Welcome to the World

My cousin, Schuyler, had her baby on Thursday afternoon!  Mother and baby are doing great 🙂  Baby M is absolutely beautiful.  I’m happy to report that he has all ten fingers and toes.  Holding him made me remember when each of my baby boys was born…  *sigh*  They grow up so fast.

Baby M was born on August 4, 2011 at 5:05 PM.  He weighed in at 6 lbs. 12 oz.

Advertisement

Baby Shower

I have eight first cousins.  Two are on my mom’s side (Steph and Auntie Jo) and six are on my dad’s side.  We are all girls and everyone has a sister but me.  I wish I had a sister… Heck, I wish I had a sibling period.

Anyway, I don’t really see the cousins on my dad’s side of the family for a lot of reasons but mainly it’s due to the fact that my dad is pretty much the black sheep.  He and I have a non-existent relationship and that naturally makes things difficult between his relatives and me.  Why does life have to be so messy?

So, I was pleasantly surprised when my ex-aunt invited me to her daughter’s baby shower last weekend.  There they are in the above photo.  So sweet!  Schuyler is having her first baby, a boy, in 5 weeks or so.  She is 26-years-old and will make a lovely mommy.  I couldn’t be happier for her.

I haven’t seen the cousins on my dad’s side of the family in a really long time and it was very nice to catch up with them.  I am seven years older than the next oldest cousin so we’ve always been at different points in our lives.  I was in college when they were in junior high and elementary school…  I was having babies when they were sewing their wild oats…  In fact, one of my younger cousins just graduated high school in May.  That makes me feel ridiculously old!

This is me with my Nana, my dad’s mom.  It has been a long time since we’ve chatted and it was so nice catching up.

This turkey farmer is Samantha, Schuyler’s older sister.  She cracks me up.

The baby shower was at one of my favorite restaurants, The Yellow Dog Cafe.  Everything was amazing from the atmosphere to the food.  I had a seemingly endless glass of pinot noir that left me feeling a bit tipsy 🙂

Schuyler received lots of lovely gifts.  She should be all prepared for when baby Malcolm arrives!

I left the shower feeling so grateful for my time with my family.  I need to be more proactive with my relationships with them.  It was a lovely afternoon and I realized just how much I have missed them all.

An Afternoon on the Water

Sunday was another perfect fall day full of sunshine, clear skies and cool breezes!  A perfect day for taking the boat out.  J had spent some time on it making repairs and he wanted to run it to see how it performed on the water.

Big Red ended up texting us while we were out to ask how the boat was running.  He’s been dying to take a ride since we brought the boat home.  Since it was running so well we offered to pick up Big Red and his boys up at a nearby boat ramp.  All I have to say is that we need more girls around here…  I was totally out numbered.

I couldn’t resist taking a “cousins shot” of the boys in their life jackets.

Once everyone was on board and we were underway, I turned on the stereo and started dancing with the boys to “I Like It” by Enrique Iglesias.  Probably not the best lyrics for kids but it is a catchy tune nonetheless.  It was so fun!

We ended up cruising down south to some spoil islands in the Indian River.  The kids were so excited to play and explore!

We spent a lot of time playing Frisbee on the sandbar.

The boys did a little wading in the shallow water around the island.

I was glad that I packed lunch for us.  We were starving!

The boys split their time evenly between running around on the island and running around on the boat 🙂  There were sandy little footprints everywhere!

Around 3:15 PM it was time to pack it in and head for home.  Big Red had to get ready to work at his booth at Boo at the Zoo and our kids were getting tired.

Captain J pointed us north!

The kids retreated to the cabin for a while to play cars.

It was one of those awesome, carefree days that I will remember forever.