Andrew turns one!

September 7th Andrew turned one year old! We decided to keep it low key and just had a couple friends over for cake. Thanks again to Nikki who not only made the cakes but came up with the design as well. When we talked about her making the cake she asked what kind of design I wanted, I replied "something boy, maybe in the shape of a one" but pretty much left it up to her to be creative and have fun with it. I'm glad I did, they turned out great! Notice the tiny "1's" on the sides. Very cute! Digging in!

A few fun/silly things about Andrew... he likes to play with potatoes, not Mr. Potato Head, REAL potatoes from my pantry. He also like to eat Kara's sidewalk chalk and cotton balls. He walks full time, no more crawling. He also likes to dance and bounce on the trampoline with us. One of his favorite foods is chicken, especially the Mickey shaped chicken nuggets from Costco. He LOVES to play with my car keys. He's always grabs for them when we are getting into the car and he's got such a strong grip sometimes he gets them away from me, and he gets very upset when I take them back. Size wise he's catching up to big sister. At 23 lbs. and 30 inches she's only got 5 lbs and 6 inches on him. Happy Birthday, Andrew! We love you Pookie!

Happy Birthday, Kara!

A little behind here, almost a month ago (August 7th) Kara turned THREE! Thanks to Nikki for making the cute Angelina Ballerina cake!

After a whole month of sunny weather it decided to rain on Kara's birthday, just enough to get everything wet and keep us inside. Oh well, it was fun to have friends over even if we didn't get to all the games we planned. Kara's favorite thing, besides the cake, was presents. She loves to open presents!


And the traditional post-part crash. Happy Birthday my cutie pie!

11 months

Tomorrow Andrew will be 11 months old! His hair was getting long and scraggly in the back, so we gave him his first haircut. I've given him little trims, but this was the first time getting out the clippers and cutting it all. It made me a little sad to cut it so short, but it was hard enough to hold him still for clippers, cutting it even with scissors would have pretty much been impossible. He's walking pretty much full time now. He crawls only if the terrain is tricky, or if he's really in a hurry, like when he's trying to escape from mommy getting him dressed. He's quite a social boy. He loves to play mimic games with you or have a baby babble "conversation". He also quite a cuddle bug and holds his arms out to you when he wants to be picked up. Below is a short video of the kids playing with water balloons, and at the end Andrew claps and says "Yay!, which also seems to be his first word. He also says "Yay!" at the end of family prayers when the rest of us say "Amen". Besides walking he also likes to dance with Kara's singing hamster toy. I managed to catch a very little bit of his "hamster dance" on video.

Kara the gymnast

I'm pretty sure she figured this out from watching "The Wiggles", she tries to do handstands too.

Our big move

Between us and the two kids our stuff filled up all three bays of my Dad's garage. I think maybe we have too much stuff.
With the hardest part of our move over the 10 days went by surprisingly fast. We filled up the biggest truck that Uhaul has, also the biggest truck you can drive without a CDL ...

... and headed to our new house! While the guys were unloading I went through and took a few quick pictures of the empty house.

the upstairs bathroom

looking into the dinning area, keys and owners manuals on the kitchen counter

laundry room and downstairs bathroom

from the living room looking into the dinning area out the back door

play room

one of the first things on my list was to replace the shower doors in the bathroom with a curtain

and one of the first things Jeff did was set up the trampoline for Kara

the living room was the first room to be fully unpacked

we're still working on where to hang pictures

Today after church we layed a blanket down in a shady part of the backyard and then sat down with the kids, talked, read, laughed. Then, I pushed the kids on the swings for a bit while Jeff dozed off and had a Sunday cat nap.

After renting and living in apartments for so long its still a little surreal that this is our house. I feel like Mr Martini from "It's A Wonderful Life" when he is asked if he was renting a new house and he laughs and says "You hear what he said? I no more rent! I own the house!"

F is for Fernandez and...

Our First party at our new house. Celebrating Freedom with Family,

Friends,

yummy Food

Flags



Fireworks in the driveway



After we finished with our own fireworks we walked down to the lake and watched as a couple of the lake residents seemed to be competing for best display, lots of the big mortar shells and stuff. It was pretty impresssive! We had a Fun Fourth of July and we are looking forward to doing it again next year, hopefully with warmer weather.

P.S. Jill I hope you don't mind me borrowing your idea.

10 months

Today Andrew is 10 months old! He's got six teeth now. Two top, four bottom and more coming soon.
He's mastered the stairs, going up...

...and going down

He used his last size 3 diaper this morning and is now using size 4, which is the same size Kara wears. He stands more often and has also taken a few steps. They are very wobbly steps, and it's not a mode of transportation for him yet, but I managed to get a video of one of his successful attempts!