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Sunday, August 27, 2006

yeah, it's worth it

This weekend our big activity (after baking some granola) was checking out the annual Ballunar Liftoff Festival at NASA. Spencer and I drove down on Saturday afternoon and he had fun on carnival games (slides and jumping!) before we met up with one of his favorite pals, Landon. We staked out a spot at the edge of the field and had a great view of everything in the sky: parachuters, power parachuters, formation flyers, and, of course, balloons. Unfortunately, throughout the afternoon and evening Spencer spent a decent portion of the time with his hands on his ears. He seems to be so sensitive to low, loud noises. And balloons are noisy. After sunset was the much-anticipated balloon glow, and we were sitting right next to the feature balloon: Airabelle the cow. The whole glow event was simply amazing. Afterwards Jim met us at our hotel near NASA, so we could go back to the field bright and early in the morning to check out the competitve part of the festival. Here are our pictures from the weekend.

When we left, things were starting to go downhill for Spencer. He usually sleeps about 14 hours a day: 11 1/2 - 12 hours overnight and a 2 - 2 1/2 hour nap . But Saturday he fought his nap and never went down. And between staying up late for the nighttime events and getting up early again on Sunday he only racked up about nine hours over night. So, by ten in the morning, he had been up for a while already, several hours short of sleep, and severe crankiness set in. He perked up when we stopped at Central Market on the way home, but fought his nap again for nearly an hour before giving in for just a one hour nap. After Spencer's (early) bath we were all relaxing on the bed together putting on his PJ's and he turned to Jim and announced "I like you." Then he turned to me and said "I like you too mommy." He continued, "you're my friend daddy!" Awwww. It really does erase the memory of the frustrations dealing with a cranky 2 1/2 year old all day, and makes being a parent so worth it.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

"that makes sense"

Earlier this week I was having lunch with a friend and recounted the funniest moment from our trip to Pittsburgh. Even though we earned an extra hour moving from Central to Eastern time, we were still back at the hotel by 8:00pm each night to give Spencer a bath and put him to bed. His portable crib was in the same room with us, so Jim and I had some quiet reading time while he was falling asleep. Or, at least that was the plan. Spencer was so thrilled to have a captive audience and talked to us for quite a while.
"mommy, are you wearing your pj's?"
"daddy, is your light on?"
"this is a different crib with teddy bear sheets."
Eventually that gave way to talking to his bedtime buddies"
"puppy, would you like to do a somersault?"
"come here lion, i will cover you."
And finally he was down to talking out loud to himself, and it was this conversation which brought tears to mine and Jim's eyes as we quietly laughed so hard.
"we are in pittsburgh now."
"soon we will go back to houston."
"houston is very far away."
"we should take an airplane to get there."
"that makes sense."

Saturday, August 12, 2006

back in Houston

After the last post I spent the next three nights in Houston, then three nights in Boise, then three nights in Houston, then three nights in Pittsburgh, and the last three nights have been back in Houston again. Whew. I am SO thankful that we returned from Pittsburgh just hours before the new security restrictions went into effect. Ugh. That would not have been fun with Spencer in tow. It was bad enough that our final flight home was delayed 1:15, but we just took our time, watched a video in the gate area, had some ice cream, and rode the people mover back and forth a zillion times.

Our trip to Pittsburgh to see Jim's mom was a great one. We brought Spencer to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh and the Phipps Conservatory which were both awesome. I have some grand ideas to frame some of the botanical prints, we'll see if that comes to fruition. Every afternoon we spent time at "the park" - a swingset and pool in his mom's backyard. Spencer was able to visit with his grandma and great grandpa, and had an absolute blast playing around with his uncle Robb and with Tara's girls Devon, Paige and "baby Emma." It was really cute to see them all play so well together. He was also excited to meet friends Karen and Jack who taught him more signs during our bbq - including hamburger, hot dog, and most importantly, chocolate cake!

Here are pics from the trip. (The album is quite long, and includes many plant pics w/o people.)