Half Birthday

Our baby has started taking one nap a day now but sometimes waiting till after lunch is doggone impossible!

This was taken in linc's half birthday, Saturday. He is such a big boy! I'll post this week all his new milestones.

Cousins

Cousins...

I found some pictures while moving Nani to Sugar Land that I hadn't seen in quite some time! Our Banks family reunion was in New Orleans when I was 13... For me it was the first time I got to meet many of my family that I had heard of and seen pictures of forever it seemed.

A couple of memories stick out... when we got there we walked by the pool and there was a large, tall man sitting there with a beer (I think - at least it was some sort of alcoholic beverage) and a giant condom hat. It was my uncle... Hah!

Another one is meeting my cousins, Mickey sticks out in my mind... I guess he was about 5 or 6, and we were immediate friends. I held him any time he was around. That is him above with his head on my shoulder. My uncle reminded me that with a connection like we had, you could marry your third cousin in Texas. He was such a sweetie. We lost him earlier this year. He and his whole family came to my wedding in 2004... it was the first time I had seen him since. He and Katie were all grown up and I regret so much not getting to know him as an adult.

My girl cousins, Natalie and ... were very into the "I feel like chicken tonight" reenactment of the popular commercial of the time, and as you can see not afraid to perform. It runs in our family.

And I remember when Pop took me for my first beer. I thought it tasted terrible but I felt so grown up I drank it anyway then giggled for an hour. (It was only about a half A BEER... don't call CPS.)

I dont know if anyone reads this anymore, but I'm going to catch up posting this week. Sorry for the long break - a bit of tragedy and writers block will do that to you.

I've been very busy. Nothing like a deadline to get your booty in gear. Below I show proof that I finally hung family pics.

Halloween

Well our plans got changed after Jay went all "brokeback mountain" on us. I keep saying that and I don't think he likes it. But I am of course referring to the fact that his back is messed up and not implying in any way that he is "a gay" as Nani says. We were supposed to go to my moms so we could see them and Peter, Amy, Sarah and their new baby Peter Jr. Sadly we woke up Saturday morning and Jay was in much worse pain and we quickly realized that he was in no shape to travel. So we decided to stay, and since I was sad at our canceled plans, I started to bake and the result is above!

Later that evening his back got worse, to the point where he couldn't put any weight on it and had to use Nani's walker that we had here in the garage. So we went to the ER and waited for 2 hours then Jay got the really good stuff. They pumped him full of muscle relaxers and pain meds and I could see him visibly melt into the bed. I have never seen him in such pain before! It was so scary!

Funny story: So one of the reasons we went to the ER is because Jay was so tensed up that he couldn't, ahem, "make water" as Baba would say. So after they doped him up, they wanted him to try to go. So I was in the room with him and he was all goofy and dopey after all the meds but Linc was done, and I mean done. By now it was 9pm and I needed to get him to bed. The nurse brought in a little urinal and I was worried that Jay was so out of it that he would need help using it, but I couldn't help him because Lincoln was having a wall eyed fit trying to jump out of my arms and pull all 896,000 cords right out of the wall. So in my crazy-eyed desperation I run out of his room and see his sweet ER nurse sitting there and blurt out, "Can you go help my husband pee?!?." She looked at me with an incredulous look, then I ran out with my squawking baby. Hah! Jay is going to kill me for posting this, but its funny! And for the record, he didn't need any help... Everything came out just fine.


After I ran home - I ran next door to our sweet neighbors and asked if one could come sit with Linc while I went back to the hospital to check on Jay. She did, and I put Linc down then went back to Jay. Luckily, they didn't find anything too serious and prescribed steroids, Ibuprofen, and lots of pain killers and told him to go home and see his doc on Monday. Phew!

So Sunday was Halloween and we just hung around the house and Jay slept mostly and I cooked and played with Linc. That evening we dressed Linc up in is super awesome dragon suit and went next door to give our neighbors some thank you cookies and cupcakes. As you can see he was not a big fan of the costume. He grabbed at it and tried to pull it off with all his might. Poor baby. So we took pity on him and took him back home and changed clothes - into his skeleton pj's for trick or treating.

He was much happier in those clothes, so we went out and hit about 4 houses. He loved it! Rang the doorbell, got the candy and enjoyed the whole outing! Jay wore his hottie t-shirt and the trick or treat pj pants I got him. Isn't he cute?

We gave out candy and even ate some chocolate when we got home. It was a great holiday even if it didn't go how we had planned.

Weekend in Duval

We went to the ranch this weekend - all of us. Jay, Lincoln, Nani and I. What a trip! It was quick, we left Saturday morning and returned yesterday afternoon. It was emotional and wierd being there without Baba. Man do I miss him. The ranch looked like he had just stepped out to check on the deer or run down to the tank and he would be back any minute. We'll be making more regular trips to the "Empire" as Baba called it...

Jay hurt his back hooking the mower to the tractor, pray he gets better really soon...

(P.S. I wrote this a while ago and never published it!)

Mimi and Lincoln go to the zoo

Mimi came to visit and we had an awesome time!! We went to the zoo and played outside and cooked and had lots and lots of fun.


Linc loves Mimi, she is a big tomboy at heart and loves teaching linc to play in the dirt with her.

Also super exciting, mom introduced me to the wonderful world of the dollar store. She kept asking me where one is and I kept putting it off thinking "gross!". I hadn't been to one in a long time and from what I remembered they weren't that great. But this one is awesome!! Paper products, soap, dental floss, name brand tooth paste,cleaning-supplies all for a dollar! Now I go there before HEB! Thanks mom!

Pictures

I am working on a Halloween post now but linc woke up before I could finish it. So for now here he is helping mom with paperwork. I got the hipstamatic app on my iPhone and I love it!! I used it to take these.


Linc got new shoes! He has really big hoofs. He's in a 7 at 15 mo. Is that normal?? I have no idea but they look big.