The Moore Family

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Zoo Boo!

Our cousins Sarah, Jason & Alice drove down from Buda to go to (our) 2nd annual Zoo Boo! This year was so much fun- with Charlie & Alice being older & both walking. They loved running around the zoo and seeing all the animals! It was so sweet to see them interact and be happy together. Future BFFs for sure! :)

We could not get Charlie to wear the adorable monkey hat that his Grammy made him.

He was so excited about the school bus in front of him. "Busss!"

Sweet Woolery Family!

These nice ladies were fussing over the cute monkey :)

We started at the Meerkats. How cute are these two?!

Then we headed over to the Children's Zoo. They have a carousel, a petting zoo, and cute small animal exhibits.

He wasn't afraid at all!

Look at these cute groundhogs!

What am I supposed to do in here?

Alice loved riding her panda bear on the carousel! Charlie however, did not. Maybe next year!

That was fun!
(And this can count for a baby bump pic for all of you who've been hounding me! )

Charlie picking out his baby punkin.

Looking for the bears

Precious Alice, I mean Dorothy.

This was a big hit... they both loved coloring on the giant mural!

They also loved exploring on their own!

On to Charlie's exhibit- The Monkeys! He kept saying "ooh ooh ahh ahh!"

Goin' in for a kiss!

Love that sweet monkey tail!

Time to stop for a snack. Alice was so sweet to Charlie.. she calls him "Cholie" and was always watching out for him!

We are looking forward to next year when we can introduce our 2nd baby to the wonderful Houston Zoo!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Hello Again & Charlie's Updates

Hello sweet friends and family! Yes, it's been almost a MONTH since I've posted on our family blog. I'm going to blame it on the whole being a tired, pregnant, working mom of a toddler thing. Where did the month of October go?

Charlie is growing up on us, and FAST. Here's a few new things he's doing:

He's learning new things every day. This last week in his class they brought home Halloween art every day, and he learned the color ORANGE. You can ask him what color his pumpkin is and he'll say "Ohange". It's precious!
He's also learning to count and is favorite number is definitely "twoooooo".
We've moved from being obsessed with airplanes and helicopters to BUSES. He LOVES to see a school bus and squeals with excitement when we see one.
He loves stickers. Any kind of sticker. He calls them "steestee" and likes to put them all over his hands.
One day last week he heard me say "Oh Gosh" and now he says it all the time!
His favorite thing to watch on TV is Elmo (Sesame Street), The Backyardigans or the only Disney movie that we own- Beauty & The Beast. He loves the music and will watch the entire movie!
He has started to CLIMB! We have caught him climbing on the fireplace, on his toy shelves, on the tables and even out of his crib. Time to RE baby-proof the house? I think so.

If he spills his milk or snacks he'll say "made a mess!"
His favorite "nacks" right now are bananas (still), nutella on graham crackers, and applesauce.
He just loves to brush his teeth. I'm sure it's the fruity toothpaste that he really loves, but I'll go with it.
He still loves to play in the dirt & loves the slides at the park. We are planning to get him a playground to put in our backyard with a sandbox at the bottom. :)
He says "pleassssss" for everything now.. and it's just so sweet he can almost get anything he wants because of it!
At his 18 month appointment he was 32" tall (42%ile) and weighed 25lbs (46%ile). Dr. Eddings told us that our job from here until his next appointment at 24 months is just to keep him alive. With the adventurous climbing and exploring, I now see what she meant.
His eyes have changed from the darkest shade of blue to the sweetest shade of green. My boy is so special!

The pregnancy is going well. I'm in my 16th week right now which means the baby is the size of an avocado!

Morning sickness is not every day anymore which I am excited about! The energy that they speak of in the 2nd trimester hasn't picked up yet, but hopefully it will soon! I've started to feel the little baby move and all of our prenatal tests show a healthy baby so we have much to be thankful for.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Mr. Independent

Charlie is such an easy toddler. I keep waiting for these terrible-twos to hit, and I'm sure they will right when baby 2 is here. For now though, he's so good. He is very independent... often playing on his own in the playroom, outside, or in his room. Yesterday the house got really quiet and Trey & I wondered what he was up to.

We found him in his room doing this:

I didn't even know he could climb up on that glider!

Sweet boy loves his books.

We have so many that we finally bought him a bookshelf for his room. He is very particular on which books he wants to read before bed, so now he can go to his shelf and pick them out himself!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Excited to Become a Family of FOUR!

As most everybody knows, we will be welcoming our 2nd child into our family next April! We are thrilled to become a family of four, and I know Charlie will be a great big brother!

We had a fun time telling our family with these photos:

These last few weeks have been a little tough- with the exhaustion & morning sickness in full swing. It's not easy being a full-time working mom of a toddler & experiencing the joys of the 1st trimester! BUT... I gladly accept the challenges because it just means that another perfect, healthy gift from God is on its way. A couple more weeks and I'll be in 2nd trimester bliss! Trey has been a HUGE help to me letting me rest and entertaining Charlie at times, as well as taking over in fixing dinners.

Many thanks to everyone for praying for a healthy baby!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

From Disaster to Delightful

Hold on to your horses because here comes dear ol' dads first blog post!

What better to write about for my inaugural post than a subject I have been thinking about for a long time.

Ever since we bought our house in Houston almost five years ago, we have been saying that we were going to redo the back patio because the back patio was less than desirable as it was a ugly conglomeration of bricks, concrete, and rock garden.

Here is a picture of the back yard from five years ago. The best part about it is the petrified rock in the foreground. This picture actually looks better than what we had just before the project as the dogs had five years of "design" or should I say "demo" work.

Becki and I initially got quotes intending just to get it done and just "CTC" Cut the Check... but we could not bite off the quotes we were getting back for what we wanted.

I began to research what material to use and began to layout what exactly I wanted in a great free program called "Google SketchUp"

Here is a model of what I wanted to do. It, along with a detailed spreadsheet, proved to be invaluable in the planning of the quantities of material. Altogether, it would be about 300 square feet of pavers.

About two months ago we made a joint executive decision that it was now or never, so I sprang into action.

I busted out the plans, bought some hand tools, placed an order for pavers and cubic yards of Sand and Gravel, and purchased other items from Home Depot like cement and drains.

Weekend 1: Demolition

Weekend 2: Excavation

Yeah it rained the weekend I was digging out the dirt for the 8-inch cement sand base, but that didn't stop me!

Weekday 1 : Ordering the material

I called up the local Pavestone rep and got a pretty good deal on the Antique Buff Tumbled Ventian Stone. One of the few perks of being a civil engineer is that you are in contact with reps for material. I also made a few trips to homedepot and ordered sand and gravel to be delivered from a local yard.