WOAH...

Wow. I'm an awful blogger. I just took a second to look back at this blog, and the last post was from June! And we were in TEXAS! It's like looking back on an old yearbook... Oliver's hair was SUPER short, it was during the week or so when Emma would let me put ponies in her hair, and I was pregnant!! Since then, we have had our precious baby Sawyer, spent a couple of months in Utah, then moved on back home to Boston for Jeff's last year of Law School. Jeff has accepted a job at a great law firm in Austin, Texas - where we will be moving a few months after Jeff graduates from Harvard in the spring.

Although life is a little more chaotic, I am loving life with three kids. I am trying to just chill out with the small stuff, and have a happy house. I know that the kids feed off of my mood, and the days when I make a serious effort to just be calm and happy, I don't get overwhelmed, and the kids are super happy too. I'm reaching my "zen" place with 3. How funny.

Zilker Park

Ollie and Em were begging to go to the playground today, and even though it was 100 degrees, off we headed to Zilker Park. To my surprise there were quite a few kids there - thank goodness it was cooler in the shade! I had my "big dawg" (camera) with me, and decided to take advantage of my super adorable babes having fun. Turned out though, that Emma spent the whole time sitting on a stoop pulling little rocks out of her shoes (hence the very "Emma" super pout picture!)

This morning was spent doing a few errands, which included a stop at "kid to kid" consignment store, which my kids LOVE. (toys to play with while I peruse.) Emma and Ollie are constantly asking to go "to kid to kid." I picked up one or two adorable little pieces for baby-on-the-way Sawyer, as well as an irresistible item for Emma. It is a mini-version of the "Moby" (baby carrying) wrap that I picked up on craigslist for myself the other day. I will have to devote another post entirely to Emma's "Goodwill store baby", but this wrap was perfect for her. Both she and Oliver were totally into it tonight. I'll include a few snapshots since it was so incredibly cute to see them toting babies around!

xoxo

San Antonio

We have had so much fun this week! We have gone on an Austin Duck Tour around the city, ate some fabulous lunch at the Hula Hut, and taken a trip to San Antonio (about an hour from Austin.) We visited the historic Alamo, strolled down San Antonio's beautiful River Walk, and let the kids let loose at the Children's Museum. Here's a bunch of pics...

Austin, Texas!!

After 2 1/2 days of pretty much non-stop driving, we made it safely to Austin on Saturday night. My Mom and Ray had stayed in Boston for a couple of extra days, and then flew in with Ollie and Em on Sunday morning. I can't believe how much I missed my babes over just a couple of days, but am so glad that they didn't have to make the grueling drive with us.
We are so excited to be back in Austin! It is a lot cooler than it was when we arrived this time last year. (It's in the mid-upper 80's as opposed to 100 degrees.) Such beautiful, sunny weather. We have rented a cute little apartment in Clarksville, an area of downtown Austin, which we LOVE! I love this area of town, and we're excited to be scoping out a part of town which we would potentially love to live. It's going to be such a fun summer!

Here are a couple of pics of Ollie and Em eating watermelon out on our Austin deck. Yay! It's summer time!

Dead car, wild turkeys, farm

Yesterday was glorious weather, and kind of a weird day. It took us a while to get out of the house, with big plans for taking the kids to Drumlin farm in Lincoln. We got out to the car, and the doors wouldn't unlock with my key clicker thing. "Uh-oh. What is going on?" Answer: Ollie clicking on the light above his seat & not turning it off = dead battery. Yippee. Happy Saturday. We finally were able to get our landlord to jump the car. One problemo. The anti-theft alarm was activated somehow and every time we opened or shut one of the doors the alarm went off for several minutes! We were too scared to turn the car off, and deactivate the car alarm - for fear that it wouldn't start again.

We promised the kids farm, and so farm it was! We all piled into the car, and set off down Trapelo road with our car alarm blaring. The cop directing traffic at Belmont Car Wash lowered his coffee cup for a second, but probably thought it would be too obvious of a car thief to drive past a cop with the car alarm going and his whole family in the car. At this point I was glad that Jeff is a law student. At least his could talk his way out of this awkward situation, should we be pulled over.

Next weird thing was on the way to Lincoln. Never have we had to pull over to let several wild turkeys cross the road! I was pretty excited. I was even able to pull out my camera in time to snap a few photos. We weren't even at the Farm yet!

Drumlin farm was wonderful. The kids love it there, and it really made me reminiscent of my childhood spending time on my aunts farm. Lincoln is such a gorgeous little town. Plus they have the DeCordova sculpture park that the kids also love. Jeff and I have vowed to do as many fun things around Boston as we can with the kids. We only have a year left here and something tells me it is going to pass too quickly :(

16 weeks and counting

Ok... I was super bad at taking monthly photos while I was expecting Oliver and Emma. In fact, I don't really have any nice maternity photos at all. Slap on the hand for me (considering I'm a photographer!) My goal is to take a monthly photo this time around, since it's most likely our last baby. Here's one from a few days ago at the 16 week mark. We're counting down to May 4th when we find out if it's a boy or girl! Something tells me this pregnancy is going to FLY! Yikes! Due Date is September 26. I'm soooo excited to have a baby at this time of year. Fall is pure perfection in Boston.

A new beginning

Confession time: well, more just stating the obvious. I clearly have been a miserable failure at blogging about my family! I was doing so well - enthusiastically documenting the life of my kids. Now when they look back on Mommy's cyber-journal they'll wonder where I was for 8 months! At least I have a little while to make up a really interesting excuse. Perhaps we were backpacking as a family for 8 months in remote areas of the world that had sketchy internet connections. Or maybe not.

Nevertheless, I have a renewed dedication to being a better blogger. I could give an update, but let's just start with a fresh page.

I wish I could say that we did something really exciting today. In fact, the kids and I just ran a few errands and played outside in the backyard. I tried to bribe them with amazing lollipops in order to sit for a couple of photos for me. Fail. I closed my eyes and wished Emma would snap out of one of her 30 meltdowns. Fail. (consistency and every possible form of reasoning/distraction has also failed.) PLEASE. It has to be a phase. Wow. This is sounding pretty miserable and depressing. That's some kind of comeback.

Honestly, I have the best fam ever. Jeff is almost done his second year at Harvard Law School. Thank heavens I married someone with enough smarts for the both of us! Ollie is a future genius, and Emma is going to defy the odds to be the first 6 foot female pro-gymnast. With that kind of success, I can just sit back, relax and blog...