Home Sweet Home

While in Colorado, Michael and I celebrated Ki's birthday with the family by going to Chuck E Cheese's. Ki got a cool inflatable crown and a special birthday medallion. Dressed up Chuck E Cheese wasn't very enthusiastic, but the kids all had fun.

My favorite part was when the hostess and the mouse were singing Happy Birthday and Ki led all the kids away to dance in another part of the room. Chuck and the hostess didn't know what to do, so they just kept singing to the grown ups.

Ki got to play in the Ticket Blaster. Tera got to go in with him. They both seemed to have a lot of fun:

Tess was, of course, adorable. This is her saying "cheese":

Michael was very interested in the mechanical Chuck, who sang things like Justin Beiber's "Baby" and Plain White T's "1, 2, 3, 4":

He especially enjoyed driving the Chuck E Cheese car in the baby section, but only while it wasn't moving. It was really cute because he didn't want to stay sitting for it:

Happy late Birthday, Ki! It was a lot of fun!

Michael had a blast eating "real" food while we visited. He's decided he doesn't like Gerber's pureed stuff. He prefers fun foods, like whatever Mom happens to be eating:

He's also decided his new favorite thing is to stand up. Personally, I think he needs to get a little better at it before I can really support this new phase. Holding this fat boy up gets tiring after a little while. Thankfully, he's getting better at standing while holding on to things:

He can actually stay up for a little while. It's really neat to watch. We're still working on him pulling himself up, but he's getting better every day.

Ki and Tess were very sorry to see their favorite nephew leave. They even came upstairs to help Michael pack up his toys the day we left:

Like I said, the visit was a lot of fun, but I was very ready to go home. Jeff flew out on Saturday to help with the drive. Michael thought it would impress his dad if he showed off his lung capacity by yelling for a little while. Not in anger, just happy yelling. Very cute and impressive, but the napping was nicer.

We hit some snow, and we even almost hit a suicidal deer, but, despite these setbacks, we made it home safely around 1am on Sunday morning.

Our boy was surprisingly good for both trips. I'm not opposed to the idea of doing it again sometime. Unfortunately, it takes the poor kid a little while to recover afterwards. Michael's finally accepted that we are home and we're not going anywhere for a while, but it took a few days. We're very happy to be safe and home.

(guess what mommy was trying to eat that day...)

Colorado

Michael and I drove out to visit my family in Colorado Springs for a week, and Ki and Tess are very happy to have baby Michael back in the house:

When Michael feels a little too loved, Tess tries to make Michael happy by kissing his hand, saying "Happy, happy", and giving him hugs. When that doesn't work, she just plays with his hair:

She really loves his hair:

Of course, he loves hers too:

Baby Michael really loves his smallest aunt. She'll laugh and yell "Baby" when he comes downstairs and he'll laugh at her even when she's not doing anything. They have a great time playing together:

Michael isn,t crawling yet, but he can easily get on his knees and rocks back and forth:

Lack of crawling does not keep him from getting around, though. I call this picture Escape from the Changing Pad:

Edit: I just got Michael after his morning nap, and guess who I found sitting up in bed!

He's Lucky He's Cute

Remember back when I posted that Michael just had his second tooth break through? That was what, a week ago? Since then, he's had three more teeth peek out, the most recent of which just showed up this morning. That's right, Michael's gotten four new teeth in under two weeks. He now has two teeth on the bottom and three on the top and, I'll tell you what, our boy has been a terror. Graham crackers have been our saving grace. If he's unhappy and won't let anything distract him from his bad mood, we just pop him in his walker or high chair and give him some graham crackers. Infant ibuprofen certainly doesn't hurt either.

Here are some pictures of those bottom teeth:

I tried to get some pictures of the top teeth, but all you can see are two that are spread just far apart enough to make me suspect fangs...

Like I said, our boy is dang lucky he's cute, and we're ready for him to take a break on the teething. It's no fun for anyone.