Welcome baby Christian

A couple of weeks ago, the boys, my mom and I went down to Austin to meet Austin, my cousin Alyson's new baby. He's a beauty - and he's growing so fast! He probably doesn't even look like this anymore, but I love the newborn look. He has Alyson's lips and her husband James' eyes.
While we were there, Alex and Owen enjoyed playing with Kennedy, my cousin Rachel's daughter, who is 21 months old. Alex is pretty bossy, which Owen is used to, but I think the rules Alex made up for each game were a bit much for Kennedy.
Of course, you might get the idea from this picture that Kennedy is the one making the rules ...
I think Owen, especially, enjoyed having someone his size to play with.
We brought two large bags of toys to keep the boys occupied while we were at Alyson's house, since it's not child-proofed or stocked with toys yet, and Owen wanted Kennedy to try everything!

Last day of preschool

I knew this day was coming ...but I still cried. Alex's teachers, Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Knudson, are so sweet and energetic and fun. It will be hard for any other teacher to top them!

I volunteered to pick up Happy Meals for the class on the last day, which gave me the opportunity to take pictures of everyone. They were a bit hyper - probably because school was almost out, but possibly because they were eating lunch in a special room, one reserved for the older kids' Sunday school classes. I tried to get close-ups of each of Alex's classmates. He and his friend Isaiah (front right, in the Hawaiian shirt) will be going to the same kindergarten next year, but everyone else will be divided up entirely between the many public and private kindergartens in the HEB area.

Last game!

Alex had his last t-ball game of the season, and I remembered to bring the camera - which is good, since I forgot to bring it to their end-of-season awards ceremony. Alex's best buddy Ryder, who's on a different team, is between my two boys.

I took this during the middle of the game. I'm not sure what Alex was looking at - probably someone in the stands eating candy - but he looks like he's concentrating on the game.

Another picture that gives the illusion that he's paying attention!

Disney on Ice

We took the kids to Disney on Ice in Ft. Worth this weekend. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures at the actual show because I got worried the last minute that they might not allow cameras. We were running late and parked very far away from the convention center, and I didn't want to run the risk of having to take the camera back to the car. Turns out everyone else had cameras - I'll know better next time!
We bought a tiny bag of cotton candy for $10, and it came with this Flounder hat. We've been lucky so far - we buy one of everything and make the boys share, and so far that's worked out alright.
In this instance, Alex was okay with Owen wearing the hat because he got to hold the cotton candy.

Just being silly

Nothing important going on in these pictures, but the boys were begging me to take pictures again, so I complied. I really like this one of Owen.
Can't always get them to hug like this!
I'm not sure what they were doing here, but this was the pose that prompted them to ask to be photographed.

Alyson's Shower

I know the title of this blog is Nicole & Her Boys, but I just had to post some pictures from my cousin Alyson's baby shower, which was last weekend. I can't wait to see baby Christian in a couple of months.
My cousin Wade's wife, Megan, made the adorable burp cloth Alyson is holding (above) - it's too small to see very well here, but it's white and has "Christian" stitched on it in red. Megan has some really cute designs (check out www.love-austin.blogspot.com), if you're shopping for a unique baby gift.
Okay, I'll admit that the only reason I'm posting this one is because my cousin Rachel (on the right) threatened my life if this picture ended up on Facebook ...so I found a way around that. :-) I made Alyson and Rachel do a "Charlie's Angels pose" so I could get a sillouette of both of them pregnant. Rachel is due with a baby boy, Nathan, just six weeks after baby Christian is due.
I love this picture because it's hard to get all of these women together at one time. From left, this is Alyson, my Aunt Re, my grandmother, my Aunt Debbie, my mother, and my cousin Rachel. It's not our whole family (I really wish Amanda could have been here, but Denver is a long commute for a baby shower), but it is a lot of my favorite people in the world.

Bath time!

The boys wouldn't know what a bath was if it didn't have bubbles in it; they fight over who gets to turn on the water and who gets to put in the bubbles. Right now we're working our way through a bottle of Elmo bubbles, but Alex is still lamenting the Spongebob bubbles I wouldn't let him get the last time we shopped in the bubble bath department. When they started putting mounds of bubbles on each others' heads, they told me to go get the camera, and I obeyed.

T-Ball

Alex started t-ball this year, and his first game was March 3 (not January 6, 2007, despite the date on the picture). He loves it! He looks forward to practice and games every week. Unfortunately, he's only played one game so far. The second game was rained out, the third week was spring break, and this past Saturday games were canceled because it was so cold outside. This weekend Alex and Owen will be camping with my parents (Jason and I are going to Seattle and Vancouver), so he'll miss another game ...but at least he likes it! And he looks so cute in his little uniform (I keep calling it a costume, and I keep calling his practice his rehearsal - I'm not used to sports words!).

Train Expo

We rode the TRE to Ft. Worth today and took the boys to the Great Train Expo. Truthfully, it was a bit disappointing; the ads said kids were free and there was a train they could ride, but that train was $4 per kid, and it was the type you have to pedal, which Owen is too small to do. But the boys had fun at the Thomas table and looking at all the model train exhibits, and they loved riding the TRE. We didn't realize how cold it was going to be until we got to the train station. It was in the 30s! I didn't even have scarves or hats in the car for the kids because it's been so warm lately. After we looked at the exhibit we walked to Panera Bread and ate a late breakfast while we watched runners crossing the finish line at the Ft. Worth Marathon.

Pirate Day!

Thursday was Pirate and Princess Day at Alex's school (they were studying the letter P). We have a ton of pirate stuff, and to make up for the fact that he didn't dress up at all on western day (we don't even own boots), I might have gone overboard on his accessories. It's hard to tell from this picture, but he has long black pirate hair attached to the back of his hat, an earring, a bag of pirate treasure attached to his belt loop, a telescope, the eye patch, and a Pirates of the Caribbean t-shirt.

Christmas morning! My grandmother bought all of the great-grands these huge stuffed animals. Jason threatened to forget to take them home, because they take up so much room. But the kids (that's my niece Jenna in the middle) liked them a lot. Since Christmas, they've been used as riding toys, tunnels, and tent poles.

Christmas 2007 was kind of a bust; Owen had RSV and spent Christmas Eve and Christmas night in the hospital. This year was a major improvement. Alex had very chapped lips (see how red they are?), but other than that, we were illness-free.

Most of the boys' gifts from Santa were for both of them, to keep fighting to a minimum. The drum set is actually Owen's (Alex got an accordion, per his request), but they took turns on it fairly well.

Owen's birthday party

I'm back! And yes, I really am just now posting pictures from December. I feel guilty about this, but it's better to post them late than not at all, right?

These pictures were taken at Owen's second birthday party, which took place at a local church's indoor play area.

This is my cousin Amanda, who lives in Denver, and baby Austin, my cousin Wade's son. I took lots of pictures of Austin, but this is the only one where he was looking at the camera! Amanda flew in for Christmas at the same time as the party, and we didn't think she would be able to make it, but she surprised us!

Owen's Mickey Mouse cake! He liked looking at it a lot, but I'm not sure he ever ate any of it. The piece he had at his party went untouched, and we had so many things going on that weekend (a few days before Christmas) that the leftovers weren't eaten.

This is what Owen did for most of the party! He was big enough to climb in the climbing structure, but during his first time down the slide, he hit his head on a bar, and it took awhile to get him calmed down. Even after the redness on his head had faded, he seemed to be more interested in cuddling with Nana than playing with all of his friends.

I'm not sure how many kids were there, but here are a few, from left to right: Makaylie (who is four days older than Owen), Tatum (in the red shirt; Makaylie's brother, who is Alex's age), Ryder (in Spider-Man shirt), Casey (in the red shirt beside Ryder), Alex, Sebastian (in the white shirt; he's Alex and Owen's cousin) and Evelyn (one of Evelyn's friends and classmates). Based on this picture, you might think the party was made up of mostly Alex's friends. That's true, I guess, but Owen doesn't realize they're "Alex's friends"; he thinks they're his! And a lot of Alex's friends have younger siblings who are very close in age to Owen; they just didn't happen to make it into the picture!

I was also really happy that so many of our family members were able to come. Besides Amanda, my cousin Alyson and her husband James drove up from Austin, Wade brought baby Austin, my grandmother and Aunt Debbie were there, and my brother came with my parents. On Jason's side, his parents, brother Greg, sister in law Silvia, and their kids all came. It was great to get to see everyone so close to Christmas!

Grandmama's birthday

We gathered in Mt Pleasant for my grandmother's 91st birthday in early December. She gets such a kick out of watching the "great-grands" play together, and every 5 minutes, she would shout out, "Take a picture!" She loves to watch them play on a huge stuffed bear (or maybe it's a dog) that she bought recently. This is Owen and his cousin Kennedy (my cousin Rachel's daughter) taking a breather on said bear (dog?).

I seem to be incapable of taking good shots of my niece and nephew, Jordan and Jenna. They're beautiful kids, but I don't think I've ever once been able to get them to look at the camera, and almost always something comes along to partially block my view (this time it was my grandmother's head). However, for posterity's sake, I wanted to include a shot of them - they're playing with some sort of electronic toy my grandmother bought at the dollar store, but it seemed to entrall them for a few minutes.










Kennedy giving Alex a big hug - she loves being around other kids, and she's very, very affectionate and curious. Alex takes it pretty well.

It's Batman!

I'm going to start out small here, since I'm having trouble getting to this blog lately. Maybe if I don't challenge myself to do multiple pictures and paragraphs, I have a better chance of finishing! Owen is way into the superhero thing - much more than Alex is, or ever has been - and he loves to be flown around like Superman. When he discovered that we had a Batman costume, he was very excited and wore it around the house for quite a while.