Winter Wonderland

I mentioned Owen helping with some baking projects. Here is the proof he enjoyed it. He definitely doesn't mind a little chocolate!


(Cheese!)

He likes to have Rebecca sit in his lap these days. He's actually pretty good at holding her.
We actually got a couple inches of snow in Austin yesterday. Nothing like what our friends in North Carolina (or Dallas for that matter) have had recently, but it was fun nonetheless. Kyle got home early so he and Owen built a snowman we affectionately named "Grassy". He had 2 peppermints for eyes, a carrot nose (of course) and a mouth made out of raisins. Owen was pretty upset this morning when all of Grassy's facial features had either fallen off or been eaten by animals...ah the life of a snowman.

Here is Owen holding Rebecca at bedtime. We were reading a book called "The Happy Man and His Dump Truck" which Owen refers to a couple of times.



Father and son having a little snow-ball fight.


Random: Owen knows his right and left really well now and when Kyle asked him who taught him that he said "I did"! Wow.

"Race-y Mommas"

For most of you that know me, you know that I am not a natural athlete, I'm not even much of an unnatural one! That being said, I started running a few months after Rebecca was born (a story for another time) and on Sunday (2/14) my dear friends Christal and Katie and I finished the Austin Half Marathon! We were quite proud of ourselves (especially Christal, who ran 21 weeks preggers)!

Here are some photos in reverse order.

Here we are post-race. Our hubbies brought all the kiddos to the finish line--they made such a sweet cheering section. Owen's "Go Momma Go" sign was taped to a tennis racket and Nathan's sign for Christal was taped to a grille spatula (way to improvise Dads!).
Here we are actually crossing the finish line. We finished in 2 hours 42 minutes, which is pretty consistent with the 11 mile/hour pace we kept while training. Be clear: our goal was to finish strong, not finish fast! (We finished a few minutes after the guy who WON the FULL marathon--that's insane!)

My mom cheered us on at 2 locations (she got a workout that morning too)! Her sign made us smile, as well as a lot of the other runners! She even managed to get my brother Alex out of bed to encourage us on his day off. Apparently his little pug Ollie was quite the hit!
Here we are at about 6:40 right before the race started.
It really was a great experience. Minus two particularly challenging hills, it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared (a testimony to actually finishing a training plan). It was fun to see parts of Austin from that vantage point, and to run with such an incredible crowd (over 15,000 people). Even though we weren't doing a whole lot of talking, there was an incredible sense of camaraderie amongst all the runners and all the people gathered to cheer us on. We took encouragement from all the signs people made even though they weren't for us. AND we definitely feel like we accomplished something. Perhaps an annual tradition???

6 months old!

Rebecca turned 6 months old on Wednesday--we can't believe it! She had her well-check today and here are her stats:

17 lbs 14 oz (75th-90th %tile)
26 in (75th %tile)

She has gotten really really good at rolling over and sitting up (although we still put the boppy or a pillow behind her). And we're trying to be consistent about giving her baby cereal. We started Owen on solids so much earlier, but its just been hard to incorporate that (messy) step into our already chaotic dinner routine!

Everywhere we take her people tell us what a happy/content baby she is, and it's true! She does great being dropped off with the other kiddos at church, and she has even let me go into stores and try on clothes while she sits happily on the dressing room floor playing with her little "crinkle princess" and staring in the mirror!

(Bad picture of our sweet girl.)

A few Owen-isms:

• He likes to repeat things I'm telling him (to do or not do) to Rebecca. The other day he said to me "Momma, I'm telling her you're making dinner so play with some trains so she learn to talk" (I had just told him he needed to go play with his trains, while I made dinner, which he then instructed Rebecca to do as well).
  
• Owen almost always addresses Rebecca in a very high-pitched falsetto accompanied with lots of squeals and putting his palms on her cheeks.
  
• He loves to describe things as fun and funny.
  
• The other day he was burying himself under pillows and he said something about a cave, so I told him he was a bear. He very matter-of-factly said "No momma, I not a bear. It's just me, I'm Owen". Well, okay then!
  
• We've had a couple of occasions recently where I've wanted to bake something and Owen has been quite the little helper. He's finally at the age where he can really "help". He counts scoops for me and we talk about all the ingredients and watch the consistency of batter/dough change in the mixer. It's so much fun to have him help and learn about kitchen stuff. Although I'm afraid he's starting to expect "tate" (cake--remember, c's are t's) more often than he should! Yesterday he was sitting on the counter looking down into the stand mixer and he told me it was the "the best I've ever seen". :)
• Umizoomi...(if you don't know it, you're missing out)
  

Carrots and Laughter

Here is Owen with the carrot he got to pick from his school's garden. The older classes plant and tend to the vegetable garden, but even the little kids get to pick something and take it home to cook and eat. Owen likes to describe how it grew from a seed and was dirty and we need to wash it and peel the peel off and eat it and it is dirty and it was in the dirt. (That's what he sounds like.) Fun shot of Owen, Bailey and Nana at the little family gathering we had for Nana's birthday. The kiddos made Nana a wall calendar with finger/hand-print art that Mel and I were especially proud of. And of course we had BB's chocolate cake.
Sweet Rebecca and I just having a little play time one afternoon. We just finished "Ferber, Round 2, or v 2.0" so she's back to sleeping through the night in her bed. We got thrown off due to a lot of travelling, but her schedule seems to have righted itself with relative ease. It's great to get a good night's sleep, but I do miss my little snuggle-bug...
Kyle and I talk a lot about how excited we are to get glimpses at Rebecca's personality. I guess we sort of feel like Owen is at the age where his personality is really really shining through in full force but RSM is still so young that most of who she will be is unknown to us...it's a fun mystery. Anyways, the little glimpses we're getting at this stage are fun. Of note: She is seemingly very patient and even-tempered. She loves to sleep on her side. She can almost sit up on her own. She loves laughing at her brother...



Owen's bowing (the cause of her laughter above) and a little game she and I play where I balance her on my legs up in the air are the two things that have elicited laughter from her at this point. Doesn't hearing this just make your day? It does mine/ours.