Trip to Houston

Last weekend we went to Houston to visit some friends. We got to meet the newest addition to the Mason family, Sophia, who is a month younger than Genevieve. The weekend was fun, although it could have been better. It rained during most of our trip and not being able to take Tristan and Charlotte outside to the park or to the pool definitely affected their moods. You can see how happy they are when we were trying to get them to hold their siblings for pictures!

Tristan slept in a regular bed by himself for the first time at their house and it went much better than we anticipated. It could be that he was just incredibly worn out and in turn, not motivated to get out of bed to go find some toys, but I'm taking it as a sign that hopefully our impending transition out of the crib will go smoothly. He will be in the crib until he decides to climb out of it which he hasn't done yet. I really like having him confined at the moment and am not looking forward to his future roaming-the-house freedom.

On Sunday before driving back to Austin, we met up with friends Kelley and Kevin for lunch. We had a good visit and are looking forward to future visits and the late-fall arrival of little Elijah!

Yay cousins!

Ashley and Andrew came over to play with us for a while and Genevieve was really enjoying seeing their faces. It was a lot of fun! They both love to hold and play with her, although this particular day she started crying when it was Andrew’s turn to hold her. Don’t worry Andrew, I’m sure the next time you get a chance to hold her, she’ll be all giggles!

Why I don’t put milk in Tristan’s cereal…

It’s not usually this messy and he actually does very well with forks and spoons, but this morning the fun and joy of STIRRING overtook him (and half the kitchen)! He had so much fun stirring that he stirred most of his cereal right out of his bowl.

Choo choo trains and raisins

Right now Tristan is cuckoo for choo choo’s! It’s really neat to see him get so interested in something. He loves his train books and his little 20 minute train dvd. I wasn’t sure if he’d like the show at first since it was about real trains and not cartoon trains, but it’s a hit. However, when it gets to the part about steam trains and they blow their steam, he says “uh oh, broken” and gets a little upset.

Raisins, or “rat-tans” are his other favorite things right now. If we let him eat as many raisins as he’d like, I think he might actually turn into one. Thankfully he likes lots of other foods and can usually be easily distracted by something else. Apples, or any fruit that is round and somewhat resembles an apple, can usually be substituted for raisins. He’s so fun and cute right now and his vocabulary is increasing everyday along with his imagination, that I just want to freeze time and keep him two years and three months old for as long as possible. A friend said that the “terrible two’s” didn’t kick in for their son until he was officially two and a half, so right now I’m trying to soak up all the little boy sweetness that he can dish out before I change my mind about wanting to keep him two for any extended period of time.

Curls

When Genevieve’s hair gets wet, it gets all curly. I snapped a couple of shots of her white girl fro after her bath tonight to show off the curls. Once her hair is dry though, it straightens back out and lies flat, except for the one little clump of hair in the back that likes to stick straight up…

I'd like her to have some curls, but it will probably turn out straight like my hair. This will please my mom who always said I had the prettiest dark, straight hair, just like my Aunt Cheri (there's a shout-out to my Michigan family!).

Heather comes to town

Renae’s best friend Heather, who now lives in California, was in town visiting. We met Heather, baby Darcy, and some of Heather’s Austin family and friends at the park to play. Everyone had lots of fun and we really enjoyed Manama’s famous cookies too!

3 months old!

3 months old today (8/1/08)! Genevieve is getting so big! She’s now 24 inches long and weighs 12 pounds. She’s full of smiles and giggles, especially when she first wakes up and I go get her from her crib. She greets me with good morning cuteness every day. She is a thumb-sucker (when she can find it) just like Mommy and Aunt Nae Nae. Genevieve likes to be held upright these days so she can see the world over your shoulder and she’s watching Tristan more and more, although usually with a “what in the world is he doing?” look on her face. In one of the pictures she looks like she’s already plotting something…will she take over the world or just her brother?

Enjoying the day

So, I took Genevieve’s thirteenth week of life to try to live in the moment and really enjoy my baby. I felt like it was borrowed time since I fully expected to be working and missing my kiddos incredibly. As with Tristan when he was a baby, the best part of the day with Genevieve is from about 8-10am. She is the most playful, wiggly and giggly during these hours. That’s not to say that there aren’t more fun times throughout the rest of the day, but by 10pm I think the freshness of a new day has definitely worn off and instead of reveling in that chubby cheeked gummy grin, you are secretly wishing that your little baby bundle would drift off to sleep, like you desperately want to do. Anyway, back to my point, while at work I am missing my favorite time of day with my babies. I was thankfully able to quit working full-time before I thought it would be possible, so that’s why I felt that this week was borrowed time. My returning to work after maternity leave was an example of how it takes a village to raise a child, or at least that’s how I felt. A huge thank you goes out to Gran who was at our house at 7:15 everyday and also to the Kelly family for caring for Genevieve while I was away. Thanks also to Aunt Jennifer who was on-call and ready with milk in the freezer and a carseat, for any infant childcare needs going forward! Of course, Mrs. Nicole rocks too and Tristan has so much fun while at “school.” You all made my return to work a bit easier, knowing that I was leaving my kids with the best people for the job that also just happen to really love Tristan and Genevieve.

While trying to enjoy my mornings with Genevieve and my afternoons with Tristan, I was also working feverishly during naptimes to get some projects that have been needing attention out of the way. The office still has not been cleaned out even though that is my biggest source of stress due to disorganization. I would have loved for it to be done first, but since it’s my biggest source of stress, it tends to also get pushed back and I procrastinate because I just don’t even want to go in there. But, Tristan’s closet got cleaned out and the clothes that no longer fit have now been packed up in my borderline OCD fashion and I went through about ten bags of stuff my sister Nicole has dumped, I mean “gifted” me with :) , that were taking up space in the garage. I owe my kids a thank you also, for napping well and indulging me in this “mommy time” to accomplish a few things.

To ensure that this post is not completely about me, we did get a couple of cute pictures this week. Daddy is getting excited for football season to begin, so I took a couple of pre-season pics of Genevieve in one of her football outfits, complete with bow, of course. I also took a picture of her in the pj’s that are my favorite on her, as this is the last time she’ll be able to wear them. She’s growing out of her first set of clothes and it’s a little sad for me because it didn’t take very long. One afternoon Tristan was super concentrated as he attempted to put Daddy’s socks and boots on all by himself. He did great on the socks. The boots are a little bit heavier and harder to manage by yourself, but he still did pretty well.

Guitar picks and dinosaurs

Is this where the “I dare you…” begins? I left the room for 2 seconds and returned to Tristan feeding Genevieve a guitar pick (which he shouldn’t have had in the first place) – ugh!

On a different note, we went to the Dino Park to celebrate Kael’s 3rd birthday. It was pretty cool. You walk the trails and do a “treasure hunt” for dinosaur footprints, dino eggs, fossils, etc. Jordan was giving hugs and kisses to the newly-hatched baby dinosaurs and Tristan was good at finding the dino eggs randomly hidden in the woods. They have an area where you dig for fossils as well as a playground area. This was a family birthday and included the cousins on the LaBrecque side and the two Grandma’s. Looking at how small Genevieve is, it’s hard to imagine that all of these kids were that tiny not very long ago. Nicole made a very cool Spiderman cake for Kael and Spiderman toys seemed to be the theme of the day, besides dinosaurs, of course. All the kids are very good at roaring and had to show off their skills to us every time we saw another dinosaur!

Our trip to the lake

Our annual week-at-the-lake trip was really fun! Tristan was old enough to ride on the jet ski and get pulled behind the boat in the inflatable thing (its not a tube, so I’m not sure what you’d call it). Riding on the boat put him to sleep almost every time, just like in years passed, even with all the stopping and starting you do when you have someone skiing or wakeboarding behind the boat. We also invested in a little baby pool that we set up in the gated deck area, so when the adults were tired and wanted to enjoy the view and a glass of wine, Tristan could splash around in the pool. It worked out quite well. This is the first year that Ashley and Andrew really excelled at skiing. For several days Andrew just wanted to eat, breathe, and sleep skiing. We were all surprised that he didn’t tire sooner or get sore, but I guess that’s what being 8 means – all fun, no pain. Genevieve just hung out most of the time. She did go for a couple of boat rides including one to the waterfalls. She also had a “sink bath” which is a tradition for the baby of the group. We have the same picture of James, Ashley and Tristan from his sink bath two years ago. Tristan usually found someone to snuggle with at any given time and Andrew didn't even notice Tristan climbing all over him while he was sleeping. That was probably a result of the skiing frenzy. Uncle Karl was able to join us from California this year and for his birthday present, Uncle Karl, Luis, and James went on a guided fishing trip for the day and brought home some tasty fish for our dinner. There are tons of pictures! Enjoy!








Daddy, Tristan and Ashley from two years ago