Muddn', Runn', and sleepn'

I'll tell the story sort of backwards....This is what Reese looked like after a full day on the go. Note that Puppa is still in her arms which is highly unusual. Her legs are through the crib...her preferred method of sleeping now, and the shirt is pulled up so as to expose the belly. She was asleep in about 2 minutes.

That was after a day of swimming, preceded by some chillin' with Uncle Lance and Aunt Celeste....I'm so tempted to tell Reese that it's the other way. (Aunt Lance and Uncle Celeste...just to have something unusual for Reese in her family) AAAAAANNNNDDD preceded by that with a ride home from the Black Foot Mud Run seeing Daddaaaa, Aunt Lance, and Uncle Celeste get muddy running around like a bunch of kids with no sense.

Reese was excellent at the mud run and Kimmy took good pics since she had to sit out this time with Pooka. I sort of mis-understood that Kimmy was wanting to actually run the race so I could have had Dad come up and baby-sit the little one but she would have probably freaked out seeing Kim and not being able to get to her. Probably for the best....next time Kimmy, I'll sit out. This one sucked!

Black Foot was a full blown 5K unlike the warrior dash and I think the obstacles were better. I posted pics on Facebook but let's take a closer look here on the blog why don't we....

Here we have some stretching...Note that the only one really getting a good stretch is Celeste. Lance and I are just play acting....

Pooka Reese is giving Mommy a sunshine smile because the rest of us are running our rear ends off.

Daddy finally emerges from the brush only to stumble, bumble and RUMBLE to the first obstacle...

Meanwhile Lance tries the ropes and it didn't turn out too well.

Dadaaaaa struggles while Celeste looks on....Don't let her fool you. She walked around this one.

Dadaaaa fairs no better than Lance on the ropes. Look at those guns would ya!!

Celeste pulls ahead in a boggy marsh and meanwhile Adam has a look on his face that would appear to say....I'm about to mess myself.

Lance is running like a Kenyan on the course but appears a little spent after dropping off the wall. I would imagine some choice words from him right about now.

Uncle Celeste and Dadaaaa crawl in the mud. We're both pretty disgusted right now.

Hey guys....this is where Adam was saying "Please God don't let me fall off this rope wall!"

Check out the form....a true sprinter.

What the hell am I doing with my hands? Is this like the sissy trot or something?

Finally the race is over and we're all feeling pretty bold. So we flex.

So there you have it....the zoom never lies. And truth be told, I probably passed out like Reese Saturday night too.

Conversations with Reese....

Everyday when I get home Reese will always yell, "DA DAAAAA!". The intensity cannot be replicated in the written word and the impact cannot be measured. There is something special about that title....and to hear your daughter yell it, bellow, or demand your attention is simply priceless. Her intensity with everything now is so awe inspiring. She isn't even 15 months and she is picking out pictures in a book and in many cases identifying it simply on a request and even saying it. Ball, Duck, Quack, Book, Puppy, choo choo, shoe, sun are all things she is saying and identifying. But what flips me out is to ask her to point to a drum and she will. She knows where the Crescent Moon is on her book and points to it. She knows hat a boat, flower, and apple are and will point to them on demand in a jumbled up picture of these items.

Her ability to learn and comprehend what she is told baffles Kim and I. If you tell her to take something to the trash and throw it away...she will. Ask her to wipe her mouth, she will. Tell her its time to go to bed...she crawls up the steps and walks into her room ready to go down. We're blessed with this little angel and watching her grow and learn is such a privilege.

Just reading to her and having her in my lap, trusting me explicitly to take care of her....knowing that I'll keep her safe in the pool, knowing that I'll put her first before my own needs...She looks at me with those amazing blue eyes that must be from the Bug Man because I do NOT have Blue eyes - I digress - I ask her if Daddy can have a kiss? And she is happy to oblige. I get my kiss and ask for a DA DAAA and she, again, is happy to oblige....DA DAAAAAA she says. Opening her mouth so wide that her molars look like pieces of cotton jammed into her mouth.....I love my baby girl.

We tuck her in and watch her on the video monitor. I'll have to admit...we missed the boat for a long time on this parent thing. What a great job being a Dad is.

Father's Day 2010

Chilling by the pool in the morning....

The two best gifts in the world....my girls.

Pool time...

Makes a little girl thirsty!

Pre-weekend update...

Updating the blog has become difficult lately....

I mean not like the kind of difficult that would prevent us from doing it but the kind of difficult that would cause you to fall asleep around 8:30p because Reese just went down and you're exhausted too.....or because you've been traveling most of the week...or because you actually have a moment of silence because your precious wife is asleep on the couch and your daughter is as well....It's just five minutes that we have to carve out for our own sakes so we can remember these times in our lives but its sort of like running on the treadmill. I know I need to do it....but I'd rather slobber in my easy chair as I drift off to sleepy town.

I guess it's fair to say that Reese has changed gears on us lately. She is soooo freaking attentive to our words and actions now. She is really attempting to say alot. Her words include Mama, Dada, Papa, One, two, tweet - as in "what a bird says", ready, go, thank you, bite, more, outside, bye, puppa (her puppy), night night, randomly she seems to say love you, she tries to sing the itsy bitsy spider....she even does her hands, NO NO!....I'm sure there are more and I'm missing them but I feel like this is pretty good considering the kid is only 14 months old.

She tries to start her ABCs but she says, A, E, O, I.....sort of working the vowels more than the consonants. But she repeats A, B, D....no Cs yet....if you do it slowly. Amazing!

She loves her lego blocks, loves the Pool, LOVES LOVES LOVES the Zac Brown /Jimmy Buffet Crossroads concert, loves going for walks, loves being on the go, she loves being outside, loves wondering around to look at new things....she just loves life.

Foods are opening up as well. She is eating a waffle in the morning, loves fries now, ate a chicken nugget the other day, Cheezits, crackers, any fruit baby food, 100 calorie chip ahoy crackers, animal crackers, teddy grahams....the list goes on. It's so nice to see her showing interest in eating "people" food and its exciting to watch this transformation. We just love her so much....she is such a fun little girl.

We're hoping for a great weekend so grab some sun and have a great Saturday and Sunday.

Cornhole, cookout, swimming, and a tired baby girl....

This is the picture of a tired little girl.

Its sort of been the norm lately. We have pushed Reese so hard with one thing and then another and she puts up with a relatively hectic schedule with ease....but she can't hide the tired in this shot.

After last weeks four days of fun, this weekend was a two day blink of an eye. We went to Nora's for a cookout / luau and broke out the cornhole boards for their inaugural competition. I still have a little touching up here and there on one of the boards but all in all they performed amazingly. Now...I did not perform well  but Nicole's boyfriend Michael is like the Tiger Woods of cornhole...nothing derogatory meant by that...and WHUPPED our tails throwing the bags. Very impressive Michael. You should become professional.

Donna and Shirley took some throws at the boards and did pretty well...You don't just walk up and start owning someones cornhole....it takes time and patience. (so many different ways for that to go....I'll leave it up to you guys to form your own outcomes.)

Reese pretty well had an acre to run around on and needed to be right in the middle of the cornhole "court" most of the time. She's a social butterfly and wanted to get the scoop on Daddy's new boards.

Nicole was awesome with Reese for a little while. Not that Nicole started doing anything wrong....Reese just got tired of sitting in one place....check out the red cheeks. She takes after her Daddy, always hot.

After chow, Nora decided we should play some games which means everyone participates no matter how embarrassing the game may be. This one had a spoon on a string and you had to snake the spoon through your clothes and hand it to the next person. I was at the end of the line and ended up with a sweaty spoon. (not really but it was hot outside so I'm just guessing.)

We spent today at home chilling and waiting for the sun to show up. We went to the pool for about an hour and when we got ready to leave....the sun came out. But sun or no sun, Reese did great. She loved getting thrown around a little and just had a great time. I think we are going to use the pool alot this year which is A-ok with me. Especially since it just wears Reese out...she fell asleep in about two minutes tonight.

Mom and Dad came down for a bit so we hung around and Dad tried out some cornholing action. So far they seem to be a hit and I want to make another set just for shiggles. And that, is sort of it. Back to the grind on Monday...oh joy. Hope everyone has a great week.

Some updates...

Four days off and gone....POOF! Just like that.

Where does time go? Last Thursday night, I stayed up until nearly 1am watching "Stepbrothers" because I needed a good laugh....and because I could. Never mind that I've seen the movie a dozen times. I just wanted to stay up late. Oh sure, I paid for it the next day because we got up early on Friday and took Reese to have some professional photos taken - will share as soon as we get them - and I essentially gave the company about 3.5 hours back because some jerk released the hounds on a promo that wasn't supposed to hit until Tuesday on Friday morning (If I had done it I would have been threatened with my job...this turd will probably be lauded at the next meeting.) So my one measly day off turned into a half day with a little mowing and Cornhole building.

Saturday turned into cookout day. Our neighbor came over and asked about slow cooking some chow on Saturday and hanging by the pool so we had ribs and two pork butts that slow cooked for about 10 hours while we went to the pool, drank beer, and took it easy. Reese went down to the pool with us and lifeguard nazi boy told us that Reese now has to wear swimmer type diapers, a stinking baggy thing, and then her suit. So, we looked for the baggy things all weekend but to no avail. Everyone is out because some kid shat in a pool and now everyone is scared of E.Coli.....I thought we used chlorine in pools....and I thought chlorine kills E. Coli?? Maybe not. So a modified garbage bag around Reese will prevent it from happening. What about the 10 year olds that are swimming for hours and never going to the bathroom? I'm sure nothing is wrong with that...of course not.

Anyway....We still put Reese in the water after Stalin-lifeguard boy changed shifts. She had a blast. Loves it. And has absolutely ZERO fear of jumping or getting her head wet. She is completely over the moon about the pool....which means we'll be there more this year and I couldn't be happier because I need some sun. I'm slightly pale and need color desperately.

Sunday was a trip over to Lake Weiss to visit Chuck and Nan. Reese did great over there and was a little ham the whole day. She loved riding the golf cart around the little area where Pawpaw and Nana's place is and this sort of helped feed the fire for my own "needed" cart. I think Kim is on the hook but she isn't in the boat just yet. I'm on it though. We left around 5pm and headed back only to hit storm after storm. We stopped in C-Ville to eat Gondolier's....we actually love that place but we're leery of the one down here. It just doesn't seem the same so we stopped for a little stroll down chow memory lane.

Today....Cornhole-a-thon. Well, finishing it anyway. TONS of taping, TONS of painting, TONS of touch up and then....steady decal placement. All I have to do is poly everything and touch some stuff up and I'll be done!

Outside of that, we let Reese chill at the house mostly and ate some La Parilla for dinner. It was a great weekend. We had an awesome four day weekend even if the weather didn't cooperate. I'm bummed about heading back to work Tuesday but its already Tuesday so the week should fly......I hope.

Take a look at my handy work on these cornhole boards...I'm pleased but still not done so I could still screw up something.

Reese is a baby warrior...

What a blast!

Today...Lance and I entered our first --- I'll use this term lightly ---- adventure race. We're not triathletes and we don't run these adventure races that span the course of four days but we pretty well laid it on the line for about 20 minutes today and had a blast. I wish we could have had better pics of the course itself and the way we looked prior to rinsing off and changing some clothes but we had a muddy, dirty good time. Black Foot Mud Run is up June 26th and I'm already working on Kim to get her to run it.

Yep....we're morons.

But we're WARRIOR morons!

Warrior Dash....

is today!! Lance and I will be leaving shortly to compete in the Warrior Dash and I'm feeling pretty Warrior-ish today. 

Pics later.

Somebody got a hair cut....

A MUCH needed haircut at that!

We've drug out feet on the haircut thing. Reese's bangs have just gotten out of control and we have been needing to do something but we didn't know what to do. We didn't want her to look like a little boy and we want her hair to grow so we just left things alone. Only problem with that is that Reese doesn't really care for hair bows and will constantly pull them out....and we end up with this look...

The other issue is Kim and her weird obsession with the salon she goes to.....IN CALHOUN!! 45 minutes from our home....two houses and two different towns later, Kim still goes to Calhoun to get her hair cut and colored. (I hope that wasn't a mistake...to mention that Kim dyes her hair. Of course her hair is naturally a beautiful mixture of blonde and brunette highlights that look perfect all the time.) but I've been shoved into the idea of understanding and now it makes perfect sense.....Sort of one those...."are we clear?" moments. To which I say, "Crystal."

Kim was about to haul Reese up to Calhoun to this holy grail of hair salons. But we debated that and Kim mentioned the other day that Reese's hair was getting a little out of control and Calhoun might be a little much. She mentioned wanting to look locally and even asked Sherry where her boys get their hair cut. Well of course, they go to a Great Clips like any normal little man would. Great Clips is about as hoity as I want to get and I can get in and out under $20 all day long. I do, however, recall the Calhoun days for myself when all I knew was the Barber Shop and you got whatever hair cut the old crotchety man wanted to give you. You could ask for a #3 guard but what you got was a comb pulled out to "about" a number three. Sometimes that meant you barely got your hair cut and other times it meant that you were ready to enter the service. High and tight was the specialty at the barber shop and little kids went ape when one of those guys come at them with sheers. All I remember was little boys hitting DEFCON 5 when they got their hair cut......I could see this with Reese as well.

 

 

I had opted out of the hair salon trip thinking it would be a little too much estrogen for me but then a guilty streak took over. What if Reese was blowing a gasket! Kim would need help....I know I would want it if I was by myself so I figured she couldn't have gone far and sure enough, less than 1/2 a mile down the road is a nice little salon. No one else was there so I pull up to find my little angel getting her hair cut like a little lady. She was cool as she could be. I went in and marveled at how well she was being. Kim said that she was perfect......All that "anxiety" for nothing. We didn't really fret over the decision but we've both seen the nightmares that ensue so we were so pleased that Reese was chilling out holding on to some curlers....a weird fixation hers now.

Long story short, Reese looks sooooooo much better now and doesn't look like Sam the sheep dog on Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Then she came home and decided to tell all of her friends about her.....ehem....Hair raising experience. (so incredibly corny I know.)

Weaning....

Alright. We're weaning now.

And to be perfectly honest we've done pretty well. We cut three bottles in the span of a week (nearly two months ago) MUCH to my excitement aaaaaaand we're off of formula to whole milk with just a little push back but only for a day or so. But we're still on the morning bottle, a snack bottle that we could easily ditch and probably will, and then the bedtime bottle. That's it. So within the week we'll be a two a day family but it's those two that seem to be the hurdles.

See, we seem to have a child that will not drink milk from a sippy cup. I'm sure it will come and honestly, if we continually presented it in such a manner, she would likely give in but the test runs have been failures and resulted in a bottle to finish the deal.

So....how do we do this? Looking for suggestions here.

Kim and I chuckled tonight about the fact that Kim was so worn out that those "first moments of life" weren't spent all curled up in a nude ball of breasty, baby, mommy love. The books seem to make it out like if you don't bond then....skin to skin mind you and breastfeeding all the way....it won't happen and your little girl will become a stripper at Boomers. Quite the new parent physco-babble and dead wrong. Kim didn't really get to experience Reese's cuddle for about 12 hours or more because Kim was blitzed from all day labor and Reese was out too. Trust me folks, it worked out and Reese is attached to Mommy's hip. I don't know that Kim felt it but sometimes people completely put their two cents where it doesn't really belong and sort of lecture you with a look or with words about not breastfeeding. It just wasn't for Kim....no issues here. So we've been formula folks but it's interesting the advice you get at one year of age.

Some say, wean 'em on their birthday....others say 18 months is fine....still others are letting junior take a boob at 6 years old. Weird....very, very weird. So at 13.5 months, we're trying to wean and get little mama to eat some more solids. Oh, she's getting there with the chewables but it just has to be her idea. Reese will NOT open up for a strange food. She's simply not that accommodating but she will hold stuff and now she is investigating so we're making ground.

It's just an adventure trying to do the right thing and while it's not all consuming for us, it would be neat to hear what other folks have done. That's it for tonight.

We're almost through with these things!

A little Mother's Day update....

So, first things first....Is this not the cutest little girl in the world?

And yes...its been a while since a post because the Hall family has been getting it lately. I normally travel about three days of the week when I head out but this past week was a longer run and man did it bite! So here's what happening......

Kim wanted to get the little lady out of the house for some fun in the sun since it has been spectacular weather this weekend so we decided that a trip to Kennesaw Mountain might be in order. We got ourselves a little picnic lunch and made our way to the Battlefield for a little playtime. Reese had a blast just roaming around the fields but the little squirt can find the exact spot that we don't want her to go to in a four acre field and kept wandering toward this marshy area. We kept her out of it and kept her busy with bubbles and a couple bouncy balls that she is starting to kick around....maybe a soccer player??

 

 

 
The weather was perfect and after wearing her out we strapped her into the stroller while Mommy and I trekked up the mountain on the road. The views were amazing yesterday. You could see Stone Mountain clearly and all of the city. Buckhead, Vinings, parts of Roswell....it was beautiful. We were too gassed to take pics and getting the camera could have meant waking Reese so we opted against it this time. Maybe next go around.

After that, we came home and had dinner with Lance and Celeste....long lost gypsies from south of Atlanta now. I think Lance needed an excuse to not do something around their house for a weekend so they made a visit for a few hours. We ate at Taco Mac and chilled.....then we put Reese down and fell asleep on the bed at 8:30p......we're getting old.

Today we kept it low key with a run up to Calhoun to see my Grandmother and have steaks for lunch with my parents. Everything was great and Reese and I rode around for a bit in my Dad's tricked out golf cart...I'm jealous. Reese loved it so I'm wondering if I can use this as leverage to get one????? Maybe? Anyway, after that we stopped in to see Kim's parents before they set sail for Alaska on Tuesday. Those jokers are going on an Alaskan cruise this week and we're about eat up with the vacation bug so it was tough to wish them farewell. This retiree stuff and all of these teachers in our family that work about three months a year is getting to Kim and I since we have the jobs that never end.....no SUMMER break for Yamaha employees. What gives?

Outside of that, I've been working around the house when I can and getting some things accomplished. I'm sort of tired of things piling up so I've been checking them off the list a little stronger now. I like the accomplishment but I just need more time to get things done.....hint hint Yamaha....I need some more days off.

I think we'll get back in a better run of posts now that I don't have to travel for a bit so I hope everyone enjoyed the pics of Reese! She is such fun now. I'm ready for another but I'd really like him or her to come out of the womb around this age....its just so much fun. Make it a great Monday everyone! I know I'll be counting the clock until home time to see my ladies.

Check out the Mother's Day pic from last year and this year....What a difference a year makes!!

Daddy......

Is home.


This was a long, long trip. 1800 miles covered over four days.

I am glad to be home with my girls again.....