Where Do I Begin?

Now, I will attempt BRIEF updates so as not to bore anyone or belabor the details of our lives!

Ready for Hurricane Swim Team Practice

First, Abby, of course. This summer, she joined the neighborhood swim team, which meant daily practices and EARLY meets on Saturdays (swimmers had to check in at 6 a.m.). The meets required some juggling because parents had to volunteer for so many shifts throughout the season and, oh yeah, we had 2 other small children to manage. It seemed to be fun and rewarding for Abby and she knocked more than 20 seconds off her original freestyle time by the end. Now, she's quite the fish.

She turned 7 (!) in July. We we went to the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science to celebrate. And then, she got her first REAL manicure and pedicure. Her birthday was rounded out with a roller skating party and a hand-me-down iPhone from her uncle (which dwarfed the MP3 player from mom and dad!).

Ooh La La!

She asked us all summer if we could go to The Alamo. We had no idea why, but that was a pretty easy request to indulge. So, in August, we loaded up and went. We also managed to fit in Sea World while we were in San Antonio. Just between us, I think she liked that one better! :)

First Trip to Sea World

Abby & Daddy at the Alamo

And now that I've come within 6 months of the present day, alas, Ava is awake and I must sign off! Tune in next time for details about back-to-school, Girl Scout camping and the holidays!

Kids Say The Darndest Things

This morning I was taking Will to school and he said from the back seat, "Hey, there's Chloe!" I looked up and saw a short, old, gray Asian woman walking across the street. Chloe, our 12 year-old neighbor, is tall, brunette and very white.

I said, "Really, you think that looks like Chloe?"
He looked again. "Yeah, yeah, it's her!"
"Are you sure? I think Chloe is taller than that." (It took everything in me not to give a full list of discrepancies here.)
After a closer look: "Well, maybe not, but it looks a lot like her."

If I didn't know he could see infinitesimal legos and lego instructions, I'd say he needed his eyes checked. I guess I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He WAS in the back seat.

Long Time Gone

So, how do I sum up our lives between Mother's Day and New Year's? One word. Ava. She's a busy little gal and she has dominated our (read: my) world for about 11 months now! She's gone through the typical Buchanan stages: crawling at 5 1/2 months, stairs and pulling up at 6 months, walking at 10 1/2, and teeth at 11 months. That's right--walking before teeth. She just barely has 2 little buds breaking through the gums, but she can walk laps around the house!

She has one word. Dog. Or daw daw (pant pant pant) as she says it. Brad thinks she says Dada too, but it's pretty hard to distinguish the two. So, since we basically have one word, that's all we say. We see a dog, we say it; we hear a dog, we say it; we see an animal on TV that might be a dog, we say it; we see mommy coming in after nap time, we say it; we see the big kids out riding bikes, we say it. You get the idea. Here's a sample conversation that happens about 476 times a day:

Ava: Daw daw (pant pant pant) Daw.

Emily: Yes, there's a dog. Cocoa is a dog.

Ava: Daw daw (pant pant pant)

Emily: Do you want to say hi to the doggie?

Ava: Daw daw (pant pant pant)

Emily: Good job! Cocoa is a sweet doggie. Are you hungry for some lunch? (Trying to change the subject)

Ava: Daw daw (pant pant pant) . . .

REPEAT

She gets so excited when she talks, you can just tell she's brimming over with possibilities for conversation. Now, she just has to learn more than one word! 

She's very much like Will at this age--constantly moving and destroying anything in her path. She especially loves paper--eating it. She gets it in her mouth as fast as she can and closes up like a clam so no one can fish it out. She knows she's not supposed to do it. You can tell by the impish look on her face. Lucky for her, it's pretty darn cute! She's starting to play more with the big kids too--it's so fun to watch them all interact. It won't be long before she's doing everything they do. Maybe even riding a plasma car . . . watch out world!

Mother's Day

(I realize that I'm about 3 months behind, but that's my life as a blogger!)

Mother's Day was especially meaningful this year as it was the day we chose for Ava's baptism. The service was very tender for us because it was performed by our long-time pastor just one month before his retirement after 16 years in our midst. He performed our wedding and our other kiddos' baptisms, so we were pleased that he could do Ava's before leaving. Here he is with her:

The Reverend John McMullen with Ava

The Buchanan Family

(It was only afterward that we realized all our family photos highlight the back of Ava's head!)

Plan B

We planned to go pick strawberries in April with my parents since we had so much fun two years ago. We had the weekend picked and everything. And then it rained all week leading up to our outing. And more rain was predicted. Instead of driving for an hour to play in the mud, we decided to find something closer to home.

All we could find was the Armed Forces celebration at Camp Mabry, but hey, they had horses, tanks, and helicopters. Something for everyone, right? And when the rain inevitably began to fall, we skipped out on the rest of the show and went to see How to Train Your Dragon. Not a bad plan B.

Easter 2010

Church Picnic

All Dressed Up

Father/Daughter Cruise Party

Another year, another dance. What a difference a year can make!

Spring Break

Spring Break was my first chance to be home with ALL THREE kids at once. It went surprisingly well. We even fit in a trip to the Austin Zoo. And the goat didn't eat our map this time!

We went with our neighbors and I took a bottle for Ava (only her second ever). She refused to take it from me, so Shannon patiently took 45 minutes to give Ava 3 ounces in the midst of her screams (Ava's, not Shannon's!). I think I would have given up on the bottle much sooner. I was so blessed to have reinforcements that day!!

Snow Day

It's hard to imagine snow on this hot, humid May day, but here's the proof of our Austin snow storm just 3 short months ago! You'll notice the grass in the bottom picture is completely visible on the ground (and in the snowman!). The kids had to rake up every last bit of snow to create their masterpiece. But he hung around 3-4 days, despite temps above freezing the very next day.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Will saw a man at the park the other day. He said, "There goes Josh's dad!"

A pretty normal thing for a kid to say except he doesn't know anyone named Josh (see my earlier post about pretend real people). We have had a lot of "Josh" sightings recently. We think it's because that's the name of a character in one of his books.

Anyway, I told Brad that Will had seen "Josh's dad" at the park and the following conversation ensued:

Brad: Who is Josh?

Will: Oh, he works for me.

Brad: He works for you? Where do you work?

Will: At Costco.

Brad: Josh works for you at Costco and you saw his dad at the park?

Will: Yeah.

Brad: What do you do at Costco?

Will: I have a lot of people who work for me. They make robots.

Brad: What do the robots do?

Will: They help do my job.

Brad: So you have people at Costco who work for you making robots to do your job at Costco?

Will: Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Busted!

Okay, so several people have asked about Ava sleeping through the night this week. That was actually 3 weeks ago (note the date on the post). I just now got around to uploading pics from the camera and only published the post this week. Sigh. We've had no more miracle nights, but 2 nights ago, she slept from 7:30-3:45. Technically that's sleeping through the night because it's more than 6 hours. Too bad I was awake for half of it! More updates to come soon . . .

Picture this!

I put Will to bed wearing a long-sleeve Christmas PJ top, a pull-up, and socks . . . on his hands. No pants. No sheets. Just the way he likes it. I went back in to check on him and he was lying face down with his head on a small pillow and his rear raised on a larger pillow. Too bad a picture would have awakened him! :)

No Foolin'

So, I've been gone for a little while. Most of you know Ava Nicole Buchanan joined us on February 3. I was induced and she was born in a record 1.5 hours. Yikes!

She weighed in at 8 lbs. 15 oz. and 21.5 inches.

Needless to say, the ensuing two months have been a whirlwind. I don't really remember anything from February or March. Except the Olympics. I think I watched the entire games straight through! Ava even has a ski jump position (standing in our laps) if that tells you anything about my state of mind! I guess I should have been blogging to help me remember something more substantive, but I've literally had her in my arms for about two months straight.

Abby and Will both do great with her. Abby can actually hold and entertain her while I'm otherwise occupied (okay, so maybe I haven't held her the WHOLE time). She reads Ava books and has also given her a bottle. Will loves to talk to her and hold her occasionally (with supervision of course). He takes it on as his personal mission to stop her from crying the least little bit.

And the biggest news of all--she slept from 11-8 last night!! That's right. Nine hours at less than 2 months. And this is no April Fool's. I just hope she's not fooling us! I'm sure it won't happen every night, but now we know it's possible. And it's way sooner than the other two ever even considered sleeping that long. I feel so rejuvenated today. I really hope we're onto something because sleep deprivation is for the birds!

Risk-y Business

Brad (BradDB) is on the couch watching football and trying to teach Will (Super Will) how to play Risk on the computer. This is after several attempts over the last months to get him to play the Lord of the Rings Risk board game. I keep trying to telling him that 3's a little young to grasp the game, but he is relentless!

After-School Conversation

Here's a rundown on a conversation that took place only moments ago:

Abby: I learned about Martin Luther King in school today.

Emily: What did you learn?

Abby: That he helped black people and white people to like each other. And his wife went to jail because she wanted to ride the bus.

We proceeded to talk about MLK and his significance (and a day off from school!), Rosa Parks, the Civil Rights movement, and how it isn't very nice to judge people by the way they look. Then I brought up slavery and the Civil War . . .

Abby: Yes, we talked about that too. Abraham stopped slavery.

Emily: That's right, Abraham Lincoln was president, like Barack Obama, and he helped to put an end to slavery after the war.

Abby: I know who the first president was. It was . . . (pause to think)

Will: John.

Emily: Well, John Adams was the second president. Who was the first?

Will (without any prompting): George Washington!

How did my kids get so smart??

Impeccable Timing

Will has kept his pants dry for the last 3 days and B3 arrives in less than 3 weeks! Couldn't have planned it better if I'd tried. Hooray for precision timing. :)

Beach Holiday

After Christmas, we packed up the car and headed for South Padre with Brad's family. Beach weather it was not--mid-50s, windy, and some rain--but the kids had a blast playing racquetball, working puzzles, playing board games, watching movies, sword fighting, and, of course tromping to the beach in winter attire to feed the sea gulls! Goggles afforded much-needed eye protection from the blowing sand.

Christmas Cheer

Christmas Eve with my grandparents

Christmas PJs

Christmas Favorite--American Girl Doll

Christmas Favorites--Sword, belt, Lightning McQueen slippers

Playing Abby's new game

The Great Gingerbread Collapse '09

For Christmas 2005, my mom and I started a gingerbread-house-making tradition with Abby. And we haven't missed a year yet. Of course, when Will came along, he gladly joined the tradition because it's really all about eating the candy that doesn't somehow become fastened to the houses fast enough! The kids have great fun, and the adults do too--I don't know who looks forward to the event more!

Will really got into decorating his this year. In the past, we mostly did it ourselves with him in our laps just eating candy. But, this year, he put the candy on all by himself and just directed me where to squirt frosting.

He was so proud! 

But then . . . the roof started sliding. Abby's was so well designed and engineered that she had no problem. (And she very artistically decorated the house almost entirely on her own--she's getting so big!). Will's started sagging just as we finished decorating. You can see the worried looks on our faces in the background of Abby's shot. I was trying to hold up the roof to let the frosting dry and set. Then, we took it apart to add MORE frosting to get better adhesion. And I was still holding it up to help it set.

Then Brad offered to take a turn holding it. The engineer in the group managed to snap one side of the roof clean in half. More frosting. More holding. After 20-30 minutes of salvage operations, we couldn't sit and hold it anymore. So we got the bright idea of propping it up. If only something were the right size. I know, how about a hunk of Velveeta and some Starbucks cup holders? Needless to say, that didn't last for long, so we just had to let it collapse. Sigh.

We all agreed that it was better to have happened to Will's house than to Abby's. She would have been in tears. We thought he might not even notice. So we let it slide and tried to keep the attention elsewhere. But eventually, Will saw it. I don't think he had any idea what was happening to it earlier, but he knew now. He said, very affronted, "Hey, who broke my ginger boy house?" Luckily we averted his meltdown by letting him eat a piece of it. Too bad we couldn't prevent the house meltdown so easily!

Another Berger Cousin

November flew by, right through Thanksgiving at the Bergers. 

A week later, the kids were blessed by the arrival of Carson Edward Berger, two weeks early and still 8 lbs. 3 oz.! Abby didn't like holding him too much! That makes 4 grandkids for my parents, but not for long . . .