A trip to Omaha and an early Christmas

Our trip to Omaha got delayed a week due to an unavoidable work conflict, but we were able to make it out to see the newest member of the Troy family.  Spencer and Landon hit it off.

Homies

Mommy suggests Spencer wants a little brother...

Landon's personal body guard.

We had a bit of a cold stretch here leaving him to barely fit in his car seat all bundled up.

With our upcoming trip to Kentucky, we went ahead had Christmas this morning.  Spencer has fallen in love with his inflatable Nemo ball pit.  We can't get him out of it.

He finally got the unwrapping part down.

We had to give him some presents in the ball pit so he would open them.

Snow White from Great Grandpa Johnny and Great Grandma Liz!

Building and learning blocks from Nanny and Pappaw.

I have a feeling we will be finding plastic balls all over the house.

Thank you Nanny and Pappaw and Great Grandpa Johnny and Great Grandma Liz for the presents.  We have Christmas with Nana and Mr. Townsend this afternoon.  We are off to Kentucky early Wednesday morning.  More Christmas posts to come!

A lot to catch up on...

Not too terribly long ago we had a good snow that stuck around for a bit.  We took the opportunity to bundle Spence up in his snowsuit and let him have it.  There wasn't a lot of mobility but he enjoyed playing for a few minutes.

Sort of a snow angel

OK I think I have had enough of this!

We have been introducing the little man to all kinds of new foods.  We have found only one he isn't a fan of, green beans.  He tries each one, makes a funny face, and then puts it down.  Fruit on the other hand is his favorite.

MMMMM bananas

Now that crawling is too easy, Spence has taken to the stairs.  Chrystal and I learned very quickly not to turn our backs on him as he can really motor up the stairs.

Busted!

We went over to my parent's house for Thanksgiving.  It was a packed house with my siblings, Christina and her two daughters, a friend of Kristen's, and a coworker of my dad and his son.  Christina bought Spencer an outfit and demanded he wear it for everyone.  She has good taste.

Ladies man

The kid is clearly about to fall into a food coma.

Helping with the Christmas decorations

We are headed to Omaha to meet Spencer's best friend Landon Troy this weekend.  We are also attending the yearly Christmas party and celebrating a 30th birthday.  We will squeeze in some time with Chrystal's family out there as well to make it a well rounded, busy weekend.  Pictures will follow.

Haircuts and Halloween

Chrystal set up our family picture shoot for the Christmas cards this year so that meant we needed to cut this kid's mane.  We went to Kiddie Kutters, a place my mom use to take us, for the big day.

The Before

The During

The After

We also had our first family Halloween.  Spencer is seen here in his lion costume which was complemented by Chrystal's witch costume and my wardrobe costume.  There are pictures of the three of us floating around on Erin's blog, we just forgot to get one on our camera.  The rocking horse Spencer is on was hand painted by Great Grandpa Johnny.  My mom found it and shipped it to him to have his touch added to it.  Spencer loves it.  Thank you for the gift.

He really loves it when grandpa makes the horsey sound.

This is Spencer's new KY sweatshirt courtesy of Mimi.  He can now match mom and dad.  Thanks Mimi!

9 Months Old!

So it has been a little bit since we last posted.  It's been busy as I had hunting camp and have been spending Saturday's helping Joe with youth football.  Chrystal has been working her tail off and training a new person at work.  So to catch everyone up...Spencer is 9 months old!  His doctor's appointment was this morning.  He is 19 lbs 8 oz (52nd percentile), 28.75 inches tall (80th percentile), with a 17.75 inch head (54th precentile).  The kid is growing like a weed and is lightning quick!

All dressed up like daddy before hunting camp.

Did we mention he has his two bottom teeth?

 MMMM rocks! 

Enjoying a nice fall day outside.

His newest hobby is walking around anything he can balance on.

Other big news this past month:

Welcome to Landon Michael Troy!  Mike and Laura became mommy and daddy today at 4:09 pm today.  Landon is 8 lbs 9 oz and 21 inches long.  Mom and baby are both doing well.  We are sooooooo happy for you all.

I turned 28 this month.  30 is creeping up on me, but Chrystal is closer than I am thank goodness.

Hunting camp was fun, but too short.  No animals this year, but good times were had by all 4 of us (3 Townsends and a Steen).

We will have more updates this week and Spencer is getting his first hair cut and has his Halloween costume ready to go.  See you all again soon.

Bath Times Are More Fun

It has been a while I know.  As we near 8 months, I know 8 months, Spencer has realized he loves bath time.  He can't get enough of the splashing and squirting toys.  

Look at that toothless grin!

He loves to lay back and kick his feet.

Love that post bath hair do!

As you can see there is a nice skidmark on his nose.  Our little man has become quite the daredevil and isn't afraid to take things on head on, literally.  He is faster than we could imagine and gets into anything he can get his hands on.  We are also to the pull up stage.  Anything that will support his weight becomes something to help him stand...this includes poor Winnie.

Cheesing it up.

A face of innocence.

Not a lot of news.  We have purchased the plane tickets for Christmas in Kentucky this year.  We are there the 23rd - 27th.  Not as long as we would like, but we are really excited to take the little man back to meet the family.  We have gotten our first snowfalls the past couple of days.  It seems crazy this happened in September!  I am getting excited as hunting season is only a couple of weeks away.  I won't be up as long as I like thanks to the new job, but fun will be had.  We hope all is well with everyone and will be back to post more soon.

We've got a crawler!!!!

The time we have been awaiting and at the same time dreading is upon us.  The kid is mobile.  We have baby proofed the place as he likes to get into anything he can shimmy over to.  It has been a bit and we have had some fun things happen.  

A couple of weekends ago we all went to Jisun's house for an end of summer party.  It involved games, food (lots of food), beverages, and not a lot of sleep.  The Roschs, Hecks, Brauns (yes Sarah you are included in that), and Townsends all crashed Jisun's house.

Spencer and I enjoying some shade from the scorching sun.  Hottest weekend of the summer.

This was Sarah's game.  It involved walking, water, balancing, and hand eye coordination.  Some the group lacked some of these skills.

This is pretty much photo evidence of Murph being assaulted by Joe, but she had it coming to her.  No one left the yard without being water ballooned.

The morning after the morning after.  Spencer was the best looking of the bunch enjoying his Baby Mum Mum.  A great invention, the dissolving cracker.

We did take advantage of the long weekend and got a trip to the zoo in.  Spencer was very good with the animals being a healthy distance away.

As you can see when the petting zoo was an option he didn't seem to enjoy it as much.

Mimi's Jeep as been a huge hit with him lately.  He loves standing up and honking the horn.

In other news, I started a new job recently.  A company hunted me down and made me an offer I couldn't refuse.  Other than that Spencer has passed the 7 month mark.  Month #8 will be right around the corner.  Talk to you all later.

A baby shower and a reunion?!

Its been a busy couple of weeks and I have been slacking off.  To start Chrystal and Spencer headed out east to Omaha for Laura's baby shower and to see the Hopkins clan.  I couldn't make the trip as Pioneer decided they wanted me to stay on for my last couple of days with them instead of giving me a long weekend before starting my new job.

Spencer and Great Grandpa.

Oh the excitement of opening presents!

Chrystal being the sly devil she is secretly arranged for Clark to make the party.

You 3 have come a long way from ERAC!

The word reunion was in the title because I am an old man and just had my 10 year reunion.  It was fun to see those who could make it.  It was a two day affair with a happy hour on Saturday night and a family day at a park on Sunday.

Everyone who could make it.

It was a rare chance to catch up with the Heck's and we couldn't miss that!

Spencer was a hit at the picnic.  His good looks continue to curse him.

The kid loves the swings.  We may have to invest in one under the porch.

All in all the past couple of weeks have been fun.  We are looking forward to the 1st Annual Summer Games at Jisun's this weekend.  It has been a while since we have seen her since she was too cool to come to the reunion...or something like that.  More pictures next week!

6 months in...

Wow hard to believe its been 6 months already.  We spent Saturday evening at the Giants game up in Denver with Josh and Shawna.  I was able to get some club level tickets from work so we were high class for the evening.  It rained and we were able to escape to the suite area.  The Giants were generous and graciously lost to their host 8-2.  

We certainly looked good in our Giants gear.

Getting pictures early in the game was crucial as the rain rolled in early.

With the big 6 month mark came another trip to the doctor.  The latest stats are 17 lbs 3 oz landing him in the 67th percentile, 27 1/8 inches long putting him in the 88th percentile, and a 17 1/8 inch head finishing in the 58th percentile.  We are excited as hopefully he will get the Townsend height that eluded my dad and I.  Other than that the doctor is happy with his motor skill development.  All in all a good trip.  

Our Camping Adventure

Happy belated 4th of July to every and happy belated birthday to Poppa who shares his day with the country's. We packed up and headed up to Deep Lake Campground. Its about 5 hours from the Springs with no traffic so it took us a bit longer to get there thanks to traffic and broken down truck drivers. All in all it was a fun trip. We got to fish and I took Chrystal to see where the boys went elk hunting last year. Spencer was a trooper and did really well.

Those mountain mornings can be a bit chilly!

The valley where we fished and I hunted last fall.

Spencer's first hiking experience thanks to a Father's Day present from Nana.

Chrystal gave it her all with the salmon eggs and the powerbait.

Spencer let us know when he was done fishing with this face.

The camping version of tummy time.

While waiting out some rain Spencer practiced driving.

The reason we left.

We spent Friday night under the stars and after fishing on Saturday we sat through a rain storm in the car and tent. While everything was drying out we noticed another storm a brewing. Chrystal went with her gut feeling and gave me the pack it up idea and we got out of dodge just before it hit. Good thing too because it was a bad one.