Joyous Easter

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead"

- 1 Peter 1:3

SXSW

While the rest of the state is on spring break, Austin gears up to host the sxsw interactive, music, and movie festival. Every year we try seek out a few free showcase concerts of bands that we're interested in, and almost always end up at the SouthBySanJose event held at the San Jose Hotel. We love how family friendly it all is, and are happy to bring the boys along with us. August went to his first concert at six weeks, and this year Otis was initiated at four weeks. It's a fun family tradition that I hope we are able to continue for years to come. 

proud to be Made in Austin

Week Four

Week four was primarily all about survival mode. Kevin began the week with the great stomach ailment of 2013, and I ended the week with it. Thankfully both boys were able to stay entertained enough and are no worse for the wear.

12/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

August: his favorite new hangout.'hide and seek' under the trampoline with the ipad.

Otis: the lounge lizard during bath time

*week 12 of the 52 project

Week 3

Things became a bit chaotic after week 2, if the silence on the blog hasn't made it completely obvious. Our 'routine' as a family of four is finally starting to make a little sense, so hopefully I will be back more frequently. In the meantime, here are a few catch up posts of the past couple of weeks. The most notable items of week three were that Otis had a bit of a head cold, and August had a stomach thing. The beginning of the infamous stomach virus that has claimed one victim in our family every week for the past three weeks. Hopefully it has now moved on...

11/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

August: rarely without bubbles

Otis: tracking mommy's voice

*week 11 of the 52 project

10/52

" A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

August: Constantly asking about the next holiday

Otis: Pacifier assistance

Kite Festival

Zilker Park hosts the nation's oldest, annual Kite Festival the first weekend of every March. We had a hunch that August would be particularly enamored with the colorful sky this year, so we knew we needed to take the short walk down the street to check out the festivities. Kevin was kind enough to pack us all a little picnic to partake under the blanket of sky skimmers. Sure enough, August was more than intrigued with the various flyers zooming over our heads. The sun was shining, the winds were perfect, and the crowds were thick with old-fashioned fun seekers. All in all it was another wonderful afternoon outing for our little family.

Dinosaurs!

Since Otis was born, Kevin and August have enjoyed quite a bit more quality time together. A large portion of this time has included various outings outside of the house, to help break up the attention that baby brother receives. Recently we read that a very realistic, traveling dinosaur puppet show was going to be making a special appearance in Zilker Park. August has only moderately shown an interest in dinosaurs up until this point, but we thought it would at least be funny to see his reaction to some fairly life-sized reptiles. So Kevin grabbed the camera and took him down the street for a special interaction  with a t-rex. As expected, there were tramplings and sheer terror from children in every corner of the exhibit. August was at least smart enough to keep his distance, and hide behind Papa while he cried. We think that we may have successfully bought ourselves a pass out of any potential dinosaur phase.

Week Two

Scenes from our second week with Baby Otis. 

We tried to keep things fairly low-key again this week. Though I did finally get around to baking Kevin a carrot cake for his belated birthday celebration. I misinterpreted August's request for 'flags' on the cake, as him insisting on a 'fox' on the cake, so we ended up with a leopard. 

Of course every week as a family of four has to come with a bit of drama. Kevin's car had 'catastrophic engine failure', and August developed his first ear infection in over two years. Thankfully the car repairs were mostly covered by a recall, August received prompt medical care, and baby Otis continues to thrive as well as could be expected!

He can not keep his hands off of his baby brother

sleepy but in love

typical weekend around the house

belated birthday celebration!

the king of failed photo shoots

future best friends

my favorite mess

we sure are going to miss him when he goes back to work!