Charles Knox

baby

Cecily Blanche

baby

Friday, August 29, 2008

Another "exciting" Friday Night

Our Friday night excitement consists of dinner at the Mexican restaurant, including a well-deserved margarita for me.  Tonight wasn't out of the ordinary, but I did manage to almost finish Sherry & Chris's baby shower invites.  The only thing stopping me was the fact that I ran out of adhesive--after going through three rolls!  I'll finish in the morning after a quick run to Hobby Lobby, but I can't wait to get them in the mail.  I'm just excited for Cacey and crew to see them because I think they are one of the CUTEST invitations I've done.  I'll have to top it for Knox's birthday invites. :)
Anywho, the main reason for the post is more humorous photos I've managed to snap of Knox.  Move over Dora The Explorer!  Here comes the
 Knox man!  The first photo shows my sweet
 little one knowing how to "pose" for the camera at an early age, just like his Momma did.  (His "fraternity" pose, instead of "sorority" pose as my parents refer to it.)

The others are of him learning how great it is to play under the dining room table.  That must be hereditary also.  I was telling our neighbors tonight at dinner of my wonderful memories of playing under my Granny & Papa John's table.  Their table was great--big enough to sit 10 comfortably and we always had a few family
friends at the holidays.  The legs of the table are large and intricate, and something about it just made me want to hang out under there after family holiday meals.  It just must be a kid thing.  So there was my tangent of the evening.  Knox is still so small in comparison to our dining room table, I thought the first of these photos was like a "Where's Waldo" since you kind of have to look for the wild man.  I hate that the second is so blurry because it just shows how sneaky/happy he is that he's into something new.

I couldn't help but share the invite I did for my BFF since 4th grade, Tiffany, who is expecting a baby girl on November 17th!  Enjoy the pics and enjoy this wonderful, extended weekend in honor of Labor Day!  Be safe!

Monday, August 25, 2008

A fun weekend with Grammy & Grandaddy

We had the pleasure of Keith's parents, Debbie & Tony (aka Grammy & Grandaddy) come stay the weekend with us.  Their visits are always full of fun times, shopping and mucho good food.

Knox was able to perform to his fullest, once he figured out that "these people" that came to see him were people he had seen before.  His separation anxiety was not as bad as it has been, but he still needed a little time to warm up.  Knox showed them how he could push his little walker and how he now plays with his exersaucer--standing on the outside of it.

We "managed" to make it to the Discover Mills Outlet Mall (comparable to Opry Mills, to those of you who have been there) so Keith and Tony could play at Bass Pro Shops and use gift cards Tony acquired for his retirement, and so Debbie and I could do a little shopping for ourselves and a lot of shopping for the wild man.  Debbie LOVES shoes and is letting her love of shoes fall onto Knox, which makes me happy!  As much as Knox loves to be my sweet little redneck in no shoes and no clothes, I know he needs to get used to wearing shoes since he's so close to walking all over the place.  Debbie had brought with her four pairs of shoes from The Clothes Pen in Pulaski to see if any would be a good fit for Knox.  Let me just tell you that wiggle worm would NOT stay still long enough for us to put a shoe on one foot.  If we did get close, he little foot was so balled up we weren't able to tell if it actually fit or not.  We found a Stride Rite in the mall and a perfect pair of new kicks for Knox there.  They open really wide so I can shove his entire foot in before he realizes it.  He wore them out Saturday night and on Sunday while he and I ran a few errands.  Knox looks so much more like a little boy, than a baby, when he's wearing his shoes with a shorts and top outfit (an upclose view of the kicks are the first pic on this post and my little boy shots are at the bottom.)

I prepared a nice meal Friday evening so we could stay at home and just enjoy each others' company.  It was a yummy meal of pork tenderloin, homemade mac n' cheese, roasted veggies and wheat rolls with honey butter, complete with a brown sugar pudding cake (a new recipe courtesy of Southern Living).  That started of my weekend of being stuffed to the gills of good food.  We had Chick-fil-a Buffet for breakfast Saturday and ate at Chili's and Red Lobster for our remaining meals that day.  I made a new breakfast casserole for Sunday's breakfast which was good, but very different.  I'm still trying to decide if I would make it again, but it's an entire breakfast in one.  Hard boiled eggs, bacon, potatoes, cheese sauce and soft, homemade bread crumbs are all the components.  Oh well.

These last few pictures happened after Grammy and Grandaddy had left, but I had to share.  Now this is not the first time that wild man has played with the toilet paper, but it is the first time he has unrolled it to this extent.  He was only out of my sight for at most 2 minutes and I heard him playing so I wasn't too concerned.  He was having a blast!  I'm just glad I got to him before he started trying to eat it, like he normally does.




Thursday, August 21, 2008

Pee-pie!

Well, our latest news includes playing "pee-pie" (the Lamm/Rogers house version of "Peek-a-boo"), Knox getting closer to walking and he first attempts at throwing a temper tantrum.  The last is, obviously, our least favorite of what he has learned lately.

We play pee-pie using a burp cloth or dish towel to cover his eyes while saying, "Where's Knox?  Where could he be?"  Then we pull down the cloth saying, "There he is!" and making a big fuss over him.  It has been one sided for many months now, but he turned that around on us this past Thursday.  I threw his burp cloth over his head, saying the norm, when he decided to take action and pull it down from his eyes.  He was so excited to hear me respond to him, that he immediately pulled it back up and waited for his prompts to lower it yet again.  We played several times, just to make sure it wasn't my imagination, and rushed him and the burp cloth upstairs where Keith and Charlie (the next door neighbor) were talking deer.  I interrupted so Knox could perform, but as babies do, he got performance anxiety and only wanted to check out what the big boys were doing.  Knox's next attempt at playing pee-pie just happened to come while I was attempting to jog for the second time.  It was one of those instances when it was only the second time he's made an effort to play any form of game, and, as a mother, you feel an obligation to encourage his new activity despite ANYTHING that I might be doing--including a miserable attempt at jogging (knees hurting, out of breath, barely able to speak, saying "Where's Knox?  Pee-pie."  At least the dogs weren't with us for that lap.)

As most of you know, Knox has been working his way to being able to walk for quite some time now.  He keeps getting closer and closer.  Lately, he's been letting go of furniture to try and get to another piece of furniture a few feet away.  Even more recently, I've caught him getting into the "breakfast nook" (if you want to call it that), pulling up on a chair and just gunning towards the center of the kitchen.  By gunning, I mean three steps...total.  In addition to walking, he's made it up three steps in just a matter of seconds, instead of the initial two from which he feel a few weeks ago.  I'm starting to lovingly refer to his bruises as battle wounds.

And now to what Keith and I both now, will be the first of many temper tantrums.  Of course, since we're "Super Parents" (equivalent of Superman), we will squash those tantrums from the get-go and have the most well behaved child--ever!  If I could only dream in color...Anywho, the extent of his tantrums only include the arching of his back with his head thrown back and a slight whine.  But I think for the most part, he's just learning to use his body a bit more.  He does the whole head back, arch thingy even when he's not upset so I'm not too concerned--yet.

Oh and Keith finally got latched on the kitchen cabinets, so I'm not chasing after him there.  I thought I was smart in using his corral gate in its extended state to block him for the kitchen, i.e. the dog bowls, but my little genius has found the slight hole between the gate and wall.  He even goes to the measure of pushing the entire gate to get to the edge of the carpet (my little linebacker) where he sits and enjoys a nice little snack of carpet fuzz.  He throughly enjoys picking individual pieces of carpet and putting them into his mouth, only to choke until he ralphs.  Lovely, isn't it?  At least I know he can feed himself.  Here's to looking at the positive.

So, that's been our week's highlights.  We'll have an exciting weekend with Grammy & Grandaddy (Keith's parents) since they are coming to visit for the weekend.  I think Knox is very excited--and I think Mommy and Daddy are too!  I'm sure we will have some wonderful pictures to share after their visit.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A thought conclusion & a genius child

I've previously mentioned that we've been having some issues with getting Knox to stay happy in Kidz Club at the gym.  Well, it's gotten worse.  For the past two days, he's has immediately started screaming as soon as I hand him over to the workers.  Now at first I thought maybe he's still a little snotty (literally) and he'll get over it (the runny nose and the fussiness).  Nope.  Not the case at all.

Yesterday they came and got me from the middle of my workout because he never quit crying.  Plus he scares them by how red he gets when he cries.  I had to assure them that the coloring is normal--he gets it honestly from his father (along with the temper!)  I managed to get him calmed down long enough for me to escape for another 20 minutes.  After checking in then, he was still calm though one of the workers was holding him.  At the conclusion of my workout he was still with the worker and was not fussing to our surprise (his hand was down her low cut shirt--go figure.)

So Keith went with me to the gym today, so he was able to see first hand.  As soon as he went to the worker, he burst into tears and there wasn't much I could do to calm him.  The worker said to go on, that they had gotten used to his fussiness and crying by now.  Not what I want to hear as a first time mom, especially since I was such the angel as a child.  (Right, Mom & Dad?)  I checked back after 20 minutes and one worker is holding him (big surprise) so I continue my fierce workout.  18 minutes later the other worker hiked up the stairs to pull me off the elliptical trainer.  He started again and hadn't stopped.  What does he do as soon as I pick him up?  Stop crying.  Yep.  I had to interrupt Keith's workout so we could go.

Our conclusion--separation anxiety has set in the Rogers's household.  Let's just hope this goes by quickly, otherwise our attempt to get Knox socially exposed to other kids just went kerplunk (along with our gym membership fees and my waistline.)

On a much happier note (but at the cost of my sanity), our genius child is well on his way to walking at just 8 months old.  I've reported that he's been "cruising" the furniture, so well in fact, that he can basically circle the entire living room barely touching furniture or walls.  That was bad enough to frazzle me, but now I think I'm well on my way to being looney.  Little stinker man now lets go, and many times just tries to take off walking.  Of course, the feet don't quite keep up with the will yet, but it won't be too long.  We started "working" with him after he attempted to walk from me to the sliding glass door outside.  He's gotten much more stable standing in just two days and can take two or three steps before gravity takes ahold of his upper extremities.  I am, in no means, trying to rush my baby into growing up, especially for my sanity's sake, but I can't help but be so proud of him for "excelling" already.  I always knew I would have genius children--since I am a genius myself.  Haha!

Monday, August 11, 2008

A day in the life of...

I had a really nice blog written and was trying to ad pictures a new way so I wouldn't have to move things around as much.  Well, being the genius that I am, I deleted my text with no means of copying or saving it.  Fab.  The jest of the deleted blog is that Knox and I have been sick and we just hope that Daddy doesn't get it now.


So just enjoy the pictures that I was trying to upload.



He's getting to be a big boy drinking out of his sippy cup!


Knox fell asleep in his swing
(third time he's done that)


One of my most favorite pictures


Mommy's little Studmuffin
(Paci no longer in existence, thanks to Chloe eating it)


Notice the reflection of him trying to "clean" the window for Mommy


He's actually trying to grab Lula here






Monday, August 4, 2008

Kidz Klub and Jilly's Shower

Last Thursday, when Keith was working from home, wendecided to check out the Kidz Klub (daycare at the gym Keith uses) to see if it met my Mommy standards.  This is all in attempts to make sure I have no excuses to workout.  In addition, Keith and I thought it best that Knox started hanging out with other kiddos.  Everything looked great so Knox and I are now gym members again.

I went to pick him up on Friday, expecting to see him playing with the other kids.  I find him sitting with the two employees coloring.  Apparently, one employee sat him with the other children when they asked if Knox could play, but he turned and crawled after her.  Obviously, she had no objections to cuddling an 8 month old.  Oh well, he'll get the hang of playing with peeps his own age soon--I hope.


Saturday was Jill's shower in Chattanooga, hosted by her godmother Brenda, one of her Maid of Honors Meredith, and myself.  I, unfortunately, waited to do many things at the last minute so I as thankful to get everything completed.  All things turned out fabulously, which was extra fab since the other hostesses and I did all correspondence via email!  The table of food and drink was perfect, if I do say so myself!  We receive many compliments on how tasty the food was.  Jill had many guest come by (it was a come-and-go shower) and everyone was super sweet.  She also opened many fun and useful gifts.  One of her gifts was from all of the Lamms & Rogerses--her first set of china.  Jill was thrilled until she opened the box to find her very first piece a china, ateacup--her favorite, broken.  And it wasn't just cracked, it was smashed.  She was almost in tears!  But all was well once we discovered that not all pieces were damaged and the teacup can be replaced at no cost. 

In all the day of the shower was a success, followed by dress shopping for Jill's rehearsal dinner and my completion of calligraphy for the
 wedding invitations--at 1:00am.  I woke at 7:00am and started getting ready for my drive back home.  I was ready to see my men and thought that Daddy would be ready for Momma to get home since he and Knox and been together for so long without me.  Apparently, there had been no major mishaps.  They enjoyed a day at Buck-o-rama, swimming at Jeff & Bridgit's followed by dinner at Mellow Mushroom with Jeff & Bridgit.  Guess that means I can go galavanting more often. :)  Maybe.  I think I might have missed them more than they missed me.

The Bride-to-Be and her Mom, Jan
The cookies I made as favors
The Happy Couple