tractors, cows, and big red barns

Every summer we make a trip up to Michigan to see my dad’s side of the family.  He is one of seven brothers, and they live all over the country.  My grandma still lives on the farm where my dad and all his brothers were raised, so it makes the most sense for us to meet there so we can see her.  Our family get togethers used to be somewhat smaller (small is relative when you have 6 uncles on ONE side of the family), but now all the cousins are getting married and having babies.  It’s crazy big but always lots of fun!  Here’s a picture of all seven brothers…in order of age (from left to right:  Dave, Dan, Steve, Phil (my dad), Joe, Paul, and Jim):

We made the 9 hour drive (well, it really took us around 11 hours) on Friday.  Owen has become an awesome traveler due to the purchase of a DVD player for the car.  I have no problem showing him movie after movie after movie to keep him happy.  Molly, on the other hand, is not quite the traveler her brother is.  She must sense that the car seat means long car ride (can’t blame her…she’s been to Michigan twice, Oklahoma, and Kansas City in her short two month life!) and starts to scream the minute she’s buckled in.  The only way we can keep her quiet is if one of us strokes her cheek and holds her paci in her mouth.  Let me tell you how fun THAT is for 11 hours!  Anyway, on the way to Michigan we were telling Owen all about the cows and the tractors he was going to see on Great Grandma’s farm.  Because the small highways that take us to the farm are deep in the heart of midwestern farm country, he entertained us by pointing out all the “big red barns” that he saw along the way.  And there were A LOT.

The next morning was the 4th of July!  Not too 4th of July-ish in Michigan this year.  It was chilly and overcast and we didn’t see any fireworks this year.  Oh well.  Regardless, I dressed my kids in their red, white, and blue.

Molly’s outfit lasted about 10 minutes…until she spit up all over it, and I realized that temps in the 60’s probably didn’t warrant a tank dress.  After breakfast we headed to the farm so we could introduce Great Grandma to Molly.  Here’s a shot of her cuddling her 7th great-grandchild!

After meeting Great Grandma, we took Owen on a tour of the farm.  He’d been talking about seeing the “moos” all morning…and there sure were a lot of “moos” for him to see!  When my dad lived on the farm it was a dairy farm.  My Uncle Dan lives on the farm and still grows crops, but the cows are owned by someone else.  It was fun for me to watch my dad with the cows…even after all these years he still seems very comfortable around them.  He sure did have a different life back then!

I think Owen was a little amazed at how big the cows are in real life!  After checking out the cows, Owen got to see the rest of the farm…including the tractor!

Later that day, Uncle Dan took Owen on a ride in the big tractor.  He was a little freaked out by this at first.  To his credit, the tractor is pretty huge up close!

After the tractor ride, Uncle Dan let Travis take Owen on the 4-wheeler.  Again, this freaked Owen out at first but he liked it in the end!

Here’s a shot of my mom and Owen walking around on the farm.  I included it because behind it is the farmhouse where my grandma still lives and where my dad and all his brothers were raised.  This house is well over 10o years old, and it’s the place I’ve been visiting every since I was born.  Lots of memories here!

I wish I would have taken more pictures of the cousins.  I guess I was too busy catching up and playing games than taking pictures.  Oh well.  Here’s one picture of my cousin, Enid, and her son, Declan.  Declan is 6 months younger than Owen.  I’m sure they’ll become good playmates over the years!

It was a whirlwind weekend…lots of time in the car and then a full day of family time.  We are glad we got the chance to see everyone again.  Our next reunion will be next summer at my cousin Jocelyn’s wedding where Owen will make his 2nd debut as ring bearer!  Hopefully he’ll keep his clothes on for this one!

things i’ve learned…

1.  DO NOT dress your child in white shorts when eating a popsicle on a hot summer day.

2. Better yet, it’s probably smart to just let the kid run around in a diaper while eating!

3.  Spray ‘n Wash with Resolve Power is amazing stuff!  (Yes, I got every single last drip of red popsicle out of these shorts!)

efficient?

YES!  When both kids need baths on the same day, I’ve discovered it’s much easier to just throw them in the tub together.

I was intimidated of this at first.  How would I keep Owen from splashing the heck out of Molly like he enjoys doing to the lucky parent who is bathing him?  How would I keep Molly happy while I bathe Owen?  (But then I realized that Molly is pretty much happy all the time, and naked in a tub of water with her brother is no exception.)  How would I get both of them out of the tub, dried off, diapered, and dressed at the same time?

As a trial run, I had Travis help me out while we were in KC two weekends ago.  It went great!  Owen loved bathing with his sister (as is evidenced in this picture of him giving her a big smooch!):

After the bath, we each took a kid and dried, lotion, diapered, and jammied:

After our successful bath experience in Kansas City, I decided to tackle bath time on my own with both kids before Travis got home from work one day.  It was so much more efficient than bathing both individually…and these days I’m all about how I can maximize my time!  The one thing I didn’t think about until I had both kids clean and ready to get out was how I was going to get both ready at the same time.  Don’t judge me…I let Owen play in the bath water for a few minutes while I got Molly dressed.  I know, I know…you’re never supposed to leave a kid in the water alone.  But our house is SO small and I was talking to him from Molly’s room the entire time.

Anyway, the double bath has been a success and will continue happening regularly around here.  These two both love bath time!

babies everywhere!

That’s how it seemed this past weekend in Kansas City, and it was GREAT!  After leaving my mom and aunt in Oklahoma to continue working on my grandma’s house, I took the kids with me to meet Travis in Kansas City for the weekend.  We were excited to meet the newest additions to the family:  Noah and Gavin!

You might remember this picture from a post I did about our time in Kansas City this past Christmas:

And 6 months later…

…the babies are here!  We were so excited to meet Casey and Brad’s son, Gavin, and Luke and Amy’s son, Noah.  It was so fun to have all the babies around.  I’m excited to see these little ones grow up together!

Here’s a shot of all three babies together (Noah–3 weeks, Molly–2 months, and Gavin–4 months):

Can you believe how huge Owen looks in this picture??

Owen has been used to being the center of attention at family gatherings for the last 2 years.  He now has to get used to sharing the limelight with those three other cuties!  He did his best to keep the focus on him by entertaining us with his latest favorite activity:  sword fighting!  He loves to pretend he’s fighting the bad guys and rolls around on the ground swinging his sword.  It’s pretty intense.  Here’s a shot of our warrior in action:

When we weren’t watching Owen defend us against the bad guys, we enjoyed catching up with Travis’ cousins.  Here’s a shot of Travis and Owen with Don, Luke, and Luke’s son, Noah.

We also got to spend a lot of quality time with Aunt Kelly.  Here she is cuddling with Molly:

We also loved spending time with Travis’ parents, Nana and Bubba!

We had lots of time with the cousins and babies while we were in KC, but we also got to spend some good quality time with Travis’ grandparents, Lane and Sue (or Yane and Tu as Owen calls them!).  I love this picture of Great Grandpa Lane holding his great granddaughter:

We had a great weekend visiting family.  We wish we lived closer so we could make it a more frequent thing!  We miss you all already!

seriously???

Yesterday Owen threw a temper tantrum for an hour.  Yep, that’s right folks.  ONE.  FULL.  HOUR.  I timed it.  It started at 11am and ended at 12pm when I decided it was time for bed.  Here’s why.  Owen wants to carry his balls like this:

(Side note…he’s watching High School Musical in this picture.  He loves this movie.  Goofball.)

In the above picture, he’s carrying two playground-size balls.  Much easier than the two basketballs he was trying to carry around yesterday.  (Yes, real basketballs.  He’s obsessed with them and wants nothing to do with kid-size balls.)

He got so frustrated because every time he would manage to get both balls into his arms at the same time, this would happen:

I’ve got to give the kid credit for his perseverance.  He was not going to give up.  For a full hour he attempted to pick up both balls…the whole time screaming, crying, snotting, yelling, sobbing.  Try as I might, I could not deter him.  Anything I suggested or tried to distract him with evidently was just not as fun as holding two balls at once.  Who knew?

One full hour.  Seriously???

my last trip to grandma’s

This is my grandma’ s house.

I love this house.  I’ve visited this house multiple times a year since I was born.  It has so many good memories.  I visited it for the last time this past weekend.

My grandma moved to Dallas a year ago and is in an assisted living facility there.  Her house in Bartlesville, OK has been for sale for several months and has recently sold.  My mom and her sisters now have the huge job of getting the house ready to sell.  In order to do this, they need to go through all of the things in this house and either bring them to my grandma in Dallas, divide them between the sisters and the cousins, or sell them at an estate sale.  Because the closing on the house is July 31, there are only a few short weeks left where the house is still ours.  I wanted to see it one more time.

Not only does the house hold special memories of my childhood, but the city of Bartlesville does as well.  I wanted to take Owen and Molly to do some of the things we did every time we visited my grandma.  First, we went to Woolaroc.  Woolaroc started out as the ranch of Frank Phillips (as in Phillips 66).  It is now a huge wildlife preserve where you can see buffalo, longhorn cattle, ostrichs and many other animals.  There is a museum where you can learn about Native American history, and there’s a great petting zoo for the kids.  I loved being able to share this special place with Owen.  Here are some pictures of him petting the animals.

Outside of the museum is a beautiful mosaic tile wall.  My cousins and I have had pictures taken of ourselves standing in front of this wall every year since we were babies.  Here’s a picture of my kids and me in front of this wall.

Another place we always visited (well, until we got too old) was the Kiddie Park.  I remember riding all the rides with my cousins countless times, getting cotton candy, and thinking the rollercoaster was so big (even though it really wasn’t!).  We thought it would be fun to take Owen there and let him ride some of the rides.  I chose the car ride for his first ride experience.  I figured that, with his love of cars, it would be a good first choice and hopefully not too scary for him.  Here’s a picture of me getting him strapped into his car (which he chose because it looks like Doc from the movie Cars):

He looks pretty excited, right??  He was…until the cars started moving!

Poor kid!  He started screaming the minute the ride began.  The kid manning the ride couldn’t have been over 13 and was oblivious to the fact that my kid was freaked out.  I stood on the sidelines cheering for Owen every time his car passed by.  Maybe this helped…the screaming subsided after a few times around the circle, and this was the face that he maintained through the rest of the ride:

He was trying to be brave, but was still pretty scared!  After the ride was over, I rushed in to get him.  I walked up to him and expected him to keep crying, but he immediately started saying “Owie ride the cars!”.  He was so proud of himself!!  Goofy kid!

After his experience on the cars, we decided to stick to rides where an adult could go with him.  My Aunt Suzi and I took him on the train, and it was a huge hit!  He loved every minute of it.  Throughout the whole ride he kept saying “Choo Choo!!  All aboard!”.

After the train, we headed to the carousel.  Owen loved getting to ride the “neighs”.  I love this picture of him and my mom after the ride was over:

We had so much fun in Bartlesville.  I’m so glad I was able to spend some time in such a special place with my own kids.    I will cherish these memories.

2 months already!

2 months old…

Today we went in for Molly’s 2 month check-up.  Here are her stats:

weight: 10 lbs, 11 oz. (50th percentile)

length: 23″ (75th percentile)

She continues to be SUCH a happy baby.  She is very social…she loves looking at people’s faces!  She is constantly trying to interact with us through her precious smile and her sweet little coos.  I know that I will make some other new moms very jealous by saying this, but Molly is now officially sleeping through the night!  She eats for the last time around 10 and sleeps until 6:30 or 7am!  It’s fabulous!  (And just in case you’re thinking “that’s not fair”…Owen was SO high maintenance and didn’t sleep for the first several months of his life.  We were sleep-deprived zombies around here.)  Not only is she sleeping through the night, Molly is now back to being breastfed 100% of the time!  I have totally eliminated dairy from my diet and worked to slowly increase the amount of breastmilk Molly took in per day and decrease the amount of formula she was drinking.  She’s doing great!  I have learned how to eat dairy-free.  It’s not as bad as I thought, but I am really excited for the day that I’ll be able to have ice cream again!

I feel like life is getting back to normal.  We are out and about all the time.  I’ve figured out a system for grocery shopping with two kids (The Baby Bjorn has saved my life!), we are back at play groups, and I’m realizing that I couldn’t live without my double stroller.  I still look forward to the days when Molly and Owen take naps at the same time (or at least partially at the same time), but I can’t complain because at least I’m getting a full night of sleep.  Anyway, we’re adjusting to two kids well!

Switching gears…

Even though after the age of 2 most people pretty much stop counting kids’ ages by months, I’m still going to post a monthly pic of Owen in his chair.  I like to see how much he grows/changes every month and the chair really shows how big he’s actually getting.  So here’s Owen:

This picture pretty much represents Owen’s attitude lately…”I’m not going to do anything you want me to do simply because I want to tick you off.”  Yep, he’s fully embracing the terrible twos and making me want to pull my hair out!  I feel like all I do all day long is discipline him, talk to him about why I disciplined him, and then do it all again.  Here’s a typical conversation:

Me:  “Owen, you’re all hot and sweaty from playing outside.  Would you like some water?”

Owen:  “No!  Not!  Juice!”  (Owen’s big into the double negative…”No not!” is his signature answer.)

Me:  “Owen, juice isn’t a choice right now.  You can either have water or no drink at all.”

Owen:  “No water!  Juice!  Milk!”

Me:  “I’m sorry, Owen.  Juice and milk aren’t choices right now.  You can either have water or no drink.  Here’s your water cup if you change your mind.”

Temper tantrum ensues.  Screaming.  Tears.  Kicking of feet.  Slamming of body onto floor.  This lasts 15 minutes while I go about my business…and then go back to taking care of Molly because Owen’s tantrum has officially ended her nap.

I’m mentally exhausted at the end of every day.  I’m constantly trying to put myself back in “teacher-mode” by giving him choices so that we avoid the power struggle, and I’m also trying to give him positive reinforcement for the things he does that are good.  Who knew hanging out with a 2 year old all day could stretch your brain so much?!?

So, mom’s who’ve been there, how long do these terrible twos last??  I mean, I’m only a month in…is it really going to last for 11 more months?

The kid drives me crazy…and then I hear him singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It” over the monitor when he’s supposed to be going to bed and he melts my heart.  Thank you God for those sweet little moments that remind me that Owen is still in there…even though it seems like a little devil child has taken over his body!

a perfect summer evening

Just me, my little man, and a bottle of bubbles.  Times where it’s just the two of us are few and far between these days.  I treasure these moments.

haircut #2

Owen’s hair was getting long…way long.  It was hanging over his ears and looking like girl-hair in the back…all one length.   Here’s a pre-cut picture of the back of his head:

As you might remember from this post, Owen’s first haircut happened at SportClips the day before Molly was born.  The girl did a good job, but my friend, Emmie, cuts her son’s hair and offered to cut Owen’s hair, too!  I loved the idea of an in-home haircut and a fun playdate with friends.  This morning Emmie and her sons Chase and Luke headed over to our house for the big haircut.  We set up in the basement, stripped Owen down to a diaper, put a Thomas movie in the DVD player, and Emmie set to work!  Here’s an action shot:

Owen did great!  He loved watching the Thomas movie, and he sat still for Emmie during the entire cut.  Emmie did a great job!  We’ll be “hiring” her again for his next cut…if she’s willing!  Here’s one final picture of the stylist with her client:

a great summer read, and hopefully, great fall movie

It’s somewhat rare for Emily and I to read the same book. While we have similar tastes, we tend to lean different ways when it comes to choosing novels. Past reads we’ve both really enjoyed include The Lovely Bones and The Kite Runner.

But one book that we’ve both read and couldn’t agree more on is Shutter Island. Written by the author of Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, it’s a page turner to say the least. Here’s the gist:

1950s Massachusetts. Two detectives go to a mental hospital for criminals (located on an island with a mysterious history) to find an escaped patient. If things aren’t dramatic enough, a hurricane is bearing down on the island. The detectives uncover mysteries about the patient, the hospital, and…wait for it…themselves.

The book is intriguing, exciting, creepy and psychological to the end. The writing itself is fine, but the story is the reason to read. You’ll find yourself playing detective right along with the characters. Em and I read it over our vacation to Florida last summer. We both finished it in a matter of days, which for those who know my reading speed is quite a feat. If you’re looking for a vacation book, this may be the one for you.

When Emily and I heard that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio loved the book as much as we did, we were a bit giddy to hear it was being made into a movie. The trailer came out today, and looks appropriately disturbing and thrilling. Take a look and let me know what you think!