summer fun

today is the last day of July, and roman has a birthday in one week! can hardly believe it's been a year! how the time flies!

july... halfway down!

can't believe that we're halfway through july already! here are some pics from our weekend in wayland over the 4th... we got to help raefe celebrate his 1st birthday and then got to hang out at ma and pa yutzy's house for a few days, too!

here is roman with his great-aunt carol (and great-uncle eddie in the background!)

i think that roman was taking notes from cousin raefe on how to devour a cake... yummy!!

roman enjoyed the push-toy... think he even got across the room by himself by the last afternoon!

roman and raefe, sporting their festive "all fired up" shirts on the 4th!

roman is quite the eater these days -- doesn't spit much out anymore and is feeding himself sometimes. (he picks food up with his fingers but likes to hold a spoon in his other hand... getting the feel for it, i guess?)

just cruisin'...

pool fun!

we broke out our new inflatable pool this weekend -- roman seems to love it! (we're not surprised since he does a huge amount of splashing in the tub on a daily basis.) :)


some friends were over for the afternoon when roman was in the pool. our friend, kyle, would blow bubbles in the water and roman would almost put his face in, trying to figure out what he was doing!

roman helped keep the pool clean by picking the grass out and putting it back in the yard. thank goodness he wasn't trying to eat it. :)
...and he's still making his "cheeeese" face - we enjoy it. :)

uncles and smiles

roman got to spend some quality time with two of his uncles this weekend! uncle trav was here from chicago and uncle rick was here from denver -- fun times! :)

roman and uncle rick

roman and uncle trav

a new game that roman likes... crawling through the "tunnel"! it's actually a blanket laying between the ottoman and chair -- so sort of a tunnel. (we have to spread the blanket out a bit more to fit mommy or daddy in the tunnel... )

something else roman has learned -- if i hold my cell phone up to take a picture of him, he scrunches his face up as if he's saying "cheeeeese". it's funny, because he won't do this if we take his pic with a regular camera. so to get him to show his "cheese" face on a video (that we take with our regular camera), i had to hold my cell phone up as if i were taking a pic with that! enjoy...

Movin' and shakin'!

Yikes! i can't believe how long it's been since we've posted on here... i've been getting some non-threatening emails (ha!) ... so sorry for the delay!! but seriously, t, thanks for letting me know that you like our blog! :)

roman has had lots of changes in the last 3-4 weeks... two big ones are teeth and crawling! he's up to six teeth (four that are pretty well in, and two that are just starting to poke through)... ouch!

he's crawling forward and backward, side to side, and sometimes even trying to pull himself up against things (coffee table, couch, glass sliding door, etc.) so it's a MUCH busier world for jake and me, but it's fun to watch him explore and get excited!

in the mornings after he's had his bottle and is dressed for the day, i put roman down and let him follow me out into the hallway. i go stand by the steps and his head eventually peeks out of the doorway... and then he either comes toward me (fast!), or he starts to come toward me and then veers off into our bedroom or the office. if he chooses our bedroom or the office, i start back toward him and he thinks i'm chasing him (which we sometimes do). he goes as fast as his little legs can carry him, and he giggles and ends up stopping and burying his face. very funny!
(choosing to crawl into our bedroom rather than to me at the end of the hallway!)


roman's a good helper -- he has his little section of stuff in the kitchen that he gets to play with while i'm doing something at the counter. he likes making noise. :) roman loves being outside - sad times when we have to bring him in at night! he gets to spend lots of time outside during the day with dawn and her kids, and then we try to get outside at night, too. he's starting to learn that it's NOT ok to eat leaves, dirt, grass, and the little whirly-birds from maple trees.


not sure what to call this... maybe the "airplane"? (also, i don't know which stotts boy is funnier in this clip... they both make me laugh!)

and finally... roman's little personality is growing and changing everyday! he is starting to have some strong dislikes -- so far, he doesn't appear to like textured food (ie. cottage cheese) or being put into his carseat. 1) when we try to feed roman cottage cheese, his tongue comes WAY out of his mouth and will hang there until the food has dropped off of his tongue. his eyes might water, too. 2) roman is flexible and very strong. when he doesn't want to get into his carseat (which is often, at least with me!), he arches his back and almost does a back bend -- amazing. he sort of head-butt me once - my eye watered and i thought he might have given me a black eye. so i'm learning some creative ways to get him into the car! :]

...i promise to update this sooner than three weeks from now!

fun weekend!

britt, ross, raefe & conrad came up for the weekend! we had a great time. wish it would have been a little warmer outside so we could have let the little boys play, but i think that they enjoyed their time together, anyway! the big boys did some disk golf on saturday, despite the wind.

it's funny when raefe and roman get together - they definitely notice each other more than they used to, and they sort of even "talk" a bit!

not many of our pics of the boys have them both looking at the camera -- here is what we came up with!!