Trial by firehose

Minus the early cord-stomp sponge bath days, bath time for Kyle has always been a blast. It's even more fun now that he has learned the consequences of kicking his legs and that the water-hose can double as a toy.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!

88 years old! What a reason to celebrate! Hope you enjoyed many Hershey's bars today (but hopefully not 88 in one day!).

Grandpa has many reasons to celebrate today-- more than a dozen worth in the picture below (even if, admittedly, those dozen+ folks tended to play silly jokes on him with all of his presents!). :)

Hope your day was wonderful Grandpa!

A Hiking We Will Go

Yesterday was another perfect Colorado fall day for a hike. Upper 60s in the mountains and beautiful blue skies landed us in Evergreen to hike at the 3 Sisters park. We hiked up Evergreen Mountain where we had several firsts:

Kyle's first elk spotting.
Kyle's first mule deer sighting.

Kyle's first time on the top of a mountain.

Mommy's first time nursing on a rock. On the top of a mountain.

Mommy and Daddy's first time forgetting to bring a diaper in the hiking sack. (woops!)

Kyle's first "pure exhaustion" nap in the car. Finally!

Picture Update

So I know you Kyle-fans just love to see pictures, so I won't bore you with more writing. Here's a handful of Kyle-pics over the past few weeks. Enjoy!

Our Little Cyclone

He's a very happy kid!

Grandma loves after church lunches with her grandson!

Kyle loves trips to Sonic as much as we do! (Our friend, Miranda, is a big fan too!)

Sequoia gave Kyle a nice big kiss!

He's a cutie pie!

Kyle gave Sequoia a treat for the first time last month.

Kyle likes to imidate Daddy's faces... even the pouty ones!

Kyle has a new found love for Apple products including mommy's iPhone and...

our iPad. Oh dear, the little boy likes Angry Birds already!

Happy 5 Months Little Man!

It's so hard to believe our little man is already 5 months old! This time a year ago, he was barely the size of a kidney bean inside my belly! He's grown so fast and is just such a great baby. He's become extremely vocal over the past couple of weeks. I think he will be quite the talkative little ham! Everyone at daycare says he's the most content baby they've seen. He's happy to be doing tummy time, relaxing on his back, sitting in a bouncer, and is smiling just about anywhere else he's put. He can sit up on his own for short durations and is already starting to scoot (army crawl) on the ground. He rolled over back to front this last month and continues to roll over front to back (although not nearly as often as he did when he was 2 months!).

He's still exclusively on mommy's milk but is eating a lot more. It's hard for me to keep up with the amounts he eats at daycare. Next month he will be starting solids. I'm sure that will be an adventure!

He got a Jumperoo for his 5 months but he's still a bit short for it. He loves using the exersaucer at daycare, so its only a matter of time before he's jumping for joy in his new toy. His toy collection is growing substantially-- the newest addition is a set of musical drums. He occasionally accidentally smacks it with his hands, but he's more a fan of kicking the drums with his feet or rolling it with his arms.

Happy 5 Months Kyle! Mommy and Daddy love you so much and are so proud of the little man you are becoming (already)!

Brrrrr

It's been chilly these past two days (at least by CO fall standards) and this meant dragging out the warmer 9 month jammies for Kyle. He's not quite big enough for this outfit yet but it'll provide him the extra warmth he needs tonight and this winter. Great Grandma Nimtz bought it for him (the soft plushy fabric should've been a giveaway!). I think he appears mighty happy with it!

Thanks Great Gma!

"Me"

So when I was a baby, my lovey was a stuffed animal husky that I named "Me." (Yeah, I know, original, right?). I took it EVERYWHERE with me. It was so worn. As soon as my mom knew I was going to love on that thing, she bought another as I imagine most moms do to avoid a tragic crying fest when something happens to the first. Anyhow, she broke out the 2nd-gen "Me" for Kyle today. He took to it pretty quickly I guess. I thought you might enjoy this collage:

Left: Me enjoying first-gen "Me." (early 1980s), Right: Kyle enjoying 2nd-gen "Me" (2011)

Getting back into the swing of things!

Dave and I hadn't golfed much since moving to Colorado, but now that my parents are in the state, we've found ourselves out on the course more often. We bought a pass that allows us to play half price at many of the courses in the area including the one my parents live on. 'Course (no pun intended) with Kyle, it wouldn't normally be easy to get out often. Thank goodness for Grandma who LOVES to watch the little man while we hack away. It works out pretty perfectly as I'm able to stop nearly half way through the round (parents live on the fairway of hole 8) to make more milk for the hungry boy. We've played their course twice since they moved in a month ago. We really enjoy it and are so appreciative of the great babysitting that affords us the ability to have some adult time. Grandma is so great with him-- she plays & reads to him and even takes him for walks (showing him off to the neighbors of course!). Now on with the pictures (that's what you were waiting for anyhow!):

Hole 4: the one Dave isn't so great at avoiding the fairway water

Kyle napping for grandma... in the stroller on a walk.

... and in the portable crib I used as a baby.

He even does "tummy time" for Grandma when Meeko isn't occupying his time bringing his balls to Kyle.

Kyle has already begun to adjust well to time at Grandma and Grandpa's!

Kyle's First Airshow

On Saturday, we took Kyle to his first airshow. It was all the way up in Broomfield and it was like a bizillion degrees out on the tarmac. Kyle (for obvious reasons), didn't last long even under the shade of a bunch of blankets made tent. We got to see a few aerobatic airplanes before having to walk back to the car. After feeding him in the car, we were able to find a spot of shade next to our car to watch the rest of the show from. (In hindsight, this is what we should've done for the entire show and saved the $40).

Kyle didn't seem as excited for the B-2 flyover as Mom and Dad were, but he was a huge fan of the very loud F-16 and F-18. You could tell he was trying to track it in the sky, but they were just so fast!

It was a great experience for all of us and we hope to continue to show Kyle how exciting aeronautics (and astronautics) are. I think it's a given he'll grow to understand them both with parents like us!

How did I become an engineer?

My parents came by today to drop off a bunch of my old toys and games thinking Kyle may someday use them. In doing a survey of them, it became quite obvious how I grew interested in engineering:

A 200 in one electronics lab kit: I enjoyed flip-flops that weren't worn on my feet (ok only a few of you may even get that...)

Erector sets! These were the best!

And you can't forget the ever-important Legos.

My first learning "laptop" (wish I could find the picture of me writing a Magic 8-ball game in VBASIC when I was 6-- wow, I'm a nerd)

A super-fun race-car track. Okay, so my brother beat me a lot with this toy, but it was still a lot of fun!

Amongst all these nerdy toys did lie a more "girly" item... one of the few "dolls" I owned:

I'm not sure what hope lies in Kyle not becoming a nerd given his two parents. I would consider ourselves blessed if we get a kid JUST LIKE US. :)