our new pool and a happy birthday...

whew - it's hot, folks!! well, maybe not quite yet where you are, but definitely here in texas! it's 100 degrees every day. who lives here??

thankfully, beamee came to the rescue and got us a new pool. we sure do love that beamee. here are some more pictures of us from the april visit...

luckily for beamee, i don't have very good aim yet!! grampee was trying to give me some lessons, though...

and, as usual, aunt aimee spent most of the weekend trying to hog luke from momma (understandably so!)...

but aunt aimee will have to fight off aunt elaina for that honor next week because we're all going to indiana!!!!!! yahoo! we are all so excited and looking forward to seeing everyone (and hoping uncle greg will make a suprise last-minute decision to come!!!). :)

and another exciting thing - yesterday was a special day for momma - her 30th birthday! :) let's just take a minute to reflect on what a wonderful mom we have, in honor of this momentous occasion. she's such a great mom, but also a great person in general. it sure was nice of her to forego that modeling career to raise luke and i instead. she's a wonderful cook too - definitely could have had her own show on the food network. and very smart, you could even say brilliant... super nice. thoughtful. giving. funny. pretty. witty. kind.... um, smells nice... buys us cool toys... let's us have some of those cool toys downstairs even though daddy wishes we kept them all upstairs... is otherwise very good to daddy, really the best wife ever if you think about it... um, humble, definitely humble... an all around great lady, folks - and now a member of the 30's crowd - yikes! :)

we had a great day celebrating yesterday but don't have too many pictures of that (or atleast not on the computer yet), but here are some other photos from may and june that show what good birthdays are all about...

balloons, especially really big ones...

ice cream, hand-delivered by the local ice cream truck...

shoving your face full of food (literally, as luke has been doing lately)...

swinging on the porch (these pictures actually from mother's day, ahhhh)...

more ice cream (push pops courtesy of the schwans man - just like when momma was growing up!)...

spacing out...

and crashing out on the floor at the end of a fun day... (or right in the middle of the morning, like a sick luke seen here, which has never ever happened before, by either me or luke - momma was amazed!!!)...

happy birthday, momma. and thanks everybody for stopping by. stay tuned again soon for an update on the birds in our garage, a visit from mimsie and grandpa, and more summer fun. bye!! :)

one.

well. momma thought if we never posted pictures of my birthday celebration on the blog, we could pretend like it never happened and that i am still a "baby." she eventually gave in, however, because she realized it would be a crime to not share pictures of me in the birthday hat...

...and to not share what a great time we had with our visitors. it sure was fun having relatives from the lehman side here for easter and my birthday and house-welcoming. this picture tells a good story because it shows what i was most interested in - cuddling and snuggling - and what ben was most interested in - sharing anybody's sonic ice that he could get his hands on. we are quite the pair...

and grampee brought me my very own german adidas outfit - thanks grampee!! ben still loves his and where's them all the time, and now i can too. :) here are too many pictures of me just playing in the dirt...

clearly i am still underfed and try to get additional nourishment when i can...

we also got to dye eggs for easter - so fun! actually ben had more fun doing this, but it was neat to watch...

and one of the neatest things was that everyone painted a birdhouse for us while they were here! they sat at our kitchen table and painted during naps and bedtimes (ours, not theirs!) and then left them for us as gifts. we were so excited about this and really love them all. i realize now that this picture doesn't do the finished pieces justice, so i'll have mom get a better shot of them and post an update another time...

so back to my birthday! yes, it happened. i am now one whole year old. momma said she will continue to call me a "baby" until i start walking, and that hasn't happened yet! so she is holding on to my youth a little bit longer. beamee and i think she is so silly...

i did enjoy celebrating on my special day with my special visitors, and i actually loved wearing the birthday hat! i never keep hats on, otherwise, so momma was happy about this...

obligatory shot of me trying to get momma while she's taking pictures... i sure do love her and can't get enough of her holding me... :)

grampee getting busted sharing some bagel with me... (while ben's belly makes an appearance in the background!)

i also learned to climb stairs all by myself! gabrielle helped me climb our indoor stairs all on my own, and then i did it with our little stairs outside - so cool!

and i got some really neat gifts too - thank you everyone! here i am wondering why this box is empty and hoping there's something better in the gift bag next to me...

me saying "roar" to a little lion friend...

and we all got to eat cupcakes for dessert - yum!!!

no picture of me shoving the cupcake in my mouth - sorry! but here is a very civilized shot of grampee feeding me a tiny spoonful of homemade strawberry ice cream! not nearly as exciting, but we started the dessert portion of our celebration way too late in the evening, so i didn't get to down a whole cupcake minutes before (an already late) bedtime...

and a nonsequitor to a shot of me downing my milk, which i love. the one thing momma loves about first birthdays is getting rid of all bottles, which we did actually a few days before my big day! and now i am downing milk like a champ (which is to say, like my brother!)...

and that is all for now. we still have more pictures from the visit, so you will have to check back again soon! bye!!

the birds and the eggs...

we interrupt our regularly scheduled blog update (including pictures from the end of APRIL and all of MAY- augh!!!) for a quick look at spring at the matthys property. several fun things are going on outside, so we wanted to share.

first, last week we had a woodpecker visiting our leaning tree in the backyard. the tree is dead and the woodpecker was taking advantage of some prime pecking real estate!! ben and i both thought this was pretty cool because we've read about woodpeckers a lot but had never actually seen one before! here's a picture of the tree...


and this is a close-up of him actually pecking away!!


we sat outside for quite awhile (in the heat!) on several different days, just watching him go at it. of course our attention spans aren't always very long, but we would play and watch him work at the same time. ben especially loved seeing the pieces of bark fall - he left quite a mess behind!!

and in the garage even more exciting things are happening - we have a birds nest in there!! take a look at our bookshelf/stacking unit right in the middle of our garage. on the middle shelf there are two brown boxes and in that top box is a little birds nest!!

ben likes to play in the driveway and the garage with the doors open a lot, so i guess the momma bird just decided to make herself at home in there! it seems a little odd to choose that spot, given all the trees in our backyard and beyond, but it makes for some excitement for us and a little nature lesson. a few days after we first noticed the nest, we then saw 4 little eggs inside - whoa! here is a close-up of the nest, but our momma didn't get the greatest pictures because she didn't want to disturb it too much...

and there really are 4 little eggs inside - it's just hard to see them because they are very small. and i should say that there were 4 little eggs inside - just late last night and early this morning they hatched!! i haven't gotten to peak at them yet because momma says we can't disturb them, and we are a little nervous about how they're going to make it in there. but we'll keep you posted on how they are doing.

we've seen all kinds of things around here so far - lots and lots of deer (almost every night), spiders, ants, rollie pollie bugs (my favorite), frogs, cardinals, blue jays, a bright blue bird we don't know the name of, a woodpecker of course, almost daily evidence of an armadillo, a recent incident with proof of a racoon (whoops! more on that another time), and lots of other animals too. surprisingly but thankfully we haven't seen a snake yet, but we know they are all over around here because the neighbors have warned us and we always keep our eyes out for those. but we do have one other creature that must be in our area somewhere close by. the eggs in the garage have hatched but now all of a sudden there's another egg that has appeared and we can't figure out what it belongs too! i know ostrich eggs are pretty big but i don't think ostriches are indigenous to this area, and i don't think they are quite this big...

i just don't know what that one is - we're stumped!

it might even be something dangerous, so we'll just stay inside and snuggle until we figure this one out...

thanks for checking in!! we'll try to be back again soon with some more pictures and another update - bye!!!!!!!!! :)