I’ve been out of town. It’s getting better.
Almost a year! And three years!
There was a span of about one week where we could put this little bow in Lily’s hair and she wouldn’t pull it out. Now there’s limited success there – unless you distract her with something like, say, paper.
Owen helped me change some batteries in various toys. Lily is also very interested in what Owen is doing these days.
On Friday evening, we took the kids to go see Santa.
We had also tried to go see the big man the previous Friday, getting in line early but seeing the gross inefficiency of the line made us retreat. I waited in line with Lily for a good forty five minutes, to only see the line advance about twice.
We went to The Shops at Southglenn to go see Santa there. They have a big courtyard that is usually lit up with lots of Christmas lights year-round, and in years past, Santa has been outside near a big outdoor fireplace and under those lights. Except, last year, apparently Santa got pneumonia from sitting outside in the cold. So they moved to a different spot indoors.
The other ‘bonus’ about this is that it was free, and you are to bring your own camera to take pictures. Taking large volumes of pictures is something I am very, very good at.
So at about five o’clock on Friday evening, with cameras, kids, and gadgets in tow, we headed over to see Santa.
There was a small line. In front of us was a couple with a thirteen-month-old daughter. She and Lily were getting along just fine. Lily was in a great mood, smiling at everybody, clapping, and she was totally enamored with the lights and trees and decorations.
Owen went first, and he did really well given the last two years. I think he’s starting to get the association now. I also think he’ll be really sad when Christmas is over.
By ‘really sad’ I mean that he’ll probably be upset for about five minutes before moving on to something else, like with trick-or-treating at Halloween. The night after Halloween, after dinner he went and put on his hat and jacket and announced he was ready to go trick-or-treating again. We explained it was a once a year thing, and he just said “Oh, okay!” This reminds me that I need to get an audio recording of him saying this, because he says it in a very funny way.
Then we tried both kids together. I mentioned earlier that Lily was in a great mood, which you most likely (and correctly) understood was a precursor to this photo:
The bonus here is that you also get to see the peril of being your own photographer. It was a little dark in there, even with the teeny pop-up flash on the camera. Eventually the little Santa Sock Monkey won out, and she calmed down a bit.
Owen was excited to get outside and see more Christmas lights, so we kind of hung around a bit before going to dinner at Diego Zhang’s. We had never been, but in totally awesome family night style, we had a coupon and decided to give it a try.
It was a slider restaurant – tiny burgers. Lots of variety. Lots of small dishes. Then we rushed home to put the tired babies (and mama) to bed.
These things are the new best part of Christmas. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And I don’t want to forget.
Yesterday was busy.
Lily is officially nine months old, which is crazy to think about. Time doesn’t seem to go fast until you’re looking back and being introspective.
Compare:
Man.
I have been trying to use the video camera a lot more lately. In the very first video I took of Owen sleeping in this chair I remember sleepily, incoherently, and emotionally rambling how I never wanted to forget any of the moments, ever. But I have – we all do.
One day when I have a lot of time, I need to go through and prune our photo collection and get rid of photos like this one:
And, I need to actually edit and blend out the multiple videos I’ve gotten of anything that has ever been videotaped over the past three years. When?
I need to start using this thing again. Google+ has been neat, but it’s not for everybody, and Anna doesn’t really have a way to share facespace pictures. I don’t think. And I’m still steadfastly refusing to join facespace given things like this.
Mostly I need to capture things I’m thinking. I was really good about that in the before times. Now I keep forgetting stuff that I’m pretty sure I don’t want to forget.
Right now I want to remember Owen’s rocket jammies and how excited he is about them. They have stars on them that glow in the dark.
The evening routine is the same, but now when I turn out the light he lifts up his blankets and excitedly exclaims “HERE THEY COME!” as the stars start to glow. He’s actually somewhat excited for lights out! This is the kind of magic I want to remember. Glow in the dark stars on his jammies are currently the coolest thing in the entire world to him right now.
Lots of stuff has happened since the beach. Namely, family life.
Some milestones we may have missed:
8 months old!
Lily has been nothing short of amazing. She’s doing all the things she’s supposed to do and is very close to rearing up on her hands and knees and starting to crawl. She’s kind of crawling right now, only backwards. She has no difficulty getting to where she wants to be, it’s just … unorthodox. For adults and toddlers, anyway.
She likes to eat.
Owen is learning to play the digiridoo:
Halloween went well. Owen wanted to go trick or treating every night from 1 November to about 7 November until he finally realized it was really more of a “once a year” thing. One day I look forward to telling him stories of how entertained he was by two of his favorite things – doorbells and candy.
I never get tired of this picture.
And Lily also was seven months:
OK, all the photos I’ve taken from the beach are here for consumption:
If you’re on the googlebook, you’ve probably seen a few of these already.
We took the three month picture yesterday, when Anna reminded me I never posted the two month picture.
And
And, just so that Kenny isn’t totally wrong that my blog has become nothing but pictures of Owen – it’s hard to play games on my phone these days:
It appears to be getting better. Lily has slept through a couple of nights – and by “slept through” I mean we’ve gotten a window between 20:15 and 03:15. You don’t realize how much you need that contiguous sleep until you’ve gone without it for a few months. Yesterday was probably her most “talky” day – she was sassing and talking at me, smiling, making faces. Good times.
Owen must be growing or something, because he’s been taking four plus hour naps, in addition to playing at full speed whenever he’s awake. We were at a birthday party the other day, and he played so hard that when I went to pick him up and tell him it was time to go, I expected an epic meltdown. Instead, he was too tired to fuss.
It was a nice three day weekend, even if I can’t really remember what it is that we did.
This doesn’t happen often enough:
I think yesterday was a pretty nice mother’s day, other than Anna wasn’t feeling particularly well.
We had nice weather so we spent a lot of time outside in the afternoon on the back deck watching Owen play on the big rocks, in the dirt, in his water table, in the dirt again, in the mud, back on the rocks, digging for worms, etcetera. Lily fussed the entire time. She may not like the outdoors yet.
Garden planning started this past weekend, too. This year’s garden was brought to us almost exclusively by Groupon. The nursery we go to for plants had a $25 for $50 Groupon, and our local Ace Hardware had a $10 for $20 Groupon. I was able to get plants, some heavy-duty tomato cages, and some soil from the nursery, and then all compost and other stuff from Ace. Was kind of neat. With the “extra” money I was able to buy a ton more compost and fertilizer. The past few years I’ve kind of skimped on those things – and while I can’t say that’s the reason our garden hasn’t been as successful the past two years, I’m sure it contributed.
This year we are planting two varieties of cherry tomatoes. Our cherry tomatoes always do very well, but starting last year we seem to have developed a serious pest problem. Somebody seems to be toddling around in the garden pulling off all the cherry tomatoes and eating them. I cut back on bigger variety tomatoes because Colorado has a hard time staying warm enough long enough for bigger tomatoes. We also have squash, zucchini, broccoli, basil, lavender (Anna’s), mint, carrots, beets, and spinach.
Everything is about eggs the past few days. More eggs. Eggs, please. Find eggs.
And Lily? Here she is with Auntie Jen. She didn’t like the hat either. For reference:
For the record, this is the face she makes when pooping:
Everybody’s gone. No grandparents, no aunts, no uncles. That gives me some time to catch up on the interblog.
She’s filling out nicely.
We’ll see how he does with no distraction and an actual deficit of attention. He puts on these glasses and runs around yelling “COOL DUDE”.
Chop-chop is smitten.
Owen and Uncle Matt got along swimmingly. Owen was very sad to see him go.
Initially, I didn’t want this stupid lamb swing. I guess you can say it’s paid off.
