Reunited And it Feels So... Tired?

My whole family is together! Under one roof! For the first time this month!

And we are all tired.

This is what happens when Charlotte tries to skip a nap:

Nathan is still recovering from post-Montreat exhaustion:

And Anneliese cannot get enough sleepy snuggles with me, or my new blanket.

(I do not hate any of this.)

:)

Nothing Can Ruin This Day

A Monday list:

1.) For the second afternoon in a row, there is a lovely thunderstorm going outside that's just loud enough to be enjoyable, yet just quiet enough to allow my kids to continue sleeping.

2.) This morning, for the second time in the last week, Anneliese decided to get extra-snuggly and give me some a.maz.ing. hugs for upwards of half an hour.

3.) I am blogging not from my chilly basement rec room like I usually do, but from the warm cozy comfort of my den, with my handsome hubby reading (and, let's be honest, watching tv) beside me.

4.) I am eating a frozen pizza of the bacon cheeseburger variety.  The sauce is made from ketchup and mustard mixed together.  That's right: delicious and classy.

5.) I had a great weekend (to be blogged later) in Virginia Beach with my family. Here's a teaser pic:

My three favorite people

6.) I am stocked up on chick-lit from the library.  Don't judge.

7.) While at the library, I saw two signs that simultaneously confounded and amused me: the first was a notice about October 17th being Read to a Dog Day (ummm... whaaaaa?  I don't even know what questions to ask to clarify that) and the second was in a bathroom stall saying It is illegal to consume alcohol in a public library.  In a bathroom stall.  Really?  Is that actually a problem?  Ha!  :)

8.) Britney Spears will be on Glee tomorrow night.  The combination of Britney and Glee might just be my happy place.  Just sayin'.

9.) I just got word that the entire cast of The Sound of Music (well, Julie, Chris and the kids)  (yep, I call them Julie and Chris, we're pretty much hardcore besties so we're on a first-name basis) will be reunited for the first time in forty-five years on Oprah on October 29th.  (And the real Von Trapps will be there too!) 

10.) I have a date tonight!

Nothing can ruin this day.

The Best Worst Face

This picture of our nephew Jeb is half heart-wrenchingly awful, and half hilariously awesome.  And was therefore too good not to share as soon as his mom Emily (Mark's stepsister) emailed it to me.  This is clearly the best sad-baby face in the history of sadness or babies or faces.   

And apparently when he puts it on, mommy and daddy give him whatever he wants.

Yeah I'm pretty sure he's a genius.  A brilliant-sad-baby-faced genius.

A Cousin!

Nathan and Anneliese have a cousin! This is little Jeb, who made his fashionably late entrance on Wednesday night. (Much like a couple of other late babies I know.) He's exactly three months younger than Anneliese, and was almost exactly her size at birth.

Jeb William Parrish
January 13, 2009, 9:59pm
8 lbs 3 oz, 21.5 inches

Words cannot describe how excited I am to see these kids running around together at Opa and Oma's lake house in the summers to come. Oh happy day!

Congrats Trey and Emily, we love you and we can't wait to meet Jeb!

Happy New Year!

If Mark doesn't strangle me, I might get crafty and do this every year. In the meantime, Happy 2010!!

Meeting Grandparents and Friends

The past few days have been busy with a plethora of visitors. Everyone wants to meet the new arrival! (Though I think Mark and Nathan and I were the ones who cared most about the visitors!)

Most importantly, Anneliese got to meet three of her four sets of grandparents. Mark's mom came on Thursday night but only got to see the baby for a few minutes before she went down in her crib.... for six hours. Amazing. (The rest of the night was awful, so don't get jealous of me too quickly.) I felt kind of bad since I knew Grandma wanted to play with Anneliese, but nothing (nothing) is worth waking a baby who is learning to sleep for extended amounts of time in her own crib. So instead Nathan got all Grandma's attention for most of her visit. Anneliese did get a little snuggle time before she left too!

Then my dad and Cathy came up and brought lunch and stayed for the afternoon. We had an incredibly pleasant and relaxing visit with them (so relaxing that I think at one point all four grownups had dozed off!) even though Nathan skipped his nap for the first time in his life (yikes, that better not be a habit already). We ate chicken and I even drank some sweet tea for the first time in several weeks. I didn't worry about caffeine too much when I was pregnant, but both of my kids have proven very sensitive to it in breastmilk (trust me when I say the results are not pretty) so when I have it now I have to dump the milk -- something I don't like to make a habit of -- so real tea is a very rare treat! They also brought a few matchbox cars for Nathan, which made him crazy happy and he's barely put them down since they left. Doesn't my dad look sweet with his grandkids (and a lap full of cars)?

And then my mom came up. I was so glad to see her! I think there is something about being a new mommy (even for the second time) that just makes you want you own mom around, you know? And mom was nice enough to leave her house at like 5:30 in the morning (she would have been up anyway, don't feel too bad for her) so she could hang out with Anneliese while we went to church -- and that meant I got to sing with the choir. (I don't mind taking Anneliese into worship with me, but I can't really bring her into the chancel to sing, of course... and we're not quite ready to leave her in the nursery yet, considering it's flu season.) We figured since we know now that she can take a bottle if needed, we should take advantage of mom's willingness to help out. Mom also fixed us an awesome homemade lunch (chicken pie and baked apples and green beans and brownies).

Anneliese also met a few of our church friends this week. The Chamblees, who -- if you recall -- came down with H1N1 the week Anneliese was due, have recovered and were very anxious to finally meet her. Of course Nathan was super-stoked to see Hayes too!

And our friend Nathan (who happens to share a first and middle name with our Nathan -- isn't that weird? We didn't even know him when Nathan was born) came to meet her too. He hasn't been around many newborns, but he did fine and he even held her for a little while, though he seemed hesitant at first (he wasn't sure about the whole neck support thing, apparently). And our Nathan was very happy to see his friend "Another Nathan" for a little while outside of church!

So it's kind of been a tiring week, but since we don't have much else going on besides learning to adjust at home with both kids (and that's actually going fairly swimmingly), we were glad for the company and adult conversation!

For more pictures of our week of visitors, click below on Ashley and John with Anneliese.

by mgoetts

Party of Four

We're at the onset of a whirlwind weekend of visitors. So while Anneliese is meeting a slew of friends and relatives, enjoy this picture of our new family (we couldn't convince the pups to pose with us, so that will have to come later).

Somehow we didn't manage to take one of these shots until a week after we got home from the hospital, but here it is now.

We're somewhat less rested than we appear in this picture. :)

For a bunch more pictures of our first week at home as a "party of four," click on Anneliese, below.

by mgoetts

Baby Shower for Mommy and Beanie

My awesome friend Jenny hosted a shower for Beanie and me at our house this weekend. You might think that because it was at our house, it would mean I had to do some of the hostessing work, too.... but nope! Really -- I just got to relax, recover a little bit from my exhausting week, eat ridiculously yummy chicken salad, visit with friends, play games, and open gifts. Jenny either did or delegated everything else. Amazing. Also, she's the kind of friend who knows I would always rather have brownies than cake. Everyone needs a friend like that.

We played that typical baby shower game where guests have to take a piece of yarn and cut off what they estimate is the circumference of my belly. Can I just say there is no way to play this game without someone calling me fat? Or a whole lot of someones??? Honestly, my sister and my (very dear friend who took care of Nathan and me all weekend, so I won't complain) Sarah both held their arms straight out in front of them to estimate my belly size. Straight out in front of them. Wow. I'm knocked up, but I'm not that huge. When I put my own arms out in front of me, they extend well past my belly. I promise. Well past. I did get to ask a few of them "Are you calling me fat?" (you know, my trademark phrase) and make them deliciously uncomfortable, though, which was fun. :)

I got a whole lot of girly stuff, which I am very excited about. Outfits, and things to add to Nathan's handed-down nursery bedding to make the room a little more feminine, and lots of diapers and baby gear. One of my favorite things was a beautiful little elephant lamp, which I will post pictures of as soon as the nursery is more set up (should happen in the next week or so, I hope, I hope).
We also got a good laugh out of some pajamas which looked like they had ribbons in the, um, nipular area... but it turns out they were lower than we thought at first glance. Before we figured that out, though, we laughed so hard we cried (thanks, Oma!)... well, Ashley and I did anyway. Not sure anyone else really gets our sense of humor.

And speaking of Ashley, this picture of the two of us with Nathan is, I'm pretty sure, my favorite pic from the shower. Barbara took it (and all the pictures, I think) right after Nathan woke up from his nap and made his appearance (wearing his Big Brother shirt) at the shower. He was mighty happy to see Ashley when he opened his eyes, and also happy to see his Grandma and other friends when he joined the gathering. I think he might have been a little too sleepy to deal with both Ashley and me right after his nap, though, as you can see. I'm sure his daddy (and most of the rest of our family) can attest to that feeling! He wasn't too overwhelmed to open a few big brother presents, though (grandparents think of everything). Even though I am still recovering a little from last week, and spent most of the afternoon leaning on my hip with my feet propped up, it was a very fun day! Thank you to my friends and family who came and who sent beautiful things for me and my daughter-to-be!!


For more pics from the shower, click here.

Lake Wateree for the Fourth

I know it seems crazy/impossible that we did anything this weekend besides stay glued to our computers and phones for mom's Ironman updates. And make no mistake, that's pretty much all we did yesterday. But the rest of the weekend was spent pretty much internet-free, down at Mark's parents' new house on Lake Wateree.

I'm thinking this needs to just be our default plan every year on the 4th of July. We had such a good weekend. Besides eating so much food we felt sick (that's one tweak in the tradition for future years -- bleh) and getting a pretty bad sunburn on my cleavage (yes, me! the sunscreen nazi! turns out sunscreen does expire, we think), everything was pretty much awesome. By some miracle, Nathan slept until ten on Saturday morning (probably just overtired from visiting Grandpa earlier in the week) which meant that we didn't have to interrupt the middle of the day with naptime, nor abandon fireworks plans. Yaaaay!

Here's our weekend, in pictures:

Nathan actually enjoyed riding on the boat this time, as long as the wind wasn't too much in his eyes. He doesn't like to go fast.
He liked to talk to the fish. (Even though it meant being in close proximity to me. Which I think means it's safe to say he's recovered from last weekend's All-Daddy-All-The-Time clinginess.) He must have said hi fish! over and over again for thirty minutes straight when he saw some were swimming alongside our boat. Mark and Nathan took a rowboat ride together.
And a jetski ride. (Looks like Nathan is thinking something along the lines of: it's not my favorite, which is what Mark says when I make food he doesn't like.)
Mark and me, on the way to see fireworks. Nathan didn't want to let go of Oma and Opa on the whole fireworks trip! The other two people in this picture are Emily and Trey, Mark's (step)sister and bro-in-law. They have a baby due (Nathan's first cousin!) three months after Beanie, but we forgot to take a belly pic together this weekend! Bummer. Despite what this picture might indicate, I promise that Emily and Trey are very much in love and normally they even sit next to each other. :)
This was Nathan's first time seeing fireworks, and he loved it! He kept asking for them after each burst died down -- more fireworks? Where'd it go? And he would name all the colors he saw, and tell us every time that it was a big circle. He just couldn't get enough. He probably said Ooooh, that's a big one! at least fifty times before the show was over.
I think the whole weekend tired him out, though, because he slept through the night (even with Mark and me sharing his room) and then slept some more on the ride home. Yes, he's using a stingray as a pillow. I figured it was better than letting his head droop all over and give him a crick in the neck.
Hope everyone else had a happy 4th too!! For more pictures of our weekend (including one of Trey wearing a lifejacket as a diaper, which you just don't want to miss), click below on Nathan helping Daddy drive the boat.


by mgoetts

Un-Obituary for My Grandpa Schnack

It's been a hard weekend for my family. My Grandpa Schnackenberg passed away on Friday.

Mark and Nathan and the pups and I already happened to be on the way to Huntersville for
the Latta triathlon, so we continued in that direction. We were able to help my mom with some initial arrangements and have dinner with her Friday night. We were not able to sleep well (I didn't sleep at all, actually), but I ended up doing the swim and run portions of the tri the next morning anyway, because I needed the distraction and apparently I didn't realize the level of sheer exhaustion that would hit me like a wall afterwards. I was also not able to avoid stepping in horse poop on the run trail. That's right: my Grandpa died and I stepped in horse poop. Pretty much sums up the weekend.

We are now back in Raleigh; we needed to get some nicer clothes and things for the memorial service tomorrow, and we'll hit the road again tonight and come back home tomorrow afternoon. (Because staring at the miles of interstate between here and Huntersville for three hours a day, four days in a row, is the perfect cure for grief.) Needless to say, we are tired.

Grandpa's obituary ran in this morning's Observer. It's nice, I guess, but have you ever noticed that after reading these things, you still don't have a sense of who the person was? All those facts and relatives and career moves and alma maters don't capture him. I don't know if there's a word for the opposite of obituary. If there is, it fails me now, as does any motivation to try and figure out if such a word even exists. But whatever the opposite of obituary is, this is it.

An Un-Obituary for Grandpa, by his Apple Dumpling

My Grandpa was blessed with almost 91 years on this earth. He was a strange combination of jovial and neurotic -- he loved Jeopardy, coffee cake, eating breakfast foods for dinner, McDonald's coffee, and had a near-obsessive fear of running out of Kleenex (I don't think he knew how to go into a store and not buy a box or two; on any given day he could probably tell you where it was on sale for cheapest, and he didn't mind spending $5 on gas to drive across town and save 25¢ per box). He loved golf, liked bowling and chess, and sailed multiple times on the QE2. He rigged up a contraction to mute television commercials long before tv sets came standard with remote controls or mute buttons. He wasn't particularly ahead of his time, technology-wise (our attempt at getting him to use email was extremely short-lived, and he used his old electric typewriter for decades after it was actually efficient), but he loved his VCR, and recorded oh-so-many shows and programs -- anything and everything he thought we might want to watch (we didn't, for the record, except for the Sound of Music -- and I can never be grateful enough for the introduction of that tape into my life).

The obit tells you that Grandpa died at home, but it doesn't explain what a blessing that was. He would have been miserable in a sickbed, at a hospital. He was one of those people who needed to be able to up and go when he got an inkling. He loved cruise control and set it at about 40 mph no matter the conditions he was driving in -- neighborhoods, interstate, rain, whatever -- with his poodle Tammy in his lap. Grandpa named every car he ever owned (except maybe this last one), and you could always find some sort of candy in a little tin box somewhere in the front seat. You know, nestled amongst the kleenex boxes. Necco wafers and Werther's are the two candies I remember best. He spent his last day on earth running around town (despite the fact that he wasn't supposed to be driving), even visiting a bakery -- no doubt for a danish or coffee cake of some kind. We should all be so fortunate to spend our last days really living.

The obit doesn't tell you that he was somewhat compulsive, about little things -- before he went to bed at night, every light switch had to be in the right position (lights that could be controlled by more than one switch, causing the potential to mess up his "system" at the end of the day, were a major stressor), and he spent decades setting the table for breakfast before he turned in for the evening. He was a firm believer in well-done toast and locking doors.

The obit mentions that he was a regular at Lowe's in Huntersville, but it doesn't tell you how very important that part of his routine was. How he went there every day he felt well enough, sat near the check-out registers (in a chair he had purchased and kept at the store for just that purpose) people-watching with Tammy in his lap. How he was sort of a local legend for being "the nicely dressed elderly gentleman" there (my mom will argue that nicely-dressed part until she's blue in the face, mostly because of a favorite yellow sweater that he refused to part with even after it was holey and ragged and she ripped a sleeve off to encourage him to trash it... he just took it to have it mended and kept wearing it, one sleeve too short). That on most days, he had just been to Wendy's for lunch, and that he was loyal enough to his burger there that even after he found a spider on his lettuce one day, it wasn't enough to chase him away from the restaurant forever -- just to start ordering his burgers sans lettuce.

The official obit tells you that he was a WWII veteran, but it doesn't tell you about the time during his soldier days that he was swimming somewhere off the coast of northern Africa (Tripoli, maybe?) and thought he was standing on a sandbar, but really it turned out to be the shell of a giant snapping turtle. Or about how he played cards with fellow veteran Banks McFadden, and was pleased when Mark went to Clemson because of that card game. It tells you that Grandpa was a pilot, but doesn't tell you about the part where he was so conflicted about dropping bombs down from his plane that several missions were apparently botched. I don't know the exact circumstances of his discharge, but I do know that any misgivings about warfare he might have had, those just make me love him more. I'm proud that he served our country and I'm simultaneously proud that he knew how ugly war can be, even for the "winning" side.

The obit mentions that he retired to Myrtle Beach, but it doesn't mention that he didn't actually seem to like the beach. He was much more interested in taking us grandkids to waterparks, or eating at the gazillions of k&w-type cafeterias there (to cater to his generation, I'm sure) or any place where you could throw peanut shells on the floor (not sure if he was fascinated by this or horrified by it, but he found it worth mentioning and worth going). How in the early years of living in Murrells Inlet, they evacuated to stay with us in Charlotte for Hurricane Hugo, but then our neighborhood sustained worse damage than theirs at the beach.

Grandpa's obituary names a lot of relatives, including his father who was a relatively important politician and judge in Chicago. What it doesn't tell you is how Grandpa seemed (through stories and what I know of his own choices) to struggle to meet his parents' be somebody expectations and his own desire to just lead a simple family with simple honor. It tells you that he loved his wife, but it doesn't tell you that they were married 57 years before she passed away ten years ago, or how he never took his wedding ring off since before WWII, ever. It doesn't tell you how hard they fought to get that family he wanted to lead, their struggles to carry a child full-term -- a healthy child. Or about the bureaucracy frustrations involved in adopting two daughters, and the misery of burying one of them when she was barely grown up. It doesn't tell you how insanely proud he was of the one remaining daughter, my mom -- her musical gifts, her intelligence (and her choice to use those brains to heal people), her strength, and her devotion to him as she added onto her house so that he could spend his golden years near her. How he gave all his grandchildren nicknames (Apple Dumpling, Cupcake and Butch -- please don't ask how we went from Cupcake to Butch, I will never understand it myself) and how he never gave up on those nicknames (the last letter he sent me was addressed to Apple Dumpling Goettsch; I wish I were kidding). How happy he was to have lived long enough to see a great-grandson born, and know that a great-granddaughter is on the way.

It doesn't tell you how he was obsessed with Velcro and used it for anything and everything -- latching cabinets, keeping pens stuck to his car dashboard or coffee table, mending pants, attaching remote controls to his recliner, you name it.

How he used scotch tape and pushpins to affix newspaper clippings and family photos and hand-written signs (like keep door locked and no smoking - oxygen in use) to the walls and table and other furniture, covering pretty much every square inch of his house.

How he would sit on the couch with us grandkids and watch out the window for anyone exciting to drive by. (I don't think anyone ever did.)

How he used a mileage-earning credit card until his dying day, even though he had been on a plane only once in the last decade, and had no plans to travel again.

How he believed that being half black didn't make you black. He insisted that while Obama can claim the titles of first African-American president (since he is of Kenyan descent), and first minority president, he doesn't get to claim first black president.

How he would entertain us grandkids by predicting the exact time on the car clock when we would arrive somewhere (and always somehow being right -- the fact that he had some degree of control over how quickly we got there seemed to escape us, and we were endlessly impressed with this trick).

How he wanted a neutral word to use to refer to homosexuals (mostly to protect his generation's original meaning of gay from pejorative undertones), so he decided to just make one up -- and settled on zank.

How when I was a toddler he took a bite of my blue double-bubble ice cream (not a lick like I apparently told him), and never fully recovered from the tantrum that followed.

How the only drugstore he liked to use was Walgreen's -- something about his mom knowing the family back in the day in Chicago and how they would do one-hour photo printing even in the middle of the night. Not that he ever needed to take advantage of this.

How he called TCBY "tick-bee" and ordered his treats topping-first.

These are the things that made him Grandpa. Not relatives and facts and figures, but laughs and eye-rolls and memories. And I hope that by capturing a few of them here, I am helping to ensure that the memories live on... for my family's sake, for my kids' sake, and for my own sake.

We will miss you, Grandpa.

Who Wears it Better?

Nathan loves bathtime these days, although I must admit we don't bathe him more than a couple of times a week. (What? He doesn't get that dirty. Plus, we're watching our water usage. Yeah, that's it.)

Anyway when we tell him it's bath time, he runs into the bathroom to help us get the water running and then he runs into his bedroom to "get n,aked" (yes, I am spelling it that way on purpose so this site doesn't flag as having adult content... he also knows some other words for his body parts -- the proper words, don't worry -- that make for amusing diaper changes but aren't necessary to post online... he's at that awkward stage now of knowing the names for things but not quite understanding which things are appropriate to mention in a social setting... I'm hoping once we potty train it will be easier for him to make the distinction between things we do in private and things that are ok to talk about/share with friends... I digress). Then he loves to sit and splash in the tub, and his favorite thing recently is to dump cups of water all over his body to help me rinse after I wash him off. All those bath toys, and he spends 85% of the time playing with that orange cup. :)

He's kind of outgrown the little hooded baby towels, but he does have this tiger towel (and a frog one we got last Christmas) that works perfectly. It was a gift from Ashley at our baby shower more than two years ago, and Nathan is very into being bundled up as a tiger for his evening milk and book. (BookS, I should say. "Another one" is fast becoming a favorite phrase around here.)

So, as People Magazine would ask, who wears it better?

Mark - Spring 2007

Nathan - Spring 2009

Leave your vote in the comments. Nathan is awfully cute, but I have to applaud Mark for his daring fashion statement here.

Brad is Here from St. Croix!

My brother is in town this week! I couldn't mention it when he first decided to come, or even when he first arrived, because he wanted to surprise our dad last weekend for dinner on his (Brad's) birthday.... And dad reads this blog. Which is why there was no mention of it earlier, even though I was dying to tell. (And almost did... I had to have his wife sneak into his email and delete a copy of the itinerary I accidentally emailed him!)

Brad flew in town last Saturday and spent most of the week in Huntersville with the parentals. But yesterday he came back to Raleigh for a few days before his flight home -- yay! Nathan had been excited to see him all week, ever since I mentioned that Uncle Brad was coming. He only knows Brad mostly from pictures (they've only met three times before this weekend -- the week he was born, our vacation to St. Croix last year, and Grandpa's 90th birthday in August), but Nathan has been asking after pretty much every nap this week if Brad is here.

Anyway we had a fun visit. We ate Mexican food last night, then right away gave the boys a trial by fire this morning while Mark and I went to our first Greek baptism (man was that an event! I think our wedding was less complicated) for our neighbors' son. But Brad and Nathan did just fine -- no fussing from either of them, and Brad changed his first diaper while we were gone (with some help from Nathan, who apparently had to tell him to make it tighter... honestly, only Nathan). Yes, I am apparently that sister who leaves a baby with an uncle who's never changed a diaper... hey, I didn't know, or I promise I would have done a run-through before we left! But Brad did great, as we knew he would. Played games, fed Nathan lunch, read books, even got him to take his nap in the big-boy bed, and went for a walk on the golf course.

Then this afternoon we all decided at the last minute to go watch Clemson and UNC play in the ACC baseball tournament, since it's right up the road in Durham, and those are Mark's and Brad's respective teams.

It was a really pleasant way to spend an afternoon -- especially because Clemson won in the end. (Look, I would like to be diplomatic since I honestly don't care... but I live with Mark, so a win for Clemson drastically impacts the mood in our house.) Nathan was very excited to see all the tiger paws and pointed them all out. All of them.

On every hat, every shirt, and every player's stats on the scoreboard. In innings where Carolina was batting and they changed the huge logo on the outfield wall, he spent the whole time asking, "Where's the tiger paw? Where'd it go?" I don't know how, but somehow my child has become so brainwashed that a tiger paw is some sort of comfort symbol for him. [Sigh]

Anyway, we had fun at the game, had an entertaining ride home with Brad and Nathan (old buddies by now) cutting up in the backseat, ate pizza for dinner, and then everyone crashed. Brad has an early flight tomorrow; it's a bummer that the visit was so short but still great since we weren't expecting one at all.

And Nathan finally learned to say "uncle" correctly! (He still won't do it consistently when we ask him about Nick... mostly just "Oh Nick" as usual... but he's getting there and does it GREAT when talking about Brad.)

We love you Uncle Brad!

For more pictures of our visit with Brad, and the Clemson-UNC baseball game, click on the boys watching the game, below.


by mgoetts

Birthday Beach Trip

My mother-in-law has a milestone birthday this week (her 60th, and she's proud of it!) so to celebrate we went to Topsail Island, one of her favorite little bits of our great state. (For those of you who aren't from NC, that's pronounced "top-sull" which doesn't just go for people with southern twangs -- it's the way you say the name. Honestly.)

When I say we, I mean that not only did the three of us join Mark's mom at the beach, but Nick and Barbara too, and her longtime friend Marvis who flew all the way from Arizona to join us. Plus two dogs (not mine). So it felt like quite a gathering!

We had warmer weather this time than our last visit to the beach, so that meant it wasn't just Nathan who got to enjoyed the sand and waves. We all got to lay out on the beach and deck, enjoy the sunshine, and relax.

Nathan enjoyed playing in the sand -- filling buckets and toys, digging with his shovel, etc -- but he did not like walking in it. The few times we tried to encourage him to walk around without his sandles on, he wasn't really having it. He would do it, but only reluctantly, and only clinging to our hands. Which made for some cute pictures, at least. :)

I realized two things about being a mom at the beach:
1.) Kids will step on your towel. Even when you ask them not to. Even when you really really really don't want sand all over it. (I should apologize to my own mom now, for all the times I heard her say "don't step on my towel" and I did it anyway.)
2.) Unlike the bed at home, you can dig a hole in the sand to accommodate a pregnant (or just fat) belly, which makes lying around on your front so much more comfortable! Even if your family laughs at you for doing it.

Overall it was a fun weekend, even though Nathan didn't sleep well and we're all sort of tired now. We got to read and relax, and Nathan got to see lots of his precious Oh Nick, and hunt for shells for Grandma to hold, and practice saying Marvis, and watch for birds, and we were all spoiled by Nick and Barbara's fabulous cooking - crab meat au gratin last night, and a yummy typical southern breakfast casserole this morning.

(And since this is a post about birthdays, I should say happy birthday to my OWN brother! Have an awesome day, Brad! I know what you're up to but I can't post about it yet, more to come later this week. Hope it was fun, that's all I'll say for now!)

To see all the pictures of our beach weekend (including a couple that Nathan will hate us for when he's old enough to be embarrassed about running around naked), click on our family, below.


by mgoetts

Happy Birthday "Oh Nick"

[A rough translation of a birthday message from Nathan:]

Happy birthday Oh Nick! Thank you for playing with me and loving me and making me smile.

You were the first family member to meet me after Mommy and Daddy, and you got up very early to come to the hospital before work to see me on my birth day. We loved each other the first time we met, even though you made fun of my toes before you even kissed me, and then the next week when you came back you thought that I should have teeth and be able to crawl and that my phototherapy machine was attached to my bottom. When I can talk better I will make fun of your toes, too. And the blue t-shirts that are attached to your arms.

I love to hear your voice, and it makes me curious about the things that you're teaching me. I love it when you hold me and read to me and you always talk to me like I'm a big boy and that makes me feel very good.Also, I love the strings on your jacket. You play a game with me that no one else understands but the two of us. They don't see why it's so hilarious but it is! This might be my very first inside joke. Jacket! Jacket! String!

I feel safe with you.

For your birthday I will try to learn to say "uncle" but in the meantime I do like to say Oh Nick. Where's the Oh Nick? ...

You are 25 today. Happy birthday Oh Nick. I love you. Bye bye. Night night. Hug hug.