Swimming

A month of Swimming Lessons and tomorrow is the last one :-(. Alexander will miss getting together with all the other kids, but we will have to make frequent trips to the pool because he LOVES it. We will keep in good practice before getting to the beach in San Diego in about 1 month!

This weekend we plan to show off his swimming skills to our friend Lindsay and then in a month to Zia Lindsey. He does love to show off when it comes to swimming. We have some new pictures and video with Daddy we will have to add later. Here's the first week of swimming.

Telethon and Two Minute UMC Spot

Well, the weekend was successful but definitely busy. I think it wore us all out, but Alexander was a trooper. Alexander got hives on Friday afternoon. They went away and were more than back on Saturday morning when he woke up. They looked horrible! Leave it to Jason's son to get hives on the weekend of his live TV debut. Jason was always sick or injured on his birthday and holidays as a kid.

Alexander had fun at the telethon where he helped answer phones and was never without eager hands to hold him.

He was on the evening news Friday night,

sitting with Karin McCay and trying to eat the mic.

His spot ran on Saturday at 2:30 for the kick-off of the telethon. You can see the piece at: http://www.kcbd.com/Global/category.asp?C=138135. This doesn't include the live part we did at telethon, but it was short and Alexander tried again to hold and talk into the microphone. We stayed for an hour or two on Saturday.

On Sunday, we went back after church and stayed until the final total was announced. Children's Miracle Network raised $1,006,902 this year! On Sunday, we helped our favorite morning DJs, Jeff, Kelly and Mudflap answer phones and they showed our UMC commercial and we did a short live interview with Abner from News Channel 11. Alexander was jumping, waving and clapping during this interview....luckily stealing the show. Then, all the kids went out at the end with the final total and confetti.

VBS started up Sunday night and went really well. Alexander started swim lessons on Monday! More to come on that in the next post. We finally found our two minute spot on the UMC website, so here's another video you can check out. https://www.umchealthsystem.com/truestories/

We survived the Telethon, three nights of VBS, two nights of Swim Lessons and our first three day Red Raider Orientation. Definitely resting up this weekend and looking forward to a swedish massage on Saturday!

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.