The Wait is Over!

The story unfolded exactly like we knew it would...Jer had been on vacation for a week in anticipation of Meredith going into labor and her water broke the night before he had to be back at work. :-) We got the frantic phone call at 9:15pm Friday night, Mert's water broke and they were rushing to the hospital. My first thought was to run to the car and start driving, but then I remembered that I was the mother of a two year old who was soundly asleep at the time. Oops! I was forced to attempt sleep that night and wait for morning to hit the road. Colin and I had to go alone Saturday morning while Jer worked and we made record time arriving at her hospital room by 11:00am. Just as I knew would be the case, she is STUNNING!! Pryce Lucille Bowler was born at 8lb 4 oz with a full head of jet black hair, just like Jackson and my Colin. We birth big babies with a lot of hair in my family. ;-) Mert looked absolutely beautiful and you would NEVER guess that she just had a baby. I seriously don't know how I am related to her. She is healthy and happy and all is well. Jer made it into town separately by 6pm Sunday night, so he got a chance to see Pryce too. I was so glad he was able to pull off the trip...family events don't seem right for me without him around. We spent three days running back and forth to the hospital with Colin in tow, which went pretty well considering! He had Jackson to play with and they have certainly gotten louder and more "WWF" style in their play, which does not make for a peaceful hospital room. HA! Cory is so in love with his new little girl and it was so much fun to watch Pryce turn immediately into "Daddy's Girl". The whole weekend was a dream! We all drove home today. Jer goes back to work in the morning and I am going to attempt to get Colin back on a bit of a schedule...we are having major nap trouble at the moment, but I will save that for another post. It is a life changing moment watching your baby sister have her own baby...I love them all so much. I can't wait to get back!!

Colin is in love with Pryce. In fact, he has taken his love for babies to a new level with this one! The overriding thing that I will take away from this weekend is what an incredibly sweet little boy I have. All he could talk about was "Baby Pryce" and every time he saw someone holding her, he climbed over that person to lay his head on her. "Hug Pryce, Mama!" was frequently yelled to me. He counted toes, patted her hair, tried to pat her face, and best of all, he would wrap his arms around her as best he could and lay his head on hers. It was the sweetest thing I have even seen in my life. As we were leaving today, he went into meltdown mode while the whole family tried to take him away from the baby to get him in the car. Once we got on the road, he chanted, "GO SEE BABY PRYCE, MAMA!" at random moments for the whole drive. He is such a blessing in my life and I was reminded of it yet again today...to have a son so special and loving is a gift beyond all gifts!

So the weekend was perfect, the baby is BEYOND perfect and all is well with the world. I will post pictures here as soon as I get them onto this computer! Also, take a moment to check out my brother-in-law Cory's new blog...I added him to my blog roll at the bottom right of the page. He is so hysterical and it will be so much fun to read all about life with my crazy...er...awesome sister Mert and my wonderful niece and nephew. Take a look! :-)

Still Waiting on a Baby.....

This has been a great week all the way around with one small exception...my sister is keeping my niece hostage inside her womb and refuses to deliver her. At least, that is how I see it. :-) To keep myself occupied instead of "watching the kettle" all week, Colin and I did a lot of last minute running around and having fun. My other (local) sister, Alieson, ended up with days off in the middle of the week, so we got to have a lot of fun with her. Colin could not have been happier about it! We took her to Paradise Pond on Thursday and then had lunch and ice cream afterwards. Maybe you can tell what their favorite part of the day was:

She is so silly and children LOVE her. SERIOUSLY. On Saturday, the three of us went back out for a shopping trip and then took Colin to a bounce house place afterwards. Alieson ended up with a posse of children following her around. It was adorable, and also a bit sad. While my amazing sister was playing with these precious kiddos, their parents were talking on cell phones and reading books in a corner. They never even got up to check on the random adult that their kids had attached themselves to. If I glanced up and saw Colin playing with a random adult that I did not know, I would at least introduce myself! Good lord! She was so sweet and ran all around with them, helping them up and down big slides and letting them lead her all around to "do this one more time!!". She has such a caring and gentle soul and was just pleased as punch to play with all the kids. I was reminded how proud I am to call her my sister. I was also reminded that I am going to make every effort to continue what I already do...get on my hands and knees and play with my child. I know (god, do I know!) how much we could use a few minutes with a book and that catching those minutes while your kids play on their own can give you a break. BUT, I also promise to Colin to be the mom that is bouncing around like a big teenager in the Superman Bounce House, sweating buckets and looking like a dork. Because for as long as it makes him happy, I am that mama! (and Aunt Alie, too....she was serious about those slides!) :-)

Today, Jer and I took Colin to Dallas World Aquarium for a treat. REALLY. BAD. IDEA. We knew it would be a busy weekend, but it was far more chaotic than I could have imagined. We waited in a line that curved all the way around the building just to get in! Once inside, the same crowds were trying to walk through the rain forest and we got utterly stuck. I even started to feel a bit of panic settling in...we were crushed in with hundreds and hundreds of other folks in these small walkways. Colin was quickly not having it, so we ended up slinking past everyone (and all the exhibits!) to get out of the crowd and get some air. After that, things got better and Colin was able to see the penguins, which was the whole reason he got excited to go. SO CUTE!! I really wanted to take this one home, but Jer said no. I can't imagine why having a penguin would be a bad idea... ;-)
It was hard to get many pictures in the throngs of people, but Jer managed this little shot. We were checking out that penguin in all his adorableness. :-)

Colin was devising a plan to get him home with us. It did not go so well. ;-)

As far as the coming week, I have no idea what the plan will be. Jer is on vacation and we are ready to head out when we get the call from Mert. I am so excited to see my niece that I just can't stand it!! I sure hope it is in the next few days! That being said, as each day comes with no signs of labor, we will try to do some impromptu fun stuff around here. It is wonderful having Jer home with us, so we should keep happy and busy...and waiting on that kettle!

The Boys

I am in love with these two pictures of Jackson and Colin. There could not be two more adorable cousins! I caught these pictures with my mom's camera and finally got them downloaded...these are from our June blueberry trip. I adore the action shot most of all! Hysterical!! How much fun will it be when they are grown men to look at that picture!? Such precious little boys.





This one is Colin having a snack at my parents kitchen table. I absolutely adore the look on his face. I can't believe this big boy is the little baby that I gave birth to almost two years ago. His birthday is in one week. Unbelievable!

SLIDE POOL!

Jer is on vacation this week and we have been having a great time! Yesterday we packed in some bouncing at Boomerang's, lunch at Empress of China and a trip to the slide pool after dinner. I was bound and determined to get pictures of Colin coming down this slide...you have never seen a more excited boy! I managed to get a couple of cute ones, but it is really hard to take pictures of people flying down a water slide. Colin continues to have ZERO fear of water. The first time he went down, Jer arched his back and laid all the way down on the slide, thus turning it into a luge. They flew down the slide and both Jer and Colin went all the way under water at the end. I was certain Colin would come out screaming (it was rather scary to watch!) but he just wiped the water out of his eyes and yelled, "MORE!". How cute are these boys?!

Below are a couple of pictures from Boomerang's. The lighting in those bounce houses makes for bad quality pictures, but Colin is adorable none the less. He seems remarkably bigger this week to me...I think he may have hit a growth spurt. He seems slimmer and much taller at the moment. I can't wait for his two year appointment later this month for the official stats. Today has been fun, with the exception of the 100 degree heat. We bought Jackson's birthday present (he is FOUR YEARS OLD today! I love you, sweet nephew!) and had lunch at Five Guys Burgers. It was delicious and Colin loved it so much that he actually stayed in his seat and ate for longer than 30 seconds, which is a miracle. Anytime I finish a meal at the table in the restaurant is cause for celebration. This afternoon we are having a pre-4th of July swim and dinner at Jer's parents house and tomorrow we are heading to my parents for Jackson's party and 4th of July weekend. This is a very busy and happy week!

He Leaves Again

My sweet and incredibly hard working husband left again today...for another month. This is definitely the last time he will have to do this, but I won't sugar coat how hard this is on both of us. We miss each other terribly and I know how much Jer hates leaving me and the little man. I have honestly been avoiding thinking about it, which is why I did not mention it in the blog before now. I sincerely hope that the trip will end up being shorter, but I won't get my hopes too far up. The good news, if there is any, is that I am an old pro at handling all the household stuff by myself and I don't feel as overwhelmed by all the little stuff this time around. When Jer left last time, I was nervous on top of my sadness. I had never taken on all the household duties before and was worried something important would slip through the cracks. But, besides a bit of a dirty house, all was well. So this time, I am just sad. Good news, eh? :-)

We all had lunch on our way to the airport today and we discovered a great new place for the little man. We ate at Souper Salad for the first time ever and it turned out to be a Colin approved location. We had never been to one before (let's face it, it sounds a bit light and healthy for me to pick out) and I was so glad we went. Colin loves little finger foods he can eat varied assortments of and this was his kind of heaven. He ate four kinds of pasta salad, raw tomatoes by the handful, olives, grapes, peaches, cantaloupe, and probably several other things that I forgot. He has interesting taste in foods and likes to try new things, so this was great. Colin is a bit opposite of other toddlers when it comes to eating. I have more trouble when the only options are kids meals...he does not really like french fries, nuggets, or grilled cheese sandwiches. A huge and diverse salad bar is much more his style. His number one favorite snack right now is a dill pickle cut up into bite sized pieces. But don't worry, he also likes a good slice of cheese pizza from time to time. :-)

In other random Colin tidbits, he is totally obsessed with the new "Kai Lan" show on Noggin. She is Chinese and speaks Chinese in the show frequently. I find the whole thing to be a bit grating, but he loves it! He runs through the house yelling, "Kai Lan!!!" when she comes on.

In really AWESOME NEWS, I am going to be an aunt AGAIN!!!!!!!! Meredith and Cory are expecting a baby in September!!!!!!! I am going to have fresh new baby toes to kiss before you know it!! I can't wait!!!!!!

More Wedding Weekend

Well, I only took two pictures with my camera during the entire wedding weekend. We were all so busy and I kept forgetting it! We took the above picture at my parents house after the wedding. We had to come home to get Colin to bed, hence the pj's and Jer missing his tie. Jer was such a trooper all weekend...he was Mr. Mom all the way. I was so busy with being the matron of honor and Jer had baby duty. He stayed home with the little man while we went over to the dinner afterwards. I really missed him, but it did feel good knowing that Colin was well taken care of during all the action. I had in my mind that Colin would have been able to stay awake long enough to at least have dinner with us at the reception and then Jer could have taken him home. That ended up not working...Colin was totally worn out from all the activity by the time we finished the wedding. Colin and Jer watched the wedding mostly from the church lobby and luckily Jer kept him busy and quiet during the ceremony. The rehearsal was the most fun for Colin...everyone was paying him plenty of attention (his favorite thing!) and he got to run wild around the entire church. I will remember him running up and down the pews at his Aunt Meredith's wedding forever. :-)

The wedding was absolutely stunning and Meredith wore my mother's wedding dress. My parents just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary two weeks ago and it was breathtaking to see Meredith in that dress. She looked EXACTLY like my mother...the mirror image of the wedding pictures that I have stared at my entire life. The church was decorated beautifully for Christmas and we had a backdrop of poinsettias and a cathedral ceiling sized Christmas tree decorated in all ivory and gold, which were the exact colors of the wedding. It was awesome. I could not imagine a more perfect weekend for our family!

Wedding Recap

We just got home from Meredith's wedding...this has been a very special day for our family. There will be so many pictures and stories to tell about tonight, but I had to at least check in on the official day before I went to bed. I gained an amazing brother-in-law today and all feels right with the world at the moment. It was a sweet small affair, full of only very close friends and family...even the photographer is one of our BEST family friends, Melissa. It just felt right being surrounded by such love tonight. Jer had Colin duty tonight, so he kind of watched the wedding from afar while taking care of the little man during the ceremony. Despite the logistical issues with little ones, it turned out amazing and I can't wait to share some pics. I am just happy that our family grew today by a very good man. I love you, Cory! Welcome to the family!!