Buddy Mapping

While Joey was surfing the net and reading some other baby blogs, he discovered a tool called Buddy Maps. He thought it was a neat idea so we've added it to the bottom of our blog. All you have to do is add yourself to the map so that Joey can know where all of his friends live! We know this might not be that exciting since most everyone we know is from Texas, but it could end up being a fun experiment anyways so just do it!

Buddy Map patrol man asks, "Have you added your location yet?"

Mr. Chuckles

Joey's been giggling for us a bit here and there, but last night when we were getting him ready for his bath, he chuckled up a storm.

My college roommate Jennifer and her kids came to visit us this weekend. I think it's been since our wedding since we'd last seen each other so her son Blake (who was our ring bearer) had grown up quite a bit and we'd never even met her daughter Avery before!

Here's Jen with Joey (who's been sucking his thumb quite a bit since evil mommy and daddy took away his pacifier).

Blake and Brian take a break from their intense match of Transformers tic-tac-toe.

Jen, Blake and Joey

Joey and Avery check each other out.

When mommy's away, the boys will play!

Joey and daddy enjoyed some quality guy bonding time yesterday while mommy went to work (just for 1 day!) and grandma went to her mah-jong game. According to Joey, he really had fun goofing around with daddy all day. And daddy was even brave enough to take Joey to his weekly Kindermusik class!

This is the free time in class when the teacher lays toys all around the room and the kids can play with the toys and with each other. Apparently Joey would rather just lay in the center of the circle and be anti-social...

Daddy and Joey playing peek-a-boo with a scarf.

Last week when I told the other moms that Brian would be taking Joey to class this week, they decided that they would invite their husbands too. So here's a picture of the dads with their baby boys.

And when Grandma got back from her mah-jong game, she desperately needed a hug from Joey.

Does this outfit make me look fat?

Nah...but it may be a tad bit on the small side.

Yummy, yummy for my tummy!

We started Joey on rice cereal last weekend and he's taken to it pretty well. Right now he gets one feeding of rice cereal after he finishes the last bottle before bedtime. As you can tell from the pictures and the video, he's doing a swell job of swallowing the cereal. Most of the time when anything dribbles out of his mouth, it's usually mommy and/or daddy's fault. p.s. We tasted the rice cereal just out of curiosity and it is g-r-o-s-s!

Mmm...food! Always puts a smile on Joey's face...

"Come on, mommy. Stop making faces at me and just gimme another spoonful of that tasty stuff!"

Daddy gets a turn at feeding.

Get out of my play gym!

While Joey was playing on his activity gym this weekend, mommy decided to lay down with him and see things from his perspective. You can tell from Joey's expression that he's wondering to himself, "What the heck is she doing crowding my space? Why doesn't she get out already?" Well, easier said than done...getting down there was pretty easy, but getting up was much harder and mommy ended up needing some extra assistance from daddy.

Joey has also discovered a new lamp in the study that he loves staring at.

And this is just Joey looking really cute so I can't resist posting it.

Let's get physical

It was a rainy day today so we stayed inside (as if we would ever go outside in this brutal summer heat) and did some baby workouts.

We started off with Joey going nuts in his bouncy seat. Right after I took this video, I had a "I should've known this would happen" moment when I picked Joey up and he spit up all over the back of my shirt...

Then we did some tummy time and in this video Joey is demonstrating his rolling over technique. By the way, turn on the volume on your computer so you can hear the music that's inspiring him.

And finally we also worked on rolling from back to tummy. This is something new that Joey just started doing earlier this week so he still requires a little assistance from mommy.

Happy birthday to us!

This past week we celebrated three birthdays in our household: Grandma's on August 9th, mine on August 11th, and Brian's today, August 13th. This year's birthdays were the best ever since we got to celebrate with our precious Joey.

On Thursday, Grandma celebrated her birthday with a game of mah-jong - her first game since Joey was born. To get her ready for the game, she got a brand new haircut on Wednesday night (next time you see her, make sure to tell her how great she looks).

On Saturday night, we had a family dinner.

On Sunday night, Brian and I cleaned ourselves up and went out to dinner and a movie.

We rounded out the celebration tonight with some fancy cupcakes and some obligatory photos with the birthday candles.

Bouncing baby boy

Joey got his safari jumperoo a few weeks ago but has really gotten good at the bouncing part in the last week or so. Here are a couple of still photos that show how happy he is when he's playing around in it followed by a video we took this morning of him hopping around.

Joey donned his first Longhorn apparel this weekend (I know, I'm a horrible Longhorn mommy) in honor of this upcoming football season and also in honor of his cousin Scott who will be starting the UT MBA program this fall.

4-month well check

Joey had his 4-month well check this morning and bravely endured another round of vaccination shots. He now weighs in at 16 pounds, 12 ounces (we're back in the 90th percentile after dropping to the 75th percentile during his struggles with acid reflux a few weeks ago), and is 25 1/4 inches long.

Here is a photo of Joey and daddy all set and ready to venture out in the sun for a trip to the mailbox.

The Broken Bone

This weekend was the annual Tschoepe Family Reunion at The Broken Bone Ranch in Medina, Texas. This year was Joey's first year in attendance and although we only made it from Friday to Saturday afternoon (sleeping issues for Joey = sleeping issues for mommy and daddy), you can see from the pictures below that Joey really enjoyed himself and is already looking forward to next year when he'll be able to run around and swim with the big kids!

Joey napped during the entire drive from San Antonio to Medina on Friday afternoon. When we arrived at "The Bone", he decided to do a little more napping under the shade of a big tree.

Here we are on Saturday morning checking out the beautiful scenery.

Playing with cousin Beth and some crazy ducks.

Relaxing creekside on the hammock with cousin Beth.

Rocking away on the porch of the Pioneer Pad where we stayed.

Joey and Da have a staredown.

Goofing around with Oma, cousin Bobby and Aunt Janet.

Enjoying some alone time in the grass.

Oh yeah, while Brian was playing in the water, he lost his wedding ring (it only took all of 2 1/2 years). Here he is with his dad and their valiant effort to find the darn thing, but it just wasn't meant to be...

Piano prodigy