T3 Tales: Trains, Finger Paints, Florida, Snow, and 1/2 Birthday

This post is going to be all inclusive of our past month. Mike and I love the blog freefuninaustin.com and often check it out for fun things to do around town. Recently, we found a huge toy train display set up downtown, so we invited our friends Nathan, Amber, and Abe along for our little Saturday outing. We had a great time hanging out despite the fact that we had to deal with the constant rain of the day. Trains are one of Benett's new favorite things so to him the display was pretty cool.

Getting ready to go see the trains. B was pretty excited.

Watching Thomas and Percy on the track.

Our friends.

Baby Abe sleeping...cute patoot!

Andrew was also excited about the trains.

During the cold and rainy week we had in January, I also busted out the finger paints Benett had received in his stocking this Christmas. Benett thought finger paints were pretty fun and really liked how squishy the paint was on his hands. He also kept asking me to clean his hands between colors because they were "dirty" and he didn't want to mix the paint colors. I always knew he was a bit of a clean hand child, but really...these are finger paints, have at it B! Benett also surprised me on the 12th of January by reciting the entire alphabet to me without help! I could not believe that he actually made it through all 26 letters without repeating any and without me helping him along the way. What an impressive little guy!

The last two weekends in January were all about the fam. We took a trip to Florida for a long weekend to visit Uncle Steve, Aunt Tina, Patton and Katarina. This was Andrew's first flight on an airplane and I was impressed with how well he did. He nursed on the way up and down and pretty much slept the entire time in the middle. Benett was happy playing games with us, eating his snacks, and reading his books we brought along. They are both such great little travelers. A lady on our flight approached us at baggage claim to let us know how impressed she was that our boys were so quiet during the flight. She was across the aisle from us and didn't hear them once.

Andrew's first airplane ride.

Benett and Katarina playing at the park.

"Catch Patton!"

Who was putting who down for a nap?

Snuggled up with Nana.

And finally we get to today's news. Andrew turned 6 months old today and we woke up to 1.5 inches of snow on the ground! What a day to have Andrew's well-check. We thought for sure our appointment would be cancelled, but we called the doctor's office and they reassured us that they were still open. So, we all bundled up and headed out to Andrew's appointment this morning at 8:20. The roads weren't too bad except for a couple of places on the access road where we saw several cars spinning their wheels on the ice. After we arrived at the office, we realized that many people had opted to not head out because the parking lot was empty and we went right into our appointment without a wait. Andrew's doctor was impressed with how strong he was and happy with all his recent milestones. His official stats were 16.4 pounds, 27 inches long and 45.5 cm head circ. His percentages were 29%, 72%, and 91%. Andrew is a tall, lean baby and definitely has the Trimborn large head trait just like his brother and cousins.

Andrew has also been doing great things lately. He can now sit up on his own for about 45 seconds before either reaching for something and toppling over or losing his balance and toppling to the side. Andrew has also started to move towards the person he wants to hold him so if he wants Mama and Dadda is holding him he will practically jump out of Dadda's arms to get to me. Andrew also just had his first tooth break through today! I mentioned to the doctor this morning that it seemed that his teeth might have been bothering him last night because he woke up several time screaming (not like him to scream in the middle of the night) and she felt his teeth and shook her head with a look like "no way, you are just making excuses for him." Mike even mentioned on the way home from the appointment how adamant the doctor was about Andrew's teeth not coming in. Well, I felt pretty good about how well I knew my baby when Andrew started gnawing on my finger this afternoon and I felt a sharp hard corner of a tooth against my skin. His teeth aren't even close to coming in you say? I beg to differ!

"Look at me, I am sitting!"

There was one day last week when it was 78 degrees and Benett got a hold of the hose when I was trying to water. His diaper got REALLY wet and so did his clothes.