Bryson news

Our Bryson is just as silly as ever. You hold him and he tries to climb up you and kiss you. His favorite things at the moment are the dogs. If they move or make any noise he bursts into giggles. He is trying so hard to crawl. He can scoot backwards very well. If he needs to get anywhere he can either go backwards or just roll over numerous times and he's there. He really wants to crawl forward. It is so cute to watch him. He can actually move his legs and knees in the right way, it is just his arms he hasn't figured out yet. He needs to get them in sync. Only he would be backwards, crawling before he is sitting up on his own. He can sit up for awhile if you sit him up but he can not sit up on his own yet.

He has developed quite a menu of foods so far. He has tried rice, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, applesauce, squash, bananas, sweet peas and peaches so far. He thinks peaches are more sour and tart than applesauce. If you thought you saw a funny face when he ate applesauce, just wait until you see him each peaches. If he had it his way, and he usually does with most things, he would just eat sweet potatoes 24/7.

Here's some pictures of Max and Bryson.

Here's one of Quinn and Max (Quinn was jealous he wasn't in the other pictures).

Spring Break and Cori news

Half of Cori's Spring Break was spent lounging around home of course and the the other half suprising grandparents. Her, I and Bryson took off on a Wednesday and drove to Oklahoma and walked into my parents' house much to their suprise. Boy were they happy to see her! She said she was almost hugged to death. We spent a nice relaxing few days there. Cori and Grandpa Doug went fishing with a friend. Cori caught seven! She had a great time. I don't know what was more fun for her: catching the fish or grossing me out while she was helping to scale, clean, gut them or whatever it is you do at the end. She thought this was hilarious to show me how they were still moving after they were fileted. It was not fun for me. Here are a couple of pictures of our proud fisherwoman.
























She also entered a speech and writing competition between her school and others in the area. She placed first in editorial writing and she made it to the finals for impromptu speaking. She was the one pick from her school for the latter category. I guess her teachers know she is good at making up great stories on the fly. She is our true comedian.

Video!

I was cracking up this afternoon when I was feeding Bryson his applesauce for lunch. I thought I would share with everyone his sourpuss face. Thanks to Malaan for giving us the idea to use videos on our blog. It is a little shaky. I had to try and hold the camera while feeding a baby. I still have to experiment with this some. I had to rotate the video and came out looking wider making Bryson look like a buddha baby. If it starts skipping, click the pause button and wait for the red line to fill up before hitting play again (then it will be loaded fully). There, all done with technicalities, on with the show.

Click on the video to play it:

Springtime

It is officially spring for us. Last night we grilled hamburgers, made deviled eggs, baked beans and my famous potato salad. That marks the start of spring for us.

Cori, Bryson and I went to the park again today while Aaron was at work. Isn't Spring Break great? I beat Cori this time at two games of this time. The payback was nice. She also informed me that telling me that I dribble like Shaq is not a compliment. Oh well, I still beat her twice today. Yeah for me!

Playing at the park

Another beautiful day today meant another trip to the park. Aaron and Cori practiced basketball. I attempted to take some pictures but it was so sunny that I couldn't see the camera screen. Then we ended the venture with Cori beating me at two games of PIG. She says I dribble like Shaq. Is that a good thing? Here are a few pictures. I didn't realize how tired Bryson was; we couldn't get him to smile for anything.

Here is Bryson's first time in the swing at the park. He is still too small for it as you can see, it swallows him. I have been thinking of him as our little leprechan all day in his outfit. See how red his hair is in the sun? He was very intrigued by the swing chain. As soon as I pushed him in the swing even the slightest bit he started to fall asleep. His swing at home makes bird and nature sounds also so it's no wonder.

I like this one because it shows the scale of size of Cori and Bryson (plus it looks like Cori is wearing a yellow diaper). Cori likes to wear my old Rams jersey. I told her that Kurt no longer plays for the Rams and she said that just makes the jersey vintage and therefore even more cool...who knew.

Track

Today was Cori's first track meet. It was quite an adventure, this meet was huge! Several schools were together and there were events all over the place. Cori participated in shotput and did very well.
Here is a picture of her with her friend Cailey at the event.

Ms. Smarty Pants

Get ready for some braggin' We received Cori's ACT results. She got a 26! It is scored from a 1 to 36. We are SO, SO proud! I cried to each person I told the day we got her results. I believe that a score of 22 qualifies for scholarships. We have the details of how she scored against the high school graduates. In April, we will get the details of how she scored against her 7th grade peers around the nation that were eligible to test.

So here's the breakdown of what we have so far:

Only 11% of high school graduates who tested in Texas scored above her
Only 14% of high school graduates who tested in the U.S. scored above her
She made a 29 on the English portion, a 23 on the Math portion, a 28 on the Reading portion and a 24 on the Science portion.

I know her score qualifies her for some rewards and special camps. Be ready to hear more about this in April when we get notification from Duke University. When you talk to Cori, be sure to congratulate her. I don't think she is grasping how great this is. Did I say we were proud?

The life and times of Bryson

What's new with Bry? Well he is not liking cereal much. I have tried oatmeal and rice. Rice cereal looks like wallpaper paste; oatmeal cereal looks like mushy cardboard. I can only hope they taste better than they look. We tried apples, I think those were sour for him. But let me tell you, this kid likes sweet potatoes! That is the third food we tried. Third time's a charm, right? I didn't like sweet potatoes as a child but once I found out they are the most nutritous of all the vegetables, I made myself eat them when I was pregnant and I like them now. So this must be why he LOVES them. He ate so many sweet potatoes that I was a little worried; but, get this, he slept for 5 hours straight last night, in his crib even! That was very exciting for his mom and dad.

We put him in his high chair for the first time this week and his first meal was Tigger's ear as you can see. Yummy!

While Aaron was in Denver I would hold the cell phone up to Bryson's ear and let him listen to his dad. He also enjoys listening to his grandma Lesa. Now he always tries to grab the phone from my hands, uh-oh! Same thing with a cup. I let him have a sip of my water and now he wants to take away all my drinks and have some for himself. He is loving playing with his feet and has discovered that his toes are quite yummy, but he won't eat apples...go figure.

Giggles

Ok, since we are running late in posting, I am going to rewind a bit. Last weekend Cori had four girls stay over at the house. Poor, Aaron he flies in from Denver after being gone a week and as soon as he gets in, there are five teenage girls running around the house acting crazy. Then I make him go with me to take them bowling. So the Pilot was crammed to it's limit with 5 girls, Aaron, I and Bryson. We were wishing we had one of those windows that came up between us and the backseat (like in a limo). Bryson was trying his hardest to sleep in the car when suddenly another loud giggle would break out. It was quite funny. So we dropped the girls off at disco bowling while we went next door to the bookstore. They had a great time. Then we took them all home and they stayed up and watched scary movies. I once read somewhere that your kid's bus driver knows more about them than you do. Let me tell you, after listening to things like "oh no, you did not just break up with your boyfriend through a text, that is SO wrong", I can only imagine what their bus drivers overhear. Oh...to be a fly on the wall.

Gorgeous

The weather here has been so great. I love this time of year when we don't have to run a heater or air conditioner. We leave the sunroom open and the dogs come and go as they please and we open all the windows. I love it! The weather is also hinting that swim season is just around the corner (and mosquitos, but we won't talk about that). I cannot wait to see how Bryson does in the pool. If his baths are any indication, he will have a blast. He splashes and flails around so much that we lose over half the bath water. It's crazy!