Rehearsal & Dinner Pictures

The happy couple!

 "Here comes the bride..."

Two cool daddios!

Me and my "little" sister!

 The memory table

 Some of the favors...plantable paper!

 Less than 24 hours away from being husband and wife!

 Ryan & Owen at the rehearsal dinner

 Austin trying calamari...off of a chop stick.

(Hey, sometimes you have to be creative to get your children to try new foods!)

 Bridesmaid, Amber, and her daughter.

 Some of the Italians...Ciao!

 Bobby & Elena, Catherine's future in-laws

I told you he likes drinking!!

 The delicious groom's cake!

Nick is Italian and this represents his favorite soccer team from Italy.

Ok, not the best picture of the four of us, I know.

Austin is still trying to thread calamari onto his chopstick, Owen is just a head, I have no idea what is going on with my hair and Ryan looks like he's about to fall asleep.  Oh well!

MIA

I know, I know, I've been a terrible blogger lately. I have some pretty good excuses though!  My little sister got married on March 19th in Columbia and things were busy, busy, busy while getting ready for the big event.  Of course me and my boys came down with yucky colds just a few days before the BIG day and up until the Friday before, we were in the middle of "operation get well soon!"

Man were we lucky, not only did we all feel much better by the rehearsal dinner on Friday night, but the wedding was a huge success!!!  Catherine was calm and relaxed and so beautiful and the wedding went off without a hitch!! The weather was gorgeous for an outdoor wedding, 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.  The reception was so much fun and Austin stayed on the dance floor ALL night.  Like seriously...we couldn't even drag him away.  Ryan and I were bringing him cups of water and little snacks on the dance floor because he just couldn't stop!!  Owen made his rounds going from one person's arms to the next and was just soaking up all the attention.

While I was in Columbia the entire weekend tied up with wedding festivities, my sweet, sweet husband was taking care of the boys, driving them up and down the road from Greenville to Columbia and back, feeding them, dressing them, putting them to bed and being Mr. Mom.  Even better was that he didn't complain about it one.single.time!  He even managed to keep them both quiet and entertained for the entire wedding ceremony (with a little help from my friend Keri)! I really am incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful husband and father to our sweet boys.

So, the wedding was a success, the boys had fun and were healthy, and we were all happy to finally be home and relaxing on Sunday afternoon when...BAM...attack of the stomach flu!!  It started out pretty mild at first, Owen was the only one sick and the vomiting and diarrhea were manageable.  He was still eating alright and keeping things down for the most part, but it just kept going and going!  No 24 hour bug here...it was more like a 6 day bug!!  Thursday night it got worse, Owen started running a fever and dry heaving, so to the doctor we went first thing Friday morning.  As I expected, there was nothing they could do and we were instructed to just wait it out.  Friday and Saturday Owen was the most miserable, but by Sunday things were looking up until...BAM...Austin's turn!

We had finally made it out of the house on Sunday afternoon, both boys seemingly ok, and after the playground, Build-a-Bear and frozen yogurt at the mall, it was getting close to dinner time so we stopped by Olive Garden on our way home.  Austin, who had been fine all day, wasn't being himself and kept saying he was tired.  He wouldn't really eat or drink anything but was content to sit there and color while the rest of us enjoyed our meal.  A few minutes later he started whining and saying his stomach hurt.  All of a sudden we heard some coughs and gurgles and Ryan grabbed Austin out of his seat and the giant Olive Garden salad bowl just in time to catch the contents of his stomach as they made their way back up...at the dinner table.  We felt pretty lucky to have avoided a huge and messy disaster and most people around us didn't even notice what had happened....except for one unlucky table in front of us.  One lady had to get up and leave the restaurant and I'm pretty sure we ruined the rest of their meal.

So, in a matter of two months we have somehow managed to have both boys throw up at a restaurant dinner table.  There really should be a prize for such a feat....or we should be banned from taking our boys out to restaurants  for the rest of their lives....I'm not sure which one.

Both boys were in bed last night by 8:30 and slept like rocks all night long.  So far today, however, Austin hasn't been able to keep anything down.  So here I am on week #2 of diarrhea and vomit duty and it's probably going to get worse before it gets better (I imagine my turn is coming up next)...

So yeah, that's what's been going on around here....aren't you glad I shared??

Austin feeling not-so-hot...

Owen feeling much, much better....

and ready to get in trouble!

(Yes, he opened and climbed inside that drawer all by himself...silly little booger!)

**Better blog posts and wedding pictures coming soon!

Last Weekend

Since this weekend is quickly approaching (and it's going to be a big one), I guess I should update about last weekend already!  It was a busy one and a lot of fun.  So, here is our weekend in pictures:

 What a sweet big brother!  He insists that he pull Owen in the wagon now.

 We had lunch here on Sunday.  It's basically a cute little restaurant right on the downtown airstrip!

 We could barely get Austin to eat because he was so excited about watching the planes take off.

 Owen had his first bites of an ice cream sandwich.  

"What? Do I have something on my face?"

Austin and daddy watching the planes take flight.

 After lunch we headed downtown to check out the Children's Garden at Linky Stone Park.

Here is Austin next to the giant Pooh Bear.

 This is Austin trying hard not to smile for my picture!

 "Paying moosic!"

 Owen was very entertained by Austin's "moosic."

 Owen was totally cheesin' for this picture!

Austin is riding one of the 3 bears.

 My 3 sweet boys!

 Look at that little copycat in the background...

Brotherly Love!

 We figured we'd keep the day going by checking out the bounce houses at the Pavilion.

We also took in a little hockey game.

Playdates and Concerts

My good friend Aaron and her sweet little girl Salem came down from Winston-Salem for a visit on Thursday.  Salem just turned 1 and is as cute as can be!  She was so sweet and smart and left her mama's arms and came right to me the moment they walked in the door even though I hadn't seen her since she was only a couple months old.  The boys and Salem enjoyed their playdate...

...but there was a dual purpose for Aaron's trip.

We had tickets to go see Sugarland!!  I've never been a big concert person, but going to country music concerts has kind of become mine and Aaron's "thing."  Most memorable one being the time we saw Travis Tritt at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach.  That was a night to remember!

So, Ryan watched the boys and Aaron's sister, Leigh, kept Salem while the two mommies went off to have a girl's night out!  We ate dinner at one of our favorite spots in the West End and then we were off to the concert.

Sugarland was amazing.  Jennifer Nettles was so fun to watch and her voice is just awesome.  We sipped our margaritas and sang along to "Stay," "Baby Girl," "Settlin'," "Stuck Like Glue," and many, many more.  They even threw a little Cee Lo, Destiny's Child and Madonna in there!  It was a great night and one very much needed for these two mommies!

All About Cars

Whoever came up with the idea for the movie Cars must have had little boys!!

I don't remember when exactly, but one day around his 2nd birthday, I brought down a few different Disney movies that I had in my collection upstairs to "try-out."  I think I started with Winnie the Pooh, then Monsters Inc., then Finding Nemo and finally Toy Story.  He was not the least bit interested in any of them.  Then, I remembered my friend Tonya mentioning how much her son Tyler loved the movie Cars.  I actually did not have this one in my collection so off to Amazon.com I went!

Two days later the movie arrived and I was beyond excited to try it out.  Austin has been obsessed with cars since he was 18 months old...how could he not enjoy an animated movie all about them??

As I kind of expected, it was love at first sight!  At first his attention span would only allow him to watch the first 15-30 minutes, but over the months he has probably seen the entire movie dozens of times.  In fact, he can sit there and recite many of the lines from memory and loves to dance and sing to the Sheryl Crow song at the beginning and I think he might know the words to Life is a Highway better than I do.

For Christmas he got the Mater's Tall Tales DVD and it was an immediate hit.  He also has the Cars soundtrack which is on repeat in our car at all times.  And I can't forget about his Shake 'n Go cars and Mack hauler as well as his wooden Cars collection for his train table!  We've also got Cars themed pajamas, sippy cups, plates, silverware, toothbrushes and toothpaste.  If it has a picture of any Cars character on it, Austin is a fan.

More recently, the collector side of my husband has started to come out and he's been obsessed with making sure Austin has complete sets of almost every Cars related toy out there.  Austin loves them all, don't get my wrong, but I believe Ryan might be getting a little more into it than our 2 year old.  That being said, however, Austin knows when a character from one of his sets has gone missing and we must drop everything that moment to locate it!

So, the other night Austin was meticulously lining up all his Cars toys and I snapped a few pictures so that I could record on the blog, Austin's 1st "obsession" and the resulting collections!

In order (in Austin language) we have, Large (Sarge), Pillmore (Fillmore), Sall-Lee (Sally), Chick, Mater, Doc, Mr. Blue King (The King), Light-ming (Lightning), Mone (Ramone) and Flo.

And again, in order (in Austin language) we have Rescue Mater, Light-ming, Large, Mone, Dad-Gum Mater, Chick, Red, Chair-if (Sheriff) and Mack.

We are anxiously awaiting the release of Cars 2 this summer.  I think it may be Austin's first movie theater experience.

1, 2, 3 Strikes, You're Out!

While we're on the topic of Clemson athletics, I have to mention that we went to our first baseball game of the season last Tuesday when USC played Clemson at Fluor Field here in Greenville.  It wasn't exactly the lovely Spring day that you come to associate with baseball games, it was a dark, cold, night actually....and Clemson lost....but we had fun....for the most part.

The game was supposed to be on Saturday, but it got rained out and rescheduled for Tuesday night.  I figured Ryan wouldn't be able to get home from Charlotte in time for us to go, but low and behold, I get a phone call an hour before the game was supposed to start saying "I need for you to get yourself and the kids ready and be prepared to go in 45 minutes."  Without the use of a magic wand, I was surprisingly able to shower, feed the boys dinner and get them and myself ready in time with a few minutes to spare.  We pretty much met Ryan in the driveway as he pulled in and we were off.

Of course, here it is, minutes before the game and we didn't have tickets.  I can't even express how upset I was going to be if we didn't even get to go in after I had spent the last 45 minutes of my life running around like a crazy person trying to get everyone ready in time!  So I dropped Ryan and Austin off at the front gate and when I got back from parking, thank goodness, they had secured us a couple seats.  We walk in, find our section, look at the tickets to see which seats we had and then realize that we had been sold two tickets...in different sections.  It was a big ole mess.  Every time we found two empty seats together we would sit in them just long enough to get booted out by the actual owners of those seats.  Even the guy who helps you locate your seats was trying to help us out after feeling bad about our poor luck, but it just wasn't happening.  So, instead of sitting in two different sections, I just decided to take Austin to the in-park playground and let Ryan and Owen enjoy the seat and watch the game.

After about 45 minutes of playing, Austin and I went back to our section to find that Ryan had located two empty seats and had been sitting there for a good amount of time with no problems.  The game was already in the 6th inning so we figured we were safe.  I'm not kidding, y'all, we were all sitting down for maybe 10 minutes when these two guys came up to us and said we were in their seats.  I mean really, who gets to a baseball game in the 6th inning anyway??  It was just no use.  Three strikes, we were out.  This time we all went to the playground and just decided to watch the game from there.  At least Austin was having a fabulous time!

Speaking of Austin, while he was running around on the playground he ran up to a random boy who was wearing a Clemson sweatshirt and started doing the C-L-E-M-S-O-N chant in front of him after noticing the letters on his shirt.  Well, this boy took an immediate liking to Austin and started calling his friends over to watch as Austin repeated the chants for each of them.  It wasn't long before the boy came over to me and asked Austin's name and then said "I like him, he's funny!"  I admit, I was quite flattered.  My kid was the hit of the playground!

So, Austin and these 4 boys (who I later found out were all 12 and 13) talked and played together for the remainder of our time there.  They were cheering for Clemson, giving high fives and fist bumps, helping Austin down the slides, teaching him the ins and outs of the playground and just having a good time.  At one point Austin found a plaque with the alphabet on it and he started rattling off all his ABC's.  The boys were amazed and one of them came over to me and asked me what grade Austin was in.  Oh it was too funny!  I was just standing there watching, amazed that these 12 and 13 year old boys were having so much fun with and watching out for my little 2 year old.  If I could have shaken their parents hands, I would have.  I mean, it really was one of the sweetest things I'd seen in awhile.

That right there pretty much turned a kind of "blah" night into something much better...and then the Tigers lost...to USC of all teams...and when we finally got home, Austin was so wound up from his night out that he didn't go to sleep....until 11:30pm.

So there you have it, our first baseball game of the season.

Oh, and I took a total of four pictures.  (I really need to get better about taking pictures at sporting events.)

Austin checking out the scene over at Liberty.

Ryan and Owen gave up their seat to come and watch with us from the playground.

Austin trying to watch the game, but getting distracted by this man spitting smelly black stuff into his Mtn. Dew bottle...ehh, gross.

And finally, Austin meets the Chick-fil-a cow...

...and is not all that amused.

March Madness!!

Here it is, March Madness time, and I've barely mentioned this pleasantly surprising basketball season and my Clemson Tigers!  We have been lucky to have season tickets for the past few years and take full advantage of every opportunity we have to go to a game.  This has been an exciting season with the addition of new head coach, Brad Brownell, and several great wins for the Tigers.

Both Austin and Owen love the basketball games and get really into them.  Since we've been sitting around the same people for 3 years now, they've gotten to know us and our boys and Owen is certainly never lacking for any attention.  It's not uncommon for him to crawl into the arms of a couple of the sweet ladies sitting around us for parts of the game.  He loves it just as much as they do!

Austin knows all the Clemson chants and loves to cheer on his Tigers.  He doesn't want to leave his seat the entire game and miss out on any of the action.  Every time we get in the car lately he says "I go to Clemson, watch basketball!"  I think he'd rather go to Clemson than do just about anything right now.  (That's my boy!!!)

We went to the final home game last Saturday in Littlejohn and I promised myself that I would take lots of pictures, but as usual,  I was totally distracted and forgot to pull out my camera until the game was over.  I did manage to get this cute picture of Austin on our way out while daddy and Owen were watching the senior players say their goodbyes.

Today Clemson made it into the NCAA tournament and we look forward to cheering on our Tigers every step of the way.  Ryan even won the lottery for final four tickets this year, so here's to hoping that our guys make it all the way!!

Now who's ready for a little March Madness?!?

Go Tigers!!!

Keeping it Interesting

To say that most days in our house are an adventure would be an understatement.  In fact, I have been so busy lately keeping up with my adventurous twosome that I rarely have the time to post all the fun and crazy things that go on in our house.  But while I've got a little double nap time going on right now, I'll be kind and catch you up on a select few.

Last weekend I went down to Columbia for my sister's bachelorette party and left Ryan at home...alone...with the two boys....for the first time....overnight.  I called him Sunday morning to find out how the night went and he told me that at about 7:00 that morning he opened his eyes to find Austin in the bed next to him holding a carton of milk and a straw saying "Open daddy!"  Ryan said he quickly jumped up and ran into the kitchen to find doors and cabinets opened and the kitchen chairs rearranged and pushed up to the counters.

A few mornings later I heard Austin wake up and looked at the monitor to see him getting out of his bed.  I waited and waited to hear him start walking down the stairs but he never did.  All of a sudden I heard a "Hi Owen!" from Owen's monitor and clicked over just in time to see Austin climbing into Owen's crib while Owen was still asleep.  Let's just say he was not asleep for much longer...

One afternoon we were all watching a Clemson basketball game on TV.  There was a bad play in the 1st quarter and my dear husband verbally expressed his extreme displeasure in the situation by using a terrible phrase that I will not repeat.  I gave him a wide-eyed look and then looked to Austin to make sure he wasn't paying attention.  Whew, looked like we dodged that one.  Well, 45 minutes later we were watching the game and a bad call on Clemson had Ryan steaming again, and although he managed to hold in his frustrations a little better this time, it must have really riled up Austin because he loudly screamed the identical potty-mouthed phrase Ryan let slip almost an hour beforehand.  Lesson learned....2 year olds are ALWAYS listening.

A few days ago I was talking to my mother-in-law on the phone and changing Owen's diaper when Austin came over and brought me a jar of bare minerals blush powder.  I took it from him, said thank you, and went back to tending to Owen.  A few moments later I got up to take the blush and put it back in my makeup drawer and I walked in to see this:

And if I were to run into any trouble figuring out who the culprit was, they were sure to leave me some perfect size 9 toddler footprints as evidence.

Owen is 10 Months!

Owen turned 10 months old on Friday!  To celebrate we took him and his big brother to Monkey Joe's and then to McAlister's for dinner.  Owen had so much fun crawling around on the blow-ups at Monkey Joe's and we were lucky that there was hardly anyone there so he was able to enjoy his experience without being trampled or launched into the air by tons of wild and unsupervised kids.  However, there were two wild and unsupervised "referees" (and I use that term lightly) who dove over the side of one of the blow-ups while I was helping Austin climb up, shaking the entire thing, and causing both of us to slip and slide down the side.  We weren't hurt, it's hard to get hurt when you fall onto pillows of air, but it pissed Ryan off enough that he went to complain to the 17 year old manager on duty at the time.  Needless to say, we will be having a lot more Monkey Joe's fun in the future....for free!

But anyway, Owen is 10 months old now and I'm finding that kind of hard to believe.  As usual, here are Owen's 10 month facts:

-Eating really well now and enjoying lots of table foods.  He prefers to feed himself rather than  have me spoon feed him.

-Has discovered the wonderful world of climbing.  Austin's step stool and PBK chair have had to go into hiding for awhile.  Owen also enjoys climbing the stairs and if he breaks free of our playroom, that is usually where he is headed.  Well, there or to the cat food.

-Has learned to imitate sounds and noises.  His favorite face to make is the "kissy" face and his favorite noise to imitate is "Ai yi yi!"  (It's from a Wiggles song that we sing a lot.)

-Loves playing Peek-a-boo, This Little Piggy and singing the Little Green Frog song.

-Has 7 teeth and loves to bite!  I have a couple of bruises to show for it...

-Loves to open and close things, especially doors and cabinets.

-Sleeping a little less at night (about 10 hours) but still taking two good naps during the day.

-A total Mama's boy!!

-Loves his books and enjoys spending time reading.  His books are also his favorite chew toys...I don't know why.

-No longer cares for the jumper or exersaucer.  The best way to contain him (and keep him happy at the same time) is to put him in his high chair and spread out a few Cheerios and Puffs.  He's also a big fan of Baby Mum Mums.

-Weighs about 20lbs. which is still pretty small for his age.  I don't understand it either considering he takes 4 7-8oz. bottles, has 3 meals and a snack every day.

-Loves to stand up and cruise and can even stand without holding on for a few seconds on his own....until he realizes he's not holding on and instinctively sits down.

-Hates, hates, hates having his clothes changed.

-Starting to really interact and play with his big brother. Austin loves to have crawling races with Owen and Owen loves to try and do whatever his big brother is doing.  Austin is finding him increasingly interesting and loves to make him smile and laugh.  Their favorite game to play together is to climb and roll over all the pillows from our bed which Austin throws on the floor to play with.  I'm pretty sure I lay my head in dried drool and spit every night, but it's worth it to watch them have so much fun together!!

By the way, Owen was watching me upload these pictures and started laughing hysterically at this one.  I just had to post it!

Wordless Wednesday

Cheerios and Milk

I'll admit it...

Until recently, I spoon fed Austin most meals, he ate in his high chair and he strictly drank from a sippy cup.  It was easier that way, it was less mess, and I didn't mind it.  Of course, when Owen got on a 3 meals per day schedule it got a little harder.  I would sit them down at the table together and it was like I was playing a game of tennis, going back and forth with spoonfuls of food between both boys.  It was just a little too much to juggle and that was one hint that something needed to change.

The 2nd hint was when I took Austin to tour a few preschools.  Even though he will be 3 in October, which is not too long after the school year starts, he will still be in the 2 year old class because his birthday just misses the September 1st cutoff.  He will be one of the oldest in his class, but I've heard this is good for boys because they mature slower.  But anyway, when I looked around this 2 year old class I became aware that there were no highchairs, just a table and several small wooden chairs.  The teachers informed me that the kids drank from cups, with no lids, while they ate their lunch and while they would help a little with some foods, Austin would need to be able to self-feed most of his meal.  Sure I could just send him with a sandwich and chunks of fruit, but if the other (much younger) kids were eating their yogurt and applesauce with a spoon, he should be able to as well.

It's not that Austin was physically unable to do these things, I just never really let him or enforced these skills.  He's always had his own forks and spoons at each meal, but to create less mess and sometimes hurry things along, I would often just take over and do it for him.

So a few months ago we started making the transition.

-We moved him to a booster seat at the table which has worked great.  Owen has always sat in a space saver seat so we can now say goodbye to the big, messy high chair for good!

-I bought some small cups, with no lids, and some little water bottles for Austin to practice with.  A small spill here and there, but overall, he's doing great.  We're not giving up the sippys for good quite yet, but I can now at least trust him with a cup or bottled water when necessary.

-Finally, I got some sturdy new silverware to fit better in Austin's hands in hopes that it would give him more control while self-feeding.

We've been working on these changes for a couple months now, and I'm very happy to say that Austin has passed the true test of his self-feeding skills.

Cheerios and milk were a...

...success!!

(By the way, check out my little lefty there!)