Da-Da

Da-Da!

Oh wait, did you think that meant "Daddy"? No, don't be silly. It means many things. For instance it can mean "baby" when Cooper is looking in the mirror or at a picture of himself. Or it can mean "Jackson" when he sees a picture of his brother. It can also mean "that electronic thing on the wall at mothers day out with numbers on it that alerts parents in church service that they need to come pick up their fussy kid." But it by no means means "Daddy". Ask Cooper where Da-Da is and he'll point at the picture of himself on the wall in the living room. Does it hurt my feelings? Maybe a little. Probably about as much as it hurt my mom's feeling when I called her a taco as a kid. I thought it meant something much worse and I got in big trouble for calling her a taco. Seems like there should be a loophole in there somewhere but my mom didn't deal in grey areas.

What else is new with the Haught crew? Jackson' back to playing soccer. If you reference the blog I posted when he started that last season you'll get an idea of what I'm going thru all over again - trying to teach him that he's not going to make a goal everytime he gets the ball and he can't cry and complain that everyone's trying to take the ball away from him. Maybe I should enter him into one of those leagues where everybody wins and gets trophies.

Anyhoo - he's starting coach pitch baseball soon. I'm the coach so I'll be buying a whistle soon. I can't wait to strike out all the kids. I'm pretty sure I still have a serviceable split-finger fastball.

Ellie is taking dance still. I asked her the other day what was the hardest thing she has learned in dance and she told me, "Umm, the step-ball-chain." I pictured them taking all the kids out back, fitting them with prison stripe uniforms and chaining all their feet together and giving them pick axes to fix the railroad. Her first recital is in May!

Kiley is still training for her marathon. It's only 5 weeks away. The other day I rode my bike 26.2 miles in exactly 2 hours. I win! But seriously I'm extremely amazed at what she can accomplish when she puts her mind to it. She's incredible.

And Cooper is officially walking...everywhere. And he's got to be the easiest kid to entertain ever. If everyone laughed at me as much as he did I'd never complain about anything. It wouldn't do my any good, Cooper would just think I was being hilarious. I'm currently working on some new material. The fake sneeze is a big player but I want to add some variety to my repertoire. Maybe I'll work in the ole remove your finger gag and see how that plays.

Jackson and Ellie are fantastic at entertaining him as well. When you're trying to cook dinner and your wife is off running for hours on end you can just tell them to keep him busy and they have him giggling up a storm.

And you just can't beat hearing a baby laugh.

I'm better at walking than Cooper

Yes, Cooper is now walking. Big deal, I can walk so much farther than him. I'll get to that later. Meanwhile - look how much Ellie likes me.

We went to Austin to see my brother and his wife and kids. The cousins. Jackson and Ellie love going to see the cousins. We had a great time. Their new house is awesome - they have a creek right behind them with "lobsters" in it. That's what Cade calls them. They're really crawdads. That's Cade on the left in the tree.

Weird, Cooper is smiling. He rarely does that. Must be gas.

Okay, here's what we've been up to (other than going to Austin). Kiley has been training for her marathon all by herself (if Sarah reads this, insert guilt trip here). I kid! Her running buddy is getting married so is busy trying on dresses and stuff. Kiley ran 16 miles on Saturday. Go ahead and re-read that I'll wait... Yeah 16 miles.

Meanwhile I'm training for a bike race in May called the MS150. It's 150 miles over 2 days. I rode 40 miles this weekend. Only problem is I'm training on a mountain bike with road tires. If you know of anyone that has a spare road bike they don't mind lending to someone and wants to support my efforts have them email me :)

Oh we joined a gym too. I went in this morning after dropping the kids off and did a spin class. After an hour of that the hat I was wearing was completely soaked in sweat. The bill and everything. It was like I dunked it in the sea. Awesome. I was a disgusting sweaty mess after it was over. Then I ate some yogurt and cottage cheese. Gross.

Okay FINE! Here's the video of Cooper walking. He still needs something to pull himself up on before he gets going but he's all over the place. I could still smoke him in a foot race and look forward to challenge him in arm wrestling.

These Baby Shoes are Made for Walkin'

Hey look what Cooper is trying to do. As soon as Spring gets here I'll just replace that baby walker thing with a lawnmower and I'll be set!

Meanwhile Jackson and Ellie got two things that they could probably never put down.

1. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the playstation3. Seriously. NEVER PUT IT DOWN.
2. Nintendo DS. They each got one and love them.

They also got a basketball goal. But you have to put down a controller to shoot baskets. LAME!

Kiley got a pair of 7 jeans. Oooooo.

Chad got several things but the one thing he has used the most is his new omelet skillet. I'm thinking about working at a hotel breakfast bar on the weekends. Or maybe I should open my own omelet bar right in our own house...hmm. Kiley could wait tables in her sexy new jeans. The waiting area could be out back where you could shoot baskets while you wait. And Jackson and Ellie could walk around from table to table and tell you stories about how they unlocked Han Solo and Darth Vader and just need to play a few more levels to earn enough lego money to buy General Grievous.

Cooper Update

Cooper is getting so big! He is now 7 months and doing so many fun things! He is still the happiest baby out there. This month he started eating food. It only took about a week for him to figure out that if he opened his mouth he would get something yummy. He learned to sit up really well and now is rocking on all fours (I keep telling him to slow it down)

I changed his messy diaper this afternoon while he laid on the dining room floor. I went to throw away the diaper and came back and he was sitting up. So fun that he has figured out how to sit up from laying down and rolling around.

Jackson and Ellie are seriously the best big sis and brother ever. They entertain him, sing to him, hold him, kiss him, etc. They tell me all the time that they just LOVVEEE cooper. So sweet.

I am just eating up every minute with him. Chad and I just adore him. Enjoy a couple fun pics of him....

A Haughty Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. We decided to stick to the traditional door to door trick or treating. The girls across the street invited us to go with them and off we went. We were out for about 2.5 hours. My dogs were barking big time!

Jackson dressed up as a transformer. Ellie was Cinderella and Cooper was her little pumpkin. Ellie wore her high heel glass slippers the entire time. What a trooper. She is truly our little princess.

One funny story that came out of the evening was with Jackson. We were in the big homes of the neighborhood and as he is about to walk up to the home when he tells me he has to go to the bathroom. I tell him okay we will find a place for him. He walks up to the door to trick or treat and the next thing I know is the lady of the home yells over to me that my son has to go to the bathroom really bad. Yep, my son announced to a neighbor we don't know that he needed to use the restroom and could he use hers. Gotta love him. Jackson did indeed use her bathroom and I got to meet a neighbor I hadn't met yet. We were quickly on our way to finish out our evening. You have to love the honesty of a kid.

Jackson will be fine in prison

Woah it's been a while. Apolgies and thanks to everyone demanding a new blog post. You honor me with your venomous demands.

So here's what you've missed. Every soccer game of Jackson's we go to is a new adventure. A few weeks back Jackson did something to a kid I've only seen happen in prison movies when inmates attack each other in "the yard" This one kid kept pushing Jackson down so when he'd had enough action was taken. The final time he got pushed down he got up with this look on his face like a severe injustice had been taken. Kind of like when Ellie sits in his seat at dinner. That's HIS seat! Jackson chases the kid down and pulls him down by the back of the jersey, that's when I started running onto the field to stop a potential murder. After pulling this poor kid to the ground, he started kicking him and then walked right over him. By then I had gotten to him and could see all these confused parents on the sideline b/c none of them saw what he had done. Thank goodness. I wanted to scream something like, "There's bees everywhere! Save your children!" but just hauled him to the sidelines and discussed proper ways of handling people who push us - by carving a shiv out of your toothbrush, or anything that will sharpen into a knife.

More soccer!

This was a pick of us before we took the kids to their first Aggie game! They have a blast. Only b/c they don't understand the concept that the Aggies aren't very good right now. Seriously Coach Fran, what's the deal?

This is at their birthday party at Pump it Up! They were so excited. I was the only dad there so I was in charge of entertaining the kids on the bounce houses...self appointed. I was sweating like a pig by the end of it. I wonder if they host adult birthday parties there.

And I came home one night to find that Kiley had created a photography studio in our formal dining room. She had a dark blanket draped over the table and Cooper was posing for Halloween pictures. Adorable.

No More Soccer Games for Kiley

Jackson had a soccer game today. Kiley couldn't come b/c she had to go to a baby shower (booooooorrrring!) so it was just me and Jackson. They played another team of 4-5 year olds that just couldn't put an offensive scheme together and won 12-2. Jackson scored 3 goals and barely missed the 4th one. He had this one goal where someone threw the ball in and he kicked it up in the air over the heads of the other team, ran around them and then kicked the ball in the goal. Granted, I understand that he didn't really mean to do that but it's like my brother says when we're playing golf and he makes a lucky shot, "Lucky? I was aiming for the pin." Funny.

Jackson was so busy scoring goals that I finally went to their goal and pulled out my phone and snapped a pick. Luckily photography doesn't capture the sound of a sonic boom. You can't see the ball in the picture b/c it was ripping thru the back of the net. Notice how far in front of the other team he was. I'm so proud.



I know what you're thinking. Look at the quality of that picture, what kind of camera phone does Chad have anyway? Hey, it's like I always say, "It just cost a little bit more to go first class."