This and That...and lots of pictures

Well it seems that my days of typing in all lower-case letters are over. It was fun while it lasted! I have actually found it easier to type my blog entries in a Word document (sometimes over the course of a few days when time allows) and then copy it to the site. Since Word self-corrects, I thought it would be a huge waste of time to go back through my ramblings and thoughts to change any uppercase letters to lowercase!!! I am well aware that many of you may not even care, but for those of you who wondered why I changed things up a bit, I wanted to explain!!!! With that said…………..why can’t days have “pause” buttons?? I cannot believe so much time has passed between posts!! For those of you who have “checked in” over and over to see if I have updated, please accept my apologies. (I have several websites and blogs that I check periodically and when they aren’t updated regularly, I tend to feel a bit disappointed.) I hope those of you that read will continue to come back from time to time to see what is going on in our lives! I know many of you don’t leave comments, but I still like knowing that you and I are connected via this blog!! My goal is still to post weekly, but the last couple weeks have been unusually busy. A couple quick updates since the last post… A little over a week ago, my dear sweet mom was diagnosed with shingles. She had a miserable time dealing with excruciating pain, little sleep, painful sores, and extreme discomfort. Thankfully, she is just about over the worst part and on the mend! Hooray! It is hard as a daughter to know your mom is hurting so badly, so I am glad she will be back to normal soon. Owen and I are going to see her in Odessa on Thursday, and Owen is SOOOOOOOO excited!! He told me so!! (Austin is going to a music educator’s conference in San Antonio from Wednesday thru Saturday night so Owen and I will catch up with our favorite guy on Sunday sometime!) Wasn't it nice of Owen to send Grammy this special message in an e-mail the other day? As of January 18, Austin and I have made some changes in our diet and are really making better choices when it comes to food. Neither of us is calling our habit change a “diet” for fear of failing, but we are looking at it as simply “a lifestyle change.” We have paid more attention to the things we put in our mouths and this awareness has made a world of difference. I have lost just under 10 pounds (but foresee that being a little less coming off this weekend --- as a result of family coming to town as well as the big game!!) I will be giving myself a couple days to get back on track before I weigh this week and hopefully the results will be good! What seems to be working for me is keeping a food journal. I write down everything I put into my mouth, so that keeps me accountable. I also make sure to drink plenty of water. Unfortunately, I have been unable to fit exercise into the equation. I have several options for working out at home, but so far, I find myself only having enough time in the day to run around tending to sweet Owen, the chores, and my students. I will definitely be working exercise into my jam-packed days, somehow…sometime, but for now, I am keeping busy and active in other ways. Over the weekend, my older brother, Joe, brought his family to Lubbock for a visit. They arrived late Friday evening and returned home to Odessa on Sunday morning. We did lots of eating, visiting, game-playing, shopping, and laughing. It was such a nice treat to have them here for the weekend. Joe and Cindy have 3 amazing kids: Kristina/Nina is 15, Morgan is 13, and Deuce is 5. We had the cameras out quite a bit, but Nina and Morgan didn’t make it into any pictures! When I go to Odessa Thursday, I am cutting Nina’s hair and styling Morgan’s for her Valentine’s dance…so hopefully I can snap a picture or two of their beautiful faces! You can see Deuce with his baby cousin in the picture below. We had all just crawled out of bed and decided to take advantage of a cute picture opportunity! For the Super Bowl yesterday, we had a few friends over to enjoy the game and some homemade goodies. Below is a picture of all the snacks (with the exception of our yummy bacon-parmesan breadsticks that were still in the oven at the time of this picture!!) What you see is homemade banana pudding, oatmeal chocolate chip bars, Fiddle Faddle, a variety of chips, five layer dip, veggie pizza, and Austin’s homemade salsa! Mmmmmmm. A nice time was had by all!!! Ok, now for what you have all been waiting for: some Owen updates. Goodness gracious! This little boy is incredible. He smiles ALOT and just makes life so much more special and meaningful. His personality is getting more and more wonderful with every day that passes. At about two and a half months old, he is in the beginning stages of giggling, so of course we do everything we can to make him make those sounds! We talk to him as much as we can and long for the day when he will be able to talk to us, ask us questions, understand all the things we say, etc. Of course, we aren’t rushing him to get to that point; we are just curious and excited about his ever-changing growth and development. I often catch myself wondering “what will his personality be like?” or “what will his little boy voice sound like?” or “will he love bugs, cars, animals, or all of the above?” or “what subject will he like the best in school?” and so on. It is fun to think about his future and how we will all be growing and changing together as a family! What an exciting and awesome time to be alive. Little Owen got his first haircut a couple weeks ago! You can see in some of the pictures below that he got the front "point" trimmed as well as the area around his ears. I also trimmed the back, but that is not visible in any of the pictures. I saved the little pile of hair for his baby book! On Saturday evening, we introduced Owen to a super soft little blanket attached to a monkey head that reads “I’m Bananas.” He LOVED it. It was a gift from a sweet little couple from our church. He has snuggled with it several times since Saturday night and was even caught “petting it” for several minutes on the way home from church yesterday. We named him “Naner” (NAN-er) and think Owen looks so cute with his new, cozy, soft friend. What do you think? Well, I better get going for now. Time to start uploading the pictures I have chosen for this post. The first two pictures were taken on Owen’s 2-month birthday in the evening AFTER I posted his 2 month post on January 20. And up to this point, this is my ALL-TIME favorite picture of the little guy...................... Happy day to all!!! :) Carianne