Again with the pictures

So I posted some of these photos on facebook and then I get an email from mom asking why the hell they weren't on the blog. If she's capable of writing an email, maybe she should get on facebook, then I wouldn't have to post the same pictures twice. Although Colleen said she would do the blog now since I'm so busy, she hasn't really been keeping on top of it. Not that she has any more free time than I do, but you know. So here I am, 3am on Monday morning posting pictures. Anyways, Colleen's been on a sort of hat buying rampage the past couple weeks. She's really only bought him two hats, and they were cheap, but she just gets so dang excited over them. Of course, once she gets excited and decides he's cute enough, the photo shoots ensue. So here are some photos from some of those.








She didn't buy the hat in this last picture, we already had that one. So I guess not so much of a hat rampage. Silas is doing pretty good. We think he might be starting to get a tooth in, I can feel anything for sure but Colleen said she kind of can. He's still gigantic, and I think he's getting ready to try crawling. He can scoot really good, and it's quite amusing to watch him, and now just within the past couple days he's been getting up in a crawling position, but then just falls down again. He's done it a few times that I've seen him, and he always looks so pleased with himself.

So other than baby stuff we haven't been up to much. School is still going good, and work is work. We had a good weekend here, my friend Jason and his friend Kellie came into town on Saturday so we hung out all weekend. It had been a little over 4 years since I had seen Jason, so it was cool. He met his friend Kellie on the Ferry going from Juneau to Sitka during spring break, and she's from Australia. She's a on a year long rip around the world, and she was a really cool person. She taught us some Australian slang, such as bikkies, which are crackers, or rather, biscuits; "it's all wucky ducky", which means no worries; and the best one of all is "packing darkies". Now, before I tell you what it really means, the first time I heard her say it I about choked on my food, since in America, and apparently not other countries, "darkie" is slang for a black person. So I hear this and I think that this girl I just met is a complete racist, but then she tells me the real meaning. It's slang for pooping your pants. So if you get really scared or startled you could say that you're "packing darkies". Colleen was very amused by this, and she seemed determined to say it in normal conversation. I told her not to say it other than to our close group of friends, as most people would probably take it as some sort of racist slave ship thing or something. I was just going to give an example, but then I thought that probably wasn't a wise idea. She also told us about this thing called Aussie Rules Football, which is like a mix of soccer, football, rugby, and kicking each others asses while not wearing any pads. Seriously, these guys jump on each other, hit each other, kick each other, it's awesome. You should search for it on you tube. I know Ben will, and so should everyone else. It's awesome. Anyways, hope everyone else is doing good.

More Pictures

There's a video I took today of Silas in his Johnny Jump Up. He's starting to enjoy a bit more now. We tried a few weeks ago and he just wasn't having it. It's funny how much can change with him after just a couple weeks. Earlier today we brought him with us to a thing here in Boise called the Boise Curb Cup. They block off some areas of downtown and then people perform, musicians, dancers, magicians, artists, etc. You get these little wooden chips, and you go around and vote using your chips on which one you think is the best. You can give all your chips to one place, or spread them out. You get 3 chips per person. We didn't get any chips right away, but then when we got to the end we realized that a girl we know who does burlesque dancing was doing a thing with her dance group, so then we got some chips and gave them all to her group, cause they really were the best. The winning person or group gets a $1000 cash prize. Last year the winners were a group a little kids doing karate. They were there again this year, and some of them are kind of scary. Most of the kids look like they're under 10, and they move pretty fast and can do flips and stuff. We had Silas in the front carrier we have, and at first we had him facing forward, but we think it might have been a sensory overload for him after about 15 minutes. He started freaking out so we turned him around so he was facing my chest and he kind of burrowed in to my sweater and fell asleep.
I started school this past week, which was pretty fun. Just taking the basics for now, once I get all those out of the way I'll start taking the more hardcore stuff. I figured it out the other day that If I can take 12 credits each semester and 12 credits each summer, I can graduate in 3 1/2 years, which would be pretty awesome. It's just a matter of being able to take 12 credits in the summer, although my friend Adam said he took 18 one summer, so I think I might be able to make it work. We'll see. It also depends on if I can get a Pell grant for the summer semester, too.
Other than that we haven't been up to much. Oh yea, another Silas thing, is that he's starting eat his rice cereal more regularly and his mouth and tongue coordination have gotten a lot better, so that's pretty cool. We did figure out the other day that the more cereal he eats, the more different his poops are going to be. He wasn't prepared for it and neither were we. It was still kind of amusing though. There are some pictures from bath time tonight and from eating the other day. Oh yea, the one picture of him by himself in the chair is kind of a funny story and also tells how big he's getting. Last year, when were in Idaho Falls for Christmas, we went to Gymboree in the mall one day. We bought him a few outfits, some pajamas, a cute little one piece with a fox on it, and these gray plaid pants you see in the picture. The two outfits we bought were for 6-9 months, and the pants are 9 months. Today is probably the only day he'll be able to wear the pants, and he's almost outgrown the other stuff. He's 4 1/2 months old now. Colleen used to weigh him once a week when she went to baby and me class, but she hasn't been in a month since she's been working. Last time she was there he weighed 17lbs, 8 ounces. We have a doctor appointment this Friday so we have a bet going to see who will guess his weight the closest. I haven't decided yet on how much I think he'll weigh. I've got a few days to think about it though. Anyways, bye.

eeeeewwwwww yuck!

Lets just say intro to rice cereal did not go over so well!


mom and dad sure got a kick out of it!!

new and exciting things

(this pic shoes off his eye-brow lifting skills!)
We had a fun photo-shoot at the park: tiny baby was compliant, big baby (Matt) cried a bit!

Silas is getting close to 4 months old ....
and he is starting to do some big boy things,
like grabbing objects and then looking amazed at himself for holding the object.
He also likes to be involved with us at all times and when we leave him sitting in his bouncy chair and he can hear us talking or doing something in the other room he demands to be let in on the fun! This happened the other night when we were trying to eat dinner so we decided to strap him in his high-chair for the first time and seat him next to us... he was so thrilled to be sitting with us he could hardly contain himself...he was cooing and kicking and flapping his arms in excitement! Next new and exciting thing: baby food introduction!

Hiking!

Hi all,

Below is a slide show, or it might be above. Frankly I'm not entirely sure how this things works. It's taken me damn near 4 days to figure out how to even post a slide show, and it moves a bit faster than I want, but I don't know how to change it so deal with it. My friend Adam and I went hiking this past Saturday to a place called Rainbow Lakes. He had been up in the area a couple months ago and said it was a really neat area and so we decided to go and check out these lakes. We knew it was about 3 1/2 miles in, and he had said that there was an elevation gain of only about 1200ft over those 3 1/2 miles. Gentle slope, I thought to myself. So we parked and started hiking. It ends up that all of the elevation gain is in the first 3/4 mile, and it was super steep in parts. Maybe not quite 1200ft, but a considerable amount. Anyways, so you come to the top of this ridge and then drop down in to a basin and there's about 7 lakes total that you can hike to, all within about 3 miles from the top of the ridge. It was way cool and very pretty up where we were. We fished a lot on a couple of the lakes but didn't catch anything. When we got back to where we were parked there's a little lake and I wanted to try at least once more so I cast in and landed a decent sized rainbow trout. I got it in to shore, was crouched down and had just got the hook out when a voice behind me said, "You got something there?" It startled me and of course, I dropped the fish back in the water. I turn around and there's an older guy with his grandaughter standing there looking at me. I didn't say what I wanted to, but took my loss and skulked away. Just kidding. I told him I did have something but I lost it and then thanked him for distracting me, then I fished for another hour and didn't catch anything. It was still a lot of fun though. Colleen and Silas went and hung out with her brother and sister and other family, because I know you were all thinking, "Well what was Colleen doing while Matt was gone all day?" There's your answer. We just back from the park and took some photos so I'll post those in a couple days.

More Pictures

Here are some more pictures. When it's getting close to his bedtime but we're not quite ready to feed him we take him out in the back yard to distract him. He was being extra cute last night, so naturally Colleen took 500 pictures of him. As you might be able to tell by the first photo here, he was starting to get a little irritated with Colleen and was showing his displeasure by motioning with his finger.

Here's a picture of our hay bale garden. It's not doing too good. The tomatoes are going really good, but everything else we've planted has been getting eaten. Except for the radishes, too. We got a few of those.