The Moments In Between

Well, there it went. 2011 has come and gone. What a year. New jobs, schools, challenges and adventures. It was a rough one, but we saw that coming when we rang in 2011. We are very optimistic about 2012.

Our blogging, unfortunately, slacked a bit this year. There were a few moments we were going to post about and never did. So to wrap up 2011, here are some moments from the year that, for various reasons, never made it up. Enjoy.


Visiting the La Jolla emergency room for an earache and spending 5 hours in a hospital waiting room rather than hanging out on a beach.


Ed and Owen running the bases at M's spring training with Jason and Jackson.


Celebrating Owen's 3rd birthday.


Looking for, and finding, Easter eggs...again and again and again....


Learning how to drive a boat.


Running in mud and drinking beers at Warrior Dash.


Talking to a parrot at the Santa Monica Pier.


Being a family.

Vanilla Cake

Today is my father's birthday and being the loyal blog follower that he is, I wanted to send birthday wishes via the blog. It's always hard when I can't be there to celebrate my family's birthdays, sometimes more so than holidays. Maybe it's because birthday celebrations are more personal than holiday celebrations. Large groups come together for holidays but only a select group come together, year after year, to celebrate the day you were born. Whatever the reason, I wish we were there to celebrate.



Happy Birthday dad. Vanilla cake with chocolate frosting is my favorite too.

Merry Christmas 2011

Living away from family is felt most around the holidays, but having a small family of our own helps. As does having a loving family who is willing to exchange holiday wishes (and presents) from afar. Speaking to everyone on Christmas was great and here are some photos of our big day. We hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and is ready to have a fabulous 2012.


Not a creature was stirring, not even a slot-car.


This Christmas was by far the longest Owen ever had to delay gratification. I'm hoping it helped build a little character. Not that we need him to be more of a character or anything.


Ever the considerate soul, Owen made and decorated cookies for Santa and left the perfectly logical number of five carrots for Santa's eight reindeer. Notice the Brato cameo - his farewell appearance for the year.

All told, we had a wonderfully relaxed Christmas weekend and we hope everybody got what they wanted this year.

A Very Brato Christmas

For about 25 days we've had a visitor in our house. Brato (Owen named him) is an elf who gets into mischief but who has a job to do also. His job is to see if Owen has been a good boy or naughty. He then flies up to the North Pole every night and reports to Santa. This is why we can't touch Brato, because, like butterflies, if you touch him, he can't fly (unless, of course, that's a line my parents told me about butterflies, in which case... ha ha [being a science teacher, I should probably figure that out]).

The whole endeavor seemed a little Orwellian at first, but being on the other side of all that monitoring sure gives insight into why monitoring on that level is so appealing. Any time Owen does something wrong he says, "Brato tell Santa about that?" As loving parents, we have tried to very much limit how hard we use this leverage over him, but it's tough because it's so effective.

Moving beyond the morality of the whole situation, we have had fun with Brato in the evenings. He appears in a different spot every morning for Owen to discover. Staging him in 25 different ways has proven a slightly challenging, yet eminently rewarding midnight task. Owen has really enjoyed our guest and since tonight he will be returning home to the North Pole, we thought we'd share some of our favorite 2011 Brato moments.







Bonus: Holiday Owenisms

Why does Santa eat so many cookies? He needs to be careful. He's going to get a tummy ache!

Daddy. I need help. I can't wait till Christmas time.

On Christmas night, Santa will come and I'm going to sleep with one eye open so I can see him.

I'm dirty with Christmas! (Said after playing with artificial snow.)

Momma! We ate all the cookies! We need to make more cookies for Santa.

Surprise Visit

Santa Claus (aka my dad) stopped by my parents house last Saturday night to say hello to Bella and Owen since they have been such good kids this year.


Owen asked for a race car track from Santa. He was a little confused and upset when Santa didn't immediately produce a race car track. It took a bit of explaining that Santa brings it on Christmas and doesn't pull it out of his red, toy sack when you meet him.


Bella very sweetly asked for a guitar. Then she got the heck away.


Santa and his family. Quite a jolly bunch.

At the party, Santa handed out candy canes to the adults though he missed me. I mentioned to Owen that Santa forgot to give me a candy cane and Owen said, "Santa didn't give you a candy cane because you are mean to people." I, quite shocked asked, "who am I mean to?" Owen says, "You're mean to Owen. You put Owen in the time out chair. Santa doesn't like it when you put Owen in the time out chair so you don't get any presents this year."

Clever little punk.

One Little Monkey Jumping on the Bed

He looks like a little angel when he sleeps...


... and then he wakes up.

Notice the bruising on the middle of his head in the 2nd photo? He ran full speed into a pole at school. Owen told us his friend Blake was chasing him and when pole jumped out in front on him. Owen had a pretty good bump and was sent home from school to rest.

And so it begins...being the parents of a boy. I feel like I should have the doctor's number on speed dial.

Friends-giving

Kristi and Jeff hosted Thanksgiving this year. A couple of their friends and neighbors, along with the old daycare crew, came over for the day. It was potluck style, low key, and relaxing. It's interesting, and wonderful really, how people who do not have family near them find ways to create a family. Jeff said it best when he gave thanks at dinner: "I feel very thankful to have Miles in my life and am equally thankful for them people who have entered my life because of Miles." This is a good group of people and a nice little Arizona family.


There was an audible sigh of relief from Jeff when Ed offered to make the gravy. Ed was officially dubbed, "the gravy master."


Wren and Kristi aka Niah's and Miles' mom


Enjoying Thanksgiving dinner outside.


The kids working off the big meal.

Nick and Tanya's Wedding

This past weekend we took a road trip over to LA to see Nick and Tanya get married. It was a beautiful wedding and the food at the reception was incredible. Armenians know how to throw a party!

Owen was the ring bearer. But even though he was bribed with chocolate and transformers, he still got cold feet before the wedding so Carrie walked down the aisle with him. It was a quick trip but it was nice to spend a couple days with family and see two people we care about get married.


Carol looked stunning and Nick looked completely overwhelmed but happy.


It took three adults making faces and jumping around like monkeys to get Owen to smile for the camera. Couldn't get the shirt tucked in but at least we got a smile.


The kids all together. Pretty rare considering they are scattered among three states.


Cutting loose on the dance floor.


Three generations having a good time together.


Owen continues to be smitten by Theresa. He didn't want to leave her side. Can you blame him?

October Catch-Up

I realized that we needed to play catch-up on our photos. Time is flying by. Do you realize there are only six more weeks till Christmas? And in between that we have a trip to LA for Nick's wedding, Thanksgiving, a trip to Seattle to finally meet Jameson, finals for school, and a visit from Robyn and Arlene. Let the good times roll!


Owen's preschool had "trunk or treat" for Halloween and we volunteered to decorate our car. Ed's penguin costume was a hit as was Owen's race car costume. I can't believe we actually pulled the race car costume off. It's amazing what you can do with foam core and a hot glue gun.


We found this next to the two buck chuck. (Owen finds it hilarious to make a frown face when getting his photo taken. I have quite a few of these shots. Pretty clever.)


Overall a pretty cute outfit he put together.


Look what I encountered about two hours north of Phoenix. We're excited to take Owen up sledding and he's excited to make "balls out of snow."


"Mama. Take my picture cause I look awesome!"

Cars Watching Cars

We watched Fast and Furious Five the other night. Owen thought his cars would enjoy the movie so he lined them up so they could watch. He was also gracious enough to share his popcorn with them.


I purposely cut the kid out of the photo since he was, as usual, sans pantalones.

Our House

We finally got our place painted and we are so very happy with the way it's turned out. Having (almost) all of the house painted the way we want has made such a big difference in the way we feel about our place. It finally feels like it's our house. For those of you who enjoy a good before and after, here are the before (and slightly during) pictures.











And the after pictures. We are really happy to have the faux... whatever they were thinking gone. There is still a lot of work to be done, but it feels like we're over the hump.