for lunch and the afternoon after church on Sunday. We got to Skype with Nana & even Great Grandma Thompson - a nice treat.

We were excited to show everyone the completed project of decorating Drew's new toddler room, which we finished up just that morning, but spent most of Saturday working on, not to mention hours & hours of the previous weeks building legos! We are very happy with the results, and Drew seems to like it too - though at times gets frustrated that there are so many toys on the wall that he can't play with! :)



We are planning to move him into the room at the end of the week - prayers would be great! Here's hoping it goes well!

At the 3rd Trimester mark...

So, thought I'd give a small pregnancy update while I'm here...
All continues to go well, and we are at 28 weeks, with just a short 12 to go. I haven't had any bleeding since the last post about the pregnancy - thank you Lord! I have had another weird symptom, not serious, just really annoying - pruritis of pregnancy - which simply means I itch all over, whenever, for no other reason than I'm pregnant - fun times! But I'm able to handle it a bit better these days with LOTS of Aveeno products.
But all in all, still a very healthy, happy pregnancy. I'm able to work as much as I want, and try to keep up with Drew - though that it getting a bit more tiresome, but not impossible - that could be the case regardless of pregnancy, honestly!
I started to feel the baby kick in the 18th week, and Matthew felt it the week of his birthday - just like with Drew! All the tests, appointments, etc. have gone well and from what we can tell, we should have a healthy little boy or girl in late July! We did choose to not find out the gender again, much to the chagrin of several friends, etc., but it will be a fun surprise that day.
We are pretty sure Drew is mostly clueless about what is happening. Thankfully, my baby belly is starting to make an apparent appearance, so hopefully we can use that to help some. We are moving him to his new room in a few weeks, and starting to turn the nursery back into a true nursery, so hopefully he'll pick up on some of that as well. Prayers for us all during that transition would be wonderful, but mostly for Drew - bless his heart, he is such a Mommy's boy I'm afraid of breaking his heart...but we will all do well, so many others before us have survived, surely we will too!

21 Months!

It continues to amaze me how quickly the time flies...and how quickly our boy changes! Some random milestones this month are he got 3 new teeth, putting him at 16 total! Only the last 4 molars to go! And he is officially down to 1 nap in the afternoon - we are probably the slowest parents to do this, and it was not pretty when it started, but it's happened because of the pending transition to a new room complete with toddler bed...so we'll see!


We are so excited for Drew this month - he has really taken to learning his colors and shapes! By the end of the month, he is beyond the basic four of each, and soaking up new ones every chance he gets! Even his teacher pointed out how well he knows them. I wish I could take credit, but it goes to Daddy for sure. Daddy likes to use the Lego Duplos as his object lesson - it has certainly paid off so far!


Again, more and more words are coming from Drew's direction, and some 'favorites' are "MINE!", "a-din" (again, and again, and again!), "I did it!" when he's proud of himself for accomplishing something, "scuz me" when squeezing through tight spots, "bss you" after someone sneezes (so cute!), "goodness" if there's a loud crash or something else out of place, and "I see you", sometimes, even when no one is around! HIs singing has also gone off the charts this month. A favorite song, and this cracks me up, but also warms my heart, is the Doxology! (For those that don't know, this is a very short hymn, used often in the Lutheran church) Daddy sings it to him at bedtime sometimes, and now he loves to have us all sing it together over & over! Another favorite is Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes, which he emphatically sings when we get to TOES! as well as Mr. Sun - thanks to music class & Nana - a VERY easy song to get stuck in Mommy's head long after Drew is asleep every night! (It's going through my head as I write this in fact.)


Drew is working a bit on some fine motor skills - learning the wonderfulness of buckles! He loves to work on his high chair buckle after meals, often getting frustrated, but then very excited when he gets it right. "I did it!" He also has learned the coordination and patience, when coaxed, to build towers higher than 4 before smacking them down, so I think we've gotten to 8 so far and then the impulse is impossible to hold back! He is also able to zip up his PJs after we get them started for him, which he thoroughly enjoys.


We continue to LOVE riding our bike, getting outside to ride almost every day if weather allows. A new favorite inside game (unfortunately) is throwing balls up and over our heads. This was just ok when it started out in the play room with soft balls. It has sadly grown to just about any object in any environment if the mood strikes just right...oh, he is a boy alright! He will throw or hit just about anything - testing Mommy & Daddy's patience to no end.


This month had it's share of busyness, creating all sorts of opportunities for a stressed toddler (which apparently results in awful behavior, including pulling out the top drawer of the dresser & swinging from it) and an exhausted Mommy and Daddy, but in the end, all for good times...
Mommy & Drew went to Houston one weekend for Mommy to go to her grad class and Drew to be spoiled silly by his grandparents who were more than delighted to take a day off from work (Nana took Friday off, and Grandpa made lots of time for us when school was not in session!). Drew went to the park, played on the swing, rode his bike, played in the pool, went to the zoo, played with bubbles and playdough - and who knows what else Nana kept him busy with! I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but Drew loved it of course!



The next weekend all 3 of us drove to Austin for Easter and caught up with some wonderful friends - the Kinders and Sellers, and Grandpa, Nana and Uncle Kevin were all part of the fun! It was a nice, quick trip, filled with Nana's birthday 'celebration' at Amy's & Easter out at the Sellers.



We had fun Palmer family time too - enjoyed a blastball game of cousin Luke's and went to the Relay for Life in Benbrook where cousin Matthew had a rockin' balloon animal booth!


So much fun, no wonder the month flew by! We are happy though, as most would agree, to get home and back to 'normal'. However, in our case, normal means it's crunch time to get Drew moved to his new room (coming next month) and getting ready for Baby! Drew is going to be a big help, we can tell!

20 Months

No April fools, another month has passed and we are creeping closer and closer to being 2 years old!


Well, the singing continues in our house - and what a treat it is! Drew is loving to sing more and more these days. We often will hear him singing what can only be a song only he knows, and other times, ones that seem somewhat familiar. He has started to sing along to the ABCs, which we are very excited about - one because he's smart, and two, because it distracts him quite a bit in the car or during diaper changes, which can be a challenge at times! Some new words that have entered Drew's vocabulary this month have been a little surprising - dragon, thanks to Daddy; butt, I can only assume from a friend at school, and "cocu", for chocolate, and that one is from me!


The open-mouthed kisses have been put to an end - Daddy taught Drew to keep his lips closed during kisses. While I realize this is much more appropriate, I am sad that it is over - it was just the cutest thing. But now, there is lots of lip puckering, which is also very cute. And, people don't draw back when Drew offers up a kiss anymore, so I know it's for the best! :)


We have discovered the greatness of ketchup - and all other condiments to dip food into. There are meals now where Drew will ask for dip, even if there's not anything that would make sense for dipping. But, it has helped numerous times to get Drew to continue to eat more, which is nice. While he continues to be an overall good eater, there are more challenging meals at times, so a dip can get us further than we ever realized! Some of his plates have a little dip section, and every now & then we'll catch Drew dipping food into it, even though it's empty, just in case there's a treat there! :)


With becoming more and more active, we are doing all sorts of running and jumping games, which has introduced "Ready, Set, Go!" which Drew enjoys to say along, but always skips the "set". In the same regard, in counting to 3, he almost always skips '2', so we'll have to work on that part!


It turns out we have a bit of a quirky little boy on our hands with a few things. With warmer weather upon us, shorts and sandals have made their way into the wardrobe. With nothing being an issue last year, I thought nothing of this until Drew made it VERY apparent - he did NOT want to wear sandals, or shorts with drawstrings! How random! It has taken me all month to get him to accept these pieces of clothing. But the first time I tried to put these on him, you can imagine my surprise when I got one foot through the shorts & then all of a sudden, a fit was being thrown, or getting one shoe on, and then thrashing of the feet ensued...it took me for quite a spin! Where this came from, we may never know. But thankfully, we have overcome! I just could not imagine going through the summer without wearing sandals - the horror! (For those of you that don't know, I will wear flip flops almost year round.) He also seems to have some texture defensiveness - avoiding Cool Whip, icing, shaving cream whenever introduced here at home or daycare - hmm, we'll have to work on that!


If you didn't see below, take a look - our boy is officially a tricyle rider! And he has become quite proficient at it! We are super excited about this - and have Grandma & Papa to thank for introducing it, and spending hours and hours on it with him! We are certainly not concerned about Drew's physical development at this point! He has started to climb much more - learning how to climb up onto our chairs and couches independently. He has taken several scary risks with his climber/slide - climbing up & flipping over the top! Not something I'm excited about or proud of, but I don't think we'll be worrying about him developing - maybe more so of him staying in one piece - it seems he has very little fear of that sort of thing!


Daddy has been busy, teaching Drew lots of fun new games this month. Some favorites are hide and seek chase - where Drew will even take turns hiding. This is a favorite game after dinner - keeping them both busy while Mommy cleans up the kitchen. Daddy also taught Drew to crouch down, stick out his tongue, making a funny noise, and hopping like a frog - Drew doesn't always get every step in there - but it's pretty cute regardless.


We had a fun month of visitors and playdates. Several days with cousin Luke - a favorite, obvious from the immediate huge smiles on both of their faces when they see eachother, frequent hugs, and tons of laughter. Uncle Kevin was in town for a week, so we got to see him a few times. And we had some special weekend visitors from Florida by way of Houston - Great Grandma & Grandpa Glienke came with Grandpa & Nana - a true treat! Mommy's cousin Jason & family stopped for a visit during their Spring Break trip to Texas - a rare Thompson siting in the south! Drew doted on Abby the entire time they were here!




One last funny, and unfortunate thing that Drew has learned this month - he can lock the back door - which he has done several times while Daddy has been outside grilling dinner. Thankfully Mommy is home to help, but doesn't always realize what has happened as soon as Daddy would appreciate I'm sure!