National Coverage!

Our bar, Kirby's Beer Store was featured in the July issue of Playboy Magazine as one of the top Dive Bars in the country! We were pretty excited about it, but have no idea how they decided upon us. The article was really part of a larger story talking about the best bars in the country and best late-night eating spots.
Also, one of the local TV stations did a story on it:
http://www.kwch.com/videobeta/8cae7c65-6adb-4096-9dbb-4d854a6d5674/News/Video-Wichita-bar-makes-Playboy-s-list-of-best-dive-bars

Hotness in July!

After the 4th, Alex and I took off for a four day trip to Missouri without Solomon. We started at his brother's house in Ozark and then went to the Big Cedar Lodge just outside of Branson. It really is a beautiful place. The town of Branson isn't exactly our "cup of tea" to say the least, but perhaps if we were 40 years older it would be. :) It was a lot fun.

Below is Alex refusing to take a normal photo with his margarita. We had the best Mexican meal at Cantina Laredo. Good stuff.

Below is a photo from outside of our hotel room. Very pretty area.

Below are two photos of crazy Branson shows... The Dogs onboard the Titanic show is the weirdest one I saw... Yakov is the staple and has the goofiest sign, so I had to take a photo before "Lauging my Yakov". Below is a photo of Rhanda, Cherie and I. We met up just after I came back from Branson. It was so fun to see both of them. We had some good laughs.

Alex, Solomon and I went to KC this past weekend to visit his mom and sister and brother-in-law. Below is a picture of my friend Cherie's son, Eli, with Solomon watching some Curious George. I think it's pretty cute.Alex's old friend, Adam, also stopped by with his wife, Alyssa, and their son, Asher. Asher and Solomon took a bath together! It was so cute. I don't have the picture available.. sorry. I suggested that Adam and Alex take a bath too, but it didn't fly... :)
Below, are some random photos of Solomon. I love the one below of him with Alex's softball hat.

A few last things.. videos of Solomon being cute.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Father's Day and Other Stuff

Solomon loves blowing bubbles and gets very mad when I won't let him hold the container, so mad, that at some point I typically just give in and then the bubbles end up spilled on the ground! Below is a typical meal for Solomon... not the most graceful eater on the planet.

Solomon and Coco continue to be BFFs.

I spent half of Saturday at a music festival that our bar sponsored. Thanks to Stephanie and Bevan for coming out to help us out. We had a good time people watching.

We had a great Father's Day. Alex played a couple of softball games in the blazing heat and I did stuff around the house. We also went to my parents' house for dinner. My mom made some amazing lasagna... regular for all of us and diary free for Alex, Jimmy and Solomon. They said it was super good too. I'm loving the leftovers as well. Solomon was super excited for Zoe to chauffeur him around in the Corvette.

Zoe is soooo my niece.. I love the poses. Of course Solomon is just reaching to turn off the car. He loves to do this and it just annoys Zoe.

Riding off..

A short video of Zoe and Solomon driving around.

Okay, so I'm just SURE that Solomon is sooo smart. Look how well he draws an apple in this video.

It's Been Awhile!

It's important to stick out one's tongue when performing tasks with a golf club and hard hat.
He's getting better at drawing shapes that mean something. This is a "circle" for a face.
Solomon pointing out his drawing (on the side of the house of course) of Uncle Zach. It consists of two pink lines.
The morning ritual

Silly face!Legos are fun...

Before I get too far, the pictures are all in random order b/c I'm having trouble getting them to move around today.
Life has been super duper busy... Let's see I ran a half marathon on April 25th. That was huge for me. I felt like poo poo for two days after it, but I'm so glad I did it. Now, the challenge is to keep up with the running schedule. My friend, Cherie, just ran a full marathon last weekend in SanDiego. Pretty cool!

I went to Orlando for a work conference at the beginning of May and just returned back from Dallas for a meeting with the team I work with/for. Plus, I went up to Lawrence a few weekends ago for my friend, Erin's, b-day and a girls weekend with her and Cherie. We had so many laughs. A few times we actually had those silent laughter moments when you can't even produce sound b/c you're laughing so hard. I love that.

Solomon is of course keeping us super busy. He just started a new daycare. So far, so good. The other one always closed in the summer time, so I just decided it was time to go somewhere, where we would be for a full year and not have to make special arrangements during public school breaks. He's hilarious and of course a bit aggravating at times. He's OBSESSED with elevators currently, so the minute he spots one, no matter where we're at, he must go on it, or it's a total meltdown. The thing is he could go on it all day long and that's not exactly a fun time for the rest of us. Plus, the makers of elevators weren't really thinking when they decided to place the alarm button farther down on the button panel b/c of course, he's always going for that and I'm nervous every time that we're going to be greeted by a fire truck or something, thinking there's an emergency in the elevator...:) He's been saying "that was fun" or "I had fun" a lot lately after school or after we go to the pool or something, so that makes me happy. My dad loves it that he says, "righty tighty" b/c of a Curious George episode where it is explained how to tighten a screw. We've been getting outside a lot and he just loves his chalk and to help me "garden". To use the word "gardening" as a description of what he's doing is a bit of a stretch, but he sure has fun squirting hose all over the place. He gets very mad at me b/c I have to keep explaining that the water musthit the general area where the plant is located or it does no good. I guess I just get too caught up in the details... :)
Hangin' with Coco
Daddy's Shoes
Directing Coco to do something "important"
It's been a rough day...

This was a reenactment of the time Thomas the Train became covered in bubbles during one of his crazy adventures.

My friend, Molly, and her husband, Dan, visited with their kids yesterday. It was fun, but of course Solomon was very territorial about all of his toys. He would take something from Louis and then he and Louis would get into a WWF Smackdown type of brawl. Molly and I were kidding that it was a bit reality TV- esque.

Alex's brother and sister-in-law, Zach and Susan, came Friday with their kids. Solomon just loves Zach and his son Sam, so that made for a good time for him and it ran some energy off which is always a good thing. Even Coco was happy b/c they brought their dog and they ran around endlessly one afternoon.

Alex is doing well. He's as busy as ever with work and has picked up a few new hobbies. He's playing softball with our bar's team over the summer which he really enjoys. The "Bad News Beers" are playing well too.

The Terrible Two and a halves...

Doesn't my little guy look so sweet and innocent in the above picture? Let me tell you that evil lurks inside. The so-called "Terrible Twos" have hit big time. The kid throws unbelieveable tantrums, often repeating the words "I got boogers," until I want to slam a box of kleenex up his nose. Fortunately, he is a cutie.. It's about all that saves his life some days. Grandma Thomas just came for a visit this week. He likes her a lot. We also celebrated Braden's birthday last week.

Alex and I went to the Big XII tournament in KC a few weeks ago. We had a great time. It may be the first and only time I will ever get to see so much KU basketball in person within three days. I was in Heaven! We stayed with Zach and Susan and Sam while we were up there and had a lot of fun. We were able to hit a few fun restaurants while we were in Lawrence.

Above: Me, Vinnie and Cherie (It was so awesome to catch up with them!!)

Other random pics......

Above: Holding hands with daddy. Alex has a very irregular sleep schedule and often minimalistic schedule so there are a lot of Alex sleeping/Solomon hanging out photos in the archives.Above: He's very into legos which I love. I've always liked Legos. He gets so excited when he builds something. Above: We were sharing a cookie. Mmmm...mmmm.. Above: Solomon participated in his school's Easter Egg Hunt/party today. It was a lot of fun. He loved finding the eggs.

Above: Just like last year, he loved decorating the eggs with dye.. especially getting the dye on his fingers, of course.
Above: Solomon with his good friend at school, Ella. She's a cutie. Her hair is a bit disheveled due to the Kansas wind.
Above: Solomon and Ella share a hug. I love it. I also love that girl to the right that looks like she's saying "Look what I have to deal with everyday. Get a room you two!"

A few cute pictures

Zoe & Solomon hanging out on President's Day

Another good week is behind us... I went to OKC for a work presentation I had to make. Solomon has been absolutely crazy and insane lately... more than usual for those of you who just internally said "so what's new?" :) Anyway, we have had our moments. He stayed with my parents last night and this morning at some point, pushed one of those closet doors in until it broke and fell off. I'm sure they'll want him back really soon! My parents looked utterly exhausted when I went to pick him up. Of course, he was also exhausted because about one mile into our drive home, he passed out.

In the video below, you can see that Solomon thinks Coco should be covered by the blanket. He assumes that because he worships it, everyone, including Coco, should as well. Coco is such a good sport though.

He's being dramatic a lot lately. I have no idea where he gets this from.

It appears he's about to perform some sort of barbaric procedure on poor innocent Coco.

Below: Coco gets hugged and almost hit and sort of covered up.. etc...

Seriously....

Seriously (said in an annoying Valley Girl way) is just something Alex and I say to eachother sometimes for fun. It really is seriously hard for me to believe it's been more than a month since my last post. Time flies. Oh it does..

Anyway, we've had a lot going on. Solomon has settled nicely back into the routine of part time daycare. He really likes it there and the teachers seem to like him. He's always telling me that "Ella hit Brock" or "Romy hugged Ella," etc... It's funny. The kiddo is literally obsessed with Curious George these days. Experts say two-year olds should watch no more than two hours of TV a day. We really are good about that, except for when he was sick a few weeks ago. It is so hard though because he "hearts" C.G. like nothing else. He giggles out loud when George imagines something. Solomon is always telling us how "Curious George can't find the ball. Too dark in cave." He's very serious about these two facts. He's still loving his Thomas the train engines and is really into coloring on his chalkboard and with his crayons. He also, as expected, LOVES the Curious George book that Kandi, Jimmy and Zoe gave him for Christmas. It's funny how they've never updated that book and it still shows the Man in the Yellow Hat smoking a pipe. That would be a big "no no" these days.

So, could it snow one more time?? Ugh.. I'm sick of it. I'm sure it could snow MANY more times before this Winter is over. However, I'm hoping we're past the worst of it. We/I did make a sweet little snowman after our second to last snowfall. Solomon was only a little impressed, while Coco just kept pulling off its stick arms.

This past weekend was a lot of fun. We had dinner on Friday with some of my past KSN co-workers at Sara and Shane's house. Their two kiddos were there, plus eight other kids from three sets of parents and Solomon of course. He had a blast and it was fun for us to catch up with everyone. My sister turned 38 (OMG!) on Feb. 3rd so we celebrated her b-day on Saturday with lunch and cake. Then, Sunday, we watched the big game at Abby and Brett's house. There were several kids over there too, so Solomon fit right in. He tried repeatedly to swipe Abby's delicious cookies off of the dessert table. He succeeded many times, but not everytime. The kiddos all watched Finding Nemo and then settled in on A Very Monkey Christmas later on in the evening. Solomon and sweet little Lennon were loving that one. They danced and jumped on Abby and Brett's bed together. It was pretty darn cute. Both of them have wavy brown hair. They were little sweeties.

Check out the videos below. They are funny to me at least.
(Below) Solomon dancing w/ Alex

(Below) Yes, it's even funny when toy dump trucks pass gas!

(Below) Two Monkeys Jumping/Dancing on the Bed...

(Below) Alex and Solomon take a dance break (to the Curious George opening theme song ) while snuggling in bed

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day!