10 Years!

Mark and I hit our 10-year anniversary in August!  It's hard to believe that we have already been married for 10 years!  We hoped to do something significant to celebrate the occasion, but with a 3-year old and 5-month old, we were limited in our choices of "get-aways."

We thought that our best chance for some alone time would be to take the kids to Oregon, and leave them with my parents for a few hours while we went out for a nice dinner.  Unfortunately, the evening we had planned our date, Benjamin was at the peak of a nasty cold (which the rest of us got when we returned home), and very clingy, so we cancelled our date and watched Veggie Tales and Thomas the Train in bed with him instead. :)

We did manage to escape for a delicious bagel and coffee breakfast by ourselves during our visit with Mom & Dad, and enjoyed sitting outside(!) enjoying the quiet together.

I often like to remember what we were doing on specific days in previous years (ie kid's birthdays, anniversaries, etc).  Somehow, for almost all of our anniversaries, we have been in-transit.  While I remember most of them, I'll go ahead and record them now.  Sorry, no pictures from the first few anniversaries - this was way back when, before digital photographs were common! :)

August 19, 2000 - Got married!  

August 19, 2001 - Moved from Miami Beach to Starke, FL.  Mark had won his first full-time (sort of) orchestra job with the Jacksonville symphony, and I was enrolled to begin studying Engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville.  We have wonderful memories from our time together in Starke.  We were thrilled to be living in our first (rental) house, and soon after moving, adopted our first dog, Buster.

August 19, 2002 - On the road back home from spending the summer with my dad in Oregon.  This was a special, yet difficult summer to spend together with him.  We stopped for a short visit in Duncanville, TX with Mark's parents and to attend Mark's 10-year high school reunion.  I remember returning to our home in Starke extremely late on a Sunday night, and I had my first early morning class for the fall semester the next day.  I also remember being thoroughly disgusted by all the dead bugs that the house had acquired while we were gone, and being surprised to find a VERY tall yard had grown in our absence, even though we had paid a neighborhood boy to mow it while we were gone. :) 

August 19, 2003 - Mark helped me move into my "apartment" in Orlando to begin my first semester co-op at Disney World.  Disney had a large apartment complex to provide housing for their "interns."  Most were non-specialized interns who took tickets for rides, etc. hoping to eventually land hospitality-type internships after they had paid their dues.  There were also a few engineering internships, namely a very large group (about a dozen) of industrial engineering interns.  I shared an apartment with 7 other industrial engineering interns, a bathroom with three of them, and a room with one.  It was certainly a change from our cozy Starke house with my husband! 

August 19, 2004 - Moving to Houston!  I can't remember if we were driving our moving truck to Houston on this day, or actually moving into our rental house on Chippendale.  Either way, we were SO excited!  Mark had finally won the "big" job earlier in the summer (while I was completing my second co-op semester with Disney).  I had one more semester to finish my degree at UF, so after helping Mark move into our new home, I returned to small apartment in Gainesville to finish up my studies.  That last semester was a pretty rough one (hurricane through Gainesville, tick infestation, etc) - but that's a story for another day. :)  At this point, though, I noticed that in our first four years of marriage, we actually only spent three of them living together!

 

 

August 19, 2005 - Moved into our first (purchased) home!  The house has changed a lot since we bought it - but we loved it then, and we still love it now. 

 

August 19, 2006 - I think this may be the first year that we actually were not in transit.  This summer, we remodeled our kitchen and shortly after our anniversary, I got pregnant with Benjamin!  I am sure we went out to dinner, or did something fun to celebrate six years of marriage --- but I can't remember exactly what.  We may have gone to the Cheesecake Factory, one of our favorite restaurants. 

(Note: don't have a picture from this day, but here is a picture of the two of us a couple of months earlier during a vacation to the Midwest.  Here we are at Cedar Point, about to ride the Millennium Force).

August 19, 2007 - We now have a two-month old baby.  I do remember (because I blogged about it) that Benjamin slept very well the night before, so we enjoyed the day in a less sleep-deprived than normal state.  I believe this day was a Sunday, so after church, we went to Colina's, a low-key Italian restaurant.  I remember being very proud of ourselves for getting out and doing something to celebrate, even though our lives felt a bit overwhelming at that time.

 

August 19, 2008 

 I can't actually remember what we did for our anniversary this year.  By this point, we regularly hired a neighbor's teen-aged daughter Eliza to watch Benjamin for a few hours while we got away for dates, etc.  So my best guess is that we hired her for our anniversary so we could go on a date.  I wonder what we did?  Good chance we went to the Cheesecake Factory, since it used to be our all-time favorite place to eat when we lived in Miami Beach, so reminded us of our early days of marriage.

(Note: this picture is not from our anniversary, but it is from August of 2008).

 

August 19, 2009 - Mark was in transit on this one, with Benjamin in tow.  The two boys flew solo to Mexico to visit Grandma and Granddaddy.  I stayed home alone, now pregnant with Katie to focus on work (my role in recruiting was ramping up now, and I was approaching my full-time hours) and rest (and feel nauseous).  I think I actually forgot it was our anniversary until Mark sent me a text message! (Note: the picture of me and Ben is from my dad's visit earlier that month while Mark was on a mission trip in Guatemala.  The picture of Mark and Ben is taken at Grandma & Granddaddy's house in Mexico.  And, yes, I am recognizing the lack of pictures of Mark and I together!).

 

August 19, 2010 - Well, you've seen the story above.

 How fun to remember the past ten anniversaries in our lives!  Hopefully the next ten will be as much fun!

15 lbs, 4 oz

That's how big I "grew" Katie solely from my own body.  That's right - my newborn baby girl has started solids.  We started her about a week ago on rice cereal, and she LOVES it!  She knew what to do right away.  Ben gave her the first bite, and she went right after it!

As with Benjamin, beginning Katie on solids is both exciting - to be entering the next stage of babyhood with her - and also sad, a marking of the end where I provide her with 100% of her nourishment.  I love looking at all that baby chub and knowing that she got it all from me!  That first I grew her within in my body, and then after she was born and I had to share her with the rest of the world, that still only I had something that she needed.  And that my body was able to grow a healthy 15 lb, 4 oz baby.

But now, it's time for her to take that next first step in independence - and allow the rest of the world to nourish her little body.  And it also marks the initial stages of weaning.  Which, actually, is sort of nice --- as since I am not back at work, we do not regularly give her bottles, and at this point, I'm not even sure if she would take one.  But a couple of days ago, I took Ben to a friend's house to go swimming and could leave Katie at home while she napped, because I knew Mark could feed her a bowl of rice cereal when she woke up.  And that was, admittedly, sort of freeing.

So here are a couple of pictures of Katie getting her first bowl of rice cereal!  We offered the honor to Benjamin, who was quite excited about it - and actually has looked forward to feeding her the cereal every day since!  It's a wonderful activity for Ben and Katie to do together.  We have challenges with Ben's "enthusiasm" for touching his sister a bit too energetically, so all of their interactions have to be carefully monitored (no, Benjamin, it's not okay to sit on your sister or rub your feet on her face), but he really "gets" the feeding her process.  I explained to put some on the end of the spoon, wait for her to open her mouth, and then pull the spoon back out.  And he totally gets it!  He's gentle and attentive and really does a good job!  Our only challenge is that he wants to wipe her mouth after EVERY bite, which she doesn't really like, so we compromised that she gets a few bites before getting her mouth wiped.

Okay, that felt really good to finally write a blog post --- and it didn't even take that long!  Man, I really need to do this more often - it just feels hard to find the time to actually sit down and do it.  Hopefully I'll blog soon about a few other topics I've wanted to capture: Mark and my 10-year anniversary (wow!), and our progress on our exterior projects and my determination to make a few changes in our lives (both of which are going well!).  So stay tuned...

Before

The blog posts about home improvement projects continue.  Sorry to those of you who would prefer updates about our kiddos.  We are immensely enjoying time with them day in and day out, and often several times during the night.  So, for now, I'm a little more interested in writing about something besides our two beautiful children.  :) If you remember an earlier post - these Projects are what get me through the hum-drum (at least for me --- nothing meant for you other SAHMs) of this lifestyle.

(but seriously, all sarcastic-ness aside, Ben is responding well to a few small changes in expectations in our household, and Katie is turning into a pretty fun, go-with-the-flow five month old --- so I do want to write more about them - maybe I will update tomorrow, which will be the one-week point since making my "statement" to be more disciplined about a few things in my life...)

Our interior projects are almost complete.  Most of our interior home remodel came courtesy of Hurricane Ike, and I've spent a lot of time over the last five months (!) of my maternity leave organizing our many possessions.  The only area left to tackle is our kitchen - and I hope to do that in the next few weeks.

So now, with the promise of fall in the air (I get giddy every time I feel the hint of a cool breeze), we are moving our efforts outside.  And I am thrilled.  Equally excited to:
(a) update the exterior of our home.  Some of this we'd meant to do two years ago, but redirected our efforts (money) to the Hurricane Ike remodel
(b) spend time outside together as a family.  With cooler weather, and less intense sun, it's been fun to begin taking Katie outside with us, and I have hopes of us all enjoying time outside together as we tackle the exterior of our house.

So what is there to do outside?  What isn't there to do!?  First, we've hired a contractor to replace our siding on the whole house and garage and also to build a new carport.  We signed the contract last week, and carport demo begins on Tuesday!  We are so excited to finally be having this work done.  You would think that having someone else do the work would make it easier, but Mark and I really drag our feet when it comes to making decisions about contractors, as well as just coming up with a larger-scale plan that we have to communicate to someone else.  When we do the work ourselves, we can just make up our mind as we go.  With a contractor, you have to make all the decisions up front.  We actually spent a fair amount of time this morning simply trying to decide whether to replace the shutters with painted shutters, wood shutters or to omit them all together.  Again, it's often the decisions, not the actual work that slow us down.

But don't worry, in addition to hiring a contractor, we've got plenty of work planned for ourselves too (and don't forget that Mark's garage remodel is also underway):

• Rebuild a few of our fences that need repair and/or we want located in different places.  These are all very short sections of fence, so this shouldn't be too bad.
• Pave the area by our back door.  Currently this area becomes a mudslide every time it rains, which is just great when little people forget to take their shoes off upon coming inside.  We also hope to (maybe) get a dog next summer, so I really want to not have to wipe muddy paws every time doggie comes in and out.
• Improve our drainage.  We may actually hire this out to a contractor.  Not sure yet whether we are going to try and actually install some drains in low spots or just even out the yard.  Either way, our grass is a bit spotty and lumpy, so with or without drainage, we need some evening out.
• Install a sprinkler system.  We considered hiring this out, but I've heard it's pretty simple (and cheap) to do yourself, and I thought Ben might like hanging out outside with Mark while he does all that digging.
• Landscape!  Including figuring out how to make a rain garden for the area outside our front porch, where the roof run-off has killed our attempts at sod.

So hopefully future home improvement posts will include pictures of our whole family working together outside, in addition to the transformation of our home.

So, here are our before pictures!

Work is awesome

Hi friends. This is Mark writing. I'll admit up front that this is a somewhat dorky post, but today was special and I thought it was worth writing down. I won't be offended if you stop reading shortly. The event: simply going back to work with the orchestra after a vacation period. But here's what made it cool:

1. It is rewarding to return to doing something I love. There's no question I'm extremely fortunate to have this period each summer of four to five weeks off. Perhaps only teachers have a similar benefit. I really don't take it for granted. We had a great time working outside, traveling, cooking fun dinners, spending time with both kids, and enjoying a generally lighter schedule. But there's something about the rigidity of work that is appealing. There's really nothing else in our lives that is absolutely set in stone."You WILL be here between the hours of such and such." And I really do love playing classical music. There are, of course, ups and downs like with any job. But the highs are very high - involving passion, emotion, and beauty. It's fantastic. 

2. Employment is a significant blessing. We've had some friends recently and in our past go through long periods of job hunting. It has to be among life's most arduous and unpleasant tasks. In fact, one of the things I really liked about seeking an orchestral post is that the path to a job is clearly defined. It was plenty challenging, but there wasn't really any networking, endless resume posting, career workshops, etc. Auditions are announced publicly, you send your resume. If invited, you show up, play and hope for the best. Unemployment in America is high right now, orchestras here and there are folding. I am extremely fortunate to have a job performing music.

3. Here's the dorky part. I love cymbals, I really do. I know, many of you are imagining Far Side cartoons, or muttering something to yourself about banging trash can lids. Hmmph. In the orchestra, I get assigned a variety of percussion instruments. In our usual arrangement with my colleagues, I play the mallet instruments most often - xylophone, bells, etc. I love those too, but I play them enough that I get my fill. I have the same affection for cymbals, but don't play them as often, so it's a treat to play a good cymbal part. Today, the rehearsal began with Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." You probably know the tune. There's a lengthy trombone and trumpet melody, which, at its peak, is punctuated by a beautiful, loud cymbal crash - my first note after vacation. That alone would be cool, but what made it even better was the cymbals I was playing. They're made by a guy in Italy named Roberto Spizzichino. Each custom made, by the hands of a true artisan. They are the Stradivarius of cymbals. They cost a fortune, and we had to do a lot of pleading and dealing with the management to purchase this particular pair. The sound is magnificent, and PERFECTLY suited for this note in Ride of the Valkyries. It was just a real joy to come back from vacation, and have that be my first note. The whole program was rewarding, but highlighted by that one note.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!

A New Start

For the last few years, right around this time, I begin yearning for a fresh start.  The summer seems to drag on, and I'm ready for a change of pace.  Ready to have a break from the intense, relentless Houston sun.  Ready to stop applying sunscreen and bug spray every time we go outside.  Ready for a steady routine - for Ben to go back to school (!) and to get back into the rhythm of every day life. 
This year, I am ready for a few other fresh starts as well. 

I'm ready to get our family into a better schedule.  To once again have a little quiet time in the evening.  Ben's bed time has been creeping later and later, and we still haven't gotten into our groove with little Katie.  We were in Oregon last week visiting my parents for our "summer vacation," and she was such a little trooper!  She was really easy-going, slept incredibly well, and Mark and I dared to think "has she rounded the corner, is she going to get easier?".  But then Ben came down with a nasty cold, and now all four of us have it.  Which means we have a household full of sick, tired and cranky people---no one excluded.  I desperately hope it will feel better when we have a little more structure and regularity - because it feels like it has been a very long time --- five months, in fact, since we've been in a groove.  And I'm desperate to regain control of our household.

I'm ready to re-establish some boundaries and expectations for our vivacious three year old.  I'm beginning to feel that he has way too much control of our day.  Again, he's been sick for over a week, which results in incredible whiny-ness (as I write this, he's actually standing right next to me whining), so I'm trying to cut him some slack.  But I also feel like I've been making excuses for him for a while now.  He had the adjustment to having a baby sister, he moved up to the next class at school, he gave up his Biddy.  I guess I'm starting to learn that he is going to always have adjustments (don't we all?), and that I need to be more deliberate and consistent in my expectations for him.  So wish me luck with that one.  I don't know exactly what this will look like, or what it means exactly, but I'm determined to be more deliberate about it.  And Benjamin, I'm learning this parenting thing as we go, Bud, so I know there will be some significant screw-ups along the way.  Sorry about that in advance.

And finally, I'm ready to regain control of my own body.  It has definitely not bounced back after Katie's birth the way it did after Benjamin's.  I feel heavy and out-of-shape and tired.  Both Mark and I were actually getting into a good groove with exercising more and eating healthier dinners.  But it hasn't been enough.  It has been an adjustment for me to come to terms with the fact that I may no longer be able to get away with eating whatever I want and still staying slim.  It makes me feel old.  It makes me feel like I am entering the next "stage" of our lives --- no longer the young and "new" to everything.  And that's kind of scary.

So a couple of days ago, I joined Weight Watchers Online.  And then yesterday I tracked my "points" for the first time.  Since I am nursing full-time (and Katie's not yet eating solids), I actually get quite a few points.  But I still went about 50% over my points yesterday, and that was even with what I thought was being relatively careful.  Yikes.  I guess that's why I'm not losing all that baby weight.  While nursing, I am only supposed to lose 1 pound a week...so I should be back to my pre-pregnancy weight in about six months. :)

And finally, I want to be better about writing in this blog.  I want to document our lives at this point --- which, as challenging as it can sometimes be, is also so precious, and I know that I'm really going to miss these days with young children once they grow up.

So wish me luck with all these goals in our "fresh start" this fall!

And since I have been so bad about posting pictures, here is a favorite from our trip to Oregon last week.  We took a trek to the beach --- but Benjamin was already a bit sick, it was SUPER windy and also fairly cold (also, his jacket is way too small and the wind was blowing sand into his eyes, that's why he's wearing my sunglasses).  Not the most picture-perfect day, but I'm glad we did it, and it makes for a fairly humorous memory.

Ben & Katie

I have so much I want to blog about right now --- What Katie is like (and what life with Katie is like) at 4 months, Benjamin giving up his Biddy (!)... but all I have time for now is a quick picture of our two kiddos.  They are growing up too fast!

Fun Outside

Well hello everyone! This is Mark writing. It's been over a month since I made a contribution to the blog so I thought it high time to get on it. Katie has been kicking our butts lately with her sleep habits. Katherine will probably write more about that soon, but I think there's definitely been some improvement since we started working hard at sleep training. Aside from that, Benjamin and I have been spending a good chunk of time everyday working and playing outside. This is a major win-win situation. The garage remodel is moving right along, the shrubs are trimmed, and most importantly, Ben has gotten his much needed time to run around being a boy.
    Here are some of his activities:

Digging, either with shovels or his excavator
Sandbox
Running through sprinklers
Mowing the lawn with the umbrella stroller
Riding a tricycle
"Washing" the car
Climbing on the car
Practicing hula hoop
Helping daddy hammer and sweep in the garage
Helping daddy haul things to the shed

Pretty good list huh? Seriously, it's been a tremendous amount of fun to have him out there with me while I work on the garage. And it feels so good to be able to actually get stuff done WHILE he's playing. It wasn't very long ago that he had to be watched continually for fear of running into the street. We're still very mindful of his whereabouts but he's able to be safely play much more independently.
    We've been doing this in the late afternoon which, surprisingly, has not been terribly hot. Yes, it is quite warm and very humid (we both immediately take bath/shower afterward), but the sun is not merciless like earlier in the day. And, is it possible? Perhaps I am getting just a bit acclimated to the Texas heat? I remember growing up in Dallas, where it's even warmer than here, I never hesitated to go outside because of the heat.
    Here are lots of pictures. Sorry Katie, only one of you. She's getting more adorable everyday. Four months is nearing the height of baby cuteness I think. We really need to do a Picasa upload. Watch for that soon...

Everything's all packed up and placed neatly in the center of the garage. The former owner had installed DOZENS of little shelves between the studs, now almost all removed. This guy was a nail fanatic too - used to hang tools I guess - now all removed. 

Beautiful isn't it? Like a blank canvas, just waiting to be adorned.

What a great helper!

It's important to wear safety goggles when mowing the lawn.

Apparently it's not as important to protect the rest of oneself. 

What a cutie!