Summer 2012

I'm feeling guilty about keeping up here with our "baby book." This is a very brief rewind of our summer. We spent a weekend or two at Beaver Lake with friends. Rowan did much better this year swimming (with a life jacket) and Ryder, well, she still prefers the bathtub. 

Don't judge us for the beer. It was probably lake water, really, most likely lake water. And if you are wondering if Rowan lost his two front teeth, yep he did. I'm going to save the long version for another time, but he fell at the farmer's market and hit his mouth. An ER visit followed by an emergency dentist visit later he was without his two front, top teeth. It was traumatic for all of us and we still cringe when we think about that day. Rowan is fine and would love to tell you his story some time. 

We saw this double rainbow from our front porch. It just so happened to coincide with a weekend when Rowan really fell in love with Max and Ruby. In particular, an episode where Ruby teaches Max how to paint a rainbow. It was perfect.

We traveled to Kansas City to see Phish. 

They had fun and then passed out in the stroller, just as planned. Yeah, so maybe we walked 3 miles during set break but we were rewarded with a relaxing second set.

The next morning we woke up and went to the zoo. It was the 2nd best zoo I've been to. San Diego being #1.

We went home to Texas for two whole weeks. We are chronically terrible at taking photos on this trip, but I did snap a few. These are from an ice cream shop on Main Street in Fredericksburg. You can no longer buy or order food for Rowan and leave Miss Mae out. She will protest. Rowan is vanilla, all the time, but on this day he went out on a limb and ordered sprinkles. He hasn't ordered them since.

Ryder rode in the Jeep with Rowan for the first time while we were in Texas. If you ignore the "whiplash" when accelerating, you'll see that she loves it.

These were taken at the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus.

 

The kids and I made a trip to Beaver Creek, Colorado to meet up with the Masons. It was a nice relief from the heat, not to mention great company and views. We went to a 4th of July parade. 

Rowan hiked up a real mountain for the first time. He made it about 20 minutes up and was ready to go back down. Not shabby for a three year old. 

He played his first putt putt golf game. He was about 85-90 over par but he had fun nonetheless.

And of course there were a million other things we did but you get the idea. We had lots of fun and now my children will have a little tiny glimpse into their Summer of 2012. Rowan is getting back in his routine of going to school and we are getting a little nervous about winter since it seems fall has skipped us over.

Miss Mae is One!

Nearly a month late is better than never. Ryder Mae had a backyard lunch for her first birthday. The weather forecast was 100% chance of rain but that couldn't foil our plan and the rain held out until late that evening long after everyone was gone. She was sweet as usual at her party and even tried the cupcake. One Year Stats: Weight - 24lbs (90th percentile) Height- 29.5 inches (80th percentile) Head- Huge (99th percentile) And for the record, Ryder is walking. She started trying about two weeks ago and is now walking on her own. She still utilizes the crawl when she needs to get there fast but she can walk.

Just a Little Video

11 Months

This little lady turned 11 months old yesterday. Can you believe it? If you ever find this blog Miss Mae you'll see that I have failed at keeping close tabs on your accomplishments/likes/dislikes. Today I'll attempt to capture you in words at 11 months.
- Your hair is amazing. Each morning you wake up with curls all over your head. We love it.
- Your teeth, well you still have just two. Maybe you can work on that this month.
- Your favorite food is avocado, I mean you'll dive towards a bowl of guacamole if you see it. You LOVE avocado. You also like pesto and cheddar cheese. You enjoy eating ice that your dad has "baby birded" for you. If you hear the ice maker you crawl quickly over and put your finger in your mouth. That is your sign for "put that in here."
- You also sign, all done and more. And you sort of wave if sticking your arm out and opening your mouth really wide is waving. I'll take it.
- You are still chimpanzee crawling and getting around fast, including getting up the stairs. You cruise too but haven't showed any signs of really wanting to walk.
- You love babies. If you see a baby in public and I put you down. You crawl over and talk "orca" to them. You keep your mouth closed while making sounds that a whale might make, it's soooo adorable.
- You sleep like a champ at night and are on a schedule of napping twice a day.
- You love stacking cups and also putting toys into baskets, buckets, etc...
- You are lovable. Hugs and kisses (kisses are for mama only, daddy's beard is your worst enemy) are plentiful.

Now I'll start planning your Big Hat, High Noon, Happy Hour Birthday Party, you sweet southern belle.

The Great Eight

The staff at Rowan's school refer to his class as The Great Eight. They are the youngest kids there and, well, you know, great. Here is his class photo.



And this is his photo.




He's lucky he is so adorable because I'm about to pack his bags if he asks "Why?" one more time.

Chicken Beginnings

Remember this post? My backyard chicken dream is coming true. I asked for a chicken coop for my birthday and my in laws went far beyond what I expected. It's not only my birthday present but a gift for all of us.

Here is the tractor just off of the 18-wheeler that backed into our cul-de-sac. We are going to turn those pallets into a compost bin.



Not long after we took the shrink wrap off, someone crawled in.

And we put the other one in too.
They loved it, despite the sad eyes in this photo.

Here is the run before assembly.

During assembly.

Once we got the coop all together we had to wheel it in the backyard for a photo op.
And, phew, it fits through the gate. You can see our new raised bed gardens in this picture. We are excited to see how things grow here, as our last garden was in College Station, TX. If you garden and know that area then you know what I mean.

Here she is all put together. As Rowan says at least once an hour, "It's awesome."

Proud husband talking with our neighbor, Joe. It's cool they still love us.

Pics of chicks coming soon....

February Memorables

We got our snow. It was the perfect snow too, fell softly all morning and melted by sun down. The obligatory "first snow" photo shoot results are here.









Ryder is all over the place and into everything. She pulls up on anything and has let go and stood alone a few times. She is signing more and all done, although they look exactly the same. She loves for her Daddy to chew ice and feed it to her. Gross but true. Her biggest accomplishment of the month, she got her first tooth this month. See it?


Rowan is still adjusting to being a big brother and having to share us and his toys with Ryder. He is learning to spell his name and is curious about what letter your name starts with. I've enjoyed seeing things click with him. This was a photo from our snow day but I cropped all of the snow out to enjoy those eyes. I think he is saying "cheese."


He had his first Valentine party at school. They sat in a circle and each stood up and put their cards/candy in each others envelopes. Rowan went first and he wasn't sure why he was doing this but he went with it.

This is Rowan's buddy, Ben. They hang out by the computer a lot and have deep conversations about Mario Kart. They even coordinated a t-shirt day where they both showed up in a Mario Kart shirt.
Grandma came to stay with us for a few weeks this month and it's such treat for all of us. We get to do things like happy hours and concerts, my mom gets to love on my babies and my babies get spoiled rotten. This was what we walked into several nights during her visit.


We are back to the grind now, trading off kids while the other works out or does something fun. On the to do list, Find. A. Sitter.

Brrrrr, It's January

Rowan came home from school and taught us a new song. It's the first one he taught us. Just ignore the yogurt all over his face and enjoy the song.

Ryder Mae - 8 months

Ryder rolled over for the first time over Christmas break at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Until then she just sat there being cute. Now less than a month later she's crawling and clapping.

Ignore Thomas the Train in the background.

4th Quarter 2011

Oh my! I have a video of Miss Mae crawling and I want to share it on this little, family blog but I just can't do that until I post some pictures of us (mostly them.)

This was Ryder's first Christmas and she was more impressed with bows and paper than anything. Rowan was into it more this year than any other thus far but still appreciates small doses of gifts. Here are both of them with our stockings at home (Christmas 2011 #1 of 3.)

Rowan's favorite gift from Fayetteville Santa was a pair of black shoes that are very similar to Esten's. He asked me to put some pants on him so he could wear the shoes immediately. He needs pants touching the shoes or they just aren't right.



I mean he really loves them.



Ryder and her first purse.



In November, the 30th to be exact, Rowan turned 3. While he was at school I put all of his gifts together on our coffee table so he would walk in to this.



He was thoroughly unimpressed! He didn't want to open his gifts but after a little coaxing he did.



That night we went to Chuck E Cheese's. Did you know they serve beer? We were delighted to discover this. Now our trips there will cost even more. A few of our friends came to celebrate with us, including Luke, Rowan's nieghbor buddy. Candles were his thing this year. Fire equals fun.








And in October we all dressed up for Halloween. No explanation needed here.






These are a few randoms from October.










And finally, at the beginning of October we went the Harvest Music Festival. The weather was unseasonably warm but we managed. Our kids were great and we will be back next year albeit in reserved camping. We are too old to camp with the stay up all nighters.











That was just a glimpse but mejor que nada.