Memorial Weekend - Part 1

While we don't have a cabin or lake to go to, we have managed to already find some places to keep cool and enjoy the nice weather. On Thursday, Luke and I met an old co-worker, Eleni and her daughter, Summer, at Como Zoo for a few hours. Summer is 5 so she was much more interested in the animals than Luke was but Luke liked the stroller ride and being outside. This was his third time at Como after all, so maybe he already knew everything about the animals! :) We had a great time and after watching Summer enjoy the rides at Como Town, I'm anxious for Luke to be 36 inches tall! The one with the fire trucks that you shoot water at the building while going in circles better be a favorite of Luke's, it's mine already!

With our minuscule grass patch our association calls a "yard", I have decided already that I will be occupying other people's true yards this summer, i.e. my parent's, the Talbot's and the Adams' pool on Fridays with the girls (and Jack and Luke of course). I tend to migrate to my parent's porch almost daily as it is a really comfortable place to be outside with a breeze but out of the sun for Luke. I expect this summer to be a pale one since he shouldn't be in the sun. Maybe I'll have to find one of those hats with an umbrella on it for Luke to wear to keep him out of the sun! Thankfully, my aunt Connie lent my mom an Exer Saucer for Luke to use at her house so he can play. Once Kelene's new little boy arrives, it will go back to the Adams' house! And by then, I'm sure there will be plenty other toys to pass back and forth to share.

I stopped by the Talbot's house today and much to my surprise, they have their pool opened already and swim-ready! Unfortunately, we did not have our suits, but that didn't stop us from getting our feet and legs wet! Here is Luke getting in the pool for the first time, but more certainly not the last time! :)

Oh, and those are the ever-powerful synchro legs of my cousin, Meghan. See A Few Thoughts. In fact, Meghan had her state meet on Thursday and Friday and got 4th place for her duet and trio, 2nd in her team, and Stillwater placed 2nd overall! She did awesome!!

Luke wasn't digging the hat but he LOVED kicking his legs and splashing in the water. He kept trying to sit down to play too. Meghan, also known as Luke's personal swim instructor, said she has only had one or two other babies in her Water Babies swim classes like the water as much as Luke did. WHEW! We can only hope now he takes after my awesome swimming skills instead of Jamie's doggy paddling skills. Jamie's better standing on logs in the water. I'm pretty sure we'll be stopping by (or secreting living in the Talbot's basement) real soon with some Little Swimmer's swimming diapers, swim trunks, SPF 200 and our camera! For the record, I did warn you, Peggy! :)

While it looks like we both just woke up from a nap, only Luke did. Meghan needs to look through the camera screen first! ;) Just kidding, Meghan.

Tomorrow is a big day. Luke is FINALLY getting baptized!!!!! We have our linens pressed and ready to be spit up on, but hopefully not. It should be a really nice service. We are baptizing him at St. Michael's under the beautiful wooden baptismal fountain. Fr. Valit is baptizing him with Abbey, Jamie's sister being his Godmother and my brother Steve as his Godfather. I never realized how fun it was to say in a Darth Vader voice, "Luuuuuke, Steve is your Gooooodfaaaatherrrr" until I asked him to be it. We will hopefully have some nice pictures of that event to post too.

But before the big baptism, we are going to watch our friend, Pete Hoyem, run the Stillwater Marathon tomorrow morning as the defending champion from last year. Pete coaches track with Jamie and is a math teacher at Stillwater High School. While I am confident I will never run a full marathon, running the half marathon in Carlsbad, CA 2 1/2 years ago was tough enough for me, I know how great it is to have people cheer for you as you are running and pushing your body to the limits - thankfully everyone's limits are different and mine are much shorter than Pete's!

We hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend and remember to say a little prayer in thanks for all that the service men and women have done for us!

A few thoughts

While I was thinking about what would be a clever topic to write about, I decided I would rather just write about people and things that brings light to my day.

My cousin, Meghan. She is a junior in high school which I still cannot not believe and is an absolutely all-star. She is extremely intelligent, caring, genuine and a great athlete like her mother. Meghan is in synchronized swimming and has been since she was a little girl and competed in sections this weekend. While I know from personal experience, many people do not believe that synchro is a sport, but let's see you jump in a pool, hold your breath for over 30 seconds at a time, multiple times, during a 4 minute song while hanging upside down with your legs gracefully twisting and pointing in the air all while supported by your arms moving back and forth. Anyway, Meghan placed first in her team and trio, second in her duet and fourth in figures!!! That is so cool! I am very proud of her with all the hard work she has put into it.

Green grass. I haven't decided if my new love for vibrant green grass is because the lack-there-of in my 5x10 foot yard or if I truly love freshly cut, can still see the lines from the mower, bright Ireland emerald green grass. I take care of my aunt and uncle's home while they enjoy rocks and their green golf course in AZ during the winter and I mowed with their riding mower a few weeks ago and fell in love. While my lines are a work in progress, I did improve from the first mowing on the second and enjoyed the simplicity of solitude in the outdoors. It didn't hurt it was 75 and sunny too.

Puppies. While this is a given, they are awesome! My puppies technically aren't puppies anymore as they are 4 1/2 years old, but they still look like it. I can be gone for 1 minute to run and get the mail or 8 hours during the day, and I get the same, "OH MY GOSH YOU'RE HOME. YIPPEE!! YIPPEE!! BARK BARK BARK. I MISSED YOU SO MUCH" greeting every time. Talk about unconditional love. They forget within minutes if you scolded them to stop licking Luke and they just want your love. What more could one ask for?!?

Naps and puppies all in one.

Naps. This may not be something I am exactly passionate about, I do enjoy them and think they should become part of our daily routine. Ten minutes or 2 1/2 hours, I think they are all great. I am trying to take more as Luke does because...why not?!? So, since he has been sleeping for 30 minutes already, I'm going to join him and find myself a nice spot on the couch. How much do you want to bet he will wake up within three minutes of me falling asleep??

Happy Sunday!!

Speechless in Stillwater

If you know me (please know me or there is very little reason to read this blog), you will know that I like to talk. Since I came down with a bugger of a bug, I have lost my voice today. Whispering feels okay but talking hurts. And Jamie is annoying when he keeps saying, "What? I can't hear you" when I whisper, so I guess I will just have to talk on my blog. I hope your ears, or eyes I suppose, are ready!

What I love about Stillwater. I know, here we go right? I've only lived outside of Stillwater during college, and even then I was in a Minnesotan city, so what do I love? Well, let me tell you.

Tonight we went for dinner at Meister's. Red and black carpet on the walls, odd train collectibles, ketchup containers with more germs on them than I want to think about, a life-time waitress named Dar, a cook who wears a shirt with Jamie on the back or a lumberjack shirt EVERY TIME I see him, and grease. Sounds like a good joint to me! We don't go to Meister's too often but I love the small place, funny atmosphere, friendly folks (yes folks, not people), and good food to quench that grease craving. Plus, the people watching is good. In the 8 or so booths they have, I recognized two people as Club Tara regulars and one of them was drinking wine. Who the hell drinks wine at Meister's?? Meister's is known for their 60 cent Grain Belt Premiums, now a dollar or so since the special ended two years ago and dollar Hamm's. Frankly, you would not catch me drinking them Hamm's, but the Premium? Yes please! And if this person is such a wine connoisseur, shouldn't they know that there is not a single Merlot, Cab, Chardonnay or Pinot that goes with Meister Burgers?? Plus, not accepting credit cards but only cash or check? I think that says it all.

Now let's travel back in time to Vittorio's. They went out of business years ago (15 or so?) but we started to frequent the new joint, well new to us, Luna Rosa, because my brother-in-law started bar tending and my friend's fiance became their new general manager. Last night they had a VIP party for tasting of their new menu. While we really enjoyed tasting lots of good food, my brother and I had a hard time not thinking back to good ol' deep fried cappalletti and their delicious pizza. For our birthdays, my parents would let us choose where we wanted to go out for dinner and I recall choosing Vittorio's more often than not. Thankfully, Mama Maria's in North Hudson serves cappalletti but it isn't the same.

The Oasis, or as the yellow pages knows it, the River Oasis, is the local joint to a t. I made Jamie go with me there for breakfast many a times while I was pregnant and I can't tell you how often the regulars at the counter (a term we used at Joseph's too) would stare at us. I'm sure they weren't looking at the large belly and wondering, "Oh, I wonder when she is due," but rather, "Who are these city folk coming to our joint?!?" Well if only they knew my father frequents there many times a week. Somehow, he managed to leave the Oasis at the exact same time every morning to pick me up at the house at precisely 7:13am while I was in late elementary school through junior high. While I understand he could just look at the clock and say, "Time to go!", I wonder if they conversation about the time the nun slapped Jimmy's hand with a ruler really happened was being told over and over again and he was just able to flee. Either way, I could always count on my dad to pick me up at 7:13am for school every day. And even when he traveled to Ireland with my mom and grandparent's, he called me at my cousin's house right at that moment too. What a good dad. I will never forget the smell that would radiate out of that place and into my dad's clothes. Back when you could smoke in restaurants, it was a combination of smoke, coffee, old men, and grease. Mmmmm, sounds delicious, right? I asked my dad on our one mile car trip to school, what he would eat for breakfast, and he would reply, just coffee. He would eat a few bowls of Cocoa Krispies at home, then go there for the social part. Seemed dumb to me, I would have rather slept later and smelled fresh for the day.

My grandpa, who has seen many parts of the world through the military, calls Stillwater, God's Country. While I disagreed with him years back because I love the ocean and have so many places I want to see, I have come to 99% agree with him. While I lost some recognition in Stillwater losing the name, O'Brien, "Oh, are you Jimmy's daughter?" "Uh no, granddaughter." How old do you think he is or I am? Geez. Someone missed a few math courses. I certainly believe the small town charm and friendly people are still here in our  town - even if it takes over ten minutes to get from my house to work in rush hour.

Maybe in a later posting I will mention some other spots that make me smile.

And what is a posting without mentioning my little man, Luke! Here he is eating his rice cereal and trying to feed himself. He recently became very interested in holding the bottle himself, but the spoon surprised me.

And after eating...

This was the first, of many, times I let him make a mess while eating. Pick your battles right??

He is a great eater (see cheeks and chin like Great-Grandpa O'Brien) and always finishes the bottle and cereal, even if his head is bobbing in between bites. Let's hope that continues when he actually starts to eat food, not powdered "rice".

I forgot to post a picture of all of us on Mother's Day. Luke wasn't having it and Grandma missed the opportunity, but this is what we got! (Maybe this photo was the camera's way of payback to Grandma for all the pictures she gave to us and framed when we look terrible in them and no one is looking at the camera. Hmmm, I wonder.)

I should mention, the button Grandma is wearing say, "Thanks Mom for Life". Well put, button.

Thanks for letting me talk your ears off tonight! It feels great yakking away, even if no one is listening :)

First Mother's Day

As any new mom would expect, my first Mother's Day was wonderful. It started out a little earlier than expected, 5:30am to be exact, with Luke waking up. We go to 7:30 mass on Sunday mornings with Grandma and Grandpa O'Brien and the Talbot's but we normally don't need to get up that early. I guess Luke was sick of sitting in the back of the church with the men (and my dad) and wanted to get there on time to be up front. Well, we made it with plenty of time to spare with his early awakening. We said our quiet hellos to the usual folks who oddly enough watch Luke grow up; Ed Kiolbasa, Sarah Ann Peltier, Lucille Feely and other familiar faces. Luke fell asleep during mass at his usual time as well, the Gospel. I failed to mention that part to Father at breakfast shortly there after. I didn't think that would be a good ice breaker considering we still need to baptize him. But let's not get started on that. He will be baptized and hopefully VERY soon. :)

We hit up Joseph's like usual and saw all my favorite waitresses. I really miss Joseph's, not the serving part especially but the girls are so great to work with. Okay, I miss the pancakes too that I somehow managed to get my hands on in high volume while pregnant. Give me a break, Luke was hungry!!

After a few errands and getting lots of watermelon and fruit cut up for the parties today, we went to Jamie's parent's house. It was great seeing all the happy mom's on such a beautiful day. Luke managed to sleep through most of the party since I stuffed him full of rice cereal shortly before getting there. After the Fischer's, we went to my brother and sister-in-law's house for another dinner. It's a good thing the Fischer's get-together was at lunch time, two dinners is always tough when we eat the first meal like we aren't going to have access to food for at least 14 hours.

All in all it was a great day spent with family and Luke. Oh, I forgot to mention. Jamie gave me a very unconventional Mother's Day gift. I don't have it yet but let's just say it's swimming at the fish store still. He bought me a Blonde Naso Tang for our fish tank! We have a 55 gallon fish tank set up with salt water and really enjoy it. Thankfully that is the only tank in the house now (used to have a 125 gallon and a 20 gallon too). We had a "father nature" disaster (Jamie messed up and killed everything) and now we are slowly acquiring new fish to watch. Yes, I can hear you now. Fish. BORING. Well, I would agree to some extent but some fish really do seem to have a personality and the Blonde Naso Tangs in particular do, plus they're so cute! Oh, and Luke likes staring at the tank, it calms him down, so we're keeping it.

So from my understanding, we will be getting this new fish in a week or so! Currently in the tank, we have one clown fish (Nemo, the fish that won't die-it's survived more than one would imagine), a yellow tang and a blue hippo tang (Dori). We technically had two clown fish but let's just say, the one we found yesterday next to the tank on the floor looked like someone put it in a food dehydrator. The poor bastard jumped out and got crispy.

With my first Mother's Day coming to an end, Jamie and I Red Boxed, yes, I turned that into a verb, The Blind Side and are going to watch that. I saw it in the theater with my mom and really liked it, so we're giving that a spin. I hope all moms to-be, grandmas, and great-grandmas had a wonderful Mother's Day!

I have it made

So here I am. Sitting at my computer with my little drool monster sitting on my lap watching me type. I have no idea how long he will last staring at the screen, but I hope for a few more sentences. Drool. Now that is something I would rather not talk about but frankly, I am so amazed how one child can allow so much liquid to fall from his mouth while not seeming to have a care in the world about it. I personally would hate it if my shirt was soaked from my own slobber but maybe that is something we learn to hate as we get older.

Here are a few photos from last night. Luke was soooo smiley and giggly! And the one with Jack and Dino cracks me up, look at Luke's face!

As I was saying, I have it made. Going back in time, being laid off two years ago was a big slap in the face to me- as many of you know what it feels like. At the time, I couldn't believe that the company where I put so much into let me go. While of course it was for "financial reasons", I'm sure it was much more than that but it is water under the bridge now. I am SO happy to not be there anymore. I would hate to leave Luke at daycare and miss watching him grown up. So with my BA in Marketing with a minor in Psychology, I feel like I am the luckiest mom in the world to stay at home with him. I am able to spend every day (and night of course) with my little man. I serve the widest assortment of people (those who complain that spending $18 on the most delicious dinner they will ever try and those willing to throw back a lobster and filet for $75) their dinner and drinks 3 or 4 nights a week while only missing a few waking hours of Luke's day. I would not give anything to go back to work full-time and miss the giggles, diapers, smiles, drool and everything else baby. Even with Jamie traveling now and barely ever home, it is not as hard as I thought it would be. Luke sleeps through the night with the occasional cries from kicking off his blanket and twisting around in his crib and is the best baby 99% of the time during the day. As the weather warms up, we can go on walks more too. And on a different note...


We have had three showings on our town home in the last 10 days! Unfortunately none of them are repeats but at least it's being seen. The funny thing is, my grandma gave us a St. Joseph statue mid-December after having our house on the market since May 2009. The story of St. Joseph, if you don't know, is that you are supposed to place the statue in the ground and your house will sell. Well it hasn't sold yet, but we're on our way and I am still praying to St. Joseph.

The day I delivered Luke (the 18th) we got our first call. I did not put the statue in the ground as it was frozen but it was in our back hall hanging on the coat rack. That's close enough to being buried right under all my jackets?? Then nothing for a few months. Two weekends ago, I buried it and we got a call. Then another call and now the showing we had today. I am trying not to give my hopes up but one of these times I hope we get an offer.

While I love having a clean house and things picked up, it is near impossible to keep it in "showing" condition all the time. Plus our storage is so limited to put things away all the time, storing in our cars gets real old. Thankfully Jamie's mom and my mom came over before the showing a couple of weeks ago and we really cleaned the place up so maintenance is more what I'm doing now. :)  So with all that being said, send positive house-selling-thoughts our way! We are ready to move onto the next place with a yard larger than our dining room table for the dogs and Luke!

Time to bring Luke to Grandma and Grandpa O'Brien's house while I go to work for a few hours! Have a great night. Oh! If you haven't seen the show Modern Family on ABC yet, check it out tonight. I absolutely love it. I think it's on at 8 :)

4 1/2 months already!

Well, I have been meaning to create a blog for quite some time and am now just getting to it. I can't blame my tardiness on being a new mom, shopping at Target, bathing the little man or attempting to nap when he does- which is much harder than I thought it would be. I guess he is finally somewhat on a schedule and that allows me to actually spend some time on the computer to share our lives with you; however uninteresting it may be.

I do have to say though, this is much easier than I thought it would be. Granted my content is weak, I seem to be typing right along!

Jamie returns from his second lumberjack show of the season in a few hours from Fort Worth, TX. I have been a single mom (with lots of visits to Grandma O'Brien's house) since Thursday morning and I have to say it went well. I started to feed Luke rice cereal at the end of last week and he ate it with no problems. That is until Sunday when he was, let's say, a little clogged up. After a few hours being fussy at my parent's house for dinner, we came home, gave him a bath and cuddled on the couch as I watched my Sunday night shows and he fell asleep. He 'cleared out' later that night and has been great since. Whew! I got a little taste of what it's like to have a sick child though and I loved it. I didn't love that they hurt and were uncomfortable, but I loved cuddling and soothing him again. It seems they grow before our eyes and I realized I have not had him fall asleep in my arms for weeks as I did not want him to get used to that. Since he is a great baby at falling asleep on his own with no fuss, we will be cuddling more :)

Today was a great day with Luke. Michelle and Taylor Rick had our usual Monday play dates together. Taylor is 13 months old and SOOOO cute! She has the prettiest blue eyes and a really sweet smile. Michelle and I have been friends longer than I can remember so it's fun to have our kids play together now - even if Luke just watches Taylor play with the dogs and his toys. He'll get there! I struggle to get a good photo of them but here's an attempt. I'll work on it next week to get a better one.

Luke and I spent the rest of the day making funny noises and talking to each other. He has found his voice and really enjoys squealing! He has been cooing for a while but now we have moved into making sounds and I love it! It's amazing how the stupider we sound as adults, the babies love it that much more. I try to avoid baby talk but I swear it just happens.

Here are a few photos from today that I captured of the little man, Luke.

The photo of Luke and me is for all of you who ask where he got his reddish hair color from. To be honest, I did not realize that it is so similar until this photo!

Hope you enjoyed reading about our day! Good night!