Are You Ready For Some Football??

Here at the Johnston house we are officially ready for football. The weather may still be warm, but we can smell the leather of the pigskin already. This is all due to what we received in the mail today. Thomas received a package from "Aunt" Anna (and "Uncle" Jarret) with some new Baltimore Ravens duds. We (I) were so excited. He was napping, but as soon as he got up we tried it on. From the looks of it he already knows his favorite colors are purple and black. We are going to have Uncle Jarret's number put on the back of his little jersey. He may just be the cutest Raven's fan ever, but it not (which how could he not be) he will be Jarret's cutest fan. I say that with apologies to the rest of my family, but I think they will agree. :) GO RAVENS!!

Here is Uncle Jarret in his Raven's jersey. Although both look very happy to be wearing their Raven's gear, the debate on who is cuter is still ongoing. :)

Thomas and I both agree that he looks a lot cuter than his Uncle Jarret.

Here is Thomas' super cute sweatsuit. When he "goes" to the game in Jacksonville it is sure to keep him warm.

Our Big Boy

Thomas will be 6 months old in about 2 weeks. He thinks he is going to be 6 years old. He wants to be so big. His new favorite toys are the TV remote (shhh, don't tell him, but we have removed the batteries) and cords to daddy's laptop. He has figured out how to unplug the wires plugged into the computer. Man are we gonna be in trouble one day. But his newest big boy thing is drinking out of a sippy cup. I don't have to hold it or anything. He loves his water. He gets so excited when we give it to him. You'd think it was Coke or something extra yummy. He is so cute when he gets to much, he knows to pull it out of his mouth and everything. Ahhh, our little genious baby. What to do, what to do?? Well, thanks for letting this new mommy brag on her little one. Enjoy the pics.

Here is our big boy. In between teething on his cup, he actually does drink some.

I am playing airplane with Thomas in this picture. He liked it a lot, until I got the camera and then he just wanted to grab the flashy thing that Mommy had. And man, I don't know where he got those eyes, but they sure are something. They don't get any bluer than that.

Is that a ghost??

I have babysat for the McNichols family for almost 5 years. Matthew at the time was 2, William 6 mos., and Megan very unplanned. Now they are 7, 5, and almost 4. (God had his timing on Megan.) She has kept life interesting from the moment she entered this world. She is her in her own little world most of the time. Sometimes she will join ours, and sometimes she allows us to join hers. Her mom, Ina, and I have become great friends. So now that I have Thomas, I still see them about as much as I did when I kept them. Well, Ina and Scott need some time away, and they have yet to break anyone new in, so Thomas and I went over to their house on Wednesday night and kept the kids. We had a blast. Megan though had more fun than any of us.

I layed Thomas and Megan down for a nap on Thursday, and went downstairs to wait for the boys to get home from school. I kept smelling something that was familiar, but couldn't put my finger on it or why for that matter that I would be smelling it. (I knew the smell, but don't want to give away the story.) The boys got home, and I heard Thomas on the monitor. I went to go upstairs to get him, and hit Megan with the door on my way up. I could not believe what I saw. Megan was stanging there in front of me covered from head to toe in Desitin. Now for those of you who are not parents you may not understand how horrible this is. That is no regular lotion. It's like a paste made from oil, and it stinks. Now you may remember from past pictures that Megan has a head full of curls. So this makes the situtation even crazier. Here I was with 4 children, one needing his bottle, two needing to do homework, and one covered in diaper ointment.

I went upstairs and called Ina. She had the idea to call their grandmother to come and help me. Thankfully she did. She was able to take care of all three boys while I got to work on our "sweet baby girl." Only then did I realize what I was in for. It was EVERYWHERE!!! The stair, the walls, but mostly in her bed. She had sat there and rubbed it all over. It took me and the boys forever to clean it up. I never got it totally off of her, but Ina and I joke that her skin and hair will be nice and soft for awhile. And she shouldn't get any rashes anytime soon either. I do regret that I got no pictures of this incident, it was pretty funny. (And it appears to have come out of all of her bedding. Yippee!!)

So... that is my excuse for not having posted recently. I will try and get some new pics of Thomas up soon. He is getting cuter by the minute and getting closer to crawling everyday.

Traveling

Here is a picture of Aunt Heather and Blake as they headed to Fargo, ND. I think they have both decided that three days of driving is not good for anyone. Stories include her mom (who was following them in Heather's car) getting shot. We don't think this one is true. But those of you who know our family might tend to believe it. I also heard that Blake and Heather attempted to kill many people by bullying them with this truck. Even with all of the drama, it appears that they have arrived safe and sound.

Life

I guess that you always know that life changes continuously, but sometimes it just slaps you in the face. Heather moved on Tuesday. It was sad. We have all cried many tears. (Okay, so we don't know if Thomas' were because of her moving or not, but we can only assume.) It's sad. We miss her so much already. Have I mentioned that it's sad?? :) I am the only one left in Tampa now. (Jen moved 2 years ago.) I have told them that I am "holding down the fort" until they both move back. Hopefully that will happen in about 2-3 years. I will make it until then. If they wait any longer, I may just have to pack them up and move them back myself. I don't think their husbands will mind.

Thomas is really moving now. We have a rug that has become his play place. He rolls all around and scoots all over. Tonight for the first time he got off of it. I figure that is a big step. (Or crawl anyway.) Tyler was in the living room. I think that he was trying to get to him. The scary thing is, there are two steps between Thomas' rug and the living room. I think we will be purchasing gates very soon. I am not sure if I am ready for the crawling stage or not, but I guess that I have no choice. Baby proofing, here we come.

Thomas with Aunt Heather and Blake. We took this the night before they left. After this picture was taken many tears fell. We miss her so much already. :(

He loves his Chucky Cheese bib that his Aunt Heather gave to him before she moved.

I think he knows that he has done something that is both great and that will make his mother crazy. He looks just that pleased. Well, I am sure this is just the beginning of the now mobile boyhood.

Our Busy Life

It seems like it has been forever since I have posted last. It has been a crazy week. Heather moves tomorrow, so we have been having a lot of dinners in her honor. Her and Blake also got engaged last week so there have been dinners in honor of that as well. (I will try to post some pics of the couple and the ring tomorrow.) I made two trips to Cedar Key in a 5 day period. My son now hates the car. I think that he is scared that when he gets in is car seat these days it will be for 2 1/2 hours. I hope he recovers from this soon. He is exhausted and somewhat fussy. Those who know him know how unusual that is. I am hoping that it won't take too many days for him to recover.

Thomas is getting so old so fast. He is now 5 months old. He is eating veggies and fruit and loves them all. He gets so excited whenever he sees food or a spoon or anything that indicates eating. This also means when we are eating. He will grab the drink out of your hand. This, of course, is very fun when you aren't expecting it. I blame this on his father. He is the one who started giving him sips of his drink. He tries so hard to crawl. He can't quite do it yet, but can move if he really wants to. (Look at the pictures below.) We know that as active as he is, once he actually begins to move, our life will change drastically.

I have put up some pictures from the last week. I hope you enjoy them. My favorite is the one of him and Tyler playing on the computer. Tyler has a game that he and his friends play together (the reason for the headset) on the computer. Thomas really enjoys watching this. And I enjoy watching him. :)

P.S.: Thomas was very excited to see his "Aunt" Mary Beth on both trips to Cedar Key. She is by far his most favorite 2nd cousin with brown hair and brown eyes. (I'm hoping that she is his only one. If not, she is also his most favorite 2nd cousin that is 5'10" and engaged to Ryan.) Anyway, we do love Mary Beth and he really does like her. She can always get a good smile. (If you are confused by this addition, read the comments for this post.)

Thomas with his Papa and his cousins Lauren and Sarah. Thomas is too worried about the dogs to look toward the camera.

Thomas loving on his Papa.

Thomas and daddy "working." It just depends on what you call work. :)

This is the face of our almost crawling boy. You can tell by his smug expression that he thinks he is hot stuff. Nah, he doesn't think it, he knows it.

We're not sure what you call this, but it seems to work. He pulls up his legs and then pushes off.

He sees his toys, and wants to get them. He knows he can. He really does.

"Hey, I may not have the best form, but it gets me closer to my toys."

Some Fun and Random Pics

I have finally gotten around to putting all of the pictures that we have taken recently on my computer. We had a fun and busy week with the Baxleys, and will miss them so much. We always hate to see them leave. Although, I must say that it is a little harder to see them leave now that they have Martha. She is so cute and we love her so much. Noone loves her as much as Thomas. He just smiles and smiles when he sees her. Martha is just beginning to smile and is in that stage where it takes a ton of work to get her to smile. Unless, of course, you are Thomas and then you just have to be in the room and she will smile at you. They were so cute together. Jen and I had so much fun with the two of them. We are enjoying entering this stage of life together.

Who says you can't get two newborns to pose for a picture??? Well, this is proof that you can. And this was the first picture. They just went downhill from this one. I believe that it ended in tears. Although once we calmed Jen down the babies were ready for more. :) They are so cute together though aren't they? One day they will make an adorable couple.

While Thomas got bored very quickly with this photo shoot, Martha seemed to enjoy it. We were able to capture one of her sweet little crooked smiles. Awww, we will miss her so much.

Jen and I have decided that Thomas thinks Martha is the best tasting baby ever. He always wants to chew on her. We think that maybe he sees her as a big stuffed animal. And we all know what he does to those. Martha, however, is very unsure of this spit on her head.

Thomas started digging through Martha's diaper bag while they were at the house. He pulled out several things, but our favorite was the sunglasses. I had to put them on him. He has never worn sunglasses before. He looked adorable. And yes, there are flowers on them. He didn't seem to mind though.

Thomas is not quite ready for his big boy high chair, but he had a good time testing it out the other night. Although as usual he had a very unsure expression.