Peek-a-boo!

I love when the blanket gets stuck and he has to struggle for a bit to get it off. Hilarious.

Front Yard

Although we love our townhouse, we've never really loved or even understood the 'landscaping' that was done by the previous owners in our front yard.

While the other townhouses on our block have nice grass and flower beds, we had a front yard full of mulch, visible cable wires, and a few random plantings.

Then one day, this really cute gardener wandered onto our property.

He worked and slaved...

And slaved and worked. He even enlisted his wife to do a teeny tiny bit of the work, but she wasn't much help.

Finally we had a new front yard!

The hunky gardener installed an awesome stone wall.

He filled the flower beds with azaleas, hostas, purple knight, impatiens, vincas, salvia, mums, cuphea, persian shield, dianthus, and a few bushes that were already in our yard. I'm working on identifying them so that I can continue to expand my extremely limited knowledge of plants.

Oh and he put in some grass that's struggling to grow in the 99 degree weather we've been having. Thank you mysterious gardener for all your hard work. I love you!

Whine!

This is what I've been seeing a lot of these days. Rock has been continually pulling at my pants/feet/legs and whining away. He wants me to lift him up and help him stand and walk around the house. It's getting old. But as much as he thinks he can stand and walk on his own, he still needs a lot of help.

Standing

Someone loves to stand.

I love how you can hear his breathing. I think this is because he's still hanging on to the nasal congestion part of his cold from two weeks ago. Of course he's always been a loud breather so maybe nevermind.

Sunglasses

Rock is always trying to pull my sunglasses off my face. So I let him try them on the other day. At first he was stunned.
Then he decided he liked them.
And left them on for quite awhile while he played around in the living room.
Until finally he had had enough and ripped them off.

National Doughnut Day

So I had heard last Friday was National Doughnut Day.

After we ate dinner and sent Rock home with Fix, we ladies decided to go participate in National Doughnut (Donut?) Day with a late-night run to Dunkin Donuts. Too bad the people working didn't even know that the date had donut significance and the donuts they gave us were incredibly stale and gross.
Hannah was deeply disappointed. I thought it was incredibly lame that Dunkin Donuts wasn't making fresh doughnuts at 9 pm.
Susanna thought this was equally lame. So we tossed the doughnuts and went to Franklins for a beer to wash the bad taste out of our mouths. And then we all felt like Homer Simpson.

HANNAH!

Aunt Zuni's best friend Hannah FINALLY came to visit from Portland. After examining her lip, Rock decided she was cool.

And he sat on her lap for quite awhile.
Then it was time to play on the floor with Grandpa Rocket.
This is one of Rock's newer faces. It's the "I'm so excited the smile is bursting off my face" face. I love it.

Rock was so thrilled to be playing on the ground with Grandpa Rocket. Thus he smacked him on the face. So sweet.

Painting the Bedroom

Remember when Rock looked like this?

See the paint swatches tucked in the clock? Well, I FINALLY picked one and painted the wall behind our bed in our bedroom.

Although it looks like it's black, it's really a dark dark dark dark dark green. Nocturnal Green is the official name of the paint. Since it is only on one wall, I think it's okay that it's so dark. It makes that wall the focus of the bedroom and I just love it. I especially love how the clock 'pops' now that it's against a dark surface. It really is true that a little paint changes everything. Now all I need is a pair of swing-arm lamps to go on the wall above our bedside tables. I'll post another picture if/when I find some!

NOISE!

As I said before, Rock loves to make noise. Here's another video of him banging away with two of the balls from his Ball Popper...Well, trying to bang them together. He's so excited that he's not very successful.

Teething Question

So, as I said, Rock has been working on some new teeth. Here he is using his tongue to help him teethe.
Although he looks like just a regular old happy boy in this picture, if you look at in a bigger format you can see a little blood on his tongue. In the picture below, the blood is on his lips. Which brings me to my question. Whenever Rock starts a new tooth, his gums get REALLY swollen and deep purple. Then all of a sudden they bleed a little bit and the tooth breaks through.
This time, I caught it just as it started (in these pictures) and was able to go get a washcloth to clean him up. When I touched his gum with the washcloth a piece of it fell off. I assume this is what happened with his other teeth and that's why he bled. Anyway, so my question is, HAS THIS HAPPENED TO ANYONE ELSE? How can I help this poor little boy? He seems to be a little less grumpy after the tooth bleeds and comes through the gum, but I'd like to prevent this process if possible with the rest of his teeth. Any advice?

Sunday Best

I have seen several blogging friends put up pictures of their sweet baby girls in their "Sunday Best." I always love seeing how cute the girls are when they dress up. Although he's not in a dress, I thought Rock looked pretty cute the other day so I got some Sunday Best pictures of my own to share.

Speaking of Sundays, both Rock and his mother love them!
Rock likes getting passed around from kid to kid at church and I love the break from holding him (I think he weighs about 25 lbs. these days) and the chance to interact with adults!!!

Blurry Tooth Boy

As you can see from the picture above, Rock is always on the go these days. He doesn't want to sit or lay down or even crawl much -- he wants to be standing and 'walking.' This makes for a lot of blurry pictures.
Rock has also gained two new teeth in the past few weeks. The picture above shows the first one breaking through... look for pictures of the second top tooth soon!

Whatta Rat!

Last week Rock and I were sick and thus we were both short on patience and charm. His grumpy mood (see the furrowed brows) made me equally grumpy. Since we were both feeling and looking so ratty, I thought it was a good time to get a few pictures with one of Rock's favorite stuffed animals. Although we got this lovely rat for him a few weeks ago, he still likes to examine him fully each time he plays with it.
He is particularly captivated by the his face. Rats have such enchanting teeth and whiskers.
Sick or not, every boy needs a rat.