Flanagan Clan

Here are just a few pictures of Patrick exploring Oma’s backyard.

Yesterday Andrew and I dropped Patrick off at Oma’s so that we could go on a walk through the neighborhood by ourselves. During the brief visit, Patrick discovered several new things! First of all, Patrick got to eat spaghetti for the first time ever, and he loved it! He really enjoyed the noodles especially, although he ended up with more of his food stuck to his bib and face than in his tummy!

One thing that we’ve had a problem with when going to Oma’s is that Patrick can easily scale the stairs now, but he wants to go head first back down every time, even though we’ve tried to teach him to take them going feet first. Well, yesterday Patrick escaped Opa’s study and headed straight for the stairs before Oma or Opa could catch him. He fell down half the stairs and landed, dazed but not hurt, on the middle landing. Later, Patrick seemed to avoid trying to go down the stairs at all, and kept a healthy distance from that top step. I think he learned his lesson, but just in case we’ll be getting a baby gate for the stairs.

Right as we were leaving Oma’s house, we were saying good bye when we realized that Patrick was waving good bye to Grandma too! It was the cutest thing!!! We love our little Patrick!

Here’s just a quick picture of Patrick wearing the new cute little soft fleece jacket that Oma Feucht bought for him. This was taken on Saturday night, right before we went to go see Uncle Lew and Aunt Carol.

Patrick is completely better from his cold now. I still have a little bit of a stuffy nose, and Andrew never ended up catching anything. Lucky him…

We’ve really been enjoying our new car. Since buying it we’ve been discovering little features here and there and make it even more fun to have! Yesterday Andrew was able to program the built in garage door openers to open the gate to our apartment community so we wouldn’t have to buy another gate clicker. Andrew then discovered that the driver’s seat has lumbar support. Patrick seems to like the new car too. No more struggling to get him into the car, no more accidentally hitting his head while trying to get him in and out, and no more fumbling with keys to unlock doors with one hand while struggling to hold him and other stuff in the other hand. Both sets of sliding doors and the trunk open and close by themselves with the push of a button. We have the perfect kidsmobile… now we have to start thinking about adding more kids… but that’s all in God’s will and His timing, not ours.

Well, we did it! We bought the Toyota Sienna that we were looking at yesterday. Since it was the end of the month the dealership was willing to give us a great deal on it. We didn’t have to do any haggling to lower the price. We also got free oil changes and car washes for life! It has tons of features and creature comforts. Being a mommy, I was really impressed with several key features: it has LATCH, so it was a piece of cake to install Patrick’s car seat, something I desperately wanted in our last two vehicles. It has built in sun shades in all four back windows, to protect baby’s eyes from harmful and annoying bright sun rays, and a special mirror in front that allows you to see what the kids are doing in the back seats. They even had it in my favorite color, dark red! We’re very happy with our purchase, and hopefully this new car will last us the next ten years, until we’re done with the baby phase!!!

Patrick’s fever finally broke today. He’s a lot happier and his nose and eye are starting to clear up. His eye is really red from him rubbing it though, so I had to cancel our family pictures until we all look healthy. As Patrick recovers from his cold and fever, Andrew is beginning to feel like he’s coming down with something. I really hope he doesn’t come down with what Patrick and I had…

Today Andrew, Patrick and I had a pretty busy day. In the morning Andrew did some computer work while I cleaned our bathroom. Later, we took a tour of the Puyallup YMCA, which Andrew is probably going to join soon, and then we went to Doxon Toyota to look at new Sienna’s. We found one we really, really liked, but we decided to take a little time to think it over before we decide to spend a lot of money. After that we went over to my parents’ house and had teriyaki and ice cream, and Patrick got a bath after getting a sugar free fudgcicle all over himself!