Vacation Pictures

Interested in pictures from last week's vacation? Click here.

Slacker

Yup, I've been a huge slacker where this blog is concerned. Anybody remember when I used to post every single day, with pictures? I have proof I used to, but I can barely remember those days myself. Somehow the time just gets away from me with taking care of two VERY active children.

Since I last posted, we have celebrated Christmas and New Year's, and life has been back to normal for a full week again already.

We spent Christmas with my family--the whole family. During the days, there were ten adults, four children (well, four and a half, if you count my niece Anna's future baby brother or sister), three dogs, and the elusive cat. I think everyone was glad when we took two adults and two kids out of the picture in the evenings when we went back to our hotel each night. It was a chaotic few days, but lots of fun and I'm glad we didn't miss out on the festivities.

The kids banked for Christmas. When we got home, we cleaned out all but a few of their pre-Christmas toys to make room for all the new ones, and they haven't missed any of the old ones. They simply got that many new toys. Matt and I were definitely blessed as well, with more than we know what to do with.

The day after Christmas, we went to Big Spring to spend a few days with Matt's family as well. (This is where about half of the kids' toys came from; I told you they banked!) It was a little less chaotic there, until the dogs started running, but also a cherished family time.

I didn't take many pictures of our holiday, unfortunately. (I told you I was slacking.) In Dallas, both my brothers were there with their professional-quality cameras, that I kept mine in its case almost the whole time. I'll have to get some pictures from them. I also didn't take too many in Big Spring, but thankfully a few more than in Dallas. The problem is that they are all still on my camera. Yes, this long after our vacation, I have yet to download any of the pictures from Christmas and before. In fact, I don't know that I've even taken any new pictures since we got back. Remember what I said about slacking? I'll either post the pictures or a link to them when I finally get around to downloading them.

The boys are both growing so much right now. Patrick's language seems to be going through another explosion. He speaks in full sentences most of the time, and some of the things he comes up with crack me up. For example, yesterday when I was changing his diaper, Amber came poking her nose up to see what the fuss was about and sniff out whether it was a dirty diaper. I shooed her away as usual, and Patrick had to comment on it. "Amber eat poop?" he asked. I reassured him that I thought that was unlikely, but I thought it was hilarious that he thought that was the reason I was keeping her nose away from his exposed bottom.

He still loves school and asks every day if he gets to ride the school bus. He loves even more when I tell him he's going to MDO first. He names all of his teachers by name. It's funny, though, that all of a sudden he has started clinging to me when it's time for me to leave him at MDO. Unless one of his teachers is holding him and playing with him, he won't let go of me. I don't think he dislikes being there; he'd just rather I got to stay and play with him.

Nathan's personality is what is most interesting about his developments. He is a total hoot. He makes up silly games to play with each of us, and that mischievious smile will get him out of trouble almost every time he does something he knows he's not supposed to. It's like his goal in life is to make people laugh, and he knows he's good at it. I still get comments all the time when we're out whether he's always that happy. Yes, he usually is (until he gets sleepy, as many of you got to discover over Christmas break).

No, he is still not walking yet. I honestly think he could if he wanted to, but he's a little timid about trying it. Besides, his scoot will get him places almost as fast as walking, so what's the point? I know eventually one day he will decide it's time to walk, and he'll be off. When that happens, we'll never catch him.

Over the last few weeks, Nathan has sprouted just about all the teeth he had left to cut. It made for some frustrating, sleepless nights when he was in the most pain, but we seem to be past that now. He sports a full set of teeth instead. No wonder he's suddenly so eager to try any "real" food we can put in front of him. Like his brother, his favorites currently include waffles and anything with lots of cheese.

Guess what I just realized? I have a group of pictures I downloaded right before Christmas that I never shared with you. Since I am quickly running out of time to write, I will just have to post the link, like I did last time. You can find some cute pictures, including Christmas-y ones of Nathan here.

Nathan's Birthday Celebrations

I'm only a week overdue on this post. I hope you'll forgive me for losing track of time over the last week.

We actually ended up having two celebrations for Nathan's first birthday. The first happened when we were in Dallas fleeing the aftermath of Ike. It was definitely impromptu, since we had no idea we were even going to be there a week before Nathan turned one. Please keep that in mind--how last-minute all of this was--when you see pictures where I'm not wearing make-up and the fact that all of our nicer clothes were dirty.

Despite the circumstances, though, it was great getting to celebrate with family. Of course my parents (Nana and Grandpa) were there, and Matt's grandparents also happened to be in town and came as well. It made the idea to have a cake for him turn into a real party, thrown together or not.
Nathan was thrilled with all his presents, but especially this card. Or maybe just getting to stand up next to the coffee table.
Patrick loves cameras, so he was doing everything he could to help Grammy fix hers.

This was Nathan's big toy at the party, a ride-on toy that makes all sorts of crazy sounds. Both boys love the toy.
I think that's a grin for the camera (thanks Mom for playing photographer for most of our party!).
And here we are as a family helping Nathan open one of his presents. Patrick had so much fun "helping" Nathan open gifts. Boy is his birthday going to be fun this year!
Again with the card. Who knew a card would be so fascinating?
His first taste of both chocolate and cake. He mostly picked at it but seemed to like the taste of the frosting pretty well and did manage to make quite a mess out of it...eventually.

See? His hair was coated in chocolate too. You can bet he had a birthday bath in store for him immediately after the party.
Nana, Grandpa, and the birthday boy
Grammy, Gramps, and the birthday boy
Mommy, Daddy, and the birthday boy
I look awful in the picture, but you can see how excited Nathan was by all the attention.

A few days later Patrick found the hat I'd taken out for Nathan's official first year pictures and insisted on wearing it. By the way, how do you think he knew this was a hat? He hadn't seen his brother wearing it at this point. Either way, it was cute and funny enough that I had to get a picture.

I decided to do something a little different for Nathan's cake this time around and made cupcakes instead. I also made a single layer round cake for something different if the cupcake thing didn't work out with the boys (it did). When I put it all together, i realized it looked kind of like a spider. I guess I should have put a face on it and make it look planned.

Here's Nathan waiting on his cake--or cupcake--trying to figure out why we're all singing off-key to him.
Patrick obviously enjoyed his taste of birthday cake. He's asked for it every single day since. Sometimes he'll find the birthday hat and put it on before asking, as though you have to be wearing the birthday hat to get birthday cake, like Nathan was on his birthday.
Nathan actually ate more of the cake this time, now that he knew what it was, but he managed to not make as big of a mess. He still ended up with another birthday bath, though.
Since he'd already opened half or more of his birthday gifts the week before, his loot pile wasn't as big this time, but we compensated by giving him bigger gifts.
Fortunately he could care less how many there were. He loved them all, and both boys play with his new toys all day every day. They are going to love getting to do this all over again in another week when Patrick turns three.

Nearly Normal

We made it back home today. The house has power, gas, water, all the amenities. Matt even found things like milk and cheese at our local grocery store. Apparently not very many stores in the area have perishable items like that. We're really living it up, I guess. (Oh, and we have Internet; did you figure that out?) From here we should get back to normal slowly but surely. Matt will be back at work tomorrow, and the day should feel pretty normal. Too bad Patrick can't go back to school on Thursday, though. I'm looking forward to that one thing going back to normal.

And now that I have a few seconds, here are a few pictures I've been saving up. I took these one afternoon when Patrick was at school and the day was beautiful outside. Nathan and I couldn't resist enjoying the pretty day.

Ike Update...The Last...I Hope

I apologize for the silence for the last few days, but as expected, the power went out. It happened sometime during the night Friday night, when Ike was blowing his hardest. The wind was quite scary. I spent a fairly sleepless night listening for noises out of the ordinary that could signal problems. Then I was awake because of the heat in the house after power went out.

On the bright side, we woke up to much calmer weather Saturday morning. The worst had passed, and by late morning the rain was a mere drizzle and we were able to assess the damage. It was minimal, thank goodness. Our area and neighborhood fared quite well, much better than the scenes you have been seeing on the news.

Personally, we have some roof damage from the winds, but nothing that will leak during rains (this morning's thunderstorm tested that already). I am sure that our roof issues are very low on the priority list for repairs. We also had one small section of fence blow over and some minor damage to our air conditioner. Considering how bad things seem to have gone all over the area, we were very lucky. Even one of our neighbors had a huge section of their roof down to just plywood and already have six different leaks in the roof as a result. Another house in our neighborhood in the progress of being built, just a frame and plumbing, blew over entirely onto the (uninhabited) house next door.

This morning our power attempted to come back on. When Matt went outside to inform our neighbors who were enjoying a breakfast in the relative cool of their porch, he watched as a nearby transformer blew up, shooting sparks and bursting into flames. Coincidentally--or not--our power immediately went down again. That's when we made the decision to try a post-hurricane evacuation. We were tired of living like refugees on peanut butter and jelly and bottled water, unable to even shower and wilting in the heat.

We are now with my parents in Dallas, among many other refugees who got out before the hurricane. We have air conditioning here, as well as cold food and ways to heat food again. It's amazing how much you appreciate such simple comforts after living without them for a few days. Naturally we found out when we were nearly here that power had returned to our neighborhood sometime this afternoon, but we decided we would be better off staying put here until things had returned to a semblance of normal down there, when we could get things like milk at the grocery store again.

The boys are doing about as well as could be expected after the uncertainty of the past few days. They both slept like...well, babies through the hurricane but have had troubles napping every since because of the heat. Any little change from his normal routine, like not turning on his fan at naptime, has thrown Patrick into hysterics. The last hour of the drive today had both boys reaching their melting point, and all Matt and I could do was laugh at the simultaneous tantrums thrown by inconsolable boys in our backseat. What else was there to do?

And now we are just planning to sit tight for a few days. You can be sure we'll be watching the news carefully and talking to people from back home to find out when things in our area are back to normal. It will probably only be a few days for us, not the weeks or months like people who live farther south. I'm sure you will find out shortly after we get home and what we see when we get back there. Hopefully things will seem a little more normal then than they did when we left.

Ike Update 4

We're still not getting rain yet, but the wind seems to be picking up some. Matt and I will probably head to bed soon, and we're praying the weather lets us sleep. The worst will probably hit here in the few hours before dawn. As it is, nothing is too bad here yet. The worst so far are the noisy neighbors who are taking the opportunity to have a hurricane party, complete with copious amounts of alcohol. I'm more worried about them waking up the boys than the weather.

This will probably be the last update tonight. If we have Internet tomorrow, I will update. Most likely we will not, though, so I'll get word to the parents as soon as we have cell service (if it even goes down).

Ike Update 3

There's still nothing exciting to report, but I figured that was a report in itself. It's finally getting pretty cloudy, but it doesn't look like rain yet. The only indications that anything is happening are the constant hurricane updates on the news, the abandoned air of the neighborhood (since everyone is already taking shelter in their houses), and the gusty wind. According to the news, it's about to start raining pretty far south, and the storm surge is already flooding many areas to the south. Fortunately we are out of the storm surge area by a long shot, so any flooding will have to come from rain, which is apparently still several hours out. There's a good chance the worst weather will happen overnight for us. We're in play-it-by-ear mode, so we'll see what ends up happening this evening and tonight. I hope I'll get to update again soon.

Ike Update 2

As of almost 1:00 here, there is still little action. It's getting a little breezy outside, but nothing more than a typical west Texas day. This morning Matt and I made our final preparations for Ike, pulling in everything from our yard. We even had time to take the boys down to the playground for a few minutes to let them run out some energy before being cooped up for the next few days. On our way down there, we saw several of our neighbors also preparing for the storm. It looks like most of our neighborhood has chosen to stick around as well.

We've done just about everything we can to prepare, so all that's left is to wait and pray. I'm still not terribly worried. I'll try to update again in a few hours after it's started raining as long as we still have power and wireless. I fully expect to lose both sometime this evening, and we will probably also lose cell service. Please don't worry if you try to call and can't get through. As soon as we can get on our phones again after an outage, we will call both sets of parents. Depending on how difficult it is to get through, we may task them with passing on the word of how things have gone (I hope you guys are okay with that!).

And now the excitement starts--at least in the next few hours.

Hurricane Update

Okay, so I'm assuming that most of you have heard about Hurricane Ike. Yes, he looks to be headed straight towards Houston. No, we are not running.

As long as we have power and wireless Internet, I plan to update as often as possible to let you know what is going on here. Right now, it's beautiful, sunny, and hot. There is also an aura of busyness in the area. Everyone is stocking up on water and food, filling up their cars with gas, and beating a path out of town for many. Pretty much everyone on the south and southeast sections of town are taking refuge wherever they can. I've heard from several of my friends over there, and they have found places to stay already.

We are on the far west/northwest side of town, so we are not even in a voluntary evacuation area. It appears that most people around here are staying put and are planning to just weather the storm. Because of the increased traffic from all the evacuees that NEED to get out of here, the roads are pretty much packed already. That's one of the main reasons that Matt and I decided to try our luck here instead of picking our way across Texas to somewhere safer.

We've taken most of the preparations we're going to. Around lunchtime tomorrow we should see the beginnings of the storm, and at that point we'll see just how well we prepared. We're expecting lots of rain and some fairly high winds (although I doubt they're that bad, considering both of our experiences in west Texas). Power will probably go out at least for a little while and possibly for a long while.

At least we know what we're getting into. And it's sad, but part of me is actually excited to go through my first hurricane. I wouldn't feel that way if we were closer to the coast, but this far inland, it may actually be a fun adventure.

And of course, if anything changes and it looks like things will end up worse here, we are ready to leave at a moment's notice, traffic and all. But then, just like Rita three years ago, the hurricane could just be psyching us out and hit somewhere else altogether after all.

Either way, we'd appreciate some prayers sent down this way, for us and for everyone else who is about to be affected by Ike.

Catching Up on Pictures

Grr. I'm so far behind with blogging. I didn't realize it had been a whole week. And it's been even longer than that that I'd meant to show off some of the pictures I took at Nana and Grandpa's awhile back. I don't even remember just how long it's been--too long.

Anyway, I took TONS of pictures I really, really like. You'll be glad to know I narrowed it down from the sixty-some-odd favorites to just a few to show off here. (By the way, I'm playing around with some different coloring on a few of these. I'm curious about what you think. I'm a little too left-brained to be able to analyze its artistic value.)

Patrick and Nana

Nathan and Nana

A sweet picture of Nathan looking out the window

Nathan outside, debating whether to eat that grass

Patrick had lots of fun playing outside (isn't their grass beautiful?)

"Airpwane!"

Tell me he doesn't know how to suck up. Try it, I dare you.

Since we got home, Patrick has been asking about his grandparents almost every day. He wakes up and asks, "Go see Nana? And Hampaw?" When I tell him no, he asks about Gigi and Papa. He seems so disappointed to hear that yet another day will go by without his grandparents. It's going to be a loooooong time until Thanksgiving. For the record, though, we do have a nice, clean guest room, just in case anybody was thinking about making a weekend trip here or anything. Ahem.

Vacation, Part 3

The last leg of our trip was to San Antonio, where we didn't visit family at all but focused on doing the normal touristy things. We started off in the Japanese tea garden, a lesser-known corner of a huge park that also includes the zoo, where we spent the next morning. The garden is beautiful and perfect for pictures.
Here's the waterfall in one corner.

A picturesque bridge

And another picturesque bridge and the pagoda in the background.

Unfortunately, the garden was a little less than stroller-friendly. There were stone steps everywhere. That was tons of fun with Patrick. He hadn't had a nap, so he screamed anytime he didn't get his way. And since he wanted to be moving every single second, it was tough getting good pictures of him.

So here's one of the better pictures of my three boys; it is one of several pictures that document their progress over the bridge. Patrick wouldn't let them actually stop for a picture. At least they got to slow down.

Then Matt hijacked the camera, and I'm glad he did. I think he ended up with better pictures of me and the boys than I've seen in a long time.

I really like this picture where you can see all the beautiful foliage in the background. You can also see Patrick tugging at my hand to keep moving, a common posture for us this day.

The only time I could get Patrick to stop was when I kneeled down to show him the fish in the water. He actually stayed like this for a long time watching the fish. He told me, "I see fishies," and then helped me compare the big fish and little ones, and fast and slow fish. This was definitely my favorite part of the visit to the garden, without a doubt.

The next day we headed to the zoo. It was super hot, and humid the way it only gets in central and east Texas. We were glad we chose to go in the morning, and even then we only stayed a few hours. Here are a few of the animals we saw; I chose most of the pictures I did because they were the ones whose names Patrick tried to say.

This bear showed off for me. Patrick said it more like "ba."

He also really liked the flamingos. I can't even begin to write how he said it phonetically. You kind of had to be there to hear how cute it was.

This rhino was right up next to the wall, showing off for all of us watching. Patrick easily said rhino for us but stumbled over rhinoceros a bit.

After attempting to say ostrich, Patrick gave up and insisted it was a duckie. Matt and I agreed to compromise with him that it was a big duckie. Really, that's pretty smart, isn't it? He made the connection between the birds even when they looked totally different.

Surprisingly, he said elephant quite clearly. Matt and Patrick stood watching this guy for a long time.

This is how Patrick spent much of the day at the zoo. The rest of the time he was holding one of our hands. We were impressed with just how much he walked at the zoo. I'm sure I tired out long before he did.

And this is how Nathan spent much of the time at the zoo. I don't blame him. It's not like he could see much of the animals anyway. He'll have a lot more fun the next time we go, I'm sure.

I don't have any more pictures of our vacation, but we did have one more exciting outing. Of course we meandered up and down the Riverwalk for a while that evening. By the time we stopped to eat dinner on the Riverwalk, Patrick was starving and ate more than Matt or I did easily. He didn't act at all tired of walking, either, but he didn't argue when we let him take Nathan's spot in the stroller for the walk back to the hotel.

Overall, it was a really fun vacation. I like that we split it up into time spent with family and time spent creating memories with just the four of us--well, five when you include Amber. Still, it's nice to be back home in a routine again.

Vacation, Part 2

I'm so, so sorry. I took a TON of pictures in Big Spring. I've been narrowing them down ever since, and I still have too many.

I forgot to take any pictures the first day, so I missed my chance to get any of Matt's brother Daniel. Funny that I should notice the pictures I missed when I still have this many, isn't it?

Anyway, we started the pictures with a photo shoot for all three boys. This was the first time we got to meet Corey (sorry if I misspelled that--please let me know if I did), so of course we took tons of pictures.
Yes, Matt got a decent picture of me with the boys, and I know I would catch lots of flak for not including it.

And this was the best one of all three boys. Patrick was being a little less than cooperative (go figure!) and Nathan had lots of fun looking at everything going on, not the camera. Thank goodness Corey is so photogenic!

How cute are these two together? Nathan was very curious about his cousin.

Did anybody guess that Nathan is a bit ticklish? Grammy had fun checking out just how ticklish he is.

I also took some portait-type pictures of Corey. I got a lot of good ones, but I think this one is my favorite. (By the way, if you're reading Jennifer, did you get those pictures yet? Do I need to burn a CD and send it to you?)

Boys and their toys...sigh. Gramps, Papa, and Nathan are all fascinated by that cell phone.

Gramps might as well be called the dog whisperer. The sad part is that this isn't even all the dogs that were there. Tootsie and Mitzi didn't make it in the picture. (And for those of you wondering, all six dogs were great with the kids. The biggest dogs are actually the most gentle, too.)

Patrick showed off his stripping skills as soon as the photo shoot ended. We couldn't keep him in clothes for the rest of the day. As for the expression on his face...I have no idea. :)

He's serious about riding that Harley. It makes a grandpa proud, doesn't it Papa? He's just missing a leather diaper.

Patrick had lots of fun with his great-grandparents. They both have a way with kids.

Gigi has the touch. She managed to get Patrick to sit still long enough to read a whole book. For Patrick, that's quite the achievement.

I LOVE this picture of the two of them. They are so photogenic, and they look so happy together.

For something different, we tried Nathan in the swing that was out more for Corey's sake. He had fun, as you can tell, but it didn't quite relax him the way it does for Corey. Patrick really thought that swing was cool, too.

Patrick kept wanting to wear these sunglasses, but he wore them on his head as often as he did on his face. And he never wore them outside. The things we'll do for fashion.

Papa and Gigi have a nice, lush, huge yard, so we took the boys outside late one afternoon to see if we could get a few pictures of them together. We have so few decent ones after all. For once, I think we got some pretty cute pictures. This is my favorite. I particularly like the pine cone that Patrick insisted on bringing inside with him. Somehow it didn't quite make it home, though...

Hmmm, I don't know about this picture. Neither does Nathan apparently.

That same evening, we drove up on the "mountain" (I think it's really just a big hill, but humor this Houstonian) that overlooks Big Spring for some more photo ops. If you look closely in the background of several of these pictures, you'll see some of the booming metropolis of Big Spring.

Aren't they cute? I haven't gotten too many pictures of Nathan with his daddy lately.

Nathan and Gigi are taking in the view. It was super windy (what, in west Texas on top of a mountain?), so you'll have to excuse the women's hair in these pictures.

Papa did a great job taking charge of Patrick and making sure he didn't run right down the side of the mountain. Patrick, that is, not Papa.

Because clearly Patrick was determined to get somewhere he wasn't supposed to.

Patrick and Daddy are taking in the view. By the way, you may notice the sky. Never, ever will I find a sky that compares to the sky in west Texas. It's always bluer and bigger there.

I attempted a group shot, too (I'm behind the camera, before you ask), but obviously it's easier said than done. This was actually the best one I got. At least both Matt and Gigi are looking at the camera, right?

They're not as close to the edge as they look. I promise. But that is typical of Patrick, isn't it? Let's get as close to the edge as possible and then lean over it. That kid's going to give me a heart attack one of these days.

Yes, I did hand over the camera for a few minutes anyway. I'm not overly fond of the picture, but I'm blaming it on the wind. Nathan, however, posed perfectly as usual.

At the very peak of the mountain is a playground. You didn't think we could leave before letting the boys play some, did you? These are the stairs to the playground.

The three generations of men swinging. I'm not sure who was having more fun here, Patrick or his daddy.

The kid looks like he's having fun, doesn't he? You can credit this photo to Papa who took over for a few minutes so that I could reclaim my own childhood in another swing.

Nathan was a little less thrilled about the whole idea of swinging in a big boy swing, but he obliged long enough for a few pictures.

Then Patrick tried the big boy slide. I managed not to have a heart attack with this one because he clung to both his grandparents' hands the whole way down. I'm not sure whether he loved the slide because of the rush of cruising down it or because he got to hang on to his grandparents as he did so.

And tomorrow, our weekend in San Antonio. I promise not quite so many pictures from this leg of the trip!