Babies Everywhere!

Zoo Time and Birthdays

2012-01-29T04:43:59Z

Looks like I might be able to squeak this one in under the wire this week. Last week was a short one work-wise as the kids had a day off from school on Monday. We decided to take advantage of the oddly nice weather and take the boys out for a long-awaited trip to the zoo. Owen had really never been there at an age where he could enjoy it, so we were well overdue.

It all started with the flamingos.

He didn't seem sure what to think at first, though he was impressed when they all started making noise.

We actually got there a little late in the morning, so we went in search of food…and found this…

…and, eventually, french fries and ketchup.

From there it was on to the otters, which both boys found hilarious.

Then I forced them to sit on this alligator for a photo. It was no fun at all. Really.

They were slightly more interested in the "ride" we found.

And once we saw the lions…

…Owen was super impressed.

He caught a second wind making silly faces at mommy.

Then somehow we got them both to smile in a photo.

And...yeah…that.

We tried to get one with both boys and their mom, but surprisingly enough this wasn't comfortable for Christy.

Despite his attempts to pretend he wasn't having fun, Owen has spent the last week and a half telling us about all the animals he saw at the zoo. We'll have to take the boys back out when they get the train back up and running. The rest of the week was our typical work-eat-sleep routine, which usually leads to a Friday night of lax standards.

Like letting Owen sit in his cozy coupe and play with the iPod.

This brought us into the weekend, which involved a trip up to Sherman to celebrate a couple of birthdays (including Christy's). For the most part, it was all about having some play time with the cousins.

Working puzzles…

Throwing planes around...

Wearing high-coverage bibs to protect ourselves from lunch...

We all enjoyed some delicious cake, especially Christy's specially requested pineapple upside down cake.

Owen wanted to help with the candles.

He also wanted to make sure mommy's new gloves fit.

After lunch, everyone sat down to work on some cookies.

We took a brief trip out and apparently we missed Max making a Spongebob cookie. Pity.

Got back just in time for this, though.

We had the great fortune of being given a night off by Christy's parents. This meant we could enjoy some quiet time at a restaurant, a luxury we're not often afforded. Thanks again, Mimi and Pappaw. Oh, and sorry about whatever the boys did to your sofa. I'm sure they have no idea how that orange crayon got everywhere. If you want to check out the rest of the photos from this week, you can click here. It would appear that we're continuing to make good use of the video function on Christy's camera, as we have yet another round of videos to share before we sign off.

Otters Rated the #1 exhibit at the zoo by two out of two little boys who live in my house.

Ball Bucket We've started designating Saturday as a day where each of us gets some one-on-one time with one of the boys. This is the natural end result.

Planes and Shirts Couldn't resist sharing a little bit of footage of these three.

That'll do it for this week, and with 25 minutes to spare before I'm technically late. See you next time!]]>

Skipping, Swimming, Playing, and Birthdaying

2012-01-22T03:13:33Z

For the first time in a long time, we had an entire week where we took a total of zero photos. Part of this was due to exhaustion in our return to work. Part of it was due to the fact that we forgot the camera bag when we took a trip out to see Max's buddy Mikey (and Owen's buddy Alex). Either way, the only evidence we have that the week happened was the shark video I posted last time around. Guess we'll just pick up a week later, when we finally got around to bringing a camera to swim class.

Thankfully he got past that as time went on.

If you take a closer look at that photo and check out the background, you'll see a kid just under the "NO DIVING" sign flinging himself into the pool with wild abandon. That would be Max, who was wearing jeans for "clothesline day". The idea is that the kids learn how to swim to the side of the pool if they fall in with all their clothes on.

He did pretty well, as usual.

Plus he got a chance to try it again without the jeans.

They've both been making great strides in their swimming ability, and we're proud of all the hard work they've been doing to make their mom a bit less nervous about having them around water. The rest of the week passed per usual, but we had some plans for the weekend to make up for the lack of interesting content.

Owen makes his own plans.

I believe he's singing in this one.

As for this…well…

Clearly they enjoy their play room, but we had bigger plans for the rest of the day. We chowed down on some lunch and piled into the car so we could spend some time in Forney for a birthday party.

Hooray for the birthday girl!

The boys only play together nicely when it's someone else's toy.

See? Calm, collected, cool. I will never understand it.

Now you know why we don't get very many family photos to post.

Much of the party was just spent playing around, with momentary breaks for cake and present opening.

And grilling cupcakes. There has to be a way to make this a real thing.

Have we mentioned lately that Owen loves hoodies?

The weather was just barely nice enough for us to go outside for a bit.

Which is good, because the boys love making us nervous on slides.

Not pictured: Owen almost doing a front flip down the slide due to poor foot placement.

Max decided to try out the monkey bars. Didn't get far on his first attempt.

Of course, monkey see monkey do.

We spent a bit more time hanging out, then headed out for a nice dinner with Mimi and Pappaw. The boys were a bit confused at all the yelling (we wound up in an establishment with some sport fan presence) but they seemed to enjoy it anyway. The weekend lasted an extra day for us, but we'll have to save that for our next update. If you want to check out the rest of the photos, you can click here. All that's left is a quick video of the boys at swim class and we'll call it a week.

Swimming Just another day at the pool.

See you next week!]]>

Post-Christmas Cooldown

2012-01-09T02:02:56Z

The mammoth post I had to generate last time around put us a little behind on the posting schedule, but a day late isn't so bad considering our typical lag time. Last time around, I actually broke my usual rule and covered a week and a half because our Christmas lasted into Wednesday. That leaves us with just the brief post-Christmas week to cover today.

This pretty much sums it up.

We were all pretty worn out, and the short week was mostly spent trying to make sure the house was reasonably clean so we could get back into our normal routine.

That, and playing with all the new toys.

Owen played keytar, Max made a bunny. Good times.

The weekend seemed to sneak up on us, and it brought New Year's Eve with it. The weather was actually so nice out that we felt bad just lounging around the house.

So we headed out to the park.

Max and Owen spent the majority of their time on the slides.

This one specifically for Owen. He'd hit the bottom and immediately run around to climb back up.

I did get him to briefly stop for a photo on the way back up. Once.

Max also enjoyed waiting for his brother at the bottom of the slide…

…then trying to wrestle him out of it.

From there we headed home, got a little more dressy, then headed out for a nice family dinner. The kids were actually really good and got to enjoy a pizookie (basically just a fresh-baked cookie with ice cream on top) for a New Year's Eve treat. I stayed up until midnight, waking Christy up just before so we could toast the New Year. We awoke the next day to find out that Owen had apparently made a resolution to try new foods.

He has never even touched a scrambled egg in his entire life. He ate the whole plate. It shocked us so much I had to take a photo.

He's actually been getting a lot better about trying new things and generally being a better eater lately, so that's been quite nice. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out around the house. The kids drove their car around a little more, played with everything they could...

…and built a fort. Several of them, actually, since they kept tearing them down.

Consider the New Year rung in. All that's left is to direct you to our latest batch and to show off a few more videos of the kids.

Hoops His shot percentage is actually pretty good.

Singing He's been doing this a lot lately. It's tough to catch it on video, but we somehow managed.

Sharks! There's an aquarium in my living room. Thanks again, Mimi and Pappaw and Uncle Mike!

Have a good week, everyone!]]>

Christmas 2011

2012-01-04T01:57:30Z

The fat man has come and gone, the trees and lights are back in the attic, and the house is overflowing with toys. Christmas, it would seem, has officially come and gone. All that's left is to give you a slice of the nearly 200 photos we posted and show off a slew of videos from our three-Christmas extravaganza.

Owen was mostly just excited about mommy being in class with him.

Of course, he didn't mind getting to open a present.

After we were finished with Owen's holiday snacktime, we moved on to Max's room.

Somebody brought cookie cake.

Max won the lotto and got to pick the first gift. It was a Tinkerbell coloring book, which pleased him greatly.

We gathered up all of our things and decided to take the boys over to the mall for some last-minute shopping. The last time we were there, I was getting something looked at in the Apple Store, but the kid computers weren't working. We promised them a return visit and this seemed like a good opportunity to make good on that.

You couldn't get his eyes off that screen for anything.

Owen was mostly content to just point to what he wanted Max to click.

After we pried them away from the computer, we headed upstairs to give them a spin on the carousel.

Owen wasn't quite sure what to think of that.

Though he did give me a smile for a photo.

Max, on the other hand, was happy to take Owen's second token and ride three rounds.

I think he was a little dizzy by the end of it.

A few days later, Christmas Eve was upon us. We headed up north for First Christmas in Sherman.

We didn't open up presents right away, so the boys had to settle for some existing toys.

Luckily this gave Owen a chance to show off his puzzle skills for Tanner.

…and make this face.

…and that one.

…and, well, you get the idea.

Max got in on the ball throwing as well.

We really should practice a little more with him.

We all scarfed down our lunch and decided it was high time to let the kids go to town on all that wrapping paper.

Owen's definition of "going to town" is a bit more delicate.

The hard work pays off, though, when you get to show off cool stuff to Uncle Steve.

Owen's favored gift this round seemed to be this puppy, which I believe is kissing his cousin here.

After the presents were all open, we all dispersed to different areas of the house.

Max went to the back room to work on some robots with Adreanna.

Owen went to the front room to play with Blakeley's toys.

…and Tanner's toys.

A few minutes later, I found out that the tool kit Tanner and Owen were playing with included a number of real sawblades. Thankfully Owen was only really interested in the hammer, and no one was injured.

We gathered momentarily for an obligatory family photo.

Then I ran away to play with my remote controlled shark.

Then we filled up on dinner, drove home, put the kids down to bed, and waited a bit to go down and check out Santa's handiwork.

Oooooooooo.

Before we knew it, the big day had arrived.

LESS PHOTOS. MORE PRESENT OPENING.

Max was quite patient while we waited for Mommy to do…something, I can't remember what.

Then the opening began.

The boys seemed pretty happy with their haul, but hadn't gone downstairs yet.

Of course, the boys got us a few things as well. I got a box!

Who cares? On to the obligatory "Waiting at the stop of the stairs" photo.

What happened next is really best described with a video, so I'll break our normal flow of content and drop one right here in the middle of the post.

Christmas Morning Never underestimate the power of the stocking.

Once they noticed it, things got a bit more fun.

We still had to dig into the stockings, though.

…and strap in Perry the platypus.

Not long after that, we bundled up and headed outside to enjoy the fruits of Santa.

When Max first started driving, he was holding Perry instead of the wheel.

It didn't take long for Owen to join in the fun.

We had to give him a shot at the drivers' seat too, though Max had to hit the pedal for him.

After a bit of driving, Max got a bit more melodramatic about acceleration.

We drove around the block a few times, crashed into the curb once or twice, then decided it was time to bring the boys back in to the heated air of the house.

Max didn't mind, as it gave him some time to make another robot.

He then insisted that we put the new sheets on his bed.

Before we knew it, we'd run out of time in the morning. We had made some plans for our Christmas afternoon, and it was time to head out. For some reason, the wacky people at the NBA decided to have the Mavericks season opener on Christmas. They were raising the championship banner, and Christy had been talking about going since they won last season.

So we took the boys to their first basketball game.

No, those aren't our seats (we wish), we were just hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the players during the shootaround. Unfortunately, we only caught a fleeting glance at Vince Carter before we had to move back up to our seats. The boys had a really good time screaming "GO GO GO" and trying to figure out what was going on down there.

Oh, and sleeping during the third quarter.

Max kept yelling at this thing to come back to our section and drop stuff on us.

Then he got bored during the second half and decided it would be more fun to play with his Leappad.

As everything wound down, Owen got a little bit antsy. I decided to take him to the gift shop during a time out. He wasn't interested in any of the keychains or shirts or jerseys, but he did seem to like this thing.

No idea why.

Did I mention that Max had cotton candy?

Of course, Owen demanded that mommy wear it too.

…and daddy.

We watched to the end of a rough game (still had a good time), failed to pick up a mini championship banner (should have left early!), then drove the kids home for dinner.

I think we wore them out a bit.

As if two Christmases weren't enough, when we woke up the next morning we piled into the car for Christmas number three.

To Houston, for stockings!

Christy found it amusing that Owen moved all of the crafts, clothes, and toys to his side. The chocolate and candy went right in front of him.

Then, on to more presents!

…and more presents!

…and Max being a robot.

…and Max trying to figure out whether or not to tell Nan and Papa he already has this game.

…and thank you hugs.

…and Uncle Mike stealing Owen's toys.

That night we decided to try out something new with the boys. Instead of sleeping in separate rooms as they've been accustomed to their whole lives, we put them to bed in the same room. Aside from some coughing from Max (he's feeling much better now) everything seemed to go well. Morning came, and Christy was the first to enter the room (because I wouldn't get up). I didn't witness the scene, but apparently Max was holding up Owen's Lightning McQueen feetie pajamas that Nan had given him for Christmas. "Mommy, Owen took off his pajamas," he helpfully informed her while Owen jumped around the crib in his diaper. The next night they slept in separate rooms. The rest of our visit was filled with the usual insanity.

Sitting, spinning…

…dancing…

…taking silly pictures of Kyle…

…opening more presents…

…pushing the stroller around…

…allowing momentary bad behavior for photo ops…

…wrestling with Papa…

…playing the piano…

…stealing Chandler's 3DS…

…stealing Max's Leappad…

…eating beignets…

…playing with PlayDoh…

…making silly faces with Papa…

…looking out the window at daddy…

…and, finally, posing for an obligatory family photo.

After that, we packed up all the gifts and made the journey back home. All around, I'd say it was a pretty good Christmas. All that's left now is to link you to the huge trove of photos I left out and to deliver the promised set of videos. I'll try to make it quick so I can get back to playing with my remote controlled shark.

Jingle Bells Max is getting pretty good at this.

Driving A bit of motion to go with the photos.

Zombie There was a constant demand to play this "game".

Puzzles Hooray!

Sliding Have to find some way to entertain ourselves. It's not like we got toys for Christmas or anything.

Thus completes this marathon of a post. Hope you had as fun a holiday season as we did, and that we'll all have a good year in 2012!]]>

Cookies, Mikeys, and Sleepies

2011-12-24T03:41:02Z

Twas two nights before Christmas and...yeah, I'm not going to do that. We're in the final stretch of Christmas preparations and I believe we have as much done as is going to get done. Everything is assembled, wrapped, or otherwise ready for distribution and we're just waiting for Santa to show up so he can put the finishing touches on Christmas. While we wait, we find ways to fill time time.

Which was super exciting for Owen, who didn't decorate any cookies.

…but did perk up a bit when he saw a computer in his favorite color.

It was more of an event for this guy, who carefully iced and decorated about a dozen cookies.

While Max was busy making faces of infinite concentration, I stepped outside to see what Owen was up to. Turns out he'd made himself at home.

Get it? Right? Huh? Yeah. I said it. Deal with it.

It wasn't long before Max came out to join us.

His height comes in handy every so often.

Owen spent the rest of the party mowing the lawn...

...and levitating balls with his Jedi mind powers.

From there, we headed home to greet some visitors we'd invited over for the evening.

Mikey!

The boys had a lot of fun emptying out that ball bucket.

Which eventually turned into a game of "Throw Balls at Daddy!"

Which is, obviously, their favorite game.

Baby Alex cameo!

We had a little bit of time while we waited for the pizza, so we decided to kick off the Christmas season a little early with a gift exchange.

Owen is starting to get the hang of wrapping paper, which will help on Sunday.

Max seemed pretty excited about his gift.

Owen did too, I just didn't catch it on camera.

After dinner, we decided to turn a chair into a rollercoaster.

Thankfully, danger often turns into photo opportunities.

The time came for our guests to head home, but we let him take a little parting gift with him.

Capes are always a good gift for a boy.

Once we were done with all that, we were pretty exhausted. This meant we spent most of Sunday like this:

Owen seems less sleepy than mommy.

Max made sure to inform us that he was touching Owen's booty.

With that, we're done for the week. I'll leave you with a link to the rest of the photos before I go double check everything, plug in all the camera batteries, and hopefully get some rest before all the crazy starts.]]>

Sharks, Santa, and Sherman

2011-12-17T19:52:38Z

Looks like we're all caught up thanks to the partial lull we're experiencing in the lead-up to Christmas. Last week seemed somewhat uneventful even though we had a couple of social engagements to keep us busy. Of course, we're always busy around here keeping up with the two little guys.

Sharks! SHAAAAARKS!

One of the benefits (and disadvantages) of being a little brother is that you get a lot of hand-me-downs. In this case, Owen seems to be pretty happy that Max's shark mittens are too small for the big guy. We did find that it was time to get both boys some new winter hats, though.

Not really necessary at the breakfast table, but it's not hurting anyone.

Once again we rolled through the weekly routine without issue, finally arriving at Friday. This week Owen's Fun Friday at school was a repeat, but we always enjoy crazy hair day so we didn't mind.

Why do you people do this to me?

I made it up to him after we got home by returning the playroom closet to its intended role.

If anyone needs a late Christmas gift idea, here you go: 1,000 more of those balls.

Of course, that was just the beginning of our evening. We also had one of our social engagements to attend, this time at the kids' school. As with last year, this one came with a special guest.

Max told him he wanted a talking Perry the Platypus. He forgot to mention the "pumpkin sucker" (an imaginary toy Max invented).

Owen, after a serious amount of coaxing and bribing, told Santa he wanted a basketball.

We had some dinner, then hung out a little more.

Then did some coloring.

Then we gave a buddy a high five.

Note on that last photo, the first high five failed spectacularly, but I didn't manage to catch a photo of Owen's buddy slapping him in the face. They recovered gracefully, so that's all that matters. After the party was done, we headed home to prepare for the rest of the weekend. Saturday went without anything picture-worthy, but Sunday we took a trip up to Sherman to hang out with Mimi and Pappaw and do a little candymaking.

Well, Max did. Owen just wanted to look at the iPod.

…and play with puzzles…

…and look at Christmas ornaments…

…and enjoy the fruits of everyone else's labor.

Max, though, was all about helping out.

Especially with cookies.

Stick my hand in a bag filled with powdered sugar, Mimi? Sure! What could go wrong?

I could not have foreseen this.

He had powdered sugar on his arms up to where they met his shirt. As you can see, though, he was more than happy to help clean himself up. With his tongue. The boys both had a great time and everyone left with loads of sugar (both eaten and in candy tins) to enjoy for the rest of the week. If you want to check out the rest of the photos you can do so here. Otherwise, we'll hopefully see you next week with a nice fresh post. Have a good weekend!]]>

Post-Thanksgiving Fun

2011-12-16T02:11:45Z

As with every year, we've arrived in the brief stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The shopping is done, and Christy has nearly finished wrapping all the gifts (I've been too busy not blogging to help). The boys, though, have had their own business to tend to.

Max has a delicate method.

Owen is just interested in showing us all the ornaments.

The hooks are a bit tough for him, but candy canes are right up his alley.

Now that we have the trees up in the house (there's a big one upstairs, little one downstairs), Owen is constantly asking us to turn on the lights. He also demands on an almost daily basis to go out and see lights and inflatable snowmen around the neighborhood. He especially enjoyed the big light shows we have going on nearby. Max has been similarly impressed. Beyond preparing for Christmas and driving all over to look at lights, not much went on the week after Thanksgiving. We took the boys out to get some much needed haircuts.

Better!

At least he's not sobbing uncontrollably.

The rest of it was just hanging around the house per usual, though I did pull a sheet out of the linen closet to play a long-missing round of Big Giant Rock. This led to me rolling up in the sheet, which inevitably led to a demand...

Suckers. Mommy and daddy are going to a movie. Bye!

That'll do it, aside from the obligatory link to the rest of the photos and a lovely video of the boys messing around with the aforementioned sheet.

Sheet Time Kind of tough to work the camera and keep Max from causing great physical harm to his brother, but I managed.

See you next time!]]>

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-11T03:07:05Z

We're creeping up on an on-time post again, I can just feel it. Now that we're fully recovered from all of our Thanksgiving shenanigans and I've sorted through all the photos, we can finally do this thing. Oddly enough, it seems like we're picking up right where we left off last time.

I need these safety goggles like I need another hole in my head.

Once we were finished experimenting with self-trepanation, it was time to start getting ready for Thanksgiving. Christy continued in her long tradition by making dressing. Thankfully she had a bit more help this year.

Tearing things apart? Definitely an Owen job.

Once we'd baked our pies and made our stuffing and baked several dozen rolls, we made our way up to Sherman.

They found this (and the walkie talkies) pleasing.

Then quickly vegged out to the parade for a while.

Vegging gave way to crafts.

Crafts gave way to board games.

Then more board games.

Board games gave way to showing off the new toy.

Showing off gave way to building.

…but not for long.

Then it was back to craft time.

And before we left, a quick photo with the grandparents.

As with most years, we got a bit of sleep then woke up bright and early to make the trek down to Houston. When we arrived, we unloaded the car and brought in the usual batch of toys for the kids to play with.

Didn't take long for those to get unloaded.

Of course, that was destined not to last seeing as there was a giant bounce house out in the backyard.

Bouncing is way more fun.

Even the little guy is getting the hang of it.

Of course, they had to take a break eventually, which led to more showing off.

The rest of the afternoon was spent goofing off and playing with the cousins.

Like this one, who wasn't particularly impressed with peekaboo.

We also took the time with the kids as an opportunity for some more craft projects.

I believe they were making candy canes.

Not long after, we headed off to bed so we could prepare for the rigors of the next day.

Like using a giant rolling pin for play-doh time.

Or working some puzzles.

And throwing an inevitable fit.

Then getting over it and doing amusing things.

Of course, the weekend wouldn't be complete without some hugs for the little guy.

Before Christy and I headed out for a nice evening, we spent one last bit of time watching them make some cookies with Papa.

Which is mostly about being amused at their haphazard arrangement.

Plus, Owen couldn't let us go without a round of bathroom peekaboo.

We ended the weekend with a nice easy Sunday.

Just laying around.

Plus a bit of church.

Then we drove back home, unpacked everything, and collapsed in a heap. Yet another successful holiday weekend for the family. If you want to see the rest of the photos, you can click here. Otherwise, feel free to enjoy a nice video from Sherman and have a nice week!

Rolling Sometimes it's the simple things in life. ]]>

Science and a Birthday

2011-12-05T02:02:31Z

After Max's birthday weekend things went a bit crazy around here. Plus, it felt really weird making a post on time so we wanted to get back to the routine of things. The week after his birthday wasn't actually chock full of events, but we were keeping ourselves pretty busy recovering from all the excitement.

Science!

For some reason they were super excited about mixing the colors to see what they could make. Thankfully they made it much more scientific with the inclusion of a magnifying glass.

More science!

As for the weekend, I can pretty much sum up the around-the-house activity by just showing you this.

I don't know. Just…yeah.

Once we were finished being goofy at home, we decided to go up to Sherman and be goofy there for a while. We also had some birthdays (Brandy and Adreanna) to celebrate, but really it's all about doing this.

Doggie headbutt!

The girls had a good time opening up their presents, and the boys had fun dealing with the leftover wrapping paper.

Well, whatever they could get their hands on, at least.

After the presents and cake came and went, we moved on to the fun and games portion of the evening.

This pleased Owen greatly.

Because we were too distracted to stop him from harassing the dog some more.

Because we were playing Pictionary.

A happy birthday was had (so far as I could tell), and we brought the boys home for some much needed rest. We'd need it with Thanksgiving coming up, since we had a little bit of prep work to do for the big meal.

Sure, buddy, those might come in handy.

It turned out to be a nice, easy week for everyone, which is always welcome around here. If you want to see the rest of the photos, you can click here. You'll have to bear with me on the next post, as I'm going to have to sift through a couple hundred photos to get to the sweet, sweet center of Thanksgiving. I have a video to tide you over in the meantime.

Puppy This is why we can't have one. ]]>

Max's Fourth Birthday

2011-11-19T02:33:51Z

The planets have aligned in some manner that has allowed me to bring you what will be an on-time and quite lengthy update on our goings on. It's hard to believe we've been doing these blogs for so long, but it was hard to deny it when our big guy turned four on Sunday. Hard to believe, even though for some reason Christy kept thinking he was turning five.

Owen officially loves hoodies.

They also continued what is becoming a running gag in our morning, noon, and night routine. I can't remember when it began, but at some point we sang the "Me My Mo" song to them. When you do this with "Daddy", the "F" refrain becomes "Banana Fanna Fo Fatty". I decided to jut my lip out and pretend to be mortally wounded by this assessment of my weight, which made the children laugh hysterically. Now they sing it all the time. This is especially true for Owen, though he generally just manages "Daddy Daddy Bo Baddy". I usually play along and act offended anyway. Once we'd scrubbed every surface of our home and cleaned up all the toys, the big day arrived. The boys were clearly very excited about all the fun to come.

Seriously. Excited!

Thankfully we had a couple of helpers hanging around to make sure we had the time to get everything done.

Luckily they didn't mind spending some time with the kids.

Once we'd finished running our errands, it was time to put the final touches in place.

Set out the cake.

Put figurines on all the cupcakes.

Test out the bounce house.

Test out the bounce house some more.

Get really close to daddy to whisper, "Owen had a lollipop" in his ear so he can get Nan in trouble.

Arrange all the goodies.

Set out the tiaras, hats, and mustaches.

And, of course, get the flagpole in the ground.

Once everyone arrived, it turned into a giant whirlwind of activity. No one seemed particularly interested in the hats (though we had some takers on the tiaras). Oh well, best laid plans and all that. It seemed everyone was pretty interested in beating a path to a very particular outdoor space.

They kept switching between the big bounce house and the small bounce house.

This meant there were plenty of photo ops.

And lots of insanity.

We somehow managed to catch a half-decent picture of almost everyone.

Plus a few quarter-decent ones.

Of course, some people were a little tired of the photography process.

Before we knew it, it was time to blow out candles.

Then dig in to the cupcakes.

And hang out with the girls.

Then when everyone was nice and full of sugar, back to the bounce house!

I should probably take a moment to explain this one.

You see, as seems to be a tradition around our house, Max decided to try and injure himself right before a major event. He wasn't listening very well at school and tried to open a very heavy door, which immediately closed on his finger. By the time we picked him up, the swelling was bad enough to merit a trip to the local clinic. They took a few precautionary x-rays that turned up nothing, but suggested a splint for the following couple of days. Obviously, it didn't slow Max down at all. Now, back to the photos!

Fairly certain we've exceeded occupancy on this thing.

Once the last of his friends headed home, we decided it was time to move on to opening gifts.

I know it looks like he's sneaking a present, but that one's actually for him.

Then, of course, more bounce house time.

We even managed to coax the older kids away from the TV and the Wii for a bit.

Plus, we got to check out Tanner's sweet vertical leap.

Then we sent everyone home and settled in to play with all the presents.

Some of them got a little more love than others.

The day after was a recovery day, which of course meant random silliness with the boys.

Mmmm, future blackmail…

Mmmmm, static electricity.

Mmmm, safety.

Mmmmmmovember.

Max even got a chance to sit down with his new LeapPad. He was pretty excited about it, since he now has his own little version of an iPad. This caused him to tell me, "Daddy, now we're iPad friends!"

As you can see, it's tough to distract him from it.

We couldn't let the grandparents get away without snapping a few family photos, and we luckily got some good ones.

Gotta love Owen's cheese.

And his extra cheese.

The boys got a nice long nap and we sent Nan and Papa on their way, and we settled back in for a nice restful evening. We realized at some point that we forgot to get the traditional yearly photo of Owen on his birthday, but we figured better late than never.

Puppy and Owen at two and a few.

Puppy and Owen at one.

Looking back through the archives, it would appear that we missed the last couple of years for Max. Still fun to look at the comparison to the first year.

Monkey and Max at four.

Monkey and Max at one.

We also took the opportunity to do a re-shoot of the candles (it was his real birthday on the 13th, after all).

Actually, we did two re-takes…he blew out the candles again before I even had the camera ready.

Then we went out for an exciting dinner at Max's favorite local pizza buffet/arcade. The boys had a great time, but the process of handling them at that place makes it pretty much impossible to get any photos. Max did manage to score a jackpot on one of the machines, though, so he walked away with a nice collection of prizes. We did manage to get one more photo, though, and it provides a nice bookend to last weekend's painting activity.

I think we have a keeper.

That'll do it for the photos (the rest of which you can see here), but my chronic lateness has filled me with such guilt that I have a bit more for you. Typically you'd have to wait weeks to see a post with time-appropriate videos, but this time I have a veritable cornucopia of moving pictures to serve up.

Wishes We begin with a little pre-birthday wishful thinking.

Bouncing We'll continue with a little during-birthday insanity.

Whacking Then of course a little post-birthday gift appreciation.

Balloons Then on to the creative use of resources.

Singing Now we'll show off something we've been doing all week when we think no one is listening.

Noise I cannot urge you enough to turn down your speakers. When you think you have them low enough, turn it a bit more. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Gas To close it all out, I present to you something that I found hilarious, that Papa will find hilarious, and that other people will find alternately hilarious and crude. You're welcome!

Another year down. Have to say it's been a pretty good one. See you next week!]]>

Pre-Birthday Week

2011-11-16T02:04:36Z

Yet another on-time post has slipped through my fingers. We spent so much time getting ready for the party that I completely missed it. No biggie, since this should be a quick one. We already have the photos from Max's party in the queue so we should have that up later this week. Today, we'll address what happened before the madness set in.

Not that it stays that way for long.

That was how we started the weekend. We progressed into a fairly typical routine.

A bit of playtime.

A bit of baking time.

A bit of yelling into paper megaphone time.

A fairly uneventful weekend, really, except that on Sunday we decided to take the boys out for a bit of an art project.

Our resident architect was glad to oblige.

Christy decided that it would be a good idea to get the kids involved in an heirloom making project.

Seeing as this meant finger-painting, Max was cool with it.

Owen was slightly less down with it.

I only managed to grab that one photo of Owen, as it took both of us to keep him from smudging all of his colors together. At the end of the day, our art project actually seemed to turn out pretty well.

The tough part.

Owen was much more interested in this part.

Not too shabby.

After that, we all headed home to hang out the rest of the evening.

Max played a little basketball to close out the day.

Not the most fun-filled weekend, but we had to save up some energy for the week to come. If you want to see a couple more photos of the week, you can click here. Otherwise, we'll see you next time with what I assure you will be a timely and quite lengthy post filled with birthday photos and videos.]]>

Halloween

2011-11-07T02:05:26Z

We teased it a few posts ago, but now the annual donning of garments and mass acquisition of candy has now come and gone. This was the first year both boys were aware of what was going on, and they certainly showed it.

Seems a bit excited, no?

We actually started things a little earlier in the week with a welcome evening visit from Mimi and Pappaw. Of course, we couldn't let them go without letting the boys put on their costumes to show off.

For some reason he always started running around the house when we put this on him.

When you ask Owen what his costume was for Halloween, he'd tell you, "Mario." If you ask him what Max dressed up as, the response is always, "Mario and Luigi." We never could get him to understand that it was just Luigi, but it's funnier this way so we're cool with it. Speaking of Luigi...

Yeah, pretty excited.

The boys enjoyed their school Halloween parties as much as you'd expect.

Owen got to decorate a pumpkin with stickers.

Oh, right, I had a happy picture too.

Max got to play Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin.

Obligatory tongue-stuck-out shot for Max.

Max's class finished up a little early, so he got to join his brother…for some cheese, I guess.

Awwww.

Owen made sure to hand out treat bags before we left.

We left school for a bit to go grab some dinner and run a few errands, then we headed right back for their annual Halloween party.

Which is all about ring toss games with candy.

…and fishing games and candy…

…and breaks for cupcakes and cookies…

…and more games and candy…

Of course, that was just the beginning of our weekend. We started off the day before the day before Halloween (no, that's not repeated text) with some appropriately themed breakfast.

The traditional black and orange donut.

Owen broke tradition by demanding a pink one (his favorite color), but gave me this photo to make up for it.

We relaxed the rest of the morning to lead into our afternoon/evening plans, which involved a trip out to Lantana to visit some friends we hadn't seen in a while.

Mikey!

Don't ask. Video games are just better this way.

Owen, while he wasn't interfering with the gaming, enjoyed some time passing balls back and forth with Alex.

Before we knew it, it was time for the main event. Just like last year, the community was running a "Monster Mile" which involved every kid in the community filing down the sidewalks to meet some characters and fill up their buckets with candy.

So we put them all in their costumes…

…and outfitted people with appropriate means of mobility…

…and hugged Barney again (just like last year)…

…and poked this spider…

"Me too!"

…and high fived Superman…

…and paused for a moment halfway through to compare the hauls...

…and checked out how we measured up to last year…

…and high fived tigger.

Owen is still talking about that last one. Once we were all truly worn out, we headed back to grab some dinner and hang out a little more.

I had to post this one because, as Christy mentioned, that shirt is just right on him.

The day before Halloween was a bit more subdued. We mostly spent it relaxing around the house.

Also, playing in this box.

Plus, playing some soccer.

Max is getting pretty good at it.

Owen is too, but he bores of things quickly.

We also found out that Max apparently picked up a little trick from one of his buddies at school. We sent some pretzel sticks in for the school party on Friday, and someone decided to start using them as utensils.

Kind of hard to see, but there's a pretzel stick in that piece of watermelon.

In our house, things have become a constant stream of monkey see, monkey do, so of course...

…now Owen knows how to do it too.

We also did some final preparations for the holiday, which meant finally giving in to the demands to create our yearly Mr. Pumpkin Head.

I assure you, he put that on his own head.

Max decided to decorate the back as well.

See? Signed it and everything.

Owen was feeling a bit artistic himself.

We didn't actually carve a pumpkin this year for our front porch. This was partially due to laziness and partially due to the fact that I'd volunteered to help with a the second half of a pumpkin for the office.

For the Star Wars geeks, this is Alderaan.

Action shot.

When Halloween arrived, the boys had to suffer through a day at school before they could put their costumes back on for the big event.

They took a moment to Skype with Nan so they could thank her for the Halloween cards (and money!)

Max tried on a few mustaches.

Owen demanded that Christy do the same.

Then we set out our candy bucket and canvassed the immediate area.

I should probably mention that we had a costume contest at work. Some of you might have caught the post on Facebook, but I'll re-post for the rest of you. Once I'd worn this around all day, I put it back on to walk the neighborhood with the kids.

Honestly, how often do you get to walk around dressed as Obi Wan without people staring?

We returned to enjoy the familiar Halloween tradition of picking out a few candies to eat before bedtime.

Max chose a Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar, and some sweettarts.

Owen had pretzels. Seriously. Photos don't lie!

Owen has since come around and now demands "candies" as often as possible. A devilish little grin lights up on his face every time he does it, and he's decided on "circles" (M&Ms) as his favorite. Normally I don't edit these after I post (except when Christy kindly points out a glaring typo), but this week I'm making an exception. We have a couple of videos that are just too relevant to the week not to share here.

Pin the Tail Max bends the rules a little bit.

Soccer Guess we know what we'll be enrolling him in.

Money! A little pre-trick-or-treat excitement courtesy of Nan and Papa.

Candy! A little post-trick-or-treat excitement courtesy of sugar.

Everyone had a really great weekend, and all that's left is to figure out what to do with all this candy. If you want to see the rest of the photos, you can click here. Otherwise, we'll see you next time when we'll have an actual, real live, honest on-time blog post for the first time in months. Have a good week, everyone!]]>

Working and Partying

2011-11-03T02:42:22Z

When last we left our intrepid duo, they were recovering from an extensive amount of weekend excitement. This led into a typical recovery week, which led into yet another less than typical weekend.

Doesn't even have enough energy to play a board game.

That was taken on Friday. On Saturday, they had apparently caught up on all their sleep and were ready to go.

I guess they like sausage.

This wasn't going to be any ordinary Saturday for us. This was going to be the first time I had a full day alone with the boys. Christy needed to head up to Sherman to help her sister with a bit of light housework.

You know. Dusting, sweeping, tearing down an enclosed patio roof…easy stuff.

While she was out impressing everyone with her deconstruction knowledge, the boys and I started our amazing day by taking an exciting trip to the doctor's office. Max had been coughing a bit too much for our liking, so I took him in to find that he was suffering from a bout of croup.

That, and a minor case of swatting at his brother with his sleeves because he was bored with waiting.

Once we'd survived that ordeal, we went on a mad dash to find a bunch of little pumpkins (more on that later). We also stopped by a party and costume shop (related to the pumpkins, so more on that later as well). By the time all that was done, we'd used up the entire morning and it was time to find some food. As a dad it's my responsibility to spoil my children when I have them to myself, so I decided to let each of them pick whatever they wanted to eat for lunch. Max chose chicken fingers, which was easy enough to pick up on the way to our final destination. Owen chose pizza (as he most often does), which would have been fine if our normal pizza joint served by-the-slice on the weekend. When we found out they didn't, we wound up just going to the closest place that wasn't in the mall. Thus Owen was introduced to Cici's Pizza buffet. When we were done eating, I was immediately goaded into taking them back to the game room, where we pumped quarters into machines until everyone was happy. At least, I think they were happy. I'll let you judge for yourself.

Wheeeeee! They begged me to do this.

We also played with some crane games while we were in there, one of which got jammed in an odd way. It had a rotating drum of toys, and the crane arm got stuck in there, which meant a bunch of toys piled up against the arm and were swept up into the toy chute. Max has the full story.

Crane Game So great.

For those who need a resolution on the part of the crane game operator, I pumped a few more quarters into it and everything seemed to return to normal. When Christy got home Max her that he got "like a hundred toys!" Owen woke up first from nap, so we spent some time playing with said toys. He was very interested in a tiny bowling set.

He felt that the included ball lacked the necessary heft, so he fixed the situation.

You'd think this would be enough excitement for one weekend, but we still had another day ahead of us. It also happens that this day was a combined birthday party up in Sherman, so we packed up the car and headed out to spend some time with the family. When we arrived, the boys were given a nice warm welcome.

Pickles!

More Pickles!

Per usual, much of the time was spent watching the boys participate in various random activities.

Like throwing stuff at me.

…or looking unimpressed by the kids' table.

…or looking super excited about being allowed to eat at the big kids' table.

…or limboing.

…or helping Pappaw open his presents.

I will note that while Owen seemed unimpressed by Mimi's card table, he specifically asked to eat at our card table one day later in the week. Once we'd all eaten, it was time to move on to our group activity. Mimi usually chooses these, but this time I'd seen something amusing on the web and wanted to let the kids try it out. This is where all those small pumpkins come in.

Note: Carving a small pumpkin is WAY easier than carving a normal-sized one.

Putting some finishing touches on, aaaaand…

Pumpkins with fangs!

Everyone seemed to have a good time making a nice spread of them.

After that, it was on to cake and a little more hanging out, then back home to close out the weekend. I'd say it was pretty successful. If you want to see the rest of the photos, click here. Here's hoping I have it in me to get another one of these done tomorrow!]]>

Bowling, Partying, and Arboretuming

2011-11-02T02:34:19Z

You bet I verbed it. I also just verbed "verb". Deal with it. Grammar humor that only Christy will appreciate aside, we now continue our weeks-behind update process to bring you a story of black lights, popped balloons, and wishful thinking.

Like trippy black light bowling.

With and without ramps.

Owen wound up outscoring Max by a scant two pins. I consider it a victory that we managed to keep them going for ten frames. The rest of the week was a bit of a blur, so as usual we'll skip to the weekend. On Saturday morning we continued working through Max's class roster of Fall birthdays. The theme was Strawberry Shortcake, which was just fine with the boys.

Because hey, berry patch.

For the first time in Max's life, he sat down to have his face painted. He was given an open-ended opportunity to have anything at all.

"I want a circle!"

He continues to defy anyone's predictive abilities. The birthday girl (not pictured below) decided to entertain her guests by putting on a movie.

Needless to say, Max was pleased.

Next came the berry patch activity, which turned out to be even more fun than just stealing the balloons and walking around with them.

There were toys inside, just waiting to be released.

Balloons are apparently more resilient than we'd thought.

Perseverance, though, often leads to victory.

We rounded out the party with some cake and toys.

Mostly cake.

Then we headed home to charge all of our camera batteries for the onslaught to come on Sunday. We'd been talking about heading out to the arboretum for quite some time, and we finally found an opportunity to do so with some family members in tow. The place was a madhouse, but we managed to snap a few fun pictures.

Not looking at me, but smiling so I'll take it.

Owen has officially adopted "stinkface" as his "cheese" face.

It's tough to get a photo when they won't stop messing with each other and you have to pretend you don't think it's funny.

Hooray! A decent one of everyone!

More stinkface.

All the stinkface you could possibly need (and some nice faces).

Obligatory "Just let them run. I'll see what I can get." photo.

Obligatory photo of Owen and his favorite uncle (it's a height thing, I'm sure).

Entirely necessary photo to explain why Owen isn't in the next photo.

…and finally, a decent photo with the grandparents. No idea how far away Owen was by this point.

Of course, we took plenty more while we were out there. You can check those out here. We remain two weeks behind, but I shall endeavor to fix that before Max's birthday so we can keep everyone up on what's going on. Have a good week!]]>

Halloween Preview and Pudding

2011-10-26T02:28:26Z

For some reason the members of our household have endured a constant barrage of mystery ailments over the past few weeks. Luckily this week's issue involves me pulling muscles in my legs during a company softball game, so I'm mostly incapacitated. This is conducive to blog posting, so perhaps I'll get things caught up around here. Today's post will be a quick one, given that we took a whopping six photos during the first full week of October.

What, you thought you were getting a full reveal before Halloween?

You'll just have to settle with this for now.

The only other photo-worthy thing that happened (aside from getting those costumes in) was that we decided to make some dessert for the boys.

I think someone wants to lick the whisk.

Rite of passage, as far as I'm concerned.

Can't take his eyes off it.

Don't worry, no raw eggs were involved. Just a bit of chocolate pudding. This is now Owen's favorite dessert, and he will often finish a meal by yelling "CHOOOOCAAAT PUUUUDIIIIN". Yet another situation in which I find something hilarious but cannot encourage it under any circumstances. The weekend was a relaxed one, mostly spent hanging around the house and recovering. This brings us to the last photo of the week.

This is what "relaxing" looks like to Owen.

The week after that was a bit more eventful, but we'll get to that later. Seeing as I have no more photos for you I won't bother linking you to the full set. I will, however, make up for weeks of missed posts by giving you a quick peek at some of Owen's bedtime behavior.

Shut It THIS is how you close a door. Like a boss.

See you next time!]]>