Hell must be cold today

Because I'm writing a blog post. It's been nearly three months, and I'm not quite sure how that happened. Actually, I do. Life has been happening. Fun, busy, child filled life. I am not going to try to write everything, or even any, of what's been going on. I will just say what is going on now. And pictures will soon follow.

- Karen and Henry are visiting right now, although they leave tomorrow. It's been a fun week. We haven't done a lot, mostly hung near home. The boys both nap twice a day and they have fortunately been on a similar schedule. It does mean a lot of tea drinking at home. Which is lovely.
- Owen took his first steps weeks ago but has seemed pretty uninterested in using it as a means of transportation. He's a crazy fast crawler, so I don't blame him. But this weekend he started choosing to walk the small distances between the coffee table and various chairs. Yesterday he took a few steps, stopped and then took a few more. I'm guessing that we have a few more days until he's doing it all the time.
- Kate has been amazing lately. She just gets better and better. We've been figuring out school options for next year. I want her to do a pre-K program since I think she would love it and totally thrive. We were just offered a spot at the UT Child Dev. Center and although it's a whole lot more money than we currently spend on childcare, we're going to try to make it work. It will mean a lot less eating out and being a bit more careful about random purchases at Target.
- Graeme is off in California again. We're half way through his time there. (which also contributed to the lack of posting, I suppose)

Well, that is a good start. Photos and videos coming soon.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy

My dearest baby boy Owen,
Today is your first birthday. It has been a fun year of watching you grow and learn. You aren't walking, but you're crawling very quickly and walking if you have something to hold onto. You have eleven teeth and love almost everything we give you to eat. Peas, fish and hummus are your favourites. You adore your sister and our dog. You love the bath and the sand box. You have a serious temper and shriek if you want something and have a fit if you don't get it. You are amazingly affectionate and sweet. You love peekaboo and reading books.

We love you so completely. You complete our little family and I'm looking forward to all the years to come.

Love mummy

First day:


One month:


Two months:


Three months:


Four months:


Five months:


Six months:


Seven months:


Eight months:


Nine months:


Ten months:


Eleven months:


One year:

New sweater

Sink Bath

11 months and Six years

Yesterday, Owen turned 11 months old. I totally missed his ten month since it was right before Christmas and all the ensuing craziness. In two months, there have been massive changes, of course. He's high speed crawling, cruising the furniture, making a huge mess, eating most food. He started saying 'uh oh', signing 'all done', having stronger opinions and generally charming the pants off of everyone.

Today is the six year anniversary of my mum's death. She would have rocked grandma-hood. She met Emily, but not her four subsequent grandchildren. She would have loved them all to pieces. Recently, Kate has been asking me to tell me more about my mum. It's great to tell her stories and it makes me happy that Kate will know her through those stories.

Her third and fourth grandchildren:

50 letters, 50 weeks

My sister posted about a challenge to write a letter (real letter, sent in the mail) once a week for all of 2011. I liked the idea but wasn't sure I wanted to commit to it when I was quite sure I wouldn't/couldn't follow through. But yesterday I wrote a letter and sent it off, and it was great. So, I'm going to try. But, since it's already the third week of January, it will be 50 letters/50 weeks.

Keep an eye on your mailbox, you might be getting a letter!

The latest iteration

This weekend we set up Kate's bunk beds. They can be stand alone or stacked, and since we got them, one has been up in the attic. But next weekend we have some friends coming to visit and my sister and her kids will be coming later in the spring, so it was time to get them set up. Kate has been sleeping on the top since we did it, and she loves it. I'm less than excited about climbing up and down multiple times, but it's not bad. Wait until I have to change the sheets up there, and I might be singing a different tune.

We also removed the table that acted as a change table. I don't know why it took so long to take it out, since it hasn't been used in a long time. It opened things up a lot and let us move things around a bit. The next step is to move Owen in there with his crib, which will necessitate rearranging the furniture again. We have some sleep training to do before that can happen though.