In Memory Of Kym

Kym holding Justace with Kitty lying in her lap. She really loved her grandson and I'm glad she got to meet him even if he won't remember her.

A graphic a friend created. Kym was a huge fan of the book
Where the Wild Things Are and of course motorcycles.

Kym with Josh on the left and her little brother Johnathan (almost same age as Josh) when the two were just little boys.

When I first met Kym she lay in a bed, barely able to move or talk. I've heard the expression "skin and bones" but this was the first time I saw it so literally. Josh had the two of us to stop by while we were in town for our wedding. He wanted to introduce his mother and his new bride I guess or just say hi to his mom who he knew was very sick, while we were in town. She didn't know me, had never met me, and yet, despite how weak and sick she clearly was I could see joy in her eyes that she got to meet me. I tried on my wedding dress and let her see it since she wouldn't be able to make it to the wedding. I've never felt more welcomed so quickly by someone. She was always that way. If she accepted you, you became family, no questions asked. She had so much love to give. She gave more of herself to those in her life than she had to give in the end I think.  She also was the most passionate lover of life I've ever met. She really did live every single day to the fullest more than any person I have ever met. She loved going places and doing things every chance she got. She loved riding - her Harley was the love of her life. She loved giving. She loved cooking and serving foods to friends and family. I hope, when Justace gets older, I can pass these two traits along to him from his grandmother. I hope he, like her, has a passion for life and also is loving and caring to others. Her life was cut short way too soon but at least she lived more in her 44 years than many people truly live in 100.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Tasting

Had a chocolate tasting night with Josh Friday night after putting Justace down. I had no idea there were so many kinds of chocolate and the differences between them before. We tried extra dark, dark, sea salt, black current and milk chocolate flavors. We started out tasting the 85 percent chocolate and moved on with less cocoa and more sugar. Basically, the higher the cocoa percentage the lower the sugar and vice versa. The 85 percent was pretty bitter tasting and not as sweet. Makes me wonder what baking chocolate, which is 100 percent cocoa, tastes like. I also learned you should always keep chocolate at room temperature because if it gets too hot it will go soft but if you put it in the fridge and it gets cold it won't melt in your mouth and release the full flavor. I loved the sea salt and black current the best. Sea salt was delicious with a mixture of sweet and a touch of salt. Black current was both nutty and a touch fruit flavored. Milk chocolate, when compared to the others, was so incredibly sweet...almost too sweet really.

46 weeks

Eating chilli. Why use a spoon mom? This is way easier.

Hi mom.

Yum. Chilli.

He's been trying to escape with the cats ever since it got warm enough to keep the screen door open. My little boy loves the outdoors.

The look. He's been making this face for weeks now. No idea what it is or why.

He's loving games like peek a boo. He still can't walk but he is trying. He cruises and he bear walks sometimes but his crawling has gotten very speedy. He crawls all over the house. I feel like his language development isn't great. He "talks" a lot sometimes, just making noises really and he does say mamama and dadada a lot but I haven't noticed that any of his noises really seem to mean anything specific to him. We will start planning his first birthday party soon. I've bookmarked ideas online and we've picked out a cake design at our local store already so I just need to buckle down and get to it. We are planning to prolly invite a few firends to the local park so the kiddies can play and run around.

Baseball

Well this week Astros are down to #29 in the rankings of all 30 teams. We started the season ok but now we are losing almost every game again. Our only good hitter is Altuve. We are awesome at striking out. And pitching isn't good either. We basically just suck all the way around.

Mom's Tigers are #11 in the rankings. And Ashlie's Rangers are #4.

Baseball

Well...on the plus side we aren't last last place right now...the only two teams worse than us at the moment are the Padres and the Marlins. I mean honestly everyone expected us to be last place again this season so even though we are one of the worst teams in baseball at least we aren't the absolute worst. I think honestly we are going to do better this season. We certainly can't do any worse. We've got Bud Norris and We've got Jose Altuve...so that's a big help.

My sister's Rangers are #7.  I think they aren't hitting as awesome as they were last season but their pitching seems to better this season. And of course they have former Astros Lance Berkman on their team lucky ducks.

And my mom's team, the Tigers, is #3. It's still the beginning of the season but they are one of the best teams in baseball right now. They kicked Oakland's butts. They just keep getting better.

Week 44

I can't believe Justace is almost a year old already! He's so so so different now from when he was just a few days old when we brought him home from the hospital. He crawls around all over the place, loves to be down on the floor more than he likes to be in his activity center or even in my arms sometimes. He's still not walking yet but he's crawling around great and he tries to stand on his own without holding on to things...he can only do that for a few seconds usually. He doesn't have any teeth still but wow with all crawling all over and everything he is so clumsy. He falls down and hurts himself like once every 5 minutes. I'm scared one of these times it's going to be more serious. So far he hasn't done anything beyond bruise himself. He pretty much eats little bits of whatever Mom or Dad are eating now. He can eat almost anything if given enough time to gum it to death. The only thing we won't feed him yet is honey or milk. He loves everything we give him right now. Of course his main meals still are formula bottles but I'm wondering after he turns a year old when and how to go about weaning him from formula...? I have no clue... All I know is formula or breast milk needs to be their main source of food for the first year. But what about after the first year?

I'm not sure if he's at or near the age yet where they get mean and stingy to other babies but we were at church this past Sunday in the nursery and there was another little girl in there about 18 months old. Her grandmother said she can be a pill but those two got along great. They were sharing blocks and other toys. Neither one of them was not wanting to share or play nicely together. I'm really crossing my fingers and hoping that means maybe I won't have to worry about him going through the stage of everything is his and he doesn't want to play nice with others but he's still a bit young so we will see. I really need to work on socializing him more since he has no siblings. I do know he loves sharing his food with the dogs...something I keep trying to get him to stop doing but he will hold out his hand to them and when they take the food from him he laughs so hard.

Also...he doesn't have teeth yet but I also worry about how to handle the biting phase I've heard about. I'm not sure how I will get him to stop biting if he starts that once they come in.

Baseball

So apparently my Mom, my sister and myself are somewhat competing with each other this season with baseball team. My team, of course, as always, is the Houston Astros. My Mom will be following the Detroit Tigers and my sister the Dallas Rangers. I pretty much have accepted that my Astros will be the bottom team again this year. We had a great opening day game against the Rangers but every game since then has been pretty awful for the Astros. I just hope we don't keep trading all our good players like we did last season. Altuve, for one, is probably one of our best players and I'm praying they don't decide to trade him.