One Fish, Two Fish, Our Fish, Cute Fish

We had a fun week this past week. It was my birthday on Tuesday. My mom came up for the day and took me shopping... real shopping, not just picking up a couple shirts at Target in passing or a pair of capris at Sam's Club, but REAL shopping!!! It was great. I hadn't been honest to goodness shopping for myself in years. After doing some damage shopping at the outlets, my mom watched the kids while Daniel and I went out to dinner. We had a laid back evening together and really enjoyed each other's company. Overall, a really good birthday.

Since we were so cooped up in the house last week from being sick, the kids and I decided to head back to Houston with my mom for the remainder of the week. It was nice to get away and get some time out of the house. Elise especially enjoyed spending time with her grandparents (Owen too, but he doesn't realize it yet).

Elise went swimming with either Papa or Grammy every day that we were there (multiple times on a couple days). She really is becoming quite the fish. She likes dumping water on other people's heads and them doing it to her as well. She also enjoys jumping in the pool.

Not to be outdone by his sister, Owen really enjoyed the water as well. He thought it was pretty fun splashing around and cooling off.

More of Ellie playing by the pool. (My parents are in an apartment right now while their house is being built, so they swam in the apartment pool).

Owen is becoming quite the "big boy" (not that he wasn't a BIG BOY already). He now is starting to eat table food. He gets things like fries, bread, pasta, graham crackers, ice cream (his personal favorite), etc. Basically anything we can break up small enough that he doesn't choke on it. He is also starting to suck out of a straw. He doesn't do it all of the time, but sometimes we get lucky.

The kids really had fun sitting in these little chairs that my parents have. This was right before bed so they both have their PJs on and are ready to go!

Here is our cool cat, Owen, looking like he is twelve years old! He is only 8 months old folks! He is definitely going to be our major leaguer--- do you see the size of those hands and feet!! He is almost the same size as his sister who is 18 months older than him!
Here is the "cheese" that we all have grown to love! My mom bought Owen a Mickey toy and bought Ellie a My Little Pony, but Ellie is pretty obsessed with this Mickey toy. I think more because it is Owen's toy than anything else. She spent almost an hour outside on the porch playing with Mickey and talking to him. Maybe I need to start calling all her toys "Owen's Toys".

Daniel came down on Friday to pick us up. We bribed him with a free showing to see the Simpsons Movie, so he was glad to come. We came home earlier today with Ellie screaming in the back seat because we were home and no longer at her grandparents.

Our 100th Post!

Long time, no write. Sorry it has been awhile since our last post (I know, over a week is awhile for us), but we have been kind of out of commission. First it was the kids with colds, then it was me on death's door, then Daniel and Owen. Luckily, I think we are all fairly healthy now. We ended up with this horrible virus that is like strep, but not. Basically you have a horrible sore throat and a high fever for like 4 days. I don't know how Owen and Daniel felt, but I haven't been that sick in many years. Luckily, Daniel was able to stay home for a couple days to help me out and then he stayed home the rest of the week because he was sick.

The kids had A LOT of down time this week. We weren't able to do much with all the sickness, so they found other ways to occupy their time. The following 5 pictures are of Ellie squirting Owen with the water bottle. I came in the room and found him soaked! Instead of freaking out, I grabbed the camera.

Like I said, with all the "down" time, they found themselves in lots of trouble....

Here is trouble himself!

Here is Ellie! You think this picture and the next are cute, but what you may not be able to see very well is that she is absolutely filthy! You'd think we just sent her out on her own and had her make do on her own. Savage.

Ahhh... my birthday present. So, I have been walking with the kids in the mornings (when it isn't raining) and have been using our fold up stroller, but I think I am abusing that one too much on all the cracks in the pavement and I really don't want to ruin it since it fits so well in our trunk. SO, I asked for a double jogging stroller for my birthday. Since my husband is so sweet to me, he bought me one! Yesterday we were running through the house with it. The kids were having a ball!

AMAZON baby!

It has been kind of a crazy few days for us. After our trip to Katy, the kids both came down with colds. Ellie is still pretty sick and is "draining" quite a bit. So, we have been pumping them with plenty of Dimetapp and Tylenol. When we went to Dallas on Saturday, several other family members were sick there as well. Daniel and I are crossing our fingers that we don't get sick.Before we left for Dallas, Owen and Daniel fell asleep together on the couch. It was so cute. (I know, our son is huge.) In this picture you can see that Owen's legs are red. He gets rug burn on his legs from crawling around so much. He definitely gets around!

The following pictures chronicle our Dallas trip.

Papa and Ellie. --- For some reason Ellie has this weird fascination with my dad. She just thinks he is the cat's meow. I think because he takes her in the pool and throws her in the air. But, she often asks to talk to him on the phone or asks what he is doing.--- Don't worry, she has 4 favorite grandparents!
Grammy and Owen.--- This boy sure is loved!
Dad and Owen. Aren't they handsome? Originally we weren't going to the blessing because it was going to be at Kim & Ryan's church which was at like 2:30 or something, but then last minute they were able to do it at 10:00 so we were running around scrounging up church clothes. We didn't really bother with Owen.
Ellie-- ready to go to church for Addy's blessing.
Owen looking dapper.

This is a picture of Ellie after she had put Uncle Ryan's sock and shoe on.
Amazon baby!!! Look how huge our 8 month old is compared to their two-week old. She was so teeny-tiny!Here is Ellie holding Addy. I think for a split second Daniel thought about having #3.--- That thought soon passed as we were trying to get this next picture.
Here are the cousins.

Overall, the trip went really well. Kyra and Ellie really love playing together (as always). In fact, Ellie was so excited to see Kyra that she didn't sleep the whole 3-3 1/2 hours it took to get to Kyra's house!---- Luckily the ride home was a little smoother.

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home!

Just a quick blog to post some pictures of the kids. They are both doing well. Owen has had a little cold the last few days so he has been a bit crankier and has not been sleeping too great.

Here are Elise and Owen playing together in the playroom.

Here is Owen after Ellie fed him some of her Oreo 100-cal pack wafers. He can handle them pretty well if you break them up for him, but he got a little messy this time!Here's Ellie watching and waiting for Dad to come home from school. She is always there to greet dad when he comes home... he loves it.

Here comes Trouble!

It has been a pretty busy week for the Webers. This past week Ellie started her second stint of ballet classes. This month she is going on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (in August she will begin her year-round class). I really like this new place she is going to much better than the last place. She seems to have more fun and it is much more involved than the last class. If the place I have her signed up in the fall doesn't work out, I will definitely bring her back to this place.

Here's Elise and another little girl from her dance class. They are looking into the studio before class begins.
Dad and Owen both came to Ellie's class on Wednesday to watch and be supportive of Ellie's extracurricular activities. Owen was mildly amused by his surroundings.
Here are Ellie and Owen playing together in the playroom. They play together regularly and it is always really cute.
Owen loves chocolate!!! Not a real surprise given his genetic pool. I think he prefers it to the fruits and veggies he usually gets.
Here's our silly girl. Elise has been very busy and also getting smarter as the days go by. We are teaching her the alphabet song and that seems to be the favorite tune in the car these days. I would say she knows almost half of the song.

Here is TROUBLE himself!! Owen ate his first french fry this weekend. He also stood up by himself this weekend. He has been a busy boy!! He continues to get into just about anything he can crawl to fast enough.

This weekend we went to Katy to help my parents move out of their house into an apartment. It will be a squeeze but I think it will work for them until their house is finished being built. Daniel is feeling a little stiff but it was not nearly as bad as we thought it would have been. The kids didn't sleep real well while we were away from home, but hopefully things get back to normal tonight.

Things our 2-year-old says!

Daniel and I have really been enjoying our children. We love having kids, it is true. However, part of "loving" are children is thinking about all the annoying things they do. We have comprised a list of "The most annoying things that our 2-year-old says".

Number 5: "I coming too Daddy! Daddy, I coming too! Daddy, I coming! Wait Daddy, I coming! Wait, I coming too!" (This is usually when Daniel is going in the backyard to cook on the BBQ)

Number 4: "Mommy, where are you? Daddy, where are you? Where are you? Mommy, Daddy, where are you?" (the reason this is annoying is because she asks a million times and we are usually sitting right in front of her)

Number 3: "What that name? Mommy, what that name? What that name, mommy? What that name!?" (This is a new one and about equally annoying as "What that?")

Number 2: "Help! Help! Help!!!!" (This one is always accompanied with a major freak out. Usually she does this when she locks herself in her seat and wants to be unlocked only to lock herself back into it.)

Number 1: "No, I do it! I do it now! I do it!!!" (usually followed by a complete meltdown if she cannot do it herself-- a two-year-old thinks that they can do EVERYTHING themselves and then gets mad when they can't do it and you are not there to fix it.)

I know, it is hard to believe that this angel would ever do anything annoying. Luckily, when she is not being annoying, she is pretty much the cutest thing ever. Here is Elise at the Austin Children's Museum. We met up with some friends yesterday morning at the museum for their toddler time. Every Monday morning the museum is open just for 3 and under.

Here is Owen (and Logan) at the children's museum. They actually had a pretty good place for the little ones to crawl around. I think they had as much fun as the older kids did.

Owen now pulls up on everything, which includes Ellie's coloring table which usually ends up toppling down on him. We just moved it into Ellie's room so there won't be anymore accidents-- the picture is one of the times where he made it up without pulling the table on himself.
Speaking of Owen pulling up, here he is at the back door. He was watching the kids play in the pool.
I thought this was kind of a cool picture. Logan and Owen are both at the door playing and watching Ellie and Adam in the backyard. Cute babies... all of them.

I think this picture might be a new favorite of mine. Here Ellie and Owen had both just woken up from their naps. It has been hard work, but I have them on the same afternoon nap schedule which has been fantastic! It is nice to get a little bit of "me" time.

And, of course, kisses.

Our Sunday Sickness

I thought I should send out a blog to update about Ellie's "bite". While it still looks really gross and swollen (it has also been oozing, but I won't go into detail about that), it looks better than yesterday, so I think she is on the mend. We have been giving her antibiotics which seem to be helping. I sure am glad, we didn't really want to go down to the children's hospital and have her admitted with a staph infection.

We stayed home from church today. I wasn't feeling well and since Ellie's hand looked pretty gross, we figured we shouldn't put her in nursery.

Here is Ellie coloring. We bought a couple rolls of paper that we lay on the kitchen table that Ellie likes to color. The whole family got in on the fun that night. We continue searching for things to keep Ellie busy so she won't find herself in trouble. It seems these days that anything and everything that she is not supposed to be in, she is in.

Just a couple weeks ago we were at her friend Adam's house and the two of them disappeared upstairs (not an uncommon thing), when we went to go check on them they were playing in Adam's parents' deodorant. One of them had taken a big bite out of one of the sticks!!! Not sure which one it was, but Ellie does have a weird fascination with our deodorant. Yuck.
Owen likes to eat the crayons, so he got to play with some kitchen utensils instead of coloring. He still seemed happy even though he wasn't able to color. Owen has been a handful lately. Just in the past few weeks he has not only gotten to be quite the momma's boy, but he has just been whining almost non-stop. I feel bad complaining since he has been such a dream baby up to this point, but we are hopeful it is only a short phase that he will quickly get out of! Here are our babies playing nicely together. They really are good about playing with one another. Ellie makes sure that when she is doing something that Owen is able to see and be a part of the action with her. She is a good big sister---despite the fact that she is making her brother wash the dishes!

Along Came a Spider?

Ellie woke up this morning with what we thought were more mosquito bites on her hand and wrist. As the day went on, we noticed more swelling and gave her some Benadryl. Then we noticed that a blister had formed. By 5 p.m. it was looking like this (the band-aid covers up a similar bite on her wrist)

At this point we thought it might be a spider bite. Brown recluse spider bites can leave a blister like this that eventually turns into an ulcer. So we decided to take her to the emergency room (really the only way she could see any kind of medical professional on a Saturday evening). After a rectal thermometer (ouch!) confirmed she had a fever, the doctor said that however she got bit, it was infected (probably a staph infection), and prescribed a couple different antibiotics. If the infection spreads overnight, we will have to take her into the Children's Hospital to get some I.V. antibiotics. We're hoping it doesn't come to that. Unfortunately, Ellie has historically had bad luck with insects.

Addy Debuts, Ellie and Owen Play

First and foremost, we would like to welcome Adeline Grace into the world! Addy was born on the 3rd and weighed 7lbs 10oz (a far cry from the 10 pounder that the ultrasound had predicted) to my sister Kim and her husband Ryan (and sister Kyra). She looks pretty cute from what we can tell and we are anxious to meet her ourselves!

There has been a lot, and I mean A LOT of rain here the past few weeks. Every day it has rained which means we have not been able to go outside hardly at all for the last 3 weeks. This is hard for the kids and for me. We have been trying to make the best of it though. Lots of play dates, crafts, tennis watching, and playroom-playing.

It was a good week for us though. Webers came up yesterday and stayed the night. It was great having them come. The kids (especially Ellie) really enjoyed their company. We were also able to get this shelf from Ikea that I have been pining over for about a year. It will be a great asset in organizing our playroom a little better.

Here is Ellie. She is pretty funny because whenever we have family prayer, she always gets the remote, mutes the tv and then unmutes it when we have finished. She is also really good at turning it off when we leave to go somewhere or when it is just time to turn off the tv.
Here is our young man, Owen. In just about a week he learned to crawl and how to pull up on things. This is how I found him earlier today. He was pretty proud of himself.

I am thinking about braving Ikea by myself with both kids to exchange out some containers that I bought for the shelf, but we shall see if that comes to fruition. My parents and brother (and dog) are stopping off here in Austin on their way home, so we look forward to hosting them for dinner tonight. Apparently grandparents go through withdrawals after 3 weeks or so.

Circus Circus

It has been a really fun day for us. As was aforementioned, we got Owen's haircut which was surprisingly emotional for me-- he is just growing up so fast! I reupholstered our dining chairs as well (I have been meaning to do it for awhile, but when Ellie spilt purple smoothie all over the cushion, it kind of put a rush on it). They came out really nice!! Daniel helped man the staple gun.

Our big event today was the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. It was really fun, but perhaps a little long for Ellie (it was 2 1/2 hours!). I was surprised at how many little-little kids were there. I was also overly annoyed that there was no place for moms to nurse (a complaint I have most places I go-- I know they don't want me to do it in public so how about a little accommodating). Twice I had to take Owen into a bathroom stall to nurse. Grrr.

Here is Ellie during the pre-circus festivities. We were only able to be down in the action for 5 minutes, but she enjoyed seeing the acrobats & clowns.
Speaking of clowns, here is OUR clown!

We really loved the elephants and the acrobats. Daniel's favorite part was the "Globe of Death" where about 8 bikers go around at the same time.
It was a lot of fun and we are glad we went.