Jake the Train Conductor

"All ABOARD!"

I'm pretty sure if you ask Jake right now what he wants to be when he grows up, he would say football player first and train conductor second. He is obsessed with trains! He can name all the different parts of the train (engine, caboose, box car, oil car, flat car, freight car, etc), tell you all about "Thomas the Tank Engine" and his friends, has "The Little Red Caboose" and "The Little Engine that Could" memorized verbatim, and says "All aboard...this is the Polar Express" at least 50 times a day. He constantly has a train in his hands at all times, and in his bed, and his carseat, and on the kitchen table, etc. Oh, and the Little People train conductor pictured above goes everywhere with us- church, school, Daddy's office, Target, etc and he also eats with us, takes baths with Jake, and is Jake's right-hand man. OBSESSED! He does make a cute little conductor, though, doesn't he?

The Jumperoo

I finally pulled out the Jumperoo a few weeks ago, but I just realized I hadn't taken any pictures of Walker in it. So here you go! Walker is finally coming around to liking the Jumperoo; for some reason, he does a lot better whenever Jake is around...I guess Jake is a little more entertaining than all those obnoxious lights and animals on the Jumperoo! Jake, on the other hand, thinks it is his responsiblity to bounce/twist/shake/move the Jumperoo. Poor Walker...I just pray that the kid lives to see 1!

Walker's First Trip to the Park

Today was a beautiful day for a trip to the park, so that is exactly what the boys and I did. We didn't stay long, though, because a certain older brother got jealous that I was swinging a certain younger brother. Such fun times these days! How much longer "til football season is over?

First Game

Jake gives tailgating two thumbs up!
Walker's buddy, Tanner...eating a pom pom!

Daddy! Or as Jake said the whole game, "MY Daddy!"

Cheering on his Daddy's Defense!

What what? Is that a real smile?

Dawn and Connor came out to support UAB!

Testing out his headset...I think.

Look who came! The Turners!!

Brantley loved every aspect of the game! Especially swapping beads with Jake, stealing Jake's popcorn, and looking for "Tyson." :)

The big furry dragon that my child never let out of his site!

A few of Tyson's linebackers...

And the legendary Coach Schnellenberger! He HAS to be hot in that suit!

Silly Boys

Tyson is going to kill me for posting this!"Oh no! Has anyone seen my other lens?"

I've been the worst picture-taker lately! I've had lots of opportunities to snap some cute pictures, but I have my hands full these days and the camera gets left behind a lot! Anyways, to satisfy the grandparents and the great-grandparents, here are some pictures of the boys I snapped today. Walker really wants to crawl, but he just kicks and kicks to no avail! It is super cute! Speaking of cuteness, what do y'all think of Jake in those sunglasses? Ha! He got them in a goody bag from a birthday party and just found them tonight. I'm pretty sure Tyson tried his best to get rid of these glasses...he obviously didn't hide them too well!

My mom is staying with us this week to help out and watch the boys so I could work; she is also going to watch Walker tomorrow night so that Jake and I can go on a date to the football game! As always, we are enjoying having her here and having so much fun!

I hope to snap lots of pictures tomorrow night at the football game, so be on the look-out this weekend! Go Blazers!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Football Season...

In just 2 days, UAB will host Florida Atlantic at Historic Legion Field! Go Blazers! I can't wait!

It has become a little tradition amongst the UAB coaches' wives to do something special for the players for the first game. This year, we were supposed to make brownies for our husbands' players, but for some reason, the linebackers aren't big chocolate fans. Weird, huh? So instead, they got these cute lil' cookies with their numbers on them. I have to admit, I'm not the most crafty/creative/artsy person ever, so the cookies didn't turn out as cute as I would have liked. Oh well, I doubt the boys noticed! :) Besides, I put on the outside of the bags "Love, Jake and Walker." Ha!

Go Blazers! And good luck to my other fellow coaches' wives!

Saturday Randomness

We've had an extremely busy week, so I was really excited to just hang around the house today just me and the boys with NOTHING to do! It was awesome! Unfortunately, Tyson was hard at work and our neighbors are all out of town for the weekend, so I had to get creative. So...I busted out the bounce house (aka "jump jump"). Some of our friends asked to borrow the "jump jump," and I really wanted to make sure it still worked since we haven't used it in about 7 months. Needless to say, it works! And it was soooo much fun! Why did we wait so long to pull it out?

Oh, and some big news of the weekend- Walker is sleeping through the night!! Finally!! He usually goes down around 7 pm, wakes around 9 pm to eat, and then eats again around 5 or 6 am, and sleeps until about 8 am! I don't know if it's the formula or the solid foods or a combination of both, but it is awesome! It's only been since November or so since I've slept for more than 5 straight hours, so the sleep is very much appreciated! :)

Anyways, 5 more days til kickoff! Go Blazers!

Walker's Ophthalmology Appointment

He might not can see very well, but at least his feet taste good!

Walker had his appointment this morning with the pediatric ophthalmologist here at UAB. First of all, let me just say how lucky we are to live in place where we have access to such fantastic medical care. Walker's doctor was amazing! God definitely put us at UAB for a reason!

On to the important stuff: Walker's unequal pupils. Fortunately, Walker suffers from physiological anisocoria, and it is completely benign! Praise the Lord! So basically, nothing is wrong; he is just gonna have 2 different size pupils in certain lighting. The ophthalmologist said Walker's pupil variation wasn't even that bad and she was surprised that I could even pick up on it.

Unfortunately, though, Walker's eye exam revealed that he is "already pretty nearsighted"...at 4 months!!! You see, she used cocaine eye drops to dilate his eyes to test for this specific syndrome associated with anisocoria (which he doesn't have), and while his eyes were dilated, she said she would just take a look. As soon as she said the first "ooh," my heart sank. It was pretty hard for me to recover after that, but I believe she said his right eye, which is the one that has a problem dilating, was a -2.25 and his left eye was a -0.025. Now, I've never had a problem with my vision in my life and have perfect eye sight, so I'm not sure how these numbers compare. All I know is that she said Walker will probably need glasses in the next year or so. :( We are going to go back in about 9 months to have his vision tested again, so we'll know more then. She reassured me not to worry (yeah right!) that his eyes might not really be that bad- it could have just been that they were trying to accommodate from the cocaine.

I would be lieing if I said I'm not at all worried about Walker having to wear glasses at such a young age...no mom wants her child to be picked on and y'all know how mean kids can be. Who knows, though, Walker with glasses might be even cuter than that kid from Jerry Maguire!

Walker's Rice Cereal vs. Jake

Gettin ready...

"Seriously, Mom?"
"You're really gonna let him do this?"
Jake explaining the spoon to Walker...
Nice head grab, Jake!

Cleaning off his mouth...

"SAVE ME!!!"

Jake says, "Open wide!"

"I LOVE IT!"

"My brother is a pretty funny guy!"

I gave Walker rice cereal for the first time today. I remember when Jake turned 4 months old, I was so excited to start rice cereal with him. This time, I wasn't as eager. First of all, all of our meal times are rushed: breakfast is rushed to get out the door to school, lunch is rushed for nap time, and supper is rushed for bedtime. I guess we just need to slow down and take our times at meal times, but I just cannot figure out how to squeeze it all in and feed Walker as well, which can be very time consuming. That sounds horrible of me, I know, but I also have another reason for not being so excited about solids- Jake just had such an issue with eczema and I can't help but think there may be a correlation with food and allergies for my boys. Who knows, though; I bit the bullet today and started it anyway. I'm gonna have to figure out a way to make it work because the boy HAS to eat! Since starting bottles, the boy has become a pig and cannot get full!

Walker did okay with the rice cereal. He didn't have quite the reaction that Jake did (a scowl look on his face), but he wasn't exactly loving it either. Oh well, he'll get used to it!

How sweet are the pics of Jake feeding Walker? To be completely honest, Jake has shown no interest in Walker over the last month; he completely ignores Walker and has nothing to do with him. It breaks my heart, but I've been praying he'll come around. (Walker, however, is still completely enamored with Jake). Anyways, Jake was sitting next to us eating a snack while I fed Walker; well, I put the spoon down to take some pics of Walker, and Jake asked if he could feed him. As skeptical as I was, I was just so excited Jake showed some interest in his brother and told him he could. And surprisingly, Jake did an amazing job feeding Walker...he even used the spoon to wipe Walker's mouth when he spit out some of the cereal. It was precious!