Saturday, April 28, 2012

Serving in Honduras

Kyle left the house this morning at 4:15 to catch his flight to Honduras. He will be there for a week with TIME (the group we have gone to Mexico with several times) at a Baptist Medical & Dental Mission International Hospital in Guaimaca (about 1.5 hours outside Tegucigalpa - the capital). The set-up of the trip is different than Mexico, but the purpose and work is the same - demonstrate the love of Christ by meeting physical needs and sharing the Gospel.


 We are definitely going to miss him for the week! We'll be praying for safe travels, safe surgeries, and that lives and hearts would be changed. Feel free to join us.

Kyle's mom Franny (aka Nana) has been down in Honduras the past week (with the medical clinic part of the trip). She gets back tonight and we are very very excited to see her and hear the report from the first part of the trip.


!Cristo te ama!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

March Maddness

Hey cyber-friends, this post is a little late...but here are some random photos/tidbits from March and the first part of April. Prepare yourself for complete out-of-order and rambliness...

Now that Maggie is such a stellar sitter, she loves bathtime. I think she especially loves it when I bathe all 3 kiddos at the same time - even though its overwhelming (for her and me)! You can probably guess why I don't have any pictures of that event.
Happy girl doing some clapping with some toys.
Happy girl drinking some milk - we're really really working on this and I think we're making small but noticeable improvements in her desire and ability to use a sippy cup.
When any Loved Ones come over...they must be prepared to give all 3 kids attention at the same time. Here is Bee holding Maggie, doing yankie doodle with Rebecca and talking to Owen about the Memory Game he wants her to play with him.
Maggie enjoying her first "doodle" with Bee.
I'm realizing how quickly Maggie is growing because this photo has been in my queue to upload for a while - Owen feeding Maggie mushy baby food...and now she's totally moved on from the mushy stuff and is eating chunky table food!
He had a great time feeding her. When her tray isn't on her chair, she lies to sit with one leg sort of propped up, or in her hand. Ah, to have the flexibility of a baby. And the thighs.
This was an exciting night. The night we took Rebecca to Dell Children's Hospital because we thought she broke her arm. Kyle and I were out doing some driving tests to see if we'd be able to get our cars into our hypothetical new garage (answer - no - doors need to be bigger!) when we got a call from Nana that R had hurt herself and wouldn't move her arm. R's story was sort of squirly (although consistent) - she "fell on my blankie" (we think there was running and sliding involved). Anyhow, she wouldn't let anyone touch it and she wouldn't move it at all and she kept saying her "crack" (read: elbow) hurt. She was pretty pitiful...which you can't tell from this photo. In the waiting room, enjoying her little sling, and being almost naked in public...
A brilliant doctor checked her out and (without x-rays) was able to tell she had "nurse maid's elbow" - which means it was sort of dislocated - apparently something that is very common with toddlers. One little pop and everything was back in place and good as new. And the little sling has made a nice addition to our play doctor kit.

Owen is MAJORYLY into legos. Every day - every-day - he picks legos as his toy during Quiet Play Time. He's gotten really good at reading the (pictorial) directions to build things (like the house seen below) but also comes up with creative designs of his own. He is in his element.
Some numbers he built by looking at the picture on the box.
He's also doing a lot more life-like drawing. So fun to watch these little imaginations develop!
Um...blue tongues. I'm pretty sure Bee was involved in this...can't remember the exact details of the treat.
Some recent abstract art by Owen. It's a map of some sort.
Some of Rebecca's art. No explanation given or necessary.
When the kiddos go to Dahdo and Pam's house - I know D/P take lots of pictures. This is one of the few they remembered to actually share with me. Ahem.
Isn't springtime wonderful? Here are O & R having a little pretend camp out in our backyard. They're roasting marshmallows with Nana.

And now for information overload about each kid...

Maggie
  • 3rd, 4th and 5th teeth have come in - she looks so much like Owen to me at this stage
  • her first real clap (on her own) was for Bee while she was playing piano
  • she is able to be put to bed by someone other than me finally! 
  • she loves smoothies (Bee), bananas, black beans, waffles, turkey, cheese and pretty much everything else!
  • 9 month stats: 28.5 inchs long/tall (50-75th%), 24 lbs 2 oz (97th%)
  • we've almost got "bye bye" down - she can definitely do the movement and is starting to associate it with the words
  • she's doing lots of "ba ba ba" and just using her voice to squeal more. no ma ma or da da yet
Rebecca
  •  I could write a book with all the things this girl says/does right now...
  • she calls us (and other groups of people) "guys" - look at me, guys! come here, guys!
  • when she's not happy with a decision, she says that's not good for people! and now, that's not good for me guys!
  • she loves to help me set the table. including knives and spoons we don't need.
  • she (on her own terms) will ask me to "nuggle" with her (melt my heart) - but don't ask her to do it...you'll definitely get a no
  • after she pee pee's in the potty she likes to say either hip hip horay! or ta-da!
  • she loves to be in charge of what's going on and being said. if she's in the mood to tell a story or talk about something or sing something and you start to participate with her, you'll probably get a "you not say it!" (we're working on this...)
  • loves to say that's so cool! and duper!
  • loves to play "my spy wi my widdle eye" - a favorite when we were waiting in the ER
  • since we're blessed to live hear so many immediate family members (not to mention awesome friends) there is almost ALWAYS a birthday coming up...and R LOVES birthdays. She loves going to parties, talking about parties, creating parties for her stuffed animals. There is always "cake, presents, candles, presents, cake, friends, presents and candles". But she also thinks she's pretty funny when she starts singing "happy birthday...to NOBODY!"
  • pretty much every day she asks me when "my birthday comin' up???" when I say no, she says "who birt-day comin' up???"
  • she has invented a game for she and Owen called "doggie/owner" - where she is a doggie (affectionately named TaTa) and he is the owner. She commands - you be the owner, I be Tata. And then she starts panting and crawling around on her hands and knees and telling him to command her to do things. 
  • Her favorite toys in the world right now are a basket of kitchen toys including play food that she (and now we) call kitchen food - we play with it and dump it out and pick it up from ALL over the house several times a day right now...
  • We bit the bullet and decided to push Rebecca to give up her nap. Funny - that Owen just gave his up a few months ago! R would love to sleep every day if given the chance, but we just couldn't handle how late it made her stay up (10:30 does not a happy mommy and daddy make - especially when Kyle tries to go to bed by 9:30 or so)! She was keeping Owen up too...so, how she has QPT in their room and Owen has QPT in our room (really just Lego Time) and evern though she's crankier in the evenings (and has managed to fall asleep once or twice for a really short nap), it's better and they're actually falling asleep earlier. Ahhhhhh...
  • Lastly, my girly girl loves to get in to my jewelry and makeup and ask me what things are, etc. The other day I caught her putting ON my mascara. We're not talking just black stuff all over her face, we're talking she got it on her lashes (and did a decent job). Oh boy, trouble!
Owen
  • Owen caught on to the fact that Kyle and I would refer to Rebecca as "curly" when we wanted to talk about her in code in front of the kids.  He broke the code and then took it upon himself to add to it - he's wavy, Maggie is spiky. All very fitting
  • Everything is relative to the number "two quadrillion" now...Something came up about something that was 400 and he asked if that was bigger than 2 quadrillion?
  • We have a true Austinite on our hands. One night over at the Foshea house, he and Emmy did a yoga video workout - not a kid yoga video mind you, the real deal. As you can imagine, Owen was very intense about studding the moves and he was getting most of them pretty right. Kids these days!
  • One afternoon he wanted to do a science experiment from this little kit we have - but he wanted to wait until Rebecca went down for her nap because she "isn't understandable to the experiment". So true, Owen. 
  • A little toy called "Barrel of Monkeys" was called "bearable monkeyes" for about a week.
  • A conversation where Kyle was telling Owen he expected him to eat well at dinner...went something like this.
    • What are we having?
    • ...chicken...whatever description...
    • I think I can work on that...I'll try. I can't promise, but I'll try. 
  • Kyle and Owen took a fun man-outing yesterday...I'm going to twist Kyle's arm into putting up a post about it. :)

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Our Own Little Easter

We had a non-traditional Easter this year. Kyle worked a 7-3 shift so the kids and I were on our own for a while. Our church was having one giant service downtown combining all the campuses. We knew it would be awesome, but I just couldn't quite fathom braving the new (big) location with 3 kids by myself during Maggie's naptime. So, we stayed home and had our own little Easter. 

We started the morning by making "Resurrection Rolls" - tasty little treats that help illustrate the story of the Christ's empty tomb. (The marshmallow in the middle melts into the roll in the oven and "disappears" so the roll is hollow when you cut in to it.) I thought I followed Melissa's instructions but neglected to close the rolls/tombs up tight enough. So...the Jesus marshmallows didn't really disappear so much as end up all melty all over the pan and open biscuits. The mistake/humor in this was not lost on Owen...who thought it odd (at the beginning) that we were going to cook Jesus! They were tasty nonetheless and at least we started our day talking about the amazing truth we were celebrating!
Enjoying our special breakfast after a morning bath.
 Then Bee came over and brought fun Easter treats. Some (nasty) colorful peep-cabobs. Adorable, sticky messes... and two "Angry Birds" toys that were a hit. She brought Maggie a little "taggie" ball that Owen called the "Angry Ball".
 Before "quiet play time" (aka QTP, previously known as "naptime"--more on this development in another kid-update post)...we did some cool new floor puzzles. 

Highlights from the New Testament.
 Highlights from the Old Testament.
 After QPT and Kyle getting home we headed to Franny's for an Easter pot-luck and egg hunt. Our gang was a little bigger because the Fosheas and their 2 kiddos got to join us, but a little smaller because the other Mezger's had been sick and Bailey wasn't well enough to come so Luke had to stay home with her. 

Here are the kids about to be released to find the eggs. We had the idea of letting each of them fill an egg carton to keeps things kind of fair but we had SO MANY eggs that it became silly so they went at it with bags/baskets.
 Owen was on a mission - quite serious. He was doing tumble-moves from egg to egg like one of those spies crossing a room/hall with a laser-beam security system. Intense.
Rebecca was pretty serious too...I think the egg hunt at pre-school earlier that week got her primed and she wasn't about to let big brother show her up.
And did I mention the cascarrones? Such a fun addition. Confetti is always fun. Especially when it's not at your house. (Thanks Nana!)
 The sweet Foshea family. Emmy being a goofball.
 Nana with Mel, Blake and Blair.
 Our crew minus Maggie who was already asleep. Rebecca had a mouthful of chocolate so I guess this is our silly photo.
Happy Easter friends. He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed!*

Taught Owen this exchange earlier in the day and he asked me what a deed was. Because that's what Jesus was risen in.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Rock Climbing Lesson 1 (aka Normal People Would Buy A Playscape)

We just don't have "capacity" in our lives to do some of the things we enjoy right now - one of which is rock climbing. With kids, it's just not possible. What is possible is fashioning kid-harnesses out of webbing and rigging up a pulling system in a tree in the backyard to start teaching the kids the basics. Or just having fun. 

So when he wasn't doing this...
...working on our tiny laptop in our room - because our "office" is right smack in the middle of the house/chaos - and he has had some big projects going on both for work and in preparation for the upcoming medical mission trip to Honduras (more on that later)...

...he was doing this!
 Woohoo!


 Perhaps more than the actual activity, Rebecca liked the "costume"...
...and cheering Owen on.
Two at a time!
 Lesson 2 involved some new gear from REI and a homemade zip-line. Video to come..

(PS - lot of posts today - check out the bluebonnets below!)

Texas, Our Texas

Texas, Our Texas! all hail the mighty State!
Texas, Our Texas! so wonderful so great!
Boldest and grandest, withstanding ev'ry test
O Empire wide and glorious, you stand supremely blest.
 
If you don't love anything else about Texas, you'll at least agree that the bluebonnets in the spring are pretty spectacular. And this spring in particular. And our kids in the foreground aren't half bad either...

All three actually smiling. I'm as surprised as you are.

 Clapping (for Maggie).
 Sweet baby.
 With big brother.
 Sweet sweet baby.
 What a little stud.
 I mean, goofy.
 But still a stud.
I think she thinks that a tilted head = a smile.
 Real smile.
 Playing coy.
Chasing butterflies.
We were about 10 feet away and Owen was concerned the entire time that Rebecca was going to run off and we wouldn't be able to find her. The Protector. 

We actually had a surprisingly smooth little photo shoot. This secret central Austin location (thanks Luke & Mel) is super easy and the flowers were awesome. We timed it just right before Maggie's naptime, kept it short, and ignored the no tresspassing signs. A perfect Texas spring morning.