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.

Hot and humid

I guess we're all trying to beat the heat these days. We've been going for fairly regular swims at our local pool. Owen is getting more and more enthusiastic about being in the water - he loves to sort of plop/fall off the pool edge into waiting arms (especially his Daddy's arms), and we even got him to tolerate some "swimmies" (those arm floats you have to blow up) over the weekend.
Another way to stay cool is to just keep clothing to a minimum.....


We've been eating some delicious peaches and good corn on the cob from local farm stands; we tried to show Owen how to hold the corn in both hands, but he much preferred the "knaw on one end" approach.
We're headed up to Michigan's Upper Peninsula next week, hoping to escape to cooler and less humid conditions. This will be Owen's 7th round-trip plane ride, and his last as an official 'lap' baby before his second birthday in September. Once Baby Girl Bacheler arrives in October, I doubt we'll be flying anywhere for a while!

Parting video: our musical prodigy

Aunt Rosie visits

We had a full house over the 4th of July weekend, with Owen's Aunt Rosie down from DC, and our good friends Mara and Kelly also visiting for a few days. Owen reveled in all the extra attention and positive reinforcement to his steadily-improving walking abilities. Aunt Rosie brought Owen many nice gifts, the most popular of which was a giant beachball with sprinkler capabilities. We had a lot of fun with it, both inside and out.



On the 4th, Nate and Owen and I (with houseguests all gone by this point) headed over to Pivers Island to hang with many of our other friends and their kids. We couldn't stay out late enough to actually see the fireworks (which started at 9:15pm), but we all enjoyed some fun socializing, a great grassy lawn on which to practice walking, homemade ice-cream from an antique churn, and lots of other tasty treats, including Rosie's left-over sour cherries (which were a big hit, so thanks for leaving them, Rosie!).

Yoga baby

In his daily practice to get up and walk, Owen has come to enjoy the Down Dog yoga position quite a bit. Here are a few examples:

(see our good friend Kelly in the video, in town for a few weeks from Portland OR)

Slow and steady

Just finished up a fun and busy week with the Bacheler clan visiting from Michigan (Nate's Mom, Dad, Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill). Thankfully, they brought with them a few rain showers - much needed in these parts. Activities included kayaking, fishing (both inshore and offshore), eating, forays to the Big Rock Blue Marlin tournament, playing with Owen, a visit to the Maritime Museum and the Aquarium, some beach time, house projects and yard work, a free concert by the Unknown Tongues, and lots of fun and relaxation. I'm sure photos will follow soon on Facebook or via email....

A big week!

Lots of fun and accomplishments to report on in the past seven days:

Last Saturday morning, we enjoyed some beach time at a nice little park we found right on Bogue Sound. Owen is still a bit unnerved by the sound of ocean surf, so sound-side swimming and sand playing are more his style....


On Sunday, our good friends Jacqui and Brian and Porter Degan came over so that Porter could show Owen his new chest scars - the result of very successful open-heart surgery he had only two and a half weeks prior, to repair congenital heart defects. It's nothing short of amazing to see this rosy-cheeked, happy, chill little dude acting so completely normal after what he's been through. And now that Porter's heart is working at full capacity, his parents report that his cries have definitely increased in volume!


While we were all sitting around the living room, Owen was standing (balancing on his own) next to me, but clearly wanted to be closer to his Dad, so all of a sudden he took a couple of unassisted, lurching steps forward - what a baby-book moment, and nice to have so many witnesses around to see it!!! Since then, Owen's confidence and abilities have slowly but steadily improved. Here's some video proof of his ambulation....


Most who follow this blog probably already know that we're expecting Baby #2 in October. Here's a picture of my growing baby-bump. Owen doesn't have any idea how much his life will change in a few short months, but we're hoping he's adaptable.


Final preparations are underway for house guests who'll be arriving tomorrow night - Grandma Pam, Papa Dusty, and Great Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill will drive down from Michigan for a week-long vacation. We're looking forward to having a full house and entertaining them at the coast for a week.

Already June!

Wow, hard for me to believe it's already June. May was a busy month in our household - Nate departed on a work-related research cruise on the 16th and returned home on the 29th. Owen and I went to visit Nannie and Grandpa Daley in RI for a week while Nate was gone. We had a great time, despite the cold and rainy weather that seemed to hang around almost our entire visit. Owen's Aunt Steffy, Uncle Joe and Aunt Lena also made the trip up from NYC to visit their favorite nephew. Owen was keen to play games and interact with relatives on his terms, but if someone moved in to pick him up or even looked at him wrong, watch out! We're looking forward to the days when he's more outgoing with people other than his parents... (photos are posted to Facebook).

Upon our return to NC, a lingering cold Owen had been battling for days seemed to get even worse and a trip to the doctors explained why - double ear infections. Poor guy. But we're nearing the end of a round of Amoxicillin and Owen is clearly loving having his beloved Daddy back home again....

Lately, we've been eating quite a bit from our garden: carrots, onions, lettuce, peas, beans, and we have a few broccoli heads just about ready for harvest. Within a week, our first red cherry tomatoes will also be ready. Owen has enjoyed some of the veggies - here he is with his first garden-fresh green bean.


In the 90 degree weather we've been having lately, we've spent a lot of outdoor time in the kiddie pool and Owen loves it. Now we need to get him ready for the ocean water again...


Parting video - walking practice continues, and Owen seems to be much more interested in his 'push-walker' as of late, which we take as a good sign!

May Days

We dog-sat for Maple, our friends Brian and Jacqui's loveable yellow lab, for the better part of the past week while they were away at a family wedding. Owen loved having Maple around, and Maple tolerated his poking her eyes and pulling her jowls and batting her nose, without complaint. Here are a few pictures of the boy with his (temporary) dog.



These days, Owen seems averse to eating many of his vegetables, unless they're pureed in something else, or cloaked in a delicious yogurt bath. Here he demonstrates his love of strawberry-pea-yogurt.

Yesterday (Owen's 20 month birthday, by the way), our little musician started practicing for his future as a harmonica player. Video proof:



Parting shot: Our garden is coming along nicely.