Working Hard in Austin

Paul isn't the only one working hard in Austin now... I have not been forthcoming enough to write in my blog that we are NOW going to move to Austin. We have been spending our weekends helping my grandmother by renovating my late great-grandmother's home and in exchange we will be able to live there while our current home is on the market and until we find our new home. My goal is to be there and be settled in before Preschool starts up for Ashlyn.

My sweet little brothers have seriously shocked me with how helpful they can be! The youngest one has some experience with this sort of work and has essentially been the contractor, with my Dad as the consultant. The other brother has enlisted the help of his girlfriend and they have really been work-horses. Nobody is even making me beg (yet)- the past 2 weekends they have voluntarily sacrificed their entire Saturdays to help us! Both Paul's and my parents have been keeping the kids while we work, which may be the hardest of the jobs. We are so thankful to them all!

On Fridays, prep work included boxing up Mama's belongings so that the family can go through them together at the next gathering. For the actual work on the house, the plan was to start at the top and work our way down: ceilings, then walls, then floors, then the bathrooms and kitchen. Thankfully we have so many helping hands that the phases are overlapping. Labor began with scraping ceilings- MESSY work that Ryan started and he "apprenticed" Paul well enough that he has taken that job over. There is only one room left to scrape, Paul is a pro now! Eric and Ali have been priming all the scraped ceilings and even got so far ahead that they started painting walls. My mom painted an entire room too. Ryan has been doing all sorts of other jobs that I never would have known to do on my own. I think I have been working too although I have not had a project all to myself... I dabble. Well, I do the shopping and some decision-making (bossing) which are some of my favorite things.

I have not been doing tremendously well at taking pictures of our progress, not that this is interesting to anyone other than family... Here is what I do have, they are all from our first work weekend so the rooms look even more different now, and sorry but they are only from one room & the entry. These are for you Sharon:


from the next week after the dust had settled: Notice Benjamin showing off in this picture by putting his foot in his mouth. No, he does not weigh 20lbs yet (so close though!) and that is why he is in the carrier still although I am sure he exceeded the length recommendation long ago. We traditionally use it only as a carseat and don't usually carry him around in it, but in this case we didn't want him getting into anything. It is like a weighted straight jacket of sorts, keeps him out of trouble.

Anyway, the work has been fun to do so far. Paul and I have been enjoying spending time working together and with family. Much has been accomplished, but there is still SO much more work to be done!! We hope it won't take too TOO much longer; we may lose our volunteers if we stretch this out too long or make them work too hard!

Silly Siblings

It has been a full month and a couple of days since Ashlyn cut her hair... it has grown more than I expected. We went back to get it trimmed again. Someday it the "party in the back" will finally match up with the "business in the front" (yes it is still a mullet!)


Benjamin is really walking. Within 2 weeks he went from being capable of taking several steps at a time, but preferring to crawl, to now- he is walking everywhere all the time. We can't keep him with us in church anymore b/c he tries to walk away. Honestly, on a stay at home day, if he is not in his highchair enjoying his favorite meal of hot dog, grapes, and yogurt (pretty much all I can get him to eat), then he is walking... somewhere. The layout of our kitchen is great- he walks in a big circle all morning and afternoon. Now I don't have to keep the floors so clean!


Life is so different having a one-year-old and a three-year-old. I am not sure how, but all of the sudden our kids have gotten so much older. They look so big standing next to each other. I can count on some level of communication from both if them. It's great- I had forgotten how truly wonderful it is when a baby completes their first year of life. Ashlyn just likes that they can play together, and so does Benjamin. They play chase, hide-n-seek, in the play kitchen, inside the tent, on the slide, and they tickle-fight too: I need to get that on video. Nothing fills my heart with joy like my kids laughing together! It is nice to see that they can be buds!

From when we spent the night at Grammy K's & GrandPaul's:

Our Little Slugger's 1st birthday party

What a party! Since Benjamin only turns 1 once, we tried to make it memorable- to us anyway! As mentioned before in the last lengthy post, he loves his bats and hitting the baseball so it only seemed natural to throw him a baseball themed party. I mananged to find 1st birthday baseball party supplies which thrilled me more than you can imagine. There was a bounce house and a few kiddy pools to keep the children happy. The menu included hot dogs, ballpark nachos, snow cones and there were even some peanuts and crackerjack. The only problem we encountered was the extreme winds! Lots of family, lots of friends, lots of kids, lots of wind, lots of chaos, lots of fun!!

waiting for the bounce house to inflate

gotta sport the jersey

nacho cheese with a fork, sure GrandPaul let him do whatever he wants

the cake that he only sampled
nearly all the kids

the evening's entertainment
Benjamin really put on a show. With lots of people around he tends to be a little quiet and reserved... but he really enjoyed the crowd watching him swing that bat!



(Oh, and next post will be dedicated to Paul's and my 6 year anniversary which is today. Maybe I can have fewer pictures for that one. )

Happy Birthday Benjamin!

Happy birthday to our sweet little boy! Has it really been a whole year since we were celebrating your arrival? Benjamin has been such a good baby, so laid back and happy- people tell me all the time that he is the happiest baby they have ever seen.

Bless his little heart, he woke from naptime yesterday with a high fever. Stinks to be sick on your birthday, but especially your first one! Tylenol and Motrin have been helping him somewhat enjoy his special day. During early naptime Ashlyn and I made cupcakes. Big sister loves to cook and even helped clean up afterwards.

He pretty much only ate the icing. It takes him forever to eat anything, so by the time we were trying to clean him up, icing was dried onto his skin. So...Backyard time!

(these lists are for me... to help me remember)

These are a few of his favorite things: grapes, gatorade, clapping, sitting at the top of the stairs (behind the gate) and systematically throwing all his toys down the stairs, climbing into the tub if the bathroom door is not pulled to, carrying a baseball bat everywhere, hitting & throwing the ball, climbing the stairs, pulling all books within his reach off the shelf, closing doors, pulling all of Ashlyn's clothes out of her dresser, pushing kitchen chairs around the tile floor, dancing to music, going outside, wrestle-time, swimming in the pool, the computer, the dog, the remote control(and using it to find a Spanish channel), his sister, his Mommy, his Daddy

Dislikes: cold milk, being in his car seat, shopping, having a toy stolen from him, being talked to in a scolding tone, having his diaper changed, being dressed, being in the grass

Nicknames we've come up with during Ben's first year:

-Bamm-Bamm (he carries a toy bat all around the house with him)

-Mowgli- his new faster crawl, see picture above

-Buddy (Paul's nickname for him)

-Sugar booger (that one's mine and Ashlyn copies me)

-Benjer, Benjer boy, BenJermaine

Normal schedule at 1 yr:

wakes around 8

errands or playtime

snack at 10:30

nap around 11:00

lunch at 12

playtime

down for nap btwn 2-3

dinner at 6

bath at 7

wind down time

to bed at 8:30

LOVE YOU SO MUCH BEN! HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY

Silly smoshy faces pictures!

No stopping him now!

I am having some trouble getting my videos from youtube onto my blog... I don't know what is different from the last time I did a video.

Poor Benjamin- he has been walking for a couple of weeks but I never had the camera handy and he was eclipsed by his sister's hair fiasco. Here are two 12 second clips of Benjamin taking steps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNc8ETIIQTw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JatoJkXQMvE&feature=related

Oh it's bad

BEFORE:

AFTER:
Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. My daughter is sporting a mullet, a self-inflicted mullet in fact. Reactions have ranged from "Oh wow!" to "she looks like Joe Dirt" (quoting 2 family members). Ashlyn gets embarrassed about it every once and awhile. I am trying to keep things in perspective... and ultimately I have to remember that hair grows back.

Thursday morning is when the offense took place, I cried every time I looked at her for the rest of that day, couldn't help it. Friday we went shopping. Must be nice to do something wrong and be rewarded with a new wardrobe! I have to give a shout out to the nice lady working at the Gap at the Shops at La Cantera- she could not have been sweeter and more helpful to us. She brought out a HUGE box full of hats, headcovers, and headbands and we went through them all! Finally today (Saturday) my hairdresser did what she could and cut the back of the mullet into a cropped bob (Ashlyn likes that her hair is "Bob" now).

Not too sure how well you can see her hair and also I didn't get any good ones of her by herself. There is one that kinda/sorta shows the back of her hair. Her cousin Payton really enjoyed having his picture taken tonight.

For months I have been wanting to have her hair cut to a cute bob, but Ashlyn told me no, that she didn't want to get her hair cut... hmmm. Go figure!

And the -Oscopy goes to...

(Look at him in his cute tiny hospital gown!)

Benjamin had his "endoscopy/flex sigmoidoscopy" early this morning and he did great! As an obvious response to our anxious prayers, the anesthesiologist was a wonderful Dr that goes to our church and is a close family friend. Now I am feeling dumb that I didn't think before to ask for him specifically, but it all worked anyway. The gastroenterologist said that he didn't see anything to be concerned with by his visual inspection but that a few tissue samples were taken from different areas of his digestive tract for testing and they should have the results in the next 2 weeks. Ben only cried for a minute or two as he was coming out of anesthesia in recovery. Thank you God for assuring that today went so smoothly!

Thank you for your prayers about this- they are much appreciated! We'll keep you posted on the results.

Prayers for Benjamin

I was just thinking the other day that I don't blog anymore about one of the main things that consumes my life. I have mentioned it before, but not for awhile... it is Benjamin's eating & growing issues. Well, he still isn't growing on a normal curve according to the growth charts. After months and months of visting different specialists, his pediatrician and the gastroenterologist are in agreement that he needs to undergo a procedure. This coming Monday Benjamin is to have an endoscopy/sigmoidoscopy performed under anesthesia. I think we are most nervous about the anesthesia part. Tissue samples will be taken from different parts of his digestive tract and sent to the lab... looking for celiac disease. I think that there may be other things that he would be tested for- I don't want him to have some serious life long illness of course, but some answers would be nice. My fear is that we will STILL not have an answer after we put Ben through all this. Anyway, please pray that the procedure goes smoothly without complications.

On a lighter note-

Giving kisses. They are so sweet to each other... most of the time.

Third times a charm

This is literally the third time I have tried to post this week. I'd write something and then realize that it was not interesting or informative and then give up. I couldn't remember what all we have been doing to keep so busy... until today when I finally got around to downloading pictures from the past week.

For sure the highlight of the past week was last Friday. Paul took off work and we met up with some out-of-town friends at SeaWorld! Between the three families there totalled 9 kids all under the age of 5. A friend of Paul's works with the Killer Whales and so our little party got to pet baby Shamu. Actually her name is Haylen, but when I say baby Shamu you have a better idea of who I am talking about, right?

7 of the 9 kiddos

the other 2

Well, Paul had made the rookie mistake of telling Ashlyn the day before that we were going to be able to get close and touch Shamu... so for that stretch of time she was certain she wasn't going to touch something with that big of teeth. However, when the time came she gladly took her turn. Maybe because it was only the little tiny Shamu.

I think all the kids except the babies were brave enough to have their turn. I didn't think about it until later that I wanted to pet baby Shamu too. All of the adults were either holding a small child or taking pictures, so I guess we weren't really available to participate. We were like the paparazzi- all the pictures being taken with this crowd of children since something exciting was happening. Happens all the time... and it always makes me laugh.
Such a fun and memorable day!!