I've been so bad about blogging. My last one was early December. So tons to catch up on. Can't give my usual details or this would be a very long post. So I'll just hit the highlights...
Christmas '09
We had a wonderful, fairly laid back Christmas. Bob and Dottie came out to California to visit us. It was wonderful to share Abby's first Christmas with them. Like most babies, she enjoyed the wrapping paper the most out of all the excitement. I would say now that her favorite present was a little push lion that she walks around with. And Owen's favorite present was probably the child sized guitar - yes a real guitar. He loves to play it. This was the first Christmas Owen seemed to understand what was going on. It was tons of fun to watch his reactions to everything. 
New Years '10
We had a lovely laid back new years at the Tribbles house. Ariel's sister, Daria, and her family joined us. Abby went down in a pack n' play upstairs fairly early. But Owen got to stay up late and have his first sparklers experience. He approached this in true Owen fashion - with caution and suspicion. I can't believe it's already 2010. Where did that first decade of the 2000's go? We sure managed to squeeze a lot into 10 years... graduating college, 1st jobs, other jobs, getting married, 2 kids, moving to california. I hope the next 10 years will be as wonderful as the last 10.
Our 5th Wedding Anniversairy - Feb 5th
5 years flew. I guess it helps that we've been pretty busy. I couldn't imagine being married to a more wonderful man. And no one could be more perfect for me. I am one lucky gal. Of course, I happen to think Robbie's pretty lucky too. ;) We celebrated by having our friends, the Tribbles, do an overnighter babysitting and we went off to a fancy hotel, dinner, and romance. It was a wonderful way to celebrate our first 5 years. Here's to 50 more!
My Bday and Vday
As of Feb 7th I am now in the last year of my early thirties. So far the thirties are awesome. Although I am starting to see evidence of the years on my face. Ha. No big celebration. Just gifts at home with the family. Valentines day is a holiday that we don't really celebrate. Between Christmas, New Years, our anniversairy, and my birthday all in the 6-8 weeks before it, we are partied out by then. Plus, it's a lame holiday.
My Visit to Austin
One of the perks of being on the Dell account for work is that I periodically have customer visits - which means I go to Austin. This February we had one of those visits. I flew in early to stay with the folks and see family and friends. Robbie kept both kids at home. Poor guy - he ended up having a sick and teething baby, a toddler who doesn't like to share daddy, and a dog that had tummy troubles and poo'd all over the house explosively. I, on the other hand, quite enjoyed the luxury of flying without kids. Had a great time seeing old friends - Andy, Kerie, Allison, Angela.
Amber
Just as I was leaving from my Austin trip they discovered a 6 inch blood clot behind my sister-in-law Amber's liver. They did a surgery to install a filter to protect her heart and lungs. Then they discovered that almost everything from the waist down was one giant clot. They started worrying about gangrene and losing her legs. They had to basically bombard her body with all sorts of medicine to break up and start disolving the clots and used catheters in her legs to try to suck out the bigger clots. She is doing okay now - they've got out the biggest stuff. She's still in pain, and of course every little twinge is worrying. She's been in and out of the hospital with other scares. They've determined that the only blood thinner that works is the most expensive one that insurance doesn't cover. They're still figuring that out. Prayers for continued improved health and a fix for this medicine issue would be appreciated.
Wyatt
Robbie's cousin Clayton and his wife Leah recently gave birth to an adorable baby boy - Wyatt. Due to complications he was quite early - originally due mid-June-ish. He is still in the NICU trying to get bigger and gain wait. He seems to be doing well and growing. It sounds like he's eating well and Clayton and Leah have got to hold him more and more. Prayers for his continued progress and for Clayton and Leah as they wait to take their new baby home would also be appreciated!
Easter '10
Another fairly laid back holiday. It was just us four for Abby's first Easter. But we still managed to do something every day. Friday were the parties and Easter egg hunts at the kids' day care. Saturday was a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. Owen wanted to look inside each egg and then argue about eating that candy right then. Luckily there were tons of eggs, so even with those delays he still got plenty. Saturday afternoon we dyed eggs and then we went to our church service Saturday evening. Sunday we did Easter baskets, the string game (one of my family traditions that involves following yarn and getting presents), and a chocolage egg hunt inside (it was raining all day). All in all, a lovely Easter.
Odds and EndsWe finally got three new trees planted in our back yard replacing trees that they bank had let die while the house was under foreclosure before we bought it. Give us 5 more years and we might actually have shade back there.
Owenisms...
I finished writing my first book. I've started writing one probably about 20 times, but never finished. Finally finished one. No clue if it's crap or not. But I like it, so at least I'll read it again. It's about 200 pages. And is a semi-young adult book - sort of Twilight meets X-men. But not vampires. I have a few friends reading it now to give me opinions.
I got a stress fracture in the bottom of my foot from doing the "Insanity" workout. I had to stop all exercise for 6 weeks. Only just getting back into it. Sigh. Managed to gain 10 pounds while I wasn't exercising. Big sigh.
Robbie managed to get in a decent amount of skiing this winter. And we took the kids sledding twice. I think Owen likes building snowmen more than skiing.
Abby Updates
Abby is walking! Yes. She took her first steps right before she turned 11 months. And within a week was full on walking. Her favorite thing to do is to walk around holding a toy (any toy - but at least one) and babble in baby talk. Non-stop walking/talking. She'll talk to herself or to you if she catches you listening. She definitely has her own personality. No fear in general - happy to go head first off slides or talk to any passing stranger. If she does get scared she freezes, like she can't move, and starts shaking. I've only seen her do this on the swingset. Everything else - no fear. She also definitely has her own opinions on things. And she'll tell you when she is not happy with a decision. But in general she is a smiling giggly girl and a joy. I can't believe she turns a year old in just a few weeks!
Owen Updates
Owen UpdatesSometimes we think Owen is coming out of the terrible twos and then he regresses. Same with the daddy's boy complex. Sometimes he lets Mommy do all sorts of stuff. And then sometimes, like this week, I'm not allowed to even hug him goodbye. Just this weekend we changed his bed from toddler bed into the full bed that it transforms into. It is SUPER tall. Much higher than our own bed. He's never rolled out of bed, but we got guard rails just in case. Cause it's so tall. He seems to like the new bed. He continues to be quite a talker. And is constantly amazing us with his powers of logic and observation. I've put some Owenisms below.
He is also becoming a big of a bossy boots. The teachers say that at school when they tell the class something new, all the kids turn to Owen for confirmation... cause Owen knows everything. He knows his ABCs and is getting very good - thanks to Leap Frog Letter Factory - at recognizing the letters on sight and saying the sounds of the letters. He LOVES his Cars figures and is always making them crash and zoom around - with sound effects of course. Every day is an adventure - usually a hilarious one - with Owen.
Owenisms...Owen: So-and-so is a bad friend.
Mom: We don't call people names Owen.
Owen: Well so-and-so is their name, and we call them that.
Mom: We don't call people bad.
Owen: We call the big bad wolf bad.
Mom: You wouldn't want someone to call you bad would you?
Owen: Pause to think.... So-and-so makes sad choices.
Mom: They might make sad choices sometimes. But so do you sometimes.
Owen: No I don't. I'm one of the good guys.
Of course we then had a long conversation about good friends/bad friends, name calling, and telling an adult if someone is hurting you.
Owen: Mommy, Abby used to be in your tummy.
Mom: That's right! And YOU used to be in my tummy too.
Owen: No. I was in Daddy's tummy.
Waking up after his first night in the bigger bed... "I had a really good sleep."
Getting him up one morning... "I was playing with RPM sof-t-ly."
He gets one toy in bed with him, but he loses it if we can hear him playing with it.
Owen is constantly correcting us...
"It's not a car, it's a minivan."
"It's not a truck, it's a backhoe loader."
"It's not a tool, it's a screw driver."
"It's not just a truck, it's a diesel truck."
He bumped his elbow and was talking about his "owie."
Mom: Do you want me to kiss it better?
Owen: No. It'll heal.
At school Miss Jennaye replaced the classroom clock while this kids were napping. You know how crazy kids classrooms are with stuff all over the walls. Shortly after waking up Owen said, "Miss Jennaye, that's a different clock. It's white and the other one was black."
When I went in to get him up one morning, he was sitting up and said in the most disappointed voice...
Owen: Daddy's not a firefighter.
Mom: No, he's not a firefighter.
Owen: What will we do when there's a fire? We could get burned.
Of course we had a conversation about fire safety then.
Goodness what serious conversations... fire, how to deal with bullys... I thought we'd hit these a little later on in life. Definitely was not prepared to explain these concepts to a 2 year old. Sheesh!
While we had been training for that, we had run a few times with Anna Hamlin (another friend who works with me and April) who was training to do the full 1/2 marathon. After the 4 Bridges, Anna suggested that we run the CIM (California International Marathon) together as a relay. We entered as the "Hot Mamas" team. :)
Sunday was the race. It started in Folsom and ended at the Capital building in downtown Sacramento. We had a few points of drama - I managed to leave the chip at home and forget the gate remote so I couldn't get back in to get it at 5:30am. Luckily I've done enough races to know they'd have spares at the start. The other girls got to deal with major traffic issues getting to the starts of their legs. It was also very cold - 32 degrees when I started. Luckily the snow held off until the next day - or it would have been miserable (see below for a picture of the snow that fell at our house on Monday).
I was very happy with how my leg went (I was the first leg). I did 6 miles and my goal was just to run the entire thing without stopping - regardless of time. In training I'd been averaging super-slow 13 to 14 minute miles. So I was thrilled to average an 11 minute mile! (Yes it's mostly down hill.) I did the full 6 miles in 1 hour 6 minutes and didn't stop once! Yay me!!! The other girls did awesome as well. Once you take out the 15 minutes it took me to work up to the starting line and some timing issues exchanging the chip, we all averaged about an 11 minute mile and no injuries!!
Happy Thanksgiving Friends and Family!
Thanksgiving Day we spent at my grandmother, Nana's house. She was celebrating her 90th birthday and ALL of my Mom's side of the family came to celebrate with her. It's the first time all of us have been together since I was 14 (so almost 20 years). We've been together in various ways, but never all of us. It was a huge gathering as between marriage and kids we've added to the family over the years. 32 people stuffed into the house. :) We also got together the next day for lunch and a birthday cake for Nana. It was so wonderful to see everyone! I only wish I could have spent a lot more time talking to each person.
4 generations of women (Paulla Beard, Rita Thompson, Kristen Gehbauer, Abigail Gehbauer)
The weekend before Halloween, Owen helped Robbie carve a pumpkin. This is our first pumpkin not only as a family - but since Robbie and I have been married. This is the first year that we figured Owen would be interested - and he was for about 30 minutes. He helped carve out the top and scoop out the seeds. When he saw inside the pumpkin his first reaction was, "Candy!"
That same weekend we got together with our friends the Gulbrandsens and the Geroys. Miki and April were on maternity leave with me and we've been taking pictures of our three girls together at different stages. So we wanted pictures of the three of them in the Halloween costumes (in the first pic below, Addison is a monkey, Abigail is a ladybug, and Kate is a kitty cat). Too cute. We also got pictures with the older kids (Owen is Elvis, Grace is Cinderella, and Sam is a 50's girl) and even some with the parents (no costumes for us)!
Owen continues to be a combination of amazingly adorable and aggravating. He's doing the typical 2 year old thing - tantrums here and there, pushing buttons, testing boundaries. But he's also really sweet, displays great manners, can be very snuggly, and is very funny. He's still daddy's boy (will tell me to get up off the couch next to him so that Robbie can sit down instead). We start potty training officially right after Thanksgiving. So fingers crossed on that one. Owen had swine flu this month. It was pretty odd. He woke up from a nap one Saturday with a 102 fever. By the time we hit the urgent care and the pharmacy, it was down to 99 (with no medication). By Monday he'd been on tamaflu and without fever for more than 24 hours so he was in school all week. Fine over that weekend. And then on the next Monday fever fack up to 102 and out of school all week. He was quite a trooper - you'd never know he was sick to watch him. His favorite things lately - Little Ensteins (especially episodes with Melody), the green motorcycle, dinobites (he won't eat anything else), and Mr. Potato Head's glasses.
Abigail is 6 months old - can you believe it?!?! Time flies even faster with the second kid. Just this week she has been up on all fours and rocking back and forth. I'm guessing she'll be crawling by Thanksgiving time. She doesn't like to sit up - would rather practice her crawling. She still growls like a little bear (although probably louder than a bear - at the grocery store the other day I was two aisles from Robbie and could hear her quite clearly. She has gone on formula strike - would rather eat the solid food instead. But she's growing steadily. She got through her 6 month appointment with flying colors. Although she did find a new decible level when they gave her the shots. Her stats are:
Owenisms...
We now have our traditional orchards that we always go to. They have lots of great food. Of course we have to have various apple related things, and then there's the BBQ. For the kids there's a petting zoo, hay rides, a pond, pony rides, tractors, and picturesque pumpkin patches for pictures. Every year we take Owen (and now Abby) and get pictures in the Halloween gear. This year Owen is Elvis and Abby is a ladybug. Owen picked his own costume this year. We showed him 5 costumes and he decided which one - he picked it for the guitar.
This year we went with Ariel, Damon, and their daughter Alex, and with Tom, Dana, and their daughter Danika. The weather was gorgeous - blue skies and low-to-mid-70s. Owen did the hay ride. And both Owen and Alex did the pony ride. Danika got her face painted. Abby was very well behaved. The adults chased the kids all around and enjoyed the 
