Flanagan Clan

Yesterday our family got dressed up to go into the JC Penny’s in Tacoma to get our family pictures taken. We ended up getting a couple good shots that will be used in our Christmas cards.

After the pictures were done we decided to go out to dinner. It has been several months since we last went out to a sit down restaurant (except for Mongolian Grill, which somehow doesn’t really count!). We went to Azteca, near the mall, and they were serving us tortilla chips. We were giving Patrick some, to keep him happy, and he seemed to be handling them pretty well. Once the food came, we began eating and we started feeding Patrick little bits of our food, nothing too big or hard to swallow. However, I think he might have had a piece of one of the chips still in his mouth because he began to start coughing and gagging, and his face turned red. The waitress started to panic and called for backup and I quickly pulled him out of his high chair to have him spit up all over my seat. I think that helped him get the offending object out of his throat, though, because he seemed fine after that. He even had more of our food without any problems. I don’t think we’ll be feeding him any more tortilla chips for a while. It’s hard to really know when he’s ready for something, though, until you try it.

Other than that, there’s not too much new here. Patrick is becoming very good at waving bye bye now and I’ve been keeping myself very busy with chores and learning to do ribbon embroidery. We’re probably going to the Oktoberfest at the Puyallup Fair with my parents on Saturday, so it looks like we’ll have a busy weekend!

Here’s a picture of the new car for those who were interested.

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.