"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.

Viva Mexico!

We've been back a week now, but can't stop talking about what a fantastic time we had in Mexico last week. Yes, we're incredibly spoiled. So...we were at Pam's house in Tulum (south of Cancun and Playa del Carmen), "Mayan Riviera," and it was truly awesome. The house is fantastic. The beach is perfect.

We ate lots of homemade guacamole and tortillas (pretty much at every meal), ended each day with fresh paletas (popsickles) made from coconut and some random fruits we were unfamiliar with. We read. I actually finished an entire book for pleasure! We spent time lounging in powder white sand.

Here are some shots (in a very random order):

Ms. Rebecca enjoying a little R&R in her swimsuit. (She actually had a cough when we left and came down with a fever while we were there which made for a couple of difficult nights and abnormally sleepy days.)
The house is on the beach, but we spent 2 days hanging out at another beach just a few miles away called "Paraiso" which means paradise. And it was. Can you see the big beach beds? We rented a huge round one--soooo fun!
My and Rebecca's favorite spot at the house.
More R&R.
Owen drinking a little "leche" form a dox equis glass. Perfect. Drinking out of a real cup (sans straw) is still a supervised activity, but he's getting better and better at it.
Owen and Kyle building a sand castle. Owen LOVED playing in the sand, but was pretty cautious when it came to the water--we never could get him to go in the waves.
See that lighter blue/aqua color in a circle out a ways in the water? That's a "cenote" (sinkhole) which is essentially where an under-ground fresh water river empties into the ocean via an underwater cave. Awesome. We got to go snorkling in it and it was very Discovery Chanel. A gazillion fish and other things, super clear water, pretty perfect. We used the traditional hand signs for up, look, swim, okay, but we added one for "creepy" because swimming over the cliff opening was just that.
Paradise. The view from our 2nd story room. You can see the pool, my hammock, and the beach.
The flight from Dallas was about 2.5 hours. I had SOOOO many little diversions, tricks, treats, games, etc. planned to make it smooth traveling. And of course, what's the one thing that really really really does the trick without fail and without effort? Our borrowed DVD player and a Thomas the Train video. (The Dr. Pepper was Kyle's, not Owen's.)
Both kids did really great travelling. The flights were a breeze. The hardest part was waiting in some of the pretty crazy lines getting through customs, immigration and security (yes, they both have passports now, which is crazy).

We also had a few firsts occur on the trip:

1) Owen made Rebecca laugh--like a real, hard, belly-laugh--for the first time. It actually happened in the Dallas airport on the way home. We had deboarded and were about to get in the immigration line. We were encouraging Owen to run around a bit in an open area to burn off some energy and stretch his legs. He started bowing (popping in and out of RSM's line of sight) and she just started cracking up. He continues to be the only one who can make her laugh. What a special thing to see and hear.

2) Owen went #2 in the potty! His idea. And then he made everyone (including a couple of other guests at the house whom we had only just met) come see it. "You want to SEE it???"

3) If you've been following the blog for any period of time you probably know that Owen calls my dad "Stan" because we've never been able to agree on a "grandpa name". I had pretty much given up and just accepted that "Stan" would be his name. However...Owen out of the blue, took matters into his own hands. He started calling him "Dahdo" (official spelling still pending). He just walked up to us one afternoon and said "Stan's name is Dahdo". We were like what? So we asked, Owen, who's that (pointing at Stan). And he's point at my dad and say "Stan is Dahdo". Well, okay! We'll let you know how the story develops....

4) "Dora the Explorer" helped us bridge cultural gaps...I had a really fun conversation (in Spanish) with the nice man who drove us from the Cancun airport to the house (about an hour and a half). We bonded over the fact that Owen loves to watch Dora and pick up random Spanish words and his 4 year old daughter watches it to learn random English words! Owen picked up the following Spanish while we were there: hola, adios, playa, perro, uno, dos, tres (now we're up to 8--he really really likes ocho), gracias, and de nada. We've added te amo, and por favor since being home. Oh, and luna and estrella. Not to get all serious, but with as quickly as a 2-year old can pick up another language, it seems insane that our public schools have taken foreign language out of elementary school education...

Okay, that's it for now. Gracias to Pam & Stan for such a great partial week. They were right..we should have stayed longer!

Hunting: Parental Discression Advised

We took our first "family hunting trip" to the Ranch this past weekend. We were joined by the Fosheas and the Murrays. You won't see any pictures of the guys because all of the photos with them in them are too yucky to post.

Christal and I shooting hand-guns at targets and soda cans. We'll probably start being recruited by "clandestine services" soon because we're both such good shots. It'll be tough to turn down. "These guns are toooo louuuuuud".
Phil shot his first deer ever. Nathan was very interested. (Owen too--he knew the deer had a booboo, but we're leaving it at that for now.)
The girls with some of the babies (Emmy and Boone not pictured).
Emmy and Owen working it in some work boots.
A good time was had by all. It was a very very cold weekend, but we not only survived but had a great time. On the way home (very late), Owen fell asleep with a hamburger in his hand. When he woke up he asked for it and was somewhat upset that we had taken it from him.

Okay...now I feel sufficiently caught up which is good because we're leaving town early Saturday morning for a somewhat impromptu trip to the beach in Mexico so I'm sure we'll have lots to post when we get back...

Oh, and note to other baby-booker-bloggers out there. I just had our entire blog turned into a book (actually 3 books--one for each year of posts) through "www.blog2print.com". The quality is not quite as good as the photo-books you create yourself using mypublisher.com or something like that but it literally took 20 minutes and now I have hard-bound books preserving all this rambling. The formatting is done automatically so is a little weird at times (and obviously, videos aren't included so references to them seem a little strange), but it's super easy and looks way better than if you tried to do it yourself, so they get my recommendation. Let me know if you have any questions--I'm happy to help if I can. Adios!

All C's are T's

All of Owen's "C's" sound like "T's" and all of Owen's "G's" sound like "D's". This is the key to understanding everything he says. I still have to remind myself of this often...

Here is the lucky little guy playing w/ his two best buds--cousin Bailey, and Emmy. It's amazing how much fun a pack 'n play is when you fill it with plastic balls. Think Chuck E Cheese...Owen playing Kyle's guitar (as well as Kyle? :) and taking a bow afterwards. The bow is by far the best part. He kept telling Kyle to let go so he could hold it by himself. Bossy little booger. :)
One morning Owen told me he wanted to get dressed, so I said okay, let's go get your clothes. But he told me no, "I do it myself". I sort of didn't believe him and stayed in the play room playing with Rebecca. A few minutes later he came back in with his jammies completely unzipped and hanging on by one foot. He's definitely wanting to big a big boy these days!
Bee had "bike bootcamp" at her house-this is the trike that she gave him last Christmas...he's finally big enough to really get the hang of pedaling and steering.
Owen and Bailey w/ Nana leaving Gymboree after a playdate. Too much fun.
In other "big boy news," Owen is potty-training himself. What I mean by that is that we're not really doing anything formal yet (and we're still keeping him in diapers until he's totally totally ready), but he's become very interested in the potty. We got him a little potty a while back because he expressed some interest. Now he's in a little routine where each time we change his diaper (especially a dirty one), he asks to go sit on the potty. He almost always goes pee pee. He gets very excited and gets a sticker. He gets upset when I rinse out the potty because he wants Kyle to see it when he gets home from work. This is definitely a step in the right direction but we're not going to push it.

Okay, and here's the list I've been accumulating recently of Owen's doing/sayings:

-Teaching us what we've taught him...1) He's likes to remind us to greet other people. If you come over to our house, he'll make everyone stop and say hello to every other person in the room. It comes from all the times we've said, "Say hi to ___, Owen". 2) Owen loves to say thank you (what a great habit)! He pretty much screamed "Thank you for the gro-cer-ies!!!" to the man helping us check out at the store the other day. Latter that week as Bee was walking out the front door after a quick visit, Owen ran after her and yelled out the front door, "Thank you for playing trucks!!!". Thank you's--often and loud.

-Owen has an increasingly large arsenal of stall tactics. He likes to hold up one finger and say, "one more minute" or "one second" or "one more______" (of whatever he wants). I guess this is something he has heard before...He also has a growing list of things he asks for when going to bed. Water, one more book, one more song, one more, one more. The newest is "why" and "why not". Oh, boy. We're actually saying things like "because I said so". I usually end up having to ask Owen--what did I just tell you?, so he'll repeat the reason. About 50% of the time he still asks me again. He also likes to play 2 people off of each other if he doesn't like the first answer he gets (hello, human nature)--if I say no to something and Kyle is around, he'll look at Kyle and say, "what did momma say?"--somehow hoping the answer will change in translation. This can go on for several rounds. One recent episode where his Bee actually told him no (a rare thing) has been recounted several times as if the incident was quite shocking and traumatizing to himself.

-Yesterday means sometime in the past. Tomorrow means sometime in the future. Today means right now. And everything is ____ time. Since we have bathtime and dinnertime, Owen insists we also have truck time, milk time, drawing time, on and on and on. Whatever he wants to do...it's (that) time. And it's today. Or if he doesn't want to, he says, "not today".

-The other day he wanted some help with something and I said he'd have to wait a minute because I was feeding Rebecca to which he replied, "help me with one hand".

-He recently put himself in time out for no apparent reason. I told him he didn't have to stay there--that he could come out. He replied, "no, not yet".

-It seems like Owen is constantly singing. His favorites are Old MacDonald (he always has a "tow"/cow) and Twinkle Twinkle "trintle trintle woodul star"...He gets at 75% of the lyrics right and it is one of my favorite things to listen to in the whole world. Sometimes he just goes around the house singing EIEIOooooo (or his other version: Isa, Isa, Iiiiiii). He sings when he wakes up, when he's going to sleep, when he's looking out the window of the car. He also really likes the "clean up" song he learned at school, although he prefers to sing and have others do the cleaning.

-He is very much into names. He has been learning the last names of family members and friends. Metzer. Matarory. If I'm talking to a clerk at a store or something he asks me (as if they cannot hear)--Momma, what is dat friend's name? He also likes to scribble a bunch of circles on his easle and then say, "That is your name--see!!!--Metzer!". "Wook, wook, what I draw for you!".

All about Rebecca

Can't believe Rebecca is almost 5 months old! I know all little girls are sweet, but she REALLY is! :) We are having a lot of fun with her and some of her new developments. I myself am a big fan of her sleeping through the night. That continues to go well, with a few hiccups every now and then. Naps are still hit or miss, but I know from having gone through this with Owen, that that's okay--it'll come with time.

Here she is with big brother. She LOVES him. It's like they have their own little language. Owen likes to come up to her really close and gently put his hands on her cheeks, framing her face. He squeals a little bit and they starts moving his hands around saying "tittle tittle" (tickle). He also HAS to give her "tisses" (kisses) before he goes anywhere or takes a nap or goes to bed. She usually sleeps later in the morning than he does and when I hear her, Owen is so excited to run into her room and yell Good Morning Betta! over and over again. She grins from ear to ear. He also talks to her as if she's going to respond. He likes to ask "Are you hundry Betta?...Betta, are YOU hundry?" and then he answers for her (I think depending on whether he's hungry or not). And if she's upset he gets in her face and says "It's otay Betta, it's otay".

Asleep in the bumbo chair (sorry about the rotation). We have some identical pictures of Owen. It's amazing that she would cry and wake herself up if we put her in her bed, but she's okay sleeping like this. Don't worry--I picked her up. Couldn't stand to leave her like that.
She's really enjoying some new toys--this is cousin Bailey's jumper. She sort of just spins around/pivots on which ever foot is hanging down furthest, but she seems to like it. Since the swing has gone bye-bye, this is the next best thing. That and the exersaucer--I had forgotten how annoying its music is!
Okay, this is a biggie. Rebecca had her first baby "meal" the other night. It was actually the Friday night we started her Ferber weekend. She seemed to like it and most of it went down the hatch. I know its time for us to start incorporating the cereal (and eventually veggies, etc.) into her diet, but I'm not excited about having to work that into our already hectic mealtimes...which means she's only had the one meal.

Sitting up with some bumbo assistance.
Tummy time. She seems to have a higher tolerance for this than Owen did. And she is SOOOOOO close to rolling over. She lays on her side and arches her back to reach stuff...it'll just take a little twist and voila! She actually did it once, but I'm pretty sure it was an accident.
We joined Nana and Owen at a Gymboree free play one afternoon. We mostly watched, but did enjoy a little time in the tunnel.
Can you see the little fuzzy hairs coming in? I can't wait to see what her hair looks like? Right now, it looks exactly like Owen's did at this age, except her baby mullet in the back is a little darker.