Owen the Submarine

Owen completed the rigorous pre-Navy Seal swim training program affectionately known among Austin moms as "Mrs. Cathy's"...For a guy who would hardly put his face in the water to blow bubbles the progress he made in 8 1/2 hour lessons is staggering. Take note: her methods are not for the faint of heart...but Owen is now voluntarily swimming UNDER the water to retrieve his "dive sticks" from the (shallow) bottom of the swimming pool...

Grandpa Robert's Visit

Kyle and Luke's dad Robert came down from Colorado for a visit this last weekend. We had a great time going fishing at (Great) Uncle Doug's dock and then out to the Faubion Ranch so the boys could do some shootin'.

Grandpa helping Owen get his hook ready...and Grandpa helping Owen real in his first fish (just minutes later). (Owen's colorful hat was provided by Grandpa...his fishing hat.)

Owen and Bailey just having some cousin time.

 

The littlest two (Rebecca and Blake) just enjoying some time on the dock. 

Shootin' Time.

No trip to the Ranch is complete without a truck ride to spot deer, cactus and cows. 

 

A helicopter sighting 

 

Mel w/ the babies

 

Grandpa and Rebecca

It is such a blessing to see our kids develop such fun (and different!) relationships with their grandparents! Grandpa Robert is likely to get Owen into trouble...he's very good at pulling his leg and teaching him "facts" about kangaroo eggs (etc.) that might be difficult to verify...It was a great visit and we hope to see Grandpa Robert again very soon!

Fire Station! Fire Station! Fire Station!

One day last week I finally made good on my promise to take Owen to a fire station. The volunteer firemen were sooooo great--they gave Owen the royal treatment. They let him sit in their largest engine and pretend to drive it. They showed him the ladder, hose, siren, and all the buttons/switches. One of them even got all "geared up" for him and showed him how he breathes with the airtank and talks with a special speaker. He even got to help spray one of the hoses. The only thing we didn't see was a dalmatian or a pole to slide down. It was a great treat--Owen was truly in awe (and I think it made the firemen's day).

Bummer!

So, our hard drive crashed yesterday. Yes, bummer. And no, we were not backed up. Yes, big bummer. (We did a better job backing up our files when we had our old computer because we were always fearful it would crash. When we got our new computer about a year ago we got lazy because we felt secure.) So, there is a year's worth of data that we're not sure we'll be able to get back. I haven't been this mad at myself in a really really really long time.

Of course I immediately thought of our pictures. A year's worth of pictures. All of our Rebecca pictures. I cried. I also thought of the looming hassle in recreating our excel-based budget, my mega master to-do list, our contact database, our calendar, etc. etc. etc. I cried a little more.

Well, things are always a little brighter w/ some perspective. Most importantly, I was reminded by several people (you know who you are) that we are so blessed. We may have lost some photos but we still have (and in good health) the subjects of those photos. We could lose soooo much more--people do all the time. In the grand (and even not-so-grand) scheme of things, it's all just stuff. I have to take a deep breath and remind myself of that. God is good ALL the time. Amen!

So, we have a new hard drive (with backup!) and we're pursuing "data recovery"...we'll keep you posted. We should know in 2-3 weeks if the computer geniuses we've hired can get our stuff back from the microchip abyss. (Where are Chloe O'Brien and/or Marshall Flinkman when I need them?) If not, I'll be sending out an APB for photos you have of our family from the last year...thank you in advance!

I have no words other than to say that this is...

So True.

May + June = Hot Fun

Reading for your update? How do you feel about out of order pictures and random kiddo stuff? Awesome, here we go!

Here is Rebecca eating a banana (peel and all) at our garage sale a couple of weeks ago. She was a hot mess when it was all said and done with. (Horn toot: Kyle totally cleaned out/organized our garage yesterday--we can fit both of our cards in it now! --It's a good thing we've extended our lease so we have some time to take advantage of it, right?!)

 

Rebecca's curls are coming in "ahead of schedule" (compared to Owen). His started up top around his firth birthday. She'll be 10 months old on Thursday and hers are mostly around the nape of her neck. Sooo, sweet. Not quite long enough for any accessories, but it won't be long.

 

A  couple of awesome shots our friend Cary took with her awesome camera while we were at the beach. Let's say awesome one more time. Yes, awesome!

s This is a horrible picture but it should give you a sense of what our day to day is like. When we're not out and about, it's playtime chaos. 

 Rebecca and her namesake Bee at Owen's end of school year picnic a few weeks ago.

 

Owen loves it when he hears Rebecca wake up before I do. On this occasion he ran into her room and climbed up into her bed to "save her".  

 

 Owen and Bee at his school picnic. (Those things that look like horns are his hands, helping him stand up on his tip-toes.)

Birthday's mean cake. Picnics mean cupcakes. 

 

We will miss Owen's sweet teacher Mrs. Ouida. Here she is giving each child a beach ball with their name on it. Big hit.

 

I think this is the first picture we've had of all of us since Thanksgiving. Is that possible? An old friend from NC who now lives in Hershey Pennsylvania was in town all of last week. We got the chance to play tour guide a little bit and he was kind enough to take our picture. Nice hill country view from the balcony of the County Line. (Because of Kyle's enthusiasm when saying the word, Owen thinks ribs are called "ribza".)

 

One of these days Rebecca will get to take fun outings with her grandparents, but for now, it's still just Owen--what a treat for him. Yesterday he went with Dahdo and Pam out to my dad's project in Manor to paint some fire hydrants. You could not pay for a more perfect activity for Owen. The gettup was all my dad's doing. His old t-shirt, TX dew rag, little workout gloves. My dad and Pam call Owen their "teeny Republican" or ask him if he's a "Whole Foods Conservative" (to which they've trained him to say Yes). Oh to be a fly on the wall and overhear the indoctrination...

 

Okay, some general kid update stuff...

-Rebecca is almost "cruising" (taking little steps w/ the help of furniture and other stuff she can hold onto). She is pulling up on everything, standing with only the help of one hand. She'll let go, but promptly sit down. Her favorite thing to pull up on is your leg, while you're standing, immobilizing you. And of course she loves scooting around the train table "stroying" stuff as Owen says. When he sees her coming he says, "Momma, here comes the tornado. Come get her!". The more she can get around the more we see her personality come out based on what she gets herself into...we predict "feisty" will be an adjective that gets used to describe her more and more in the months and years to come...

-She has taken well to table foods--so much better (at least from my perspective) than the mushy baby stuff. I'm never quite sure how much she's actually eaten until I sweep...Weening is going as expected. She hasn't seemed to miss nursing all that much but she also isn't taking in a whole lot of formula. We're down to 3 times a day and will soon be at 2. At some point, she's going to get thirsty enough to just start drinking the other stuff!

-She is also starting to make a lot more noise and discrete sounds like da da. It's so fun to hear her little voice!!!

-Owen has been a busy little guy recently. Most importantly...to and from the potty! Things with potty training have gone surprisingly well. The first day or two I kept thinking "what are we doing? what are we doing wrong?" because we went through all 12 pairs of underwear...before lunch. But it's been about 2 weeks and I can't remember the last accident he had. I still remind him a lot and make him go before we leave the house and other key times, but he's also done great at taking care of business by himself! And boy is he proud of himself when he does it all by himself (including the getting undressed part) and then just comes to tell me! (This is funny: he still has a hard time putting his underwear back on. One time he was running around naked afterwards and I asked him where his pants were and he told me he "whooooooshed" them off. So, that's what he says now for getting his pants off--whooosh

-Speaking of VBS...What a great week we had! Okay, I was exhausted each day after helping. (I'm not an 18-year old camp counselor anymore I guess.) Owen went with the pre-school crew even though he isn't 3 yet and for the most part he did really well considering his age. He takes a while to warm up to new environments so he carried his green blankie around with him most of the week and had his "stoic" face on most of the time. Looking at him you wouldn't have thought he was having a good time, but by the way he talked about it with me at the end of each day, and requested we sing the new church songs he learned, I know he enjoyed it. Cousin Bailey was there too which was great--they kept each other company! (Rebecca and Blake were in child care there and were both troopers.)

-I've mentioned that Owen has taken the almost constant destruction of his (previously meticulous) train track by Betta in great stride. The more impressive part is that he's taken the opportunity to build tracks of his own design. We've had them running the length of the hallway (every piece lined up) and he's even worked in bridges and hills. It's so fun to see his little mind come up with a plan and then watch him try to execute it!

-Owenisms:
-Owen likes to answer questions in complete sentences. If you ask him if he'll do something he says, "I will!". It's funny to me because it sounds so formal and serious. If you ask him if he likes something he says, "I do!".
-Tonight at dinner w/ a new friend from church he was asked how old he was and he said "Almost 7" even though he totally knows he is 2.5.

What's coming up?
1) swim lessons for Owen this week and next
2)Visit from Grandpa Robert (Yippee)! this weekend
3) Port Aransas w/ Nana & Luke, Mel, Bailey & Blake the next weekend

Yea for summertime!

Beach Trip 2010: No Pain No Gain

So, it was almost a month ago, but I'm finally getting around to putting up some of our 500+ photos from our 2010 Beach Trip! This was the 2nd (almost) annual trip. The first trip (May 2008) we went to Holden Beach, NC and had 3 babies. This time we were in Port Aransas, TX and had 7 kiddos all under the age of 3. Wow. Let's just say that it took most of us a while to adjust our expectations of how much relaxing we were going to get to do...

 Here are 6 of the 7 kiddos: Cousin Blake, Cousin Bailey, Owen, Rebecca, Nathan, Emmy, (Boone was sleeping)

Owen's favorite thing (and pretty much the only thing he did all week) was to dig in the sand. He dug, built, trenched, patted, poured, scooped--pretty much anything you can do with sand, some shovels and a giant dump trunk. He was in heaven.

I'm not sure if we ever really got him in the ocean although I know we tried. Here he is in the pool practicing some bubble-blowing with Kyle. He's still pretty timid in the water.

Rebecca was her usual happy-go-lucky self.  She tends to adjust really easily to new surroundings. It was on this trip that she started really really scooting around quickly and pulling up on the coffee table.

                                                                      Eating sand is a right of passage it seems...                  

I was totally unrealistic in the stuff I thought I would do for (kid-free) fun on the trip. I think most of us were. Kyle and I brought a ridiculous number of books. And Katie and I each brought our sewing machines and enough cute fabric to make 100 pillow-case dresses. We were able to crank out 3--which, given the circumstances was a pretty impressive feat! Here are the girls in their matchy-matchies. 

 One "fun" activity that everyone but me seemed to love was "feeding" (aka: being attacked by) the seagulls. They swarmed like rabid flying rodents and dive-bombed you for bits of bread, but hey--what's not to love?!

 One morning the boys were real gems and left the house with the kiddos to give us moms some peace and quiet. We even had a really awesome masseur come to the house to give us all massages (except for Cary who must be an alien because she doesn't like them); for the rest of us, an hour and a half felt like 10 minutes. They took the kiddos to the Aquarium in Corpus and all reports say they had a really good time. Definitely an outing we'll repeat (and maybe without the moms again!)

 

 We got massages, the boys went deep-sea fishing. They were a little disappointed with the total # of fish caught (stinky weather), but still had a good time away from the beach-house chaos, and the fish still tasted pretty yummy!

 

So, yes, No Pain No Gain. The trip was harder this year. The weather was a little rough (so windy that we couldn't go to the beach several days). The house was a little tight for 5 growing families. But circumstances what they were, it was still such a blessing to get away with friends. This is what living our lives together is all about--the messy stuff too! Here are some other highlights (so I don't forget):

• Dessert every night and an entire kitchen cabinet filled with stuff none of us should eat (like the Twinkies Kyle said no vacation is complete without)
• Katie's famous mojitos pretty much on demand
• Katie getting me (and Christal and Melissa) addicted to the show "Alias"--don't ask me how I've been spending the weeks since our trip...
• The boys winning one game of "four on the couch" and getting so excited that they finally beat the girls that they did a big dog-pile and acted like they had just achieved peace in the Middle East
• Each family surviving sleeping together in one room together...rumor has it that Uncle Luke slept in their room's closet...
• Ticket to Ride
• tag-team napping
• a few spankings...

As a friend of mine recently told me, "the days are long, but the years are short"...and some day we'll look back on even our toughest of vacations and think fondly of the good ol' days when the kids were little. We're counting on that...and planning for next year.