Busy Week, Busier Weekend Ahead

Summer finally feels like it is here! Bring on the fun!

Memorial Day weekend was very fun and relaxing! We had toured Texas Tech with the best tour guide the campus has ever seen. We bought a great new rug for the living room. We had some wonderful salmon dinner one night and a great cook-out the next thanks to Chef J Biggs. We enjoy the Drive-In. Stephani won a couple rounds of Progressive Rummy and Speed Scrabble.

This week has been quite an adventure for Mr. Alexander.

Monday, Great-Grandma Ruby, Nana Gayle, Pops and Zia Lindsey all had to drive home. Then we went to a luncheon with friends from all over the world and had to tell some very special guys "Good-bye, until we meet again in Syria and Turkey."

Tuesday, our new babysitter from Perryton, of all places, came over to play with and take care of Alexander. He really likes her and did great eating and napping for a new person.

Wednesday, she was good enough to come back! And I think day 2 was just as good, if not better. Also, Wednesday night we had our monthly speech visit and worked on eating some chuncky avocado. Yummm!

Thursday, Daddy stayed home in the morning until our new babysitter got out of class. Then the day would be spent learning a new babysitter and her learning Alexander.

Friday, our Perryton girl will be back and ending the week on a high note!

Friday night is the kick off to KCBD's Children's Miracle Network Telethon with a Pizza Party!

Saturday morning Mom's going to a baby shower for one of Alexander's future friends. Then we will be on TV around 2:30 on Saturday afternoon. Mom and Dad will be answering phones at the telethon while Alexander will be entertaining the people with his smile, crawling and new tricks. The telethon goes until midnight on Saturday, although I'm sure we won't be there near that long.

Sunday, church in the morning, lunch at the hospital for the end of the telethon, telethon excitement until about 5pm with final totals being announced, and then a cook-out at church to kick off VBS. Mom's doing Arts and Crafts during VBS Sunday-Wednesday nights.

Better rest today and some tomorrow to get ready for all of this.

Check out Alexander's website where people can donate to Children's Miracle Network at UMC to help kids all over Lubbock, West Texas and New Mexico.

http://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=420693&lis=0&kntae420693=A8F61ECE39C54F3BA4C9AB144E7CBDD5&supId=293283626

May

Another fun month down, schools out, Summer Red Raider Orientations are starting and Alexander is 10 months old! Hard to believe, but it's been a great 10 months and looking foward to the last 2 before his first birthday!

This is another year of weddings for our friends. Alexander and I drove up to Heather C's wedding shower in Booker a few weeks ago. We stayed with Uncle Marcus and he came too. It was a fun weekend for Alexander to show off his crawling ability.

Mother's Day was nice. At church, they asked all the Mom's to wear hats. I think most people were surprised that the youngest mom at church would actually go along with the other Mom's. Jason didn't think the hat suited me very well, but I sure got a lot of compliments at church and am obviously very proud to show off that I am a Mom. Alexander wore his "Mommy's Allstar" baseball outfit to church.

We went to Fort Worth and Dallas two weeks ago and had one of the best trips back we have had in 3 years. It was great to see people at TCU on Friday and eat at Mama's on Friday night. I got to celebrate Heather's birthday!! And we had so much fun with Nana and Bumpa. Saturday in Dallas with Nana and Bumpa and at Erin and Kevin's Wedding was too much fun!! We loved the hotel, Alexander got to roam around downtown Dallas, and it was great to catch up with Pi Kapps from all over the country.

Alexander's best tricks are "Give Me Five," "Clap, clap," and covering his face with clothes to hear, "Where's Alexander?...There He Is!"

We had to get out some new clothes for the wedding weekend. Outfits with hats are too cute. But I think Alexander and Mommy have one thing in common, they look better without hats.

Someone was having too much fun trying on new clothes that our friend Davis gave us...

Who, me?

This Memorial Day weekend, Zia Lindsey, Nana Gayle and Great-Grandma Ruby are driving in. Can't wait! Drive-in, cook-out with friends, and lots of playing and crawling around. Three days off!! We'll try to take some more pictures and keep you updated. Next week, we are without daycare and Alexander is going to have an intersting week with three different babysitters and a day spent with triplets. Maybe we'll get some pictures of that too!

Easter

Here's our little TV star. :-)

Well, we are a month or so behind and have many pictures and videos to post. But here is little of Easter weekend. The Saturday before Easter we spent the morning shooting a commerical for University Medical Center (UMC) at our house. This is the hospital where the cleft was found in the first sonogram, where Alexander was born, checked in for jaundice and weight loss, and where he had his lip surgery. It's also the hospital where Children's Miracle Network raises money and buys equipment. As the commercial puts it so well: "It's our hospital."

I thought we would have these pics posted long before they edited the commercial, but alas, the first commercial is out and airing on local TV starting this week. Here's a youtube link to watch the first 30 second commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMyn6gVnqc The second one should be out soon and then the 2-minute website commercial that I am looking most forward to on UMC's website...coming soon! Also hoping to see some of the photos they took during the shoot. Ours are not quite the quality of theirs.

Easter Sunday was a great day as well. We took Alexander to church early for Easter Brunch and the egg hunt. It was fun to watch all the children hunting eggs. The service was good, but bittersweet. It was the first Sunday since our pastor left. More to come tomorrow...it's time to go home!

The Circus

At the end of Spring Break, all Children's Miracle Network families were invited to the Circus Gatti. Alexander really enjoyed watching all the lights, animal, clown and motorcyle acts. His favorite things were the glittering streamers used as decoration by the stage. Dad and son were really concerned about the safety of the tight rope artists.

We were able to go on the floor and meet all the performers after the show. It was nice of them to take pictures and meet all the children.

Alexander enjoyed meeting the elephant up close and personal.

All of the VIP treatment really wore out our little guy. Look at this tired boy.

Leo the clown was pretty funny. Alexander was a huge fan.

Spring Break

Alexander had a wonderful time with Grandma Gayle and Great Grandma Ruby over Spring Break. He started eating solids during the day and showed what an amazing eater and sleeper he could be. He worked on his crawling, although he waited until they left to perfect it with one knee and one hand in front of the other. They played alot and had fun. But, those pictures are mostly still on Grandma's camera, so we will have to post them later.


At the end of the week, we had a playdate. The boys are in the same class at daycare and had definitely missed each other all week. They talked and ate lunch together before playing on Alexander's new mat. The funniest thing was that they kept trying to bump heads.

Trip to OKC

Alexander took his first trip to Oklahoma City. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Simpson and Great Aunt Debbie, the trip was fun and possible. Jason had what we thought was food poisoning on Thursday night, so he decided to not make the trip for Aunt Robin's 50th. Stephani and Alexander left Friday night to stay at Uncle Marcus's before the Saturday drive to OKC. Stephani got the stomach flu that Jason had in the middle of the night and it looked like the trip would be cancelled. But, mid-morning, we decided to load up and head east so that the 50th birthday would not be ruined.

Alexander did great in the car and had so much fun at GGs house. The OK family tried to corrupt Alexander by making him play on an OU blanket, just to have a picture to take home to Daddy. Not sure if what was the picture or the lingering stomach bug that made Jason puke when we got home :-) (Just kidding).

We were very glad to celebrate with Aunt Robin. She looks like we were celebrating her 35th instead. Wish I had some pictures to prove it. Didn't much feel like taking pics that trip. We look forward to more birthday celebrations with our wonderful family. If Alexander travels like this forever, I will definitely be willing to take him on more road trips. Here's him and Aunt Debbie playing in the back seat on the way back to Amarillo. "Ahhhhhh, gimme five!"

Patty-cake