SEW cute (and what a cause!)

So, I have every intention of putting together my own little blog-worthy tutorial complete with pictures...but that's about me and this is time sensitive...What's more important is that people join in and help Haitian orphans so here's the deal...

If you have even the tiniest most meek sewing skills (como yo) then you too can turn extra/mismatched/goodwill pillow cases into sweet (and practical!) little dresses for Haitian orphan girls!!! Take my word--this is super easy! In just a few hours (while Owen naps) + $15 for bias tape, elastic and 10 (yes, ten!) pillow cases from goodwill (all in good shape) I will have made 10 dresses and you just can't beat that!

Like most good ideas, this one wasn't mine. I found it on Noel Piper's blog and she links to another blog as well. I'll put a few links below because you might find the pictures/tutorial wording more or less helpful on a given site.

Noel Piper's blog 
Her inspiration 
Another tutorial 

You can send the dresses to the following person/address which will ensure that they make it to the Real Hope for Haiti Rescue Center. (Per Mrs. Piper's blog--I just can't call someone I respect that much and have never met by her first name!--there is a container being shipped to Haiti this week so the need is urgent, but if you can't get around to it until a little later, I'm sure the need will continue...but you might want to check their website for details.)

Debbie Woodward
1500 Jackson St. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413

Confession: I spent almost all of last Saturday making pillow covers for our couch. They turned out pretty cute...but this is a WAY more soul-satisfying way to use my meager sewing skills...


Questions: Will you join me? Will you teach someone how to sew using this project? Will you search out other organizations that support orphans that might benefit from this simple craft???


I'm excited, can you tell? :)

March catch-up

It's been a while since our last post. No real rhyme or reason to this one...just what I can remember since the last one.

Shall we begin with Owen playing with Rebecca's exersaucer? (FYI, that is not the world's largest booger, but the remnant of a little bloody nose.)

Here is a series we took outside yesterday...it's been so nice lately (dare I saw warm?). The kids and I have been enjoying lot of time in the backyard and lots of time at the lake. (Personal brag: I can now run the 3.2 mile loop at the lake while pushing their double stroller--this was a big goal of mine when I started running.) Owen really looks forward to it--he talks the entire time we run and points out every bridge, dog, person, other stroller, bike, boat and duck we see. He also sings his EIEIO anthem over and over and over again.

 

How precious is she?????

 Owen playing hide and go seek with Dadda. He's hiding behind the really skinny tree. If that wasn't funny enough I believe this particular game started by Owen telling Kyle to count so he could hide behind the tree. They also play "tag you're it" a lot. But Owen (even after being tagged) rarely chases Kyle, so it's really "tag, (Dadda is) always it".

The "Hill Country Camping Society" met again last weekend. Unfortunately,  Kyle had to stay here to study so the kids and I just went for the day. Owen had a great time running around with all the kids (seeing older kids lead make-believe games with younger kids is so great!) and spent a lot of time playing with his truck toy in the "sand". Here he is just taking in the view. 

 

 Rebecca

• Rebecca and I took a quick weekend trip to Nashville to see some friends. It was a great time (apart from me getting a nasty little stomach bug while there). We got to spend some time just hanging out with and praying for my dear friend Andrea who is moving to India with her husband this spring--it was Rebecca's first prayer meeting. :) We also got to spend some time with our dear friends the Ketch's (with their new baby Hannah) from Winston-Salem. One highlight was David (4 years old) asking me if next time for his birthday I could send him money. Too funny! Of note: everywhere we went people commented on what a good/sweet/content baby Rebecca is and it's so true. She's a great little travel buddy. 
• She is getting hair!!! It's just like I remember Owen's--this long fuzzy stuff in sort of a mohawk patturn (with a few really long, like 4-inch long hairs around her crown).  The best part is she likes to play with it, especially when she's nursing and/or falling asleep. She keeps her hand up on her head and just sort of tugs at it and rubs it. It's perhaps one of the most adorable things I've ever seen. 
• She LOVES bathtime, and now that she's eating the (messy!) baby food, I'm proud to say she's getting one much more regularly. We're even able to do both of them at the same time (now that she's sitting up) which is fun for both of them (and much more efficient)!

Owen

• The weekend RSM and I were away Owen went to a birthday party where he got to pet bunnies and ride a pony named Mustang. And of course there was cake. Oh, to be a kid!
• The other day I found Owen laying/lying (?) on top of Rebecca. Luckily, she was giggling. When I asked him what he was doing he said he made a "Betta sandwhich".
• Owen is into dipping pretty much everything in ranch dressing (which he got from Kyle). But he is still experimenting with what tastes good w/ ranch (and isn't satisfied to take our word for it) so he's tried banana, vanilla waifers, blueberries, etc.
• Someone taught Owen how to stick his thumb up (tricky) and say "Giggem' Aggies". Awesome.
• Lots of pretend games...driving his ambulance to church and then the grocery store, being chased by a bear (with Bailey), making up nonsense words and then telling me its a kind of bird...
• One night last week we were hanging out with the Foshea Family and we decided to try putting Emmy and Owen to sleep in his room so we could hang out longer. They did great for a while, Owen in his crib and Emmy on the floor on her "nap mat". They talked and sang for a long time, but didn't get up so we thought it was a success...then I walked by the room and peaked in the cracked door to find them greasing their faces and the crib posts down with lotion. After I yelled for backup and flicked the lights on (causing a frozen deer-in-headlights look on their faces) Owen calmly told me they were "playing lotion". I'm supposed to be glad Owen is taking ownership of his eczema, right? 
• When your kids start talking, and I don't mean saying words, but really talking, it's undoubtedly funny what they come up with. But it's also humbling because you often hear yourself/your words come out of their little mouths. I've learned (by reflection in Owen) that I say "I'm about to...(or) we're about to..." preceding almost every verb. Owen has started repeating this, but he also just says "I'm about" and that's it. I'll say, "Owen, we need to get in the car to go to school now," to which he replies "I'm about". I'm just gonna let this ride...I figure it'll self-correct. :) 
• Owen is trying to understand kindness/niceness...and right now he just associates it with saying no (i.e. when he tells me no after I tell him to do something I tell him it's not nice, among other things). So, he's in the habit of telling me "Do not say no to Owen, it's not nice. You need to be nicer to Owen." This is a tricky one...

FYI: The Blogger set-up has changed and I can't find the spell-check link so my spelling is sure to be worse than even normal...Sorry!

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.

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!