New Car

We have a second car!
   After many frustrating Saturdays messing with pushy cars sales men we went out and got pretty much the first car we saw.  Sure it is older than my sister Hillary but it was dirt cheep. It runs great and actually has really low mileage for it's age.
      It looks like we might get a third car sooner than we had anticipated. I suggested that we get Rocklond a little car/ bike thing that he could PUSH around. John said that we don't want to spoil Rocklond with too many toys. then John saw the little electric cars that kids can actually drive. Somehow I can't seem to convince him that we don't want a one-year-old driving a car. Oh they both make me laugh so hard.
       In other news it Snowed here in Houston. we ended up with about two inches that lasted all night until about 9:00 in the morning.  We couldn't help but laugh as we saw our neighbor pouring hot water onto his windshield to try to get the snow off of it. We were lucky that we still had our snow scraper from Cedar city.

Car Cakes

We went shopping at a mall. the malls here are so big it is a lot of fun to go walking through and see what stores they have here in Houston that they don't have in Salt lake. We got Rocklond a new Sunday outfit. here are some pictures of John and Rocklond already for church.

     I started making cakes again. One of John's friends is having a birthday and so I suggested I could make a cake. well things quickly escalated from there.  I have only done two cakes with fondant and they were both simple Round cakes. It wasn't until I was rolling out the fondant for the first cake that I realized this would be a little different. but they actually turned out to not be too hard to make. I don't know why we ended up making two cakes. I think it was a miss communication between John and I.
Here is the car cake with the crumb layer of frosting.

this is the car right after I put on the fondant (I was going for bright orange but got to tiered of kneeing food coloring in the fondant.)

and the finished car

Here is the other cake that we made. I was joking that it is too bad that his friend wasn't turning 8. I really like how I got the road to go down to a lower level and then it goes up a bridge to the upper cake. I don't recommend making chocolate fondant  which is what we did for the Road and the car windows. for some reason the coco powder makes it almost impossible to work with.

this was a fun activity to do as a family except I think Rocklond felt a little left out. he spent most of the time carring his sock around in his mouth. He would come up to us and try and hand us his sloppy stocking. I think he was happier than anyone when the cakes were done. 

 

 

Power

Power

these are some good stories. the pictures are just cute ones of Rocklond in some new fall clothes, and don't have to do with the story. 
     So we had an unfortunate event happen last weekend. I was giving Rocklond his afternoon snack when the power went out. I thought "I didn't know it was stormy today"  about an hour later It dawned on my that It was blue skys outside and that we were in for a fun weekend. John got home just as I was calling the power company to get the whole thing sorted out. well we figured out that something with the billing went wrong but since it was Friday the earliest it could be turned on was Monday for sure by midnight.
        We grilled some hamburgers on our camp stove and then it started getting dark. Rocklond was crying and crying because it was so dark. we ended up only lasting about an hour at our apt before we headed over to a friends house to stay the weekend. good thing too because all of our food in our freezer would have gone bad really fast. 

      the moral of the story is that we need more food that we can eat that doesn't need to be cooked using electricity. and daylight savings time is not so cool.  and thank goodness for good frineds

     oh but the story goes on...
we were still staying at our friends house Sunday night. Monday morning John and his friend left for work. I was left at the house with Rocklond. as the guys were leaving I ran out to give john something he had forgotten. I closed the door behind me and locked myself out of the house.  the real problem was that Rocklond was inside of the house!!!  now My first instinct was to start to cry but I told myself that that wasn't going to get me inside.
           I knew that I would be justified If I broke a window but  #1 how do I break a window when there is a baby on the other side? and #2 this isn't my house so I am a little hesitant.  I ran around frantically looking for an open window. I could see and hear Rocklond so I knew he wasn't in any danger so I started using my amazing skills of breaking into a house. I couldn't even get the screens off of the windows.

                   I said a prayer and I when I looked up I was right in front of a window that was just calling to me.   I knew that that was the one to open.  I grabbed a tool and pried off the screen. I could see the window was locked, but I told myself I would worry about that once I got the screen off. I finally pulled the screen off and the window miraculously slid easily open. I was able to jump inside and I didn't have to break anything to do it.

    Moral of this story is don't cry when you can Pray.

Trick-or-Treating

Rocklond looking for next years costume 

Trick-or-Treating
   John and I had a great time dressing up for Halloween. Rocklond was the little chicken again, John was a burnt crazy homeless Looking guy, and I was Miss America.  We had a lot of places to go and so our costumes sort of changed at everyplace.

   Rocklond even had a costume change and tried growing a mustache. 

We went trick-or-treating in one of our friends neighborhoods here are all of the kids. (can you find Rocklond)

As we went trick-or-treating I thought we were being a little silly because I knew Rocklond would never eat any of the candy we were collecting "for him." Well it turned out that he had a blast playing with it.

here is Rocklond sorting his candy. you can see right behind him he has made a nice straight line of candy that he has sucked on.

We had a wonderful Halloween I can't wait till next year.

Rocklond's Halloween Party.

We went to a little pond to try and catch crayfish. we later learned it isn't Crayfish season :( so that is why we didn't catch any.

Rocklond is a little chicken for Halloween.  his costume still needs some finishing touches before he is ready for Trick-or-treeting

We went to a little Fall Party for a Play date group that I am in they had this little back drop set up for a professional photographer, but we just jumped in and got our own free pictures.

Here is Rocklond at the party with some of his favorite girl friends. John was trying to get all of their attention and he scared one off them.  We had a fun filled saturday.

New Hair Products

Rocklond made an amazing discovery this last Week. If you mix 1 parts of Baby oatmeal and 2 parts Baby spit you get a remarkable hair jell. This new product is so strong it will turn baby soft hair into stiff curls. See Rocklond's new hair creation. (is hair is really light and so it is a little hard to see.)

this is his new favorite face to go with the hair. 

In other news John and I have decide that we are going to postpone buying a house. It just isn't the right time. 

Rocklond trying on john's belt.

ZOO

Day At the Zoo!!  
 what a wonderful day today was we saw so many interesting animals. I must confess we went more for John's sake than for Rocklonds.   Rocklond likes being outside and seeing people and he likes animals if they are close, but he mainly didn't notice them.

     It was a beautiful 80 degrees outside and so we weren't to hot or cold

this little sign is talking about a baby giraffe he is only a month younger than Rocklond

 

We had a great time being together as a family

Rocklond as a little bird that just hatched

This is my somewhat annoyed face. because John wanted a picture of every animal:)

The foolish man Built his house upon the Sand

        After a home inspection we discovered that the house has a few cracks in the foundation. the inspector told us that this was not very common in a house that is less than a year old. Our Realtor tried to convince us that the foundation was still secure and would be safe to live in an that the cracks are minimal and are because of some minor settling. She also said that we will still qualify for the loan. I thought about still going through with buying the house but John and I felt that it was best to back out of the contract. Also the house had some serious Drainage issues. because of the soil type (Mainly sand like qualitys) I just kept having the Primary Song "The wise man Built his house upon a Rock" go through my mind.

             "The foolish man Built his house upon the sand,
the foolish man built his house upon the sand.
the foolish man built his house upon the sand,
and the Rains came a tumbling down,
the Rains came down and the floods came up,
the rains came down and the floods came up,
the rains came down and the floods came up,
and the house on the sand washed away"

I think we want a house that is going to make it through the next Hurricane. :) So we are off house hunting again.

And here is the house that we aren't going to buy. sorry the pictures are on there side. 

 

Home sweet Home

JOhn and I have a house. we are shceduled to close at the end of October. I can't believe how fast this has gone.  we are hopping that everything works out ok. we will try and post some pictures when we get them and let you know when we finally close on the house.

About the house,
   It is a 4 bedroom 21/2 bathroom house. we will have plenty of space for lots of visitors. it is a foreclosure and so we don't know what the inspection might reveal. so far we know we will have to get a new AC because someone took ours.  we also will need to fight off a few spiders. other than that things are looking good. 

Some Family pictures

the first pictures are from a Houston Astros Game that we went to a few weeks ago when JOhns family was down for a visit. the other picture is from the same weekend.

8 Months

Rocklond Turns 8 months old TODAY!
I thought I would list a few of the amazing accomplishments he has done compared to what an eight month old should be able to do.

By Eight months of Age your Baby should be able to:

Bear some weight on legs when held upright

he has been doing this since he was a newborn

feed self a cracker
He can do this but it makes such a mess
look for a dropped object
Sometimes I wonder if he will ever stop looking for some things that are dropped
turn to a voice
JOhn and I love to call him from another room and wait to see him crawl in to where we are.

Will Probably be able to:

pass object from one hand to another
His favorite is a rubber duck
stand holding on to someone or something
he does this very well now
object if you take something away
this is the worst because he gets attached to the dumbest things.
work to get something out of reach
check
play peek a boo
No, but I have not really played peak-a-boo
get into sitting position from stomach
He mastered this three weeks ago
may possibly be able to:

creep or crawl
he like the army crawl best
pull up to standing position
Yes and this is the cutest thing because he gets up and then he can't get down
pick up tiny objects with thumb and finger
yes and he is very careful with what he gets
Say MAMA, and DADA. Indiscriminately
he has been saying dada for a about a month he just started saying mama but it is only when he is sad:(

May even be able to:
play patty cake, clap hands, or wave bye-bye

walk holding on to furniture

stand alone

understand "no" even if they don't obey
Ya, we are still working on these. he is so cute though that that gives him extra points.

Brynn Lee Pickett's Baby blessing

John's family came to visit us over Labor Day weekend. we had a blast! we went to an Astros Game, the Beach, and church to see little Brynn Lee Blessed. It was great to get to see everyone. Rockwell was so cute with everyone.
He recently loves to stick his tongue out all the time. he looks like a little frog or lizard. what a doll.