Family Fun Weekend

Jonathan has been working like a dog the past couple of weeks and will be gone almost all of next week, so I decided we needed some family fun this weekend. Saturday morning Jonathan took William to do some manly things together...go to the donut shop, get my oil changed and a car wash, grab some cash for the weekend and some baby food. We then drove about 15 miles north of Waco to a place called Homestead Heritage.

If you are ever traveling on I-35 between Dallas and Austin, I highly recommend stopping in for lunch. Homestead Heritage is a community of people that call themselves "Almost Amish." They live by all of the Amish principles, except they have running water, electricity, cars, cell phones, etc. (my kind of Amish) The women wear homemade dresses, no make-up and hair pulled back in buns. The guys wear jeans, plaid button ups and work boots. The place was really impressive, it looked like a movie set. The cows were right out of a Blue Bell commercial and the goats were pristine. William kept referring to them as donkeys. I think he is so use to seeing the run down goats at petting zoos, his little mind couldn't grasp the concept of a well groomed goat. They also make beautiful furniture, pottery and lots of other crafts. You can watch demonstrations on everything. Their restaurant was wonderful...all homemade breads, desserts, ice cream, etc. They only use all natural ingredients and a lot of it comes from their own operation. Here is the website if you want to know more...

http://www.homesteadheritage.com/







Saturday night we had our little babysitter, Samantha, come over to watch the boys. She is the perfect babysitter...she's 16, has her own car, lives in the neighborhood and I know her mom. William also loves Samantha, he waits for her at the front window.

I did some research on the Internet and found a drive-in called The Last Drive-In Picture Show in Gatesville (25 miles west of Woodway). We picked up Subway and made it there in time for the 8pm show. It's only $10 for a double feature, but we could only stay for the first movie. It was so much fun, we sat in chairs outside the car and could see a billion stars. The drive-in is one of the oldest in Texas, it first opened in 1950. They had a little putt-putt green at the front, a cute snack bar and the original sound poles. Afterwards we hit up the Gatesville Dairy Queen because that's what you do when you live in Small Town U.S.A. If you are ever in the Gatesville area, you MUST go to The Last Drive-In Picture Show!

We concluded Knickerbocker family fun weekend with church, lunch with some friends, feeding the ducks and playing at the park. I think we got all caught up on our quality time which is good because the rest of October is jammed packed with stuff.

Are you ready for some football!!

William's favorite thing to do these days is each lunch and watch football with Jonathan. He feels very big getting to eat at a TV tray in the living room. We also let him stay up late the other night to watch the Aggies play OSU. He was super excited because we had our neighbor over and the guys got really into the game. Jonathan does really good keeping his language in check, but there was one incident when he yelled at the TV after the Aggies blew a play. He said something along the lines of..."You losers!!! Why do we always have a bunch of losers playing for us!! Ahhh!!!" I had to remind Jonathan that small ears were in the room. I can't have William calling some kid a loser at Mother's Day Out or when we start soccer in the spring.

9 Months

Logan was 9 months old on Tuesday. Not a lot has changed since last month. He is still majorly teething. I'm pretty sure he is getting all of his teeth at once. He has about five coming in right now and already has four little chompers in the front. He has progressed to experimenting with cruising between furniture, standing by himself for a few seconds and climbing. He has also started saying Dada and Da-Dee. His favorite game is "Get You." It's pretty cute, he tries to crawl as fast as he can while we pretend to chase him, he laughs the whole time.

I took the boys to the pediatrician today for Logan's check up and flu shots. The nurse asked me if I had any questions or concerns and I answered with a very confident, no. I thought Logan was doing great, just some trouble with teething. Well...come to find out my mommy radar must be jammed AGAIN! Logan has another inflamed ear/possible ear infection, the doctor was a little concerned about his weight (10-25th percentile) and based on a survey I filled out his communication skills are a little behind. I've always thought that my pediatrician was a bit of an alarmist so after consulting with an expert...my sister...I felt a lot better. Here is what we came up with...

Ear Infection: The doctor left it up to me to decide if I wanted to give him antibiotics or wait it out. I went ahead and got the prescription filled to make sure Logan wouldn't be in any unnecessary pain.

Weight: He's a little guy, what can you do? Sign him up for gymnastics or karate some day? I force feed him bottles already to try and get the required minimum in and how do you put weight on someone who literally never stops moving!?!

Speech: I'm not worried about the communication issues, he knows what's going on and babbles all the time. When I tell him to "come here," he crawls the other way as fast as he can laughing at me. We both agreed that speech problems are not diagnosed until closer to 2 years old. But don't think I won't be in his face constantly saying mama, dada, baba, lala, haha, etc.

All joking aside, Logan is a really healthy guy and I am very thankful!! I just have to protect him from his big brother who tends to go overboard when it comes to tickling, wrestling and attempts at carrying Logan. Now that I think about it, William goes overboard in almost everything he does. Good Times!!!

8 Months

Logan was 8 months old on August 28th. As I said before, he's crawling and pulling up on everything. We are also in major teething mode. He has two bottom teeth already and two top teeth coming in right now. Logan loves finger foods and screams when he sees a banana or puffs. Logan's favorite activities include crawling in the tunnel, wrestling with William and Jonathan and hanging out in his swing in the back yard while watching William play.

First Day of Mother's Day Out

William started a new year of Mother's Day Out this week. He was super excited to get back to "school." He has come a long way from last year...



Today on the way home from MDO William told me how he met a new friend. He explained, "I go, my name is William. What is your name? She say Katy. I say to her, we are going to be good friends." I told him how proud I was of him for taking the initiative to meet new friends. Jonathan and I were laughing about it later, that's a good line for picking up ladies. He's off to a good start! ;)

Milestones

I wanted to start by apologizing, I have not been into blogging lately. With that being said, I did want to share a few new milestones here at the Knickerbocker house...

Milestone #1: Logan started officially crawling at the end of July. He is now into pulling up on anything and everything. It's great because he seems so happy, but hard in that I can't take my eyes off of him for a second. He of course is putting everything in his mouth. William is under strict instructions to guard his food and drinks with his life. If Logan just looks his way during snack time, William starts screaming for help. Jonathan asked me the other day, somewhat annoyed, where all the door stoppers went. I had removed them because Logan kept trying to eat the plastic knobs off the ends of the doorstops. This is such a fun stage, but a lot of work. He has also started doing the alligator death rolls every time I try to change a diapers or clothing...must keep moving at all times.

Milestone #2: William is a pottying pro! I originally tried to potty train him back in May and it was a disaster. I was convinced I was the worst potty trainer ever and had given up. I figured as long as he was potty trained by the time he went to high school, then I would be a success. Well, one day at the beginning of July he asked to wear underwear and ended up doing really good. One day in underwear turned into two days and then three and then there was no turning back. It was like once he made up his mind, he was done. We did have some issues with wearing underwear to Mother's Day Out this summer. First he told me that he didn't want to wear underwear because all his friends wore diapers. I didn't think I would hear that excuse this early in parenting. The first day I sent him in underwear, he cried and cried. I asked him why he was so upset and he told me, "I no want to tee tee on the floor at school." It broke my heart so I caved and let him wear Pull Ups for a couple of weeks. By the end of Summer Mother's Day Out he was wearing underwear all day, ever through nap time. Now he wears underwear all the time and even makes it all the way through the night without needing to potty. He looks like such a big boy in his underwear. He picked out Cars, Spiderman, Toy Story, Diego and the classic Hanes briefs. It's too funny. Such a relief to have one kiddo out of diapers.

Side Story: We picked up William from Sunday School last Sunday and they handed us a little coloring book about the life of Moses. Here is our conversation in the car on the way home...

Me: William, did you learn about Moses today?

William: Yes

Me: What did you learn about Moses.

He thought for a minute and answered enthusiastically...

William: There was this real SCARY guy who was naughty and then there were plagues!

Me: Was the naughty guy named Pharaoh?

William: Yes!

Me: What are plagues?

William: Frogs! Lots and lots of frogs!

Me: Did Moses say, Let my people go!

William: Yes! He said, LET MY PEOPLE GO! (insert yelling here and violent hand motions)

Me: Did he part the Red Sea?

William: Yes, the teacher helped me color LOTS of SHARKS in the Red Sea!!! (referencing his Moses coloring book)

I don't think he really got the point of the story of Moses, but it's so cute to hear his interpretation. :)

I will try and post some pictures of the kids soon.

Minnesota Trip

We got back from our trip to northern Minnesota late Saturday night. My step-dad Tom has a beautiful lake house on Pelican Lake, so my mom and Tom live there from May-October. We have been every year for the last 6 years, except last year because we were moving and I was pregnant. Jonathan stayed in Waco this year because he had to work, so I took the boys along with my sister and her two little girls. Here is a little recap of our trip.

I came down with strep throat AGAIN three days before we were set to leave, so I went to the doctor on Wednesday and she gave me an antibiotic. Thursday I had to take Logan back to the doctor to get his ear infection looked at before we left and luckily everything was cleared up. Friday we drove to Houston to spend the night at my sister's house. Saturday we flew to Minneapolis and then it's a three hour drive to the lake house. We stayed for a week and flew back this past Saturday. We landed in Houston around 6pm and then I decided to go ahead and drive home that night because the boys were so exhausted and just needed to get home.

We had a great time, William loved every minute of it. He did great on the plane ride going to Minnesota, but we had some issues on the airplane coming home...coloring with marker on the wall of the plane, splattering Logan's baby food (green beans) all over the place, having a complete mental breakdown/tantrum because he wanted to stand on the seat resulting in me physically restraining him in a headlock, he then crawled on the floor of the plane (I know, yuck!) and fell asleep so he stayed there for the last 20 minutes of the flight until we touched down. Luckily my sister was there to hold Logan for me while I had to tend to William. I knew he would be a ticking time bomb on the plane...no nap, couped up for 3 hours in the car on the way to the airport, missing his daddy, too much sugar that day and just a long trip led up to the self destruction. It was so funny, after we landed and he woke up he just got up, sat in his seat and buckled himself in without saying a word. I leaned over and said you are in big trouble Mr. He just muttered a sad sorry. It was definitely a classic family moment.

Here are the kids getting ready for their plane ride...

One day we took the kids to Paul Bunyan Land (Paul Bunyan is very popular in Minnesota). It's this cute little amusement park that has been around since the 50's. They still have all the original rides that Tom use to ride as a kid. William had a blast! It's so cute, when you buy your tickets you give the attendant the names of the kids and where they are from. Then Paul Bunyan talks to them as they walk in the park.

Logan was a huge trooper. I think he picked up a little virus from the doctor's office right before we left because he had a little cold the whole time we were there. I thought he was just teething, but his yucky nose didn't go away and then his eyes were yucky too. I am happy to report that he is feeling much better now that we are home, but he has been ultra clingy and only wants me to hold him. I'm thinking it's teething again, but who knows. I'm hoping it passes in a day or two.

Here we are hanging out at a nearby touristy town called Nisswa. We played at the park (Minnesota has the nicest parks I've ever seen), ate at a local pizza place and then hit up the candy store where William downed some cotton candy ice cream...

We spent the rest of the time swimming in the lake, swimming in the hot tub, going on boat rides, hiking through the woods, we had a camp fire one night and just enjoyed the nice weather. At night it gets down into the 60's and then heats up into the high 70's-low 80's.

Well, I think that about covered everything. We had so much fun and now we are just working on getting back into the swing of things at home.