Happy Holidays...if you like Santa and all...

which Bryce does not, as you can tell. Our outing to see Santa was considered a success because Landon FINALLY sat on his lap and wasn't afraid...although he is a little stiff! Bryce did not tell Santa what he wanted, so who knows what he'll end up getting. ;) Landon told Santa he wants a kitchen. He also informed me (after I told him that Santa may have to save his kitchens for other boys and girls that have no kitchens to play with - Marmie and Grandpa have one) that Santa heard him and would remember to bring him a kitchen. Oh well...guess we'll see what Santa shows up with this year. Santa may have to rethink a few things...

Here is our one attempt to get a family Christmas picture. After J did some doctoring we couldn't upload it to our card site...so after several attempts we threw it out the window and started over. You'll have to wait to see what we ended up with!

Did you notice the new do? I guess I'm having a mid-life crisis...I cut it all off! I should have had J photoshop some lipstick on me...man I look pasty!

LOVE this Santa! I think he really is the real Santa!

Bryceisms...

One of Bryce's new things to do is to take all the books out of the book basket and proceed to sit in it. The only problem is...getting out! So after he tries 3-4 times to get out, and can't, he sits and cries until someone can come help him.

Bryce had one other fun adventure this week. I was working on cooking dinner and Bryce crawled in to our room...which isn't an unusual occurrence, but when he didn't ever come out I went to check on him. I found him in our bathroom playing...splashing...having a grand-ole-time in the toilet! Gross... There was water everywhere! walls, floor, Bryce...what a mess.

Happy Halloween...OK just a little late...

The Cousins - Syndey, Landon, Caroline and Bryce

Fireman Sam - ...as in Fireman Sam on Sprout of course!

Frankenstein???

Bryce is 1!!!

OK, I know I'm WAY overdue on posting birthday picts and Halloween picts...I'll get them up eventually. We went for Bryce's well visit this morning. He's going to be lean and mean like Landon. He's 23 lbs 5.5 oz and 32 inches long. That's 50th percentile for weight and 97th percentile for height. Man am I GLAD to get him off of formula! I feel like we've gotten a raise :)

Go Raiders!

Our kids are officially brain-washed.

Brycer

Here is a great picture of Bryce - Kathy took it when she was helping out with the boys while I was on a business trip. He's growing up WAY too fast! I can't believe he'll be one in October! My how time flies...

WOW!

Is this crazy or what?! This is the front of our old Friendswood house with the debris from Ike. It's hard to believe that after that much damage that there are any trees still standing...but there are and you can hardly tell that they lost anything.

Thanks for all your prayers for the fam. Emily and Thomas are still evacuees and it doesn't look like they'll be home any time soon. The Seabrook/Kemah area where they live was hit pretty hard and they are still without power and sewer service. At least they are being smart about it and not even thinking of returning home until the services are back up and running. Pray that they are able to get home soon...and for Em to get back to her office. Her salary is paid through grants for the non-profit she works for...and they have to turn in paperwork for one of the major grants by 10/1. Not a great scenario when she can't even get on to her server, much less into the school building she works in.

IKE

I am SO glad my parents don't live in Friendswood any more...not because I don't love the town I grew up in, but because they had to deal with hurricanes! They still keep in touch with the friends that bought their house. Here are some crazy pictures from the storm. Fortunately the house wasn't damaged...but they did lose 7-8 trees.

The first picture is from the front yard and the second from the back. You can't even see the grass in the second picture for all the tree limbs that are down.

Emily and Thomas, who live in Seabrook, dodged a bullet for sure! While most of the town was under water, they somehow avoided getting flooded. They just had a window or two that broke during the storm, but didn't allow much, if any, water in the house. Let's hope Thomas' folks were as lucky...they also live in Seabrook but their house is only 7 ft above sea level. For those of you who don't know where Seabrook is, it is a neighboring community to Kima...they showed lots of pictures of Kima on the news and most of that area was completely flooded.

Pink Slips

Yesterday our company (GMAC Rescap) announced that it is laying off 5000 associates - 60% of our work force. It was a sad day for many, but for now my job has been spared. I guess being in the legal department isn't all bad :) Unfortunately...or fortunately, there's MORE than enough work to go around. For now, I've dodge the bullet.

Landon's spending the week with my Mom and Dad this week. I forget how easy it is with only one child! I feel like I'm on vacation! Landon is having a blast...and apparently his new favorite thing to play is camping and hiking. Mom and Dad just got back from a 2 week trip to the Colorado Rockies and all of their hiking gear was still out when they got Landon on Monday. He's thoroughly enjoyed hiking up and down the stairs with back pack, canteen and hiking stick in tow.

Oh, to be a child again!

Sorry to be the WORST blogger ever...but this Mom, Wife and gal with two jobs is having trouble getting it all done these days. If you have room for an extra prayer...send one up for my sanity!

Bryce Stats

Bryce had his 9 month well visit today. He's a growing boy! He weighed 22 lbs 1oz (I thought for sure he weighed more than that!?) and was 31 1/2 inches long. He's in the 75% for weight and 98% for height....keeping with the Wood tradition, although he's a little bulkier than Landon was at this age. Everything else checked out great!

Picture Time...Finally!

As you can see, the blog got a new face lift! I am staying up WAY too late these days doing computer stuff. It is so addicting.

Anyway, a week or so ago I got the boys pictures taken. They turned out great! I had to limit myself...otherwise I would have spent a fortune. Here are the individuals I got of the boys. (of course I'm probably going to go to jail for scanning them...they really are better in person)

Landon - 4 years

Bryce - 9 months

More news to come on the new business. It's called Emily Anne's (after a VERY famous person I know...my sis!). My dear friend Kelly is my business partner. We haven't officially rolled out everything yet, so stay tuned....is that a teaser or WHAT!? If you want a sneak peak, we'll be at Third Monday Trade Days - in McKinney (not Canton...at least not yet) - this month...come check us out! You won't be able to miss us with our brown and turquoise displays! It's been fun but I'm exhausted working two jobs!

Hello....Blogger World....

I am officially a terrible blogger. Oh well. Here are some recent picts of the boys. They are growing up too fast!

My friend Kelly and I are working on our new business - Emily Anne's. More info on that to come! Stay tuned....

Prayers Needed

I'd like to ask for your prayers for my college roommate, Wendy, and her husband Brian. Brian has had a benign brain tumor for the past 10 years. Several weeks ago he had to go in for another biopsy. As a result, he contracted bacterial meningitis and has been in the ICU at Duke in NC. They found out through the biopsy that the tumor is now cancerous. If you'd like to, you can read their story on their Caring Bridge website -- www.caringbridge.org and the sign on : brianleonard (all lower case letters in one word).

Thanks!

I am still around...

Things have just been WAY busy here at the Wood house. Things are good with the boys. Bryce is FINALLY sleeping through the night! YIPPEE!! He's rolling all over the place. I'm sure he'll be crawling in no time, and life as I know it is going to change drastically. Guess we need to start baby-proofing the house soon. Landon is as busy as ever, especially now that it's summertime and he'd rather be outside than in.

I've changed my schedule at work. I'm cutting my hours down to 32 hours and not working on Fridays. I'll be in the office M, W, Th and home on Tuesday. Not what I asked for, but I'll take it for now and keep my eyes open for other opportunities. I'm also trying to start up a business on the side...more to come on that one :)

Mad Momma

Landon just proceeded to cut a rather large hole in chest of one of his new shirts. Needless to say he'll be 18 before he sees his scissors again!

Big Boy Brycer

Bryce had his 6 mo well visit today. He's between 95-97% on everything! He weighs 20.5lbs. He is 28 inches long. His head circumference is 18 inches. He did well...but he does NOT like shots. He came home and immediately went to sleep!

Relay for Life

The Wood fam participated in Relay For Life - McKinney on Team Anderson Friday night. Jeff's sister and bro-in-law head up a team each year. Both have battled and won the fight against cancer! It's amazing how much our friends and family has been affected by this horrible disease. It was great to see how many participated and were able to walk the "survivor lap".

The Wood Fam

Landon and Kyron Haynes - Best Buds

The Boys

OK..trying to make good on my promise to post some picts :)

Yeah! No more DocBand!!

Sweet Brothers!

Bryce Before and After

Amazing, isn't it?

Bryce...the over achiever...

Guess when Bryce does something he's going to go all out! Tooth #2 on the bottom is coming in. No wonder he's so snotty! My lands...I've never seen so much snot come out of a little boy before. This too shall pass...right?!

We made it!

YEAH! Bryce got his helmet off today. The before and after pictures are amazing. I'll try to scan the sheet that they gave us and see if I can post the pictures. We're all happy that he has it off. Hopefully his head will stop smelling so stinky :)

Landon had his 4 year well visit. He did great! They had to prick his finger and take blood and he didn't shed a tear...UNTIL...after it was all done and they had to put a band-aid on his finger. He HATES band-aids! Now he won't let me take it off because he's afraid it will hurt!

He also had to have 3 shots...poor thing! He kept asking the nurse what the shots were and she did a great job explaining without telling him they were shots. He asked if it would hurt and she was honest and said yes, but that it would only be a pinch. She was wonderful! He was a trooper and only shed a few tears. He did much better than I thought he would. Of course he's milking it for all it's worth and is laid up on our bed watching TV and resting.

The roofers are here to day and it is NOISY. Hence the reason why Bryce is asleep on the living room floor downstairs...where it is a little less noisy, but it's still pretty noisy. We'll see how long he stays asleep. I'm not even going to try to get Landon to take a nap. Maybe he'll accidentally fall asleep...OK, well it looks like he is asleep! :) I'm sitting on the bed with him working while he was watching TV. Guess I'll have to type quietly!

OK really...I will TRY to put some picts up soon. This momma has NO free time!

Bryce is on a roll!

So to add to the helmet...and lack of sleep... Bryce is cutting his first tooth! It's barely coming in on the bottom. So, he pretty much screamed most of yesterday :) Guess he doesn't like this new addition. Poor baby! Not sure if this is a sign of things to come, but he's doing things much earlier than Landon. Landon didn't get his first tooth until 8 months. Also, Bryce is already wearing 12 month clothes and he's only 5 1/2 months old! How crazy is that?! The Wood gang is doing well and counting the days until Tuesday when can officially say "So Long!" to the helmet. We had Landon's 4th birthday party this past weekend and the kids had a blast. I PROMISE to post pictures soon!

The end is near!

We went for Bryce's appt yesterday and got a great report! They said that he has made amazing progress and if he keeps it up he'll only have to wear the helmet another 2 weeks. YEAH!

Progress

So, the helmet has been a challenge to say the least. Days are OK. Nights are tough. Finally last night Bryce slept better than he's slept since he's started wearing the helmet. Guess all our prayers are working! We have our first follow up appointment tomorrow. Either my eyes are playing tricks on me, or the helmet has already started working.

Before and After

Check out Bryce's new accessory! We semi-successfully made the rather orthopedic helmet transform into a rather cute head piece.

Why is brother laughing at me? Hr must be jealous!!

Yuck! Does this helmet make me look fat?

Just fooling around

Bye now!

Snow Day!

OK, so these pictures are a little out of order... Texas weather is SO crazy. Sunday was shorts weather and was in the 70s...Sunday night and Monday morning produced rain like you have never seen...and then it started sleeting around 6:00...and snow showers by 7:00pm. Made for a fun Tuesday morning! We woke up to about 2-3 inches of snow. Landon was up at 6:45 and dressed ready to play by 7:00am. He had a blast all day in the snow. These first few pictures are from this afternoon after some of the snow had melted. The ones from this morning are the last few.

Guess if we ever move north Landon will be good at shoveling snow!

We had to get a least one pict of Bryce. It was too cold this am, so we settled for pictures of the melting snow.

This is what Bryce did today while brother played in the snow.

First snow in the "new to us" house.

Landon and Mr. Snowman. This snow wasn't very wet so it made snowman building quite a challenge. This is the best that Mommy could do...

Our Snow Angel!

Sweet Landon

Seems like all I've been blogging about lately is Bryce. Sweet Landon is hanging in there. He's a great big brother and loves his brother dearly. I can hardly believe he will turn 4 on April 10th. I have a 4 year old? How is that possible!

Casting Appointment

Jeff took some pictures of the process with his phone. Bryce did really well all things considered.

The mesh "mask"...looks worse than it was. He could see out of it. The lines drawn or so they could tell where his eyebrows were.

The casting...the OT that worked with us (Allison) was great. She will probably be the one we see on a weekly basis after he gets fitted next Thursday.

All done!

Bryce's cast

Bath time! He was a trooper!

Half way there

We had Bryce's casting this morning for the DocBand. I'd say all things considered it went pretty well. They had to put a stocking over his head and then cut a hole for his mouth and nose. He did fine when he was laying on his back and while they were doing the front, sides and front top...because he could take a bottle. When we had to sit him up and take his bottle out, he wasn't too happy. So he fussed the remainder of the time. Once they took the cast off then he was fine again. He was in pretty good spirits while we bathed him. I'm sure he had a good nap on the way to the sitters' house. We have his fitting next Thursday.

Jeff took some pictures before and after. What a mess! I'll try to post some. Now we need to put our creative minds to work to decorate the band!

Is it bad to let your baby take a nap in his high chair?

Go Tech!

We're proud of our Red Raiders here at the Wood household. It's Tech Time...all the time :) But seriously, we have so much red and black around here it's a shame not to wear it!

Bryce 3 1/2 months

Landon will be 4 in April

Big Boy!

We started Bryce on rice cereal and stage one baby food last week. He has eaten like a champ! I know I am totally breaking the rules starting him before 4 months, but since he's already in 6-9 month clothes I figured he could handle big boy food. He's doing great. So far he's had green beans, peas, bananas, and pears...and loving it!