Pirate Party for Noah

between the ferocious tummy bug and the month-o-trips i know i've been a slacker-blogger lately. so. here are some adorable pix that my friend Kimberly took at our little friend Noah's 2 yr. old b-day party on 9-19 to hold you over! it looks like the new york trip and mexico trip(maybe even pst's 1st ER trip) will be a slide show, so i'll be working on that combo this weekend.

now, check out the cutie in the dumptruck below:

(credit to Avery for posing as an adorable prop in the pink bow:)

First day of school & a new do for E & K

This morning Patriot headed off to the 1-year-old class of Highland's Mother's Day Out like a pro! Of course, he burst into tears at the thought of leaving me (sniff, sniff) at the door, but was done with his outburst before i made it down the hall! At pick-up Miss Olga and Miss Rosalie told me all about his wonderful day taking a buggy ride, playing with pecan leaves, going down for a nap all by himself, and drawing me a pretty picture!

Before we left the house we grabbed daddy & took some traditional Wheeler 'first day of school pix' out in front of our casa to commemorate the day:)

little and big sitting on the front steps

little and big standing by the front door

my little is getting so big!

i thought it would be fun to have him pose by the front door by himself, but he wasn't so keen on the idea (thus the above pic was taken w/ dad just short of the camera's view:) he would rather scrape up his knees going up and down the cement steps...sheesh, is he all boy or what?
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While PST was enjoying his time away from mom, mom & aunt eeee were enjoying some time at the salon:)

Erin donated 12 inches to Locks for Love today---doesn't she look cutie?

i let casie work her magic and added back a little highlight & kicked it up a notch!

E & I were a little giddy while posing in front of the house as the Colcord traffic paused for a moment to wonder what these crazy blondes were up to...self-portraits, of course!

What do you feed a boy with all 4 molars?

Meat & Potatoes

(well, in our case beef brisket & sweet potatoes:)

you will notice the tray is pretty full (though i did have to reload the meat & sweet potatoes 3 times, as soon as they cooled to my liking)

so focused. he would eat the brisket as soon as it touched his tray.

he cleared it the tray and then asked for "moh" (or more, if you don't speak patriot:) what a little ham!


don't be scared of the following attempts to capture the tooth on film:

On Friday 8/22/08, Patriot ended up with his last molar (from the one-year set) & his bottom right tooth (next to the bottom two) popping through.

he thought i was a riot for trying to take pix of the new tooth (didn't even attempt the molar!) for the grandparents. why do they always want proof of these things?

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okay, the following pic has nothing to do with teeth, it was just funny:

after much effort and debate, patriot has lobbied to take possession of Samson's baby blue dog collar (our puppy from before pst was born). yesterday, he crawled and cruised all over the house 'wearing' sam's collar as his bracelet. it was too funny! he LOVES to unload his diaperbag all over the kitchen floor in search of treasure: this time he found some juice snacks. he raised them up to me and asked "moh?" just as i snapped this pic. thankfully it was snack/milk time, so off we went to the living room--his pirated juice snacks in tow:)

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FIRST STEPS--Saturday August 23, 2008

Much to the dismay of the grandparents, we do not have any action shots yet, BUT Josh & I were both there to witness his first unassisted steps!

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It was a lazy saturday afternoon at our house (especially for me 'cause Josh let me take a nap after I fed pst this am:) and we were hangin' out in our living room watching the Olympics on TV when it happened.

As a side note: Patriot has been standing up from a seated position for a couple of weeks, usually holding a small toy or other object in his hand to keep his balance (a mental thing, i guess?) He had been pulling up forever, it seems, but this standing from a seated or sometimes tripod position is new, and seemed to be one step closer to walking. We have tried to get him to walk from one parent to the other, but he just laughs and sits down, if he can't reach out and touch your fingers. He loves to 'walk' holding onto our just our pointer fingers. He holds himself up and propels himself forward with seemingly little effort. Just not brave enough to try it alone, until today.

Back to this afternoon: so when he stood up in front of Josh today he reached out his arms and said, "Come here. Come to me, bubba!" Patriot's little face lit up and he took TWO steps forward and lunged into Josh's arms--Sooooo precious! We tried to get him to walk to me. Nothing. Back to Josh? No way. Just smiled at all of our futile attempts as he stood, then collapsed, laughing all the way to the floor.

Josh looked at me and said, "So is this official?" And I agreed. Yep, this milestone will forever be Patriot's first steps!

After 24 hours of craziness, milestones, and photoshoots, patriot hid behind the chair that is supposed to keep him out of the front hall and gave one last glimpse of that new pearly white.

my baby is quickly growing up...sniff...sniff...weakly smile...yea!

riot & shi shi

okay, i realize these are not the best quality pix i've ever posted of my son (and our poor dog), however, i couldn't resist snapping a few. patriot has become obsessed with shiloh's hideout, a.k.a. our bed.

while i was changing our sheets this week, shi snuck up on the bed and riot was desperate to join him.

first shi is nervous and riot isn't sure he is allowed to be up on the bed...

but, after a second, shi rolls over and patriot begins to gently pet his tummy (to my urgent, gentle, GENTLE) so pleased with himself:)

this was too cute not to post, but again a little on the blurry side as it was a momentary rest for patriot!

he looked SO cute that i had to sneak in one more shot of him!

Celebrations & Congratulations:)

It was a week full of fun events from birthdays & baby showers to Baylor graduation (whoo hoo clay:)



i think the slideshow is MUCH better bigger, so click on the link (left, bottom) to open my web-album in a new window and view it that way. if you have to, watch it little. just a strongly worded suggestion:)

Aunt Eeee really wanted to take Patriot to the zoo for her birthday. So, hot as the Texas summer is in August (101 that day?), off we went to Cameron Park Zoo. We did get some great pix, so it was a win, win, win situation.

(okay--that slideshow took it out of me. i will have to blog about the rest of our adventures later:)

Sweet kisses

Open-mouthed: This has to be the best kind kind of kiss: wet, full-contact, & straight out the bath in his elephant towel.

Don't be alarmed--my dad and Patriot aren't tying to eat each other, it only appears that way on camera! Noni takes her kisses with a little less flair than Grandpa Greg;0)

I think I took about 8 pictures to capture ONE with the ele on his head--this boy does NoT like hoods, hats, or anything touching his beloved hair for more than 1/2 a second!

Patriot has some fun tricks these days and usually enjoys sharing them with others. He can give a kiss, wave/say bye-bye, turn on/off light switches, & place his sippy cup back on the highchair tray after dangling it overboard, just to name a few. Each one takes a little gentle prompting, but the kiss, the current family fave, is definately worth it:)

A Life Well Lived

So unexpected. This thought popped into my mind as I spoke with my dear friend Haley (wife of Stephen & mother of Isla) two weeks ago as she told me her father-in-law, Dr. Mark, had a stroke on the beach while on vacation in Cape Cod and is in a coma. So unexpected. While his family circles around him in his hospital bed, praying, singing, encouraging one another, the decision has to be made. The doctors confirm Dr. Mark is in a deep coma and the stroke happened in the wake-up center of the brain...Dr. Mark is not going to wake up. So unexpected. The flood of letters via blog, phone calls and prayers from around the world celebrating his life as Dr. Mark wakes up in heaven early Saturday morning, July 26th. So unexpected. E, Josh & I attended his memorial service at FBC McKinney this past Saturday...a short week after his passing from this life to the next. The legacy of Dr. Mark lives on in a mighty way through the lives of his 5 children and 9 grandchildren. Hearing the unique testimony of each one of his children shows that this man lived the life of a good & faithful servant. Meet anyone of the Presleys, or scan a post on their blog (sonofwhale) and you will find that the heart of this man closely echos the God he faithfully served for 62 years...not so unexpected.

Riot & the Goldfish drop

Whatcha think of our Blog mini make-over? I bet you are wondering why we decided to change our name...well, take a look at this video and I think y'all will catch on:)

Our adorable son Patriot was affectionately given the nick-name Riot by my little bro Clay, while in utero. I jokingly said that we would adopt that name for Patriot once he turned 2, however at the ripe old age of 14 months he has earned this fitting title. Not for the reasons I had envision, but simlply because he is filled with infectious laughter...this kid is a riot!

ps--we are having some technical difficulties w/ the back ground, so bear with us a bit and check back soon.

nic, melissa, & rose-can you believe i figured out how to do a movie? shocking, i know:)

my 13 month old (for 5 more minutes:)

Sweet baby boy,

This month you were SO busy. Each day it is amazing to me how you grow into a little boy a tiny bit more, yet you are still my baby in so many ways. I cannot believe you will be 14 months old tomorrow!

Today your top right molar popped through and you cried like you did as a tiny baby; nothing worked to cheer you up or make it better for very long. Aunt E sat for you tonight so Daddy and I could go on our date night and you gave her a run for her $. When we got home you cheered up a little (in fact laughed hysterically for about 5 minutes) when Daddy took you outside to throw some black cats (ummm...tiny popping fireworks?). Suddenly, I could see the little boy in your eyes once again.

Your tag line is "aw don" which is translated as "all done, I'm done, look what a good job I did, umm...NO more water, and I'm ready to leave!" Plus many more that haven't been decoded yet. You practice some of your signs, surprising me with "bath" or "thank-you" every now and again, but mostly you carefully try to copy our words.

Tonight you half cruised, half crawled to your highchair, pulled out your cheerios from your snack basket and handed them to me, as if to say, "I'm ready for dinner now"---amazingly enough it was 5 of 6:00 and you were right on time! You still love cheerios and goldfish, but have found yummy things like animal crackers, teddy grahams, pasta (the little wheels and shells are the current fave), strawberries, grilled chicken, and GRAPES.

While you aren't walking on your own yet, you sure have a great system in place to get from point A to point B. Noni says I didn't walk 'til the end of my 14th month, so I'm not holding my breath! In fact, I think you rather enjoy being toted around in my arms--the view is much better from up here:)

You are still nursing twice a day (morning and bedtime) with the exception of the past few days when you had a tummy bug and couldn't have dairy products w/out major issues! We snuck in a couple extra snuggles, feedings, and late nights rocking together as your first two molars (Sunday and today) broke through during the tummy virus. whew...and they wonder why we don't blog more;)

I love you my son and enjoy each day the Lord gives me as your Mama.

love always,
mama

patriot's new girlfriend?

These two cuties were caught by the paparazzi holding hands: Isla Catherine & Patriot Shane. Could it be love at first sight? Maybe one day they will be classmates at good ole' Baylor U. Sadly for Mr. Patriot, Isla will be heading back to the isle of Scotland at the end of the week:(

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Happy 4 month birthday Isla:)

Some stats on this sweet baby:

• she is on holiday in texas, but was born and will be bred in scotland while her daddy works on yet another fab degree!
• her mum and dad (Haley & Stephen) were close friends of our in college (hales was one of my roomies:)
• she was born after 30 crazy hours of labor by a midwife (in a scottish hospital) in the chilly march
• she weighed in at 9 lb at birth, but she still looks little to me compared to my little chunk
• her hairbow arsenal is full thanks to her aunt lauren :)
• she is very bubbly, however is vocal about her desires to eat & sleep (who isn't?) like a certain 13month-old i know:)