Full Of It

Thinking his brother was full of it, Conner decides to do his version of

a diaper change.

Honest to god, this is not a posed photo. I was in the garage doing laundry and when I came in I caught Conner trying to give his brother a dry swirlie. Poor Iain, haha!

Beach Time Fun

Last Friday Tom had to play the pipes at a wedding that was held at a small park in Huntington Beach (about 40 minutes on a good traffic day from us). We all went since it was a Friday night at 5pm and it meant Tom could then use the carpool lane. Well it turned out this little park also had a small mother's beach attached to it. The kids could play on the playground and then run a few feet into the ocean. It was awesome. On the Friday I had no beach gear, but got Conner down to his diaper and he had a lot of fun.

So on the following Monday, Tom took the day off (gasp! A rarity indeed) and we went back out there. Now this is pathetic, we live literally like 4 miles from the beach, and I've never taken Conner down there. But we decided to drive 40 miles to this one, lol. So here's Conner's real first time in the ocean!

And Here's Iain enjoying the swings near the water.

Cookie Monster

Well Iain has delved in to the world of solid table food. Because he's got teeth already and has mastered the stage 3 foods, I've started giving him arrowroot cookies, and he loves them! He can be a major crank, but as soon as I pull one of these little cookies out, his face lights up. I couldn't resist snapping a couple shots of him being Mr. Laid Back (I love the foot on his tray) and enjoying his cookies.

Bath Time!

I just had to snap a couple shots tonight. Iain is finally big enough to sit in the big tub and I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and bathe both kids at once!

The Newest Member of the Clan!

No don't worry, I'm not preggers again!

This weekend we adopted a pup from the shelter. He's a lab mystery mix, although he may be part boxer or part pit, not sure. He's got the back end of a boxer. But he's super cute and very friendly and has taken to the kids really well, even Iain. The cats and his own reflection are another matter though, so we'll be working on that! He's 7 months old and is already 42 pounds, so I think he's going to be a big one.

He had surgery on Monday to relieve him of his manly bits and he's not allowed neighborhood walks for about 5-7 days. So once he heals we'll start his training and teach him some manners. He was never taught any basic commands that I can see.

So far he's settling in nicely and doing a lot of exploring of the house and yard. We haven't named him yet. The shelter named him Stallone, which I don't think fits him. One of the mom's in Conner's class suggested Rocky, which I actually like and think fits. But we'll give him a few more days to name himself!

Scottish Photos

Well out of 400 photos, I figured these 2 would be the only one's worth posting. Unless of course anyone out there is interested in shots of various pipe bands, athletes, etc!

This is Tom and an entertainer named Chris Yeats. He does a fantastic comedy routine and is a riot to watch. He would roam the games on his stilts and entertain people.

This is Tom and Conner, Chieftain and Chieftain-In-Training, roaming the games on the cart. Conner was all about the carts and loves to ride in them. Each night it was his job to "tuck them in to bed", and each morning "wake them all up".

Scottish Games Are Over

Well my hectic weekend of Scottish Games is past. All in all it was a great weekend. The weather on setup for Thursday and Friday was seriously dodgy. It was raining, bitterly cold and there was a killer wind. We all prayed for sun for the weekend, and the good man (or lady, you never really know!) kindly relented and gave us sun. It was still pretty cool, but at least the sun came out.

We had record crowds and for the first time sold out of our food and programs. I don't believe that has ever happened.

I was very happy with how my piping and drumming events went. As always there's room for improvement, but there were no major glitches and the bands seemed happy. I had some very nice comments from my out of town bands, Dowco Triumph Street and Robert Malcolm Memorial. A better bunch of people I've never met. So kind and gracious, its an imense pleasure to have them at my contest. I hope they decide to come back!

Funny enough, even with all the work, stress and sleepless nights putting this games together brings on for weeks on end, on the Monday cleanup day its always sad for me to see the trucks come in and haul our semi trailers off the grounds and back to their storage spaces. Sappy I know, but for some reason it makes me sad. Anticlimatic I guess.

Anyways, hopefully soon I'll have some pictures up. Tom took probably close to 400 shots over the weekend, and I have to go through them still and edit them for the web. Someone jokingly called him the Where's Waldo of the games. At some times he was acting as chieftain, other times photographer, other times hard laborer, other times something else. A jack of all trades. But he done well. It's not easy being in charge of the whole chebang and he put on a hell of a show. I'm proud of him.

So off to edit my photos and find some to post here!

Iain's Getting Big!

Iain had his 4 month well baby visit yesterday ( a week before he turns 4 really). Well I have a linebacker for a baby! He weighed in at 15.1 pounds and is 26.5 inches tall. When the doc asked me how much milk he drinks and I told her, she said he's not getting satisfied on it because he was drinking way too much, so she told me to start him on solids, including jar food (not just cereal) now.

So here's our first attempt at it. He looks a little rough cuz he had a round of shots and has been cranky and feverish from it, lol.

Swamped With The Games

So, yeah, I'm a little behind on my blog.

To tell the truth, I'm so swamped getting ready for the Highland Games in 3 weeks that I barely have time to breathe. I have so many more people coming this year to compete, and scheduling it all is a complete nightmare. I keep asking myself why I volunteered, again!

So for those of you in the LA area on Memorial Day weekend looking for something fun to do, come check out the 76th Annual Scottish Highland Games and Festival at the Orange County Fairgrounds. We have bagpipers, drummers, Highland Dancers, Scottish Athletics, vendors, food, beer, you name it. For more info check out my other website (it sucks at the moment, like I said, I've been so swamped I haven't even had time to design a decent looking site this year). The Games site is www.unitedscottishsociety.com/games.htm

Hard At Play

Another one I couldn't resist snapping!

Here's what happens after a hard night's play...

Best Buddies

Well I wanted to post a couple of shots of the boys being buddies. One was of us playing around with Iain in the Bumbo. The other two happened tonight. The changing table is next to the crib and I was getting both boys ready for bed. I had changed Iain first and put him in the crib while I changed Conner. Afterward Conner wanted to play in his crib (we just moved the crib out of Conner's room and in to Iain's tonight actually, so this was all new to Iain).

I couldn't resist grabbing the camera when I saw this!!

Conner or Iain?

LOL, I had to take this photo last night. Tom was holding Iain on his lap and he was doing it the same way he held Conner when Conner was this same age (2 months old). Well it dawned on me how much Iain looks like Conner, and I had taken a picture of Conner way back then. So I took a picture of Tom holding Iain the way he had Conner, next to the picture I took of Conner back then.

Is it just me or do they look identical? Conner thinks the original photo is of Iain, not himself. When he looks at it he says "baby" and points to his brother. He doesn't believe us when we tell him its actually him!

School Easter Egg Hunt

Conner's school had a great visit from the Easter bunny and a fun Easter egg hunt. He wanted nothing to do with the Easter Bunny unfortunately, being as scary as Santa Claus is, lol.

But he had fun with his fellow classmates looking for eggs!

Mom's Little Helper

Well I thought I'd add a couple of photos here.

I've been lucky in that Conner hasn't shown too much jealousy over his new brother. And in fact, he quite enjoys helping me out at times. One of this favorite things to do is to hold his brother on the couch and feed him. So here's a couple of shots of him watching TV while he gives his brother dinner.

This one is just a shot of Iain in his chair. I was playing around trying to get some shots of him, and while not one of the best shots, it definetely shows how much my youngest son looks like Mr. Bean.

He's Here!

Well the newest member of Clan Reoch is here.

Iain Giovanni was born on Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 12:18am. He weighed in at 9 pounds even and 22 inches long.

I had gone to my regular prenatal appointment on Friday, and my blood pressure was really high. Coupled with some borderline labwork for toxemia and my doctor decided it was safer to induce me right away. So off to labor and delivery I went. I managed to track Tom down at work and he hauled over. We were hoping to deliver on Friday so that Tom and Iain would have the same birthday, but we were 18 minutes late, hehe.

It was a super fast birth. Pitocin was started at 6pm, my water broke at 9:30pm, at midnight I started pushing, and at 12:18, Iain was born!

Christmas Day

Well I'm seriously late getting this post up, but things have been slightly hectic with numerous false labors and even a trip to labor a delivery, only to be sent back home after a few hours.


But here it is at last.


This Christmas Conner had more of an idea of what to do with all the stuff under the tree. He opened a few gifts before one particular one (his Thomas the Train tent) really caught his attention. After that was put up he dragged the toys he'd opened so far inside and that was all she wrote. It would take us 3 more days to get him to open the rest of his gifts!


That evening was spent at his cousin's house where he got even more great gifts from his cousins and grandparents. But I think the best part by far was his cousins' cat who allowed Conner to pet him. Our cats want nothing to do with Conner, and he tries so hard to pet them, and he even tries to share his sippy cup. So Conner was very happy to be perched on the couch with the kitty in his lap and he could pet away!

Conner dives in to his gifts. Excuse his lovely matching outfit, lol!
Stacy and Clinton are probably having a fit somewhere with my mix of stripes and plaid.

Opening his "big" gift. This took all day to open, lol.

His Thomas pop-up tent. This was a spur of the moment buy that turned out to be the most popular gift he opened. He loves to play inside it!

A boy, his cat, and his remote. What more do you need in life other than a full sippy cup?
Don't worry, he's not actually cranking the cat's head back, the cat was leaning in to him for a rub.