Trip to South Texas (October)

On the weekend of October 5th my older sister Tracey married the man of her dreams and we came down to South Texas to attend the wedding.

Author's Note: It should be said that her name is actually spelled Tracy (no 'e') and she is not really my sister.  However, she was Kimberley's (my actual older sister) best friend when she moved to Sinton and was effectively another sister to me.  All of the daughters in my family have names spelled with 'ey' (Kimberley, Shelley and Kelley) therefore Tracey's name had to be conformed to the Bryan family norm.  She doesn't mind. It isn't her fault her parents misspelled her name.

The wedding was late Saturday afternoon at the beach in Corpus Christi with the reception following in Portland. It was hot. I had no intention of dragging my two munchkins out there, so they stayed with Lolo in Sinton while Jimmy and I actually got to pay attention to the vows and enjoy the reception.  The drive down was pretty good, considering Olivia isn't overly fond of her carset at this point in her young life. I don't think the crying ever lasted longer than 15 minutes at a time. Somehow I didn't take any pictures of the wedding or reception, but trust me - the bride was beautiful, the groom was happy and a good time was had by all.

The calm after the storm. Such beautiful silence.

Beautiful, beautiful silence.

Nathan and Popo hanging out on the floor at Lolo's house.

On Sunday we went to worship with my mom at the little church of Christ in Mathis where she has been attending. Somewhat coincidentally, my mom's best friend Virgina's son Justin (got that?) is the preacher there.  It was strange for me to listen to him preach since I remember him most as a crazy ball of energy and always into something when he was a little boy. His older brother, J Ross, is one week older than I am and Justin is only a year or so younger than Kelley (I think). Being that best friends had kids at the same time, there are all kinds of embarrasing pictures of J Ross and I, including the dreaded bath tub picture (sorry, folks, that one's going to stay off the internet, thank you very much). If we stay in Katy long enough I'm sure we'll eventually get something similar with Nathan and/or Olivia and their friends. Ah, memories.

Anyway, after worship we went to my Grandma/Mom's house for lunch.  We asked my Grandmother Sheila to come to worship and lunch too so we could see her without having to drive all over South Texas. Since she was so handy and both my sisters were there, we decided to get pictures of her with all of the great grand-kids. We would have taken similar ones with Memaw, but she insisted that she had a cold and shouldn't get near the babies. I did get one of her holding Olivia though. I also got a picture of "the Maries." I think I've mentioned before that all of the first-born daughters on my mom's side have the middle name Marie starting with my great-grandmother Artie Marie Mason. Olivia isn't technically my first born, but she's my first daughter, so I went ahead with the tradition.



Olivia and Gigi (Memaw, or Grandma Bryan)

(Left to Right) Breydon, Olivia, Great-Grandma Sheila, Nathan, Tyley, Allen and Chance. Not the best picture ever, but at least they are all looking in the direction of the camera.  Not an easy task with the kids ages ranging from 10 years to just under 3 months!

Four generations.

Sisters!

We enjoyed spending time with my sisters and Nathan really enjoyed playing with his cousins. Looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas when we will hopefully all be together again! Sorry about the quality of all of these pictures to follow.  The lighting in my grandmother's house is dim and we were trying to capture moving targets.  Somehow we didn't get any pictures of the big boys.  I think they were on the porch watching TV or playing games.

Tyley and Nathan playing

Tyley can hold her own!

But Nathan eventually wins the tickle battle

Nathan and Chance.  Could they be much cuter?!

Yes. Yes, they can.

Nathan throwing the ball.  There was no dog chasing the ball. Nathan said he was playing baseball.

It was an exhausting weekend.  We actually stayed Sunday night at Grandma's house instead of driving home since neither Jimmy nor I could guaranty we would stay awake while driving. Mom was horribly upset to have her grandbabies (and big babies) all to herself for a little longer.

Dear Little Humans (Letter #2)

It has been some time since mom left her flat computer out for me to type on. I see that my warnings from a year ago have not been heeded. In fact, through some audacious and unexpected move, your number have grown. I don't recall giving Mom and Dad permission to procure another one of you annoying creatures, but here you both sit. I'm sure it was all Mom's fault; females of your kind are sneaky like that.

Little human #1, you have so far successfully evaded my attempts to engineer an "accident" on the stairs. But as I said before, eventually Mom and Dad will let you go by yourself. ::Rubs paws together:: On an unrelated note, I don't need hugs from you. Ever.

I've tried to warn you in subtle ways of my dominance but you seem unusually dense. For example, I am not "playing" with those little Pom Pom balls you leave all over the place. I am ferociously mauling them as a clear foreshadowing of your own eventual fate. Be afraid!

Little human #2, I just don't know what to say. So far you seem harmless enough, but I know that will change. Mom has lifted the prohibition on us sleeping in her bedroom, but it is hardly worth it these days with you keeping us up half the night. This puts mom in a bad mood. She has even ceased to appreciate when I remind her that I can see the bottom of one food bowl during those night wakings. I've yet to decipher her mumblings, but they don't sound friendly. I place the blame squarely on your wiggly shoulders. I've tried to attempt to separate you from the herd, but mom keeps a pretty close eye on you.

I've decided that I'm going to have to focus on eliminating you one at a time because Joule and the flat faced diva are clearly not helping with my plans. In fact, I have even caught Joule playing with little human #1!!! I was appalled and promptly reprimanded her, but she's quick to forget these lessons. I feel it is only fair to give you these warnings, if only to make it more sporting for myself. My real hope is that you will leave on your own (take Mom with you), leaving me with Dad like the good ol' days.

Regards,
Steve (aka "Biggles")

p.s. next time mom aims a kick at me while I'm complaining loudly about the status of the food bowls, remind her that if she wants a quiet house she should stop bringing new little humans home. The new one cries to be fed and so will I (although it seems to work better for Little Human #2 than for me).

Olivia's Best Friends

I am so far behind on posting updates on life that I don't know where to begin.  Scrolling through the pictures I've taken in the last month and a half didn't help.  We've done a lot in that time! My last update was in September (sorry) and since then Livy has started "school," Nathan had his 2 1/2 yr well check, we've been back to the zoo for Zoo Boo, we had Halloween and Fall Festival fun and Livy has turned 4 months (today)! In the interest of some sort of organization (hooray type A accountants), I'm going to catch up mostly chronologically.  Yes, yes, that means the milestone updates on the kids are going to have to wait.  You'll survive, I promise.

Let's rewind the clock to September and early October before I went back to work.  My favorite part of maternity leave, apart from getting nearly unlimited time with my baby, is the time I get to spend with my church family. I made it to a few sessions of Ladies Bible Class and got to have lunch and play dates with my favorite mamas.  You may remember Nathan's best friends from church, Rylan and Kylie - all born within 5 weeks of each other. Well, somehow we all managed to repeat that feat - but in reverse order.  Heidi Rae was born on July 5th, my Livy was born July 11th and Keegan Michael was born August 6th.  This was in no way planned, but just like the first time it is so wonderful having close friends going through the same stage of life you are.  Especially when one of them had a head start and so has extra mommy knowledge to leverage. Anyway, here are pictures of our munchkins at various play dates.




Keegan and Livy trying to hold hands at LBC.



Nevermind, boys are yucky!



This was our first attempted play date with all three kids.  We never got a picture of all three because there was never a time when all three of them had their happy pants on.



Keegan and Heidi



This is play date attempt number two at Lela's house. We had some good happy baby time and got pictures of the baby love triangle. It is starting to be more apparent here that Keegan is going to be a strapping young lad!



We wanted to capture how long each of them are in relation to the other, but Heidi decided she needed to work on her abs instead.  It is hard to tell here, but Keegan already has about an inch on the girls. He's such a cutie pie! Meanwhile, Olivia is wondering when this is going to be over so she stops getting bonked in the head by Heidi.



Our three munchkins in Cradle Roll (i.e. Bible Class for babies).

 

 

Zoo Boo, Fall Festival & Halloween 2013

Authors Note: I am woefully behind on 2014 already, so 2013 is going to get closed out express style for posts that do not involve the kids milestones.  That means lots of pictures and only a few words....

I am not typically "into" Halloween. I don't like scary things and I don't like scary things scaring my kids. I also don't like greedy beggars knocking on my door - even if they are dressed really cute!  However, I am not going to deprive my sweet children of the fun that is the October dress-up season, so we just go with the flow as much as possible. This year I resisted every impulse in me to put Olivia in an adorable lady bug costume.  Mostly because the outfit I like isn't travel friendly and I have to consider what can be squished into a car seat.  So we settled on a strawberry. For Nathan we decided he could be a knight because one of his current favorite Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes is where Goofy is a brave knight who goes on a quest.  Jimmy even made Nathan the same "shining shield" and "silver sword" that Goofy finds on his quest out of cardboard, duct tape and spray paint.

This year's list of events included going to Zoo Boo at the Houston Zoo, the Katy church's fall festival and of course some very brief trick-or-treating on Halloween itself.  Zoo Boo was enjoyed with the Kemp clan who were all dressed as pirates from Disney's Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Keegan (shameful) but he was dressed up too. Enjoy the pictures!

Nathan: Two and a Half Years!

Authors note: After a seven month break I am finally getting around to documenting some of our little family's memories.  Thankfully I was taking notes along the way, and we have pictures to help jog my memory when I didn't take notes.  Don't expect a ton of writing in the next several posts....I'll let the pictures do the talking for the most part so I can catch up! Don't let the time stamp on this post fool you (future self reading this) - it was written in mid April 2014.

My sweet first born angel turned 2 1/2 years old in October and we had his routine well check. He is staying true to form so far in his stats. Length 38.5" (98th percentile), 32 pounds (74th percentile).

Favorite color: purple
Favorite food: chocolate anything
Favorite book: Jack & the Beanstalk
Future occupation: Singer/songwriter/chef
Size 5 diapers, Size 3T clothes
Favorite show/character: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (Mickey)

Nathan's personality is starting to shine through more and more. When asked, I describe him as "very two." Verrrrry two. He is as stubborn as a Bryan and wants to test his mama all the time. That being said, he is sweet natured and loves to snuggle and laugh. He is a curious as a cat and wants to know everyone's name he sees. He is still very articulate and has the speech patterns and usages of a three year old.

At this point he still doesn't always know what to think about little sister, but he calls her Ahhhhleeeeeviaaaaa - all drawn out. He clearly loves her (as much as a two and a half year old knows how to recognize love) but still gets jealous of the attention she gets.

He still loves to read and sing.  He sings all the time, even at school according to his teachers. He has also become interested in pretending to cook and give us "food" to eat.  He loves to pretend to cut and "prepare" his food. Hence is future profession as a singer/songwriter/chef.  That probably exists somewhere right??