Somewhat dry…
We couldn’t find his goggles tonight so he was closing his eyes—and having a fit “because I can’t see anything!” 🙂
Somewhat more wet…
As with most of his pool toys, the shark was one we bought that he pretty much wanted nothing to do with. Hug it? No. Sit on it? No. Swim with it? No. But give him a week or so and look what he’s doing…
Katie loves it when we pull her around…and then Owen was pulling her around and singing Row Row Row Your Boat to her. And see what else she does?! 🙂
It’s somewhat challenging to record a baby when she’s on your chest inches away from your face and wriggling all around…but I tried.
It’s also challenging to move the camera and continue recording without being able to see what’s actually in the frame—as you’ll see. 🙂
This is what her game was tonight for at least 20 minutes…and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Our first brief Skype:
He popped up in gmail instant messaging asking where I was. I asked where HE was! He meant he was trying to connect on Skype but I wasn’t logged on. My laptop lost its webcam somehow so I can only use the iPad, iPhone, or desktop computer…so I logged on with my phone!
It was just about two minutes—long enough to say he got there with no issues and he loves us! The connection wasn’t great—there was a big lag and I could still only make out about half of what he said. But it’s a start!
I love technology. 🙂
This is one of those times I’m glad I have a camera phone and can snap unexpected cute moments.
Then he tried to kiss her head and she ducked away at the last moment, giggling the whole time.
Attempted kisses:
Just a random picture of our living room…
GOTCHA!
After the hot and sweaty time saying goodbye to Tom and then at the playground…the pool sounded really good. Of course, I didn’t realize my waterproof camera didn’t have the memory card in it until I was already in the pool…so these photos are from after I got out and grabbed my real camera.
Katie LOVES the pool. Owen LOVES the pool. They love playing together. It’s awesome.
And then watching Sofia the First.
Tom just texted that they are heading out.
When I showed Owen the picture and asked him to find daddy—he giggled like a crazy person when he saw him! 🙂
She climbed up there all by herself!
He couldn’t QUITE make the jump…
So I helped him up once. But then he wanted to try all on his own…
Tom’s unit wasn’t scheduled to depart until 6:30-7, but we went about 4:30 because the waiting was just THE WORST. I knew we wouldn’t stay the entire time (to actually see them off) because I knew I couldn’t keep from breaking down that long. And it was about eleventy billion degrees and humid and the kids needed to eat dinner. Tom was perfectly okay with an early goodbye.
This is what the staging area looked like (forgive the bad pictures—I only had my phone)—piles and piles of bags and gear, hundreds of people, and lots of trucks.
Of course, now that Katie can walk, she really did NOT want to be held…so we just let her roam and she had a blast. She had a few tumbles because the ground was fairly uneven—but she didn’t let that stop her!
More than a few people commented on how cute she was, how cute her dress was, and how good she was at walking.
That’s Tom taking her picture.
Then as I was trying to get a picture of Tom and Katie, one of Tom’s buddies stepped in to take a family picture. Amazingly, he took two and one was halfway good!
Hugging daddy before getting in the car. I know he understands that Tom is leaving, but I really thought he’d be a bit more emotional—but he seemed kind of lackadaisical about it.
Then Tom and I hugged and kissed goodbye, he walked off, and I got in the car…and Owen started crying. 🙁 I got out to give him some tissue and a kiss, and of course seeing him break down made it worse for me…
THANKFULLY it didn’t last too long—we passed by a playground on the way off base and he said he wanted to go! Well, it was too late for that one (I wanted to be closer to home if either of them got tantrum-y) so I took a different route home so we could stop at a playground…
The cute dress was a gift from (I think) Grannie Lin. I had to get her in it before she outgrew it (it’s size 12m). We just don’t often have the opportunity to wear dresses!
So Tom just drove off. He has to be in early to drop off all his bags and pick up his weapon, etc. (We go in at 6 to see him off.)
Of course, I’m an emotional wreck today, so cried after he left.
Owen: Mama, what’s wrong?
Me: I miss daddy.
Owen: [Singing, from Daniel Tiger] Grooo-oooown-ups come back!
Me: You’re right. Can I have a hug?
We hug. I’m still crying.
Owen: It’s okay mom.
/bawl
Me: Owen, why are there underwear on the floor?
Owen: I was wearing a ninja mask!
He had finished his bowl of ice cream and Tom was still eating his (and sharing it with Katie)…and Owen wanted some more. Tom said no and Owen gave him this face.
Yeah. Owen got another scoop of Tom’s ice cream. 🙂
Subtitled: No our kids aren’t drunk.
It started off innocently enough with Katie crawling up to see what Tom was doing.
Then she has to sidle up next to him.
Waiting for Owen’s potty break:
I definitely see Uncle Rob in these next two pics (she’s definitely a Hudson):
And just like that, all the fun ended when Katie spit up on me. Katie and Owen had apparently just played and laughed so hard for so long that Katie spit up milk chunks all over me. And not just your run-of-the-mill spit up…but horrid smelling curdled nastiness that required a quick shower to get the stench off my skin.
But overall…a good time!
So while we were out running a few last-minute errands, we bought Maggie a nice new fluffy bed. As soon as we set it down, someone else found it (I told you she’s just like a cat).
Then Maggie found it.
Then Katie decided SHE wanted to be in the bed…and Maggie wanted NO part of that. So it was round robin for a bit…Katie out, Maggie in…Katie back, Maggie out.
Then Owen got involved and Maggie gave up and went back to her stack of blankets on the hearth.
And BOY did the kids have fun in there.
I had grand plans of hiring a photographer to take a real family portrait before Tom left…but that obviously never happened. So I had to make do with a last-minute haphazard couch photo shoot before we went out for dinner.
How Katie likes sitting with Tom.
*This post also introduces a new acronym for photo tagging purposes: JTOK (Jen Tom Owen Katie). I’ll be going back and tagging old family photos. 🙂
Oops! Looks like he has bat wing ears…lets try again.
He’s finally old enough to wrap himself in a towel and mostly dry himself off. I love him being self-sufficient!
Owen was a great big brother and shared his crackers with Katie. She certainly enjoyed them!
Owen loves his new fart gun! It’s both a memento of Owen’s first movie (Despicable Me 2) and a going-away present from daddy! Get it here: Despicable Me 2 Fart Blaster: A Despicable Minion Gadget
I wanted to see if Owen could help move the laundry to the dryer so I came up with Laundry Basketball. He did amazingly well!
We were watching the AppleTV photo screensaver.
Owen: Did you see that blue thing?
Me: What blue thing?
Owen: That floats up in space.
Me: A spaceship?
Owen: Yes! The Tardis!
Hee. Yep, there was a picture of our Tardis Christmas tree ornament!
So, every weekend, Tom and Owen have coffee clutch in the morning before Katie and I get up. They hang out, Tom drinks his coffee, Owen drinks his juice and has a snack, and they watch one of Owen’s TV shows… Owen LOVES it. (Well, Tom loves it, too…)
So tonight Tom told Owen that they only had two more coffee clutches before he leaves (Sunday and Thursday, the day he leaves) but that mommy would do coffee clutch with him once in awhile. Owen says “No! Mama doesn’t drink coffee. It will be water clutch!”
I love that boy.
And here he is, growing up right before your eyes, in under three minutes. What’s amazing is that he barely changes from month to month, but all of a sudden he’s four years old.
Today we took Owen to see Turbo
Thankfully he woke up easily and still wanted to go to the movie! It was a regular movie (i.e. not sensory-friendly) and we were concerned how he’d handle it…but he did just fine. He didn’t even want his noise-canceling headphones!
He did get a little fidgety towards the end (“Is it time to go yet?”) but overall he was great.
My only issue was the $8 matinee ticket prices. EIGHT DOLLARS! FOR A MATINEE! /get off my lawn
But I’ll definitely take him to a movie or two while Tom is gone.
He was being cranky so I threatened him with a nap and of course he said he wasn’t tired. I went downstairs to do something and I didn’t hear anything for awhile so went to check on him.
So it might look a little like dragging and throwing at times… 🙂
Our mommy play group schedule is off a little in the summer so basically someone just says “Hey, we’re headed to the beach!” or “Come on over…I’m getting out the water slide!” So today I had the group over for a pool party! We even had a new dad join our group!! (Ironically, it turns out he lives two streets over from us! This was the first group event he came to.)
It’s impossible to get five kids in a pool to stay still for a picture!
Owen in his new favorite goggles (from Amazon, of course). Get them here: Aqua Sphere Seal Kid Swim Goggle
And Katie did REALLY well! I was going to put her down for her nap around 11 when people arrived…but she wasn’t really tired so I put her in her cage 🙂 and she was happy enough and did really well until about 12 when she got hungry and then I put her down about 12:30 (and she napped until 4!).
