Toes Discovery

Lincoln has been really interested in his toes lately, but due to his chubbiness, he has been unable to suck on them. However, when I took off his clothes and diaper, he happily bent in half and tested out the flavor of his toes!

Terrible Twos

It's not all smiles and sunshine these days in the Murray family. Landon has decided that it is time for him to test the boundaries, and in the past few days he has thrown two full blown tantrums, just like the ones you see on TV! And, of course, those tantrums were in the middle of Home Depot, with Aaron and Costco, with me. To add to the delightfulness, he has decided that he does not want to take a nap anymore, and he will fight us on even just laying down on his bed. I've tried a few different wrestling moves to get him to lay down, but somehow I always end up on the losing end of that deal, and yesterday he gave me a backwards head butt that gave me a decent lip injury. He has also learned how to open the child-proof door handles, and surprised us at 5am Saturday morning, ready to start his day. Yikes. It all adds up to lots of prayers for wisdom and patience.

I love the boy, but recently I don't like him that much at certain times throughout the day. It's bizarre how a little two year old can have such a big personality and be ready to test a parent on who is in charge so early on. In the pictures below, notice how the bed is empty, and Landon is sprawled on the floor under his blankets. This picture was taken after he fought a nap for two hours, and when he decided that he was going to assert his independence and change into pajama pants, and sleep on the floor (so there!). The day before he also fought his rest time, and I found him standing up, leaning over the side of his bed, where he had apparently been sleeping just moments before. Many times I have wished for a video monitoring system so I could watch the drama unfold (unfortunately, all of the video monitors I have purchased have not worked in our house, for various reasons, so we just use the audio ones for both boys).

Lincoln's first bike ride

We went on a family bike ride last week, and it was Lincoln's first ride in the bike trailer. We kept it short, and he did well. He is so mellow, even when he gradually slipped down and the straps were up by his head, he didn't fuss! And Landon happily shared "his" stroller with his brother-hooray.

Pumpkin Patch

Last Friday we joined several other moms and children from our church at a local pumpkin patch. Landon had fun pulling a wagon full of pumpkins and picking out two pumpkins, a big one for him, and a baby one for his "Lincoln brother" as he likes to call him. We finished off our morning field trip by heading to a local park that we hadn't visited yet, called Round Rock Memorial Park, where the round rock that this city was named after still resides in the creek. The children painted and decorated their pumpkins, and we had lunch. It was a nice start to our fall celebrations.

Visit from the Blackmans

My Uncle Gary, Aunt Glenda, and Cousin Hayley came out to Austin last week, and Hayley is living with us while she settles into life in Austin attending the Ballet Austin school as a trainee. We enjoyed our visit with Glenda and Gary, and the boys love having family around. Landon gets excited whenever we come home and Hayley's car is in the driveway. He says, "Mama, Hayley's car!" They blessed us by watching the boys twice while we went out on dates, and that was a real treat.

Here's the famous "Rock Band" shot. Uncle Gary was a superstar and got 100% on his first time playing the guitar. We were all impressed!

Uncle Gary with the boys.

Landon loved to play roll the ball with Aunt Glenda.

San Antonio

Last weekend we took my Aunt Glenda and my cousin Hayley down to San Antonio. We visited the river walk and the Alamo. It was Landon's 3rd trip to the river walk and Alamo, but Lincoln's first. We had a great time.

Landon in his big boy bed

Landon is moving up to a "big boy" bed. Here he is on his first night sleeping on the bottom bunk. Notice the Thomas the Tank Engine sheets and pillow- he's a huge fan and knows the names of all of the trains (and, by default, so do I!).

Lincoln is sitting up

Mark it on your calendars, folks! Aaron has been working with Lincoln on his core muscles, and today is the day that he sat up on his own for five good minutes (I took the pictures at the end of the session, so you can see he is worn out and almost folded over, but still in good spirits!). Hooray for Lincoln!

Halloween Preview

Auntie Jen has done it again...Jen has provided another great Halloween costume for Landon, and Lincoln gets in on the action this year too. Thanks, Jen! Introducing the Halloween 2008 edition of Landon the monkey, and Lincoln, his yummy banana.

And here Lincoln is as the sunflower from the Halloween 2006 Landon line, modeling with my cousin Hayley the costume that Aunt Glenda provided for Landon's first Halloween (the sunflower being one of my favorites and my kitchen and one bathroom theme).

Rolling Over

Here are a few pictures of Lincoln rolling over.

Lincoln is rolling over!

Lincoln officially rolled over from his stomach to his back on September 22nd. He is quite the pro now, rolling both from his back to his stomach and his stomach to his back after just a few days, but at first Landon liked to help him out. Check out the barrel rolling action on this video!

California Vacation...the whirlwind begins...

We traveled to California for vacation at the end of August and had a wonderful time visiting family and friends. Aunt Jen and Nancy drove to San Jose to meet us for dinner, and then we drove to Vallejo to visit the Murray side of the family.

It was Lincoln's first flight, so I asked the pilot to take a picture with him since they didn't have any wings for his scrapbook.

Uncle John and Aunt Emily

We love our Uncle John and Aunt Emily!

Party Chico- Part 1

We hit the road and went to Chico, where we stayed with Uncle John and Aunt Emily, and we had a big family gathering with Laura's immediate family, and the Blackmans and the Grandpa and Grandma Munson.

The boys and I were also able to connect with my good friend, Cheri, and her daughter, Olivia, for walks at Bidwell, our favorite park, early in the morning. It was chilly (60 degrees, and we haven't seen that temp in Texas in half a year!), but Landon decided he wanted to go wading in 1 mile pool!