My Husband

There is one person in my life that I don't give enough credit to in a public way. I don't want to say all the mushy, cookie-cutter things about my fabulous husband because I think he deserves more than that. And he's never been the "normal" type of romantic--special birthday presents, flowers for no reason, foot masages, etc. But I don't really care because I wouldn't trade that for what he DOES do.

He cleans dog barf off the floor.
He kills all the ants and the horrid, huge bugs that come inside during the heat.
He washes my car for me when I'm not looking.
He makes me (really yummy) dinners almost every night.
He rarely tells me no--he just lets me figure out for myself that it's not a good idea.
He bites back his (what are probably mean) comments about other people.
He lets Sabre talk his ear off.  He lets me talk the other one off.
He watches the baby until I get home.
He gets up with Thor in the middle of the night.
He cleans my shower (because it's the one thing in my house that I have trouble cleaning).
He (mostly) puts things back where I tell him to.
When I say "sign here" he just does it without caring about the (probably very long, boring) explanation.
He cleaned out the garage.
He learns how to actually pull off all the cool home improvement ideas I think up (like learning to build a deck ;)
He comes with me to my work functions.
He makes totally funny, stress-relieving comments about said functions and attendees.
He sticks with my (often insanely detailed) budget.
He cuts his own hair.
He picks Sabre up from work at midnight.
He goes grocery shopping with me every week.
He listens between the lines.
He picks lemons off the exploding tree.
He juices said lemons and freezes the juice.
He mops my floor.
He tries not to break the baby-proof locks.
He takes out the baby diapers.
He only raises an eybrow when I bring home more baby clothes.

Somedays, if I get frustrated with him, I have to stop myself and repeat (a version of) what my mother told me when I was little: "You are being bossy and demanding. No one could live up to your expectations right now. He has the patience of Job. Anyone else would have duct taped your mouth shut long ago. Don't ask for more before you appreciate what you have. Be thankful!"

Today wasn't one of those days. Today was a day that I woke up with a sweet kiss from Gary on his way out the door early for work, rested because he put Thor to sleep last night, saw my clean car, a clean shower, a ready-for-me-to-take lunch, clean dishes, with Sabre already taken to school, and realized that I am lucky. I couldn't do everything that I do without his help. And what's more important than a partner that actually helps ease your burdens? Nuthin.

FFA's first Challenge

As you know, normally, I only blog about my adorable children. I mean, seriously, look at them:

 (Ok, so Sabre's picture is old, but it's the only one I have on my work computer!)

(And who could not write all the time about Thor's cute smile?!)

But I digress. Mindy wrote a post about FFA as in "Fearlessly Finding Awesome." Its a club of sorts designed to open our creative juices about home decor. Mindy raved about how much she liked the author of this blog, Mandi at Vintage Revivals, so I jumped over to her blog to check it out. Man, am I hooked.

This chick really has the most creative, awesome ideas. I get lost in her DIY tutorials. (You all will laugh because can you imagine me plastering my end table with tin foil?? But I'm seriously considering trying this.)

So I'm joining FFA and our first assignment from goddess Mandi is to write about how we want our home to feel.

1) Organized. I want my daughter to call when I'm 1300 miles away, ask where the scissors are, and I can walk her right to them. (You all are laughing becuase you know that I've done that!)

2) Relaxed. As in it's ok if you jump on the furniture or slam a door or use the nice sheets. I want it to feel kid friendly without being trashed.

3)  Planned. Not the same as organized. But as in I put thought into what goes where and things match and there are splashes of color around that complement the decor really well.

I love this bed:

and I love this entryway (doesn't it look like me!!!)

and this kitchen is awesome!! I think I'm just in love with the cabinets.


So there. I may not have gotten much work done today, but I have thought about how I want my house to look. At least I accomplished something today!

Thor and "His" Dog

Thor thinks that Max is his dog. He chases Max all over the house. Max takes it much more calmly than I thought he would. He lets Thor pound on him and play with his teeth (YUCK!). Thor is super curious about Max.

Max is good about not licking until he gets excited. Thor has taken to letting Max lick his face which is super yuck, but the two of them think it's great. Max understands that Thor is the "Alpha"--it's cute to see them interact. Max never was a "caretaker" type, so he doesn't act like Thor is a puppy. The two of them are going to be great friends.

Thor at 10 Months

Thor was 10 months old on March 29th. I am so in love with this sweet little guy! I don't know what I ever did without him.

-Thor is eating lots of solid food. He basically tries everythign that we eat.

-He is about 22 pounds and growing every second now that he is not throwing up all over.

-Thor took his first steps on his own on April 3, just a couple days after turning 10 months old. He pulls himself around furniture all the time, but he's still cautious walking on his own. The most he's taken before falling is 5 steps. He crawls fats, though!

-He loves zooming around in his cute motorcycle walker. Remember when he got it? He could barely touch the floor! I am constantly tripping over him in it. Max knows to run as soon as he hears it coming. I can't believe how much control of it Thor has.

-Thor loves me to sing "All around the mulberry bush" to him (it's the "POP" at the end). He pretty much likes to hear me sing anything. I'm taking advantage of that becuase he won't want to in a few years!

-We only had one visit to the ER in the past month-hooray!

-Thor talks all.the.time. Just like Sabre did. I have some good video but they aren't wanting to upload right now.

-He has mad swimming skills. He moved up to Baby and Me II last week. He can glide underwater and grab on the side and pull himself out. He can walk his hands along the side of the pool and jumps in to us. He tries to grab the diving rings underwater. He's still figuring out blowing bubbles consistently and he is sooooo close to floating on his own. When we pull up outside the swim school he starts giggling and jabbering to us.

-Thor is the happiest, best boy in the whole world. I'm lucky to be his mama.

Eating on His Own Time

Thor apparently only likes "real" food. Don't get me wrong, most times he still chews it for a while and spits it back out. But that's better than spitting baby food all over the place. He loves pizza (as seen below). Of course, who doesn't love pizza??? His other likes include pieces of squash, tomatoes, eggs, any crackers, lettuce, asparagus, apples.

But his true loves are fish of any variety. I have never seen a kid suck down fish the way he does! We went to Z-Tejas for Sabre's (17th!!!) birthday dinner. Sabre, Gary and I all had different types of fish (tuna, salmon, and trout) and that little boy screamed while we took turns shoveling it in him!

Last night Gary made talapia (sp?) and thor was about to turn my plate over and just dump it in his mouth. He also loves icecream, lemons, and cheese. Oh, glorious cheese! He throws tantrums if you don't give him the cheese off your plate. He probably really shouldn't have it since they think he may have a milk protein allergy, but I'm starting to think he doesn't. So we skipped over any baby food stage and went straight to eating like a big boy with his 4 big boy teeth. *sigh*

Thor's Love of Shoes

We can't leave any of our shoes on the floor or Thor will chew on them like a puppy. I have a basket of shoes in my bedroom for sandals and tennies (to the left in the pic). Thor thinks it is his basket of snacks. If I put him down in my room, he makes a beeline for it. And he squeals and jabbers at the shoes he grabs.

We've tried everything to get him to stop it, but he's too young to understand. And look at that face! If it weren't so disgusting I'd let him chew on them.

Every night when Gary sits down to watch TV, he kicks off his shoes. It's like Thor was waiting for it. He sneaks over there so quietly and snags one and starts munching away while Gary is dozing on the couch. No wonder my child is always sick!

Thor's First Haircut

So this is my cute little boy the evening of March 15, 2012.

His daddy said his hair was getting too long. Gary wouldn't stop buggin me to let him cut it--it was driving him crazy! You all have seen Gary's hair--it's cropped close and he doesn't go 3 weeks without trimming it to stay that way. (He cuts it himself so I'm not complaining. My haircuts cost enough for both of us.)

As you can see, it really wasn't THAT long. The problem was the little tuft of hair growing over his ears that stuck out. (You can barely see it in this picture.)

Here are a couple more:

So I let Gary cut it. Normally, I would have loved to get pictures of the actual "cutting" phase, but it took both of us to hold Thor still while Gary used the clippers. Thor did not like having it buzzing next to his head and not being able to see it. In the end, Gary missed a few spots, but the long-ish spots were (mostly) shorter. See:

I would have taken a shot of the back of the cut, but Thor wasn't having anything to do with me being behind him again after I had to hold him down for 10 minutes! But I kindof got a side shot: (See why we had to buzz it again 3 days later? Very uneven. Gary was doing the best he could, though.)

The second time, the "touch-up", went much smoother. Thor held still (for the most part). It makes him look so old, though!!!

Teeth Pictures

So it was waaaay hard to get Thor to show us his teeth for a picture! He did not want to show them to me. Here you can barely see his tiny two bottom teeth:

And he was kicking around so much we could only get a very blurry picture of his top two teeth:

To calm him down, I had to let him look at my teeth (thanks Gary for snapping the worst pic of me possible!):

He LOVES other people's teeth. He cannot keep his hands out of anyone's mouth. It's still the first thing he goes for if you talk to him or pick him up, no matter if you are family, friend, or some random person at the grocery store that will lean in close enough (YUCK!)

All better now that he poked around in mom's mouth.

One more quick shot while he's happy:

Gary says he has Sponge Bob Square pants teeth-there's a huge gap in between the top two. I'm really hoping that will close up as they come in more and the others pop out.