Doctor-Free Month

We are happy to announce that August has officially been our first doctor-free month since Nathaniel was 4 months old (well he did have a hearing screening but that was not because he was sick so we have decided that does not count). Woooooooooo Hooooooooo!!! He has been sleeping through most nights now and has been generally happy all month. We love this and pray that it lasts. The Oberts were gracious enough to join us for a celebratory dinner last night to mark this major milestone in Nathaniel's life.

We have many other reasons to celebrate as well this week, Granny got moved back into her assisted living place, Daddy was a witness in a small claims trial that we won, Big Daddy had a birthday, and Dawson was born. Life is pretty good right now!

Dawson is here!!!

Nathaniel has been bumped from the youngest cousin spot and is now an older cousin. Mommy's sister had a baby boy last night. So we welcome Dawson Reid Caswell into the world! He was 7 pounds, 9 ounces and 19 inches long. Mom and baby are doing great, we are so excited to meet the newest member of our family.

Neighborhood Play

We are fortunate enough to live right across the street from the best neighbors in the world. They have 3 older boys who fascinate Nathaniel and a little girl who is about 8 months younger than Nathaniel. We spend many evenings sitting on our porch swings talking and/or chasing kids. They are a true blessing in our life! The last couple nights we broke out all our cars and the babies got to play in the street with the older boys (Nate usually gets in trouble for going into the street so he thought he was pretty hot stuff!).

Nathaniel and Malynn crusing

Happy girl!

Kids on the loose

Nater-Clips

Some poor quality videos (they were shot in the car- sorry). Not too entertaining, but these are a few of his latest tricks. First, for your viewing pleasure, the fake sneeze. He began doing this after we sneezed and he thought it was hilarious. In the video you can barely hear him but it is still cute (thus, sayeth his mother).

Second, the singing talent of Nate as he concludes with his own version of E-I-E-I-O. This is his second revision. Initially he would only sing E-I-E-I but he recently switched it up to E-I-O. Behold.....

And last but certainly not least, Nate will charm the crowd with his version of the old Twix commerical with a little "Oh yeah...."

And this, my friends, is quality entertainment in the Yancy household!

We had another fun and busy weekend. Saturday we had a baby shower for one of Nate's day care workers, followed by a birthday party - where Mom learned she should not ever try the surf slip and slide again; but Nate had a blast (he did not have near as far to fall),

and then that night Ted and I snuck out again (we are getting way too spoiled, this is 3 weekends in a row we have been out) and went to a pre-season game. Unfortuantely the Texans did not really show up for the game - we are hoping they get their losing streak over before the real season starts. Oh well. It was still fun to go. And we had an exciting ride up with our friends, the Fuquas.

Sunday was church followed by a crazy outing at Main Event for the kids Mom works with at church.....fun, fun. fun.

Random Cuteness

Just some random pics from this week....I sure do love this kid (and his daddy too).

This smile will always melt my heart!

100% Boy

The loves of my life!

We had fun with our church friends at Jump-N-Jungle

Then we had pizza!

Silly Boy!

Mom and Dad's Getaway

Well, we did it. We left Nathaniel with his Great Uncle Mose and "Gram Aunt" Peggy and we headed to the Artesian Lakes Resort for the weekend. Although we greatly missed Nathaniel, it was nice to sneak away for some adult time. The accomodations were nice, the food was incredible, and there were plenty of activities and animals to keep us entertained. A huge thank you to Lester and Peggy for all they did to make this possible for us!

A horse-drawn carriage ride to breakfast

Beautiful scenery on one of our hikes

Ted's leap-o-faith resulted in mud up to his knee!

Water slide fun!

Out on the trail!

Beware of the alligators!

A romantic candle-lit dinner in our cabin

Ted was the S'More master!

One of our old co-workers and her husband happened to be in the cabin next to us, so we spent the evening visiting with them and the raccoons.

One busy boy

Chef-Boy-R-Nate gets his start in the culinary business.

As you can see, he is very serious about his work.

The tounge out of his mouth is his signature mark of concentration!

But all work and no play makes for a lousy day.

So a little relaxation at the park.....


...followed by some cheering for the Astros.

Last night Mommy and Daddy had a nice little date watching the 'Stros vs. Brewers, while Gram Aunt Peggy and Great Uncle Mose kept Nathaniel. It was a nice treat, although Mom found it very hard to cheer against the Brewers.

15 months

It is amazing how time sneaks away from us these days. It is already August for crying out loud! My son is 15 months old. Wow.

We had a good week last week, Nate was finally feeling better and we were able to have some fun time with the Oberts. They have an amazing play area in their back yard, which we practically had to force Nate to play on. He, however, was most interested in pushing the girls' pink lawn mower around! It is so much fun to see these kids change, explore, and grow - and it is all happening so fast.

Nathaniel is picking up new words daily. His latest is cracker. He is more and more active and thinks is is hilarious to say "boo" and watch Mom and Dad jump, he loves to tickle his Daddy, and continues to enjoy push toys tremendously. He also plays chase with one of our neighbor's boys (although the neighbor is often unaware that the game is on). He is very fond of dogs and cats, and has an unrealistic outlook on animal behavior since he is typically around the calmest dogs and cats known to mankind, who let him pull their tails and kiss them in the face. Fish however, which used to fascinate him to no end, are no on the guarded list when Nathaniel is around. He likes to slap the fish tanks as hard as he can and he scares the fish.

This is a really fun stage. He is learning so much so fast and he makes us laugh daily. Last week we were watching America's Got Talent and Nathaniel took a keen interest in burlesque dancers. He squealed as they performed and readily applauded when they finished their routine and then, to top it all off, he stoop up on the couch and began cheering and clapping. We were laughing so hard, but are a little nervous about what all this may entail for the future :)

We are so thankful that God chose to share this life with us. Nathaniel is a huge blessing! We never knew how much fun parenting could be.

He does seem to be growing so quickly. Here he is driving and helping with household chores. He became weirdly obsessed with the broom one night and cried and cried when we took it away from him.

And in our illness/random rash category for the week, Nathaniel has been bumped out of the number one spot. Daddy has shingles now. I have no idea if this is related to Nate's bout with Roseola or not but it is not to fun for Daddy right now. Hopefully we caught it early enough that Daddy will not experience much pain from it. And that is our life in a nutshell right now.