No time to blog

I am learning quickly that the transition from caring for one to two children means that a lot of other activities I used to do are going to have to fall by the wayside (at least for a while). Maintaining a blog is one of them. But don't despair - I've started what I hope will be a more efficient (and perhaps even more enjoyable) way to share glimpses of our daily life and adventures - an on-line Picasa web album: https://picasaweb.google.com/110232902555855157958

I'll add photos to each monthly album as I have time, so check back every week or two to see the latest additions. And maybe someday I'll return to blogging about Life by the Sea. Until then, happy photo viewing from Salinda, Nate, Owen and Tessa

Tessa meets her relatives

I'll keep text to a minimum here and just post some more cute photos of Tessie and Owen. We are all enjoying lots of grandmother time, first with Nannie Mary and now with Grandma Pam and Great Aunt Nancy.

Group self-portrait attempt:



Big brother gives little sister a kiss:

And now a kiss for Nannie:

Tessa Mary

Our baby girl has arrived! Tessa Mary Bacheler made her grand entrance in record time (a mere 20 minutes or so after we got to the hospital!) on Wednesday morning. With such a speedy delivery and a healthy baby, both Tess and I felt good enough to come home from the hospital the very next afternoon around 1pm. A huge thanks to our friend Christine, who watched Owen while we were at the hospital (and even had time to whip up a delicious lasagna for us before she left!).

Owen made a brief visit to meet his little sister in the hospital, and has shown a mix of mild interest or indifference toward the new addition since her arrival home, which is all that we had hoped for. Nannie Mary arrived yesterday around lunch time to help out around the house and Owen is clearly delighting in the extra attention. We are all doing great, watching our baby girl wake up to her new world and adjusting to the new parent-to-kid ratio!

Owen meets Tessa for the first time, in his "Big Brother" t-shirt:

Proud parents getting ready to leave the hospital:

Baby Tess in her going-home outfit:
The family reunion at home:

The final days...

We are still a family of three, but not for long. My expected due date is Tuesday, so we're in a state of readiness for whenever the action begins! Until then, we're trying to stay busy and continue life as normal.

Nate has been using his free time on yard/landscaping projects. Today, he's taken on the task of starting to dig out some recently cut Bradford pear tree stumps, with the help of our uber-energetic friend Paul, who was crazy enough to agree that an afternoon of digging roots and swinging an ax was a fun way to burn some calories. I just have to hope I don't go into labor before Nate's had a chance to recover from his manual labor...

As for Owen, life is pretty good as two-year old. He now eats dinner in his booster seat the dining room table, and is pretty good at drinking out of a regular cup. He enjoys modeling Mommy's clogs and gives plenty of smiles for the camera. You can tell that he knows just the antics that will get a laugh (or a stern warning) from his parents. We're curious to see how he welcomes the new addition, since he is still quite the cuddle-bug/lap-baby. I guess we'll find out soon enough....

Fun weekend

Owen had a couple of extra play buddies around this past weekend when our friends Chris and Leslie, and their two boys (Eli, 2, and Jacob, 9 mo) came down for a visit from Raleigh. Owen and Eli had fun "fishing" in the screened in porch, reading stories, playing with trains, and running around the Aquarium. Jacob did his best to keep up with the older boys using his impressive seal-crawl skills.



Last night, when another friend stopped by, Nate had Owen practicing all the various sounds he can make (e.g., "Owen, what noise does a cow make?"...."mooooooooo"). Nate threw in a new impression for Owen to imitate, that of my various grunts and groans, which I can't seem to avoid when attempting to get up from any seated or prone position these days. Clearly, Owen thinks Dad's impressions of Mom are spot-on:

Two Years Old!

Owen celebrated his second birthday this weekend, and though we have all come down with colds in the past few days, Owen didn't let it slow him down. On Saturday morning (his actual birthday), Owen's favorite sister duo, Rosey and Maddy (along with their crafty mom Kerry), came over with quite the birthday celebration: balloons, donuts, a hand made "2" t-shirt, and a handcrafted picture board on which to hang his favorite photos or works of art. Here is the trio, enjoying their celebratory donuts.

Nate was away on Saturday, fishing on the Outer Banks (he made up for his absence on O's actual birthday by bringing home tons of fresh mahi and yellowfin tuna!), so we celebrated as a family this morning. We decided that instead of birthday cake, we'd do a fun pancake breakfast. Nate fashioned a dog for Owen, which we decorated with whipped cream and blueberries. Owen went for the head first.....



All day long, Owen enjoyed playing with his new birthday loot - wrestling with the balloons, modeling his new t-shirts, playing songs on his new keyboard, reading books, fishing for puzzle pieces, and drawing at his new easel. Aunt Rosie, we'll wait for your visit to let Owen experience Playdough - for now he just enjoys dumping out the contents of the bucket and replacing them again! Thank you everyone for the wonderful gifts, cards, college fund donations, and all the well wishes.

Since turning two, Owen seems to have decided its time to expand his vocabulary. Though his favorite 'word' continues to be "doe-ka", which he repeats again and again to himself all day long (what does it mean, I wonder?), today he said "all done" and "highchair" - at least according to our interpretive skills!

One month to go until Baby Bacheler's due date...

Busy August days

This month has been a busy one....(though Owen still finds time to catch up on his reading).

We spent the first 8 days of August up in the "UP" (Michigan's Upper Peninsula), visiting the Bacheler grandparents and enjoying the cooler temperatures and the joy of sleeping with our windows open. See our Facebook pages for photos from that trip. Here's one more picture, of the family at Tahquamenon Falls State Park:

My parents were waiting here at the house upon our return to NC, so for the second time since he was born (the first being the day he came home from the hospital!) Owen got to see both sets of grandparents in the same day. Grandpa brought and assembled a rocker-table for Owen, just like the one that me and my siblings enjoyed playing on when we were young! We had a great outing to the Aquarium, ate some tasty food out of the garden (fried okra, jalapeno poppers, and my Dad's famous Spanish-style gumbo), and even took in a little of the Beaufort Pirate Invasion.


We said bon voyage to my parents last Saturday morning, grabbed a last-minute lunch of shrimp burgers from the Big Oak Drive-in with Nate's Uncle Jack and his wife Pat, who were down at the beach for the weekend, and got home just in time to welcome our friends Kathy and Paul Conn, along with their uber-adorable little girl Allie, for a quick overnight-stay. What a weekend!

(Kathy and Allie, me and Owen, Jacqui and Porter)

This afternoon, we finally decided that it was time for Owen to get his first haircut - the adorable curls were becoming a bit tangled and long, sometimes resembling quite a mullet hairdo. So while Owen munched happily on some graham crackers, Nate went to town with the scissors. I saved a lock of curl in case they're gone for good, but it looks like he's still got some wave to the remaining hair...we'll see.