More Fall Adventures

We had another fun weekend as a friend gave us tickets to go to a local farm for their fall festival. Here are some pictures from that fun day...

Sadly, she was too short to pedal herself, but she enjoyed getting pushed around by Daddy.

They had maze that Evangeline ran through twice, without any problems. On the third try, she kept getting it wrong and we had to help her in the end!

Rode a pony, Smokey, and enjoyed it for the 1st quarter of the ride. 

I think I enjoyed seeing her do it much more :o)

More Summer Fun

We've had some more summer fun here in the Tiren house. We've flew a kite (somewhat successfully):

And we went to the beach! Evangeline loved it... she didn't want to leave. She enjoyed playing in the sand and the water. She laughed whenever the waves hit her. Sadly, this is pretty much the only picture we got at the beach... we were just too busy having fun! Aubrey didn't have as much fun at the beach and was actually only there for maybe 30 mins. total - the extreme heat (100+) was too much for her.

Just to prove, yet again, that these two girls are definitely sisters... here they are in the hotel room, sleeping:

Baby #2

Well, we finally have our little one! Like Evangeline, she gave us a bit of an adventure before coming - as Patricia said she was being "dramatic"!

Aubrey Colette Tiren was born at 11:50am on February 19th, 2012. She weighed 8lbs. 14oz and measured 21" long. She was a whopping 2 lbs. and 2 1/2" bigger than her sister! It was a 29 hour labor from start to finish (and if you want more details of the story, let me know), but she was successfully born via VBAC - an answer to many months of prayers.

Evangeline loves her baby sister - sometimes a little too much :o) She always has to at least touch her head as she walks past her and often wants to kiss and hold her. If she is crying, Angie makes sure we know. And first thing in the morning, Angie asks for her. We are very blessed that she likes her so much and, so far, is not too jealous of her and the attention I have to give her.

One thing that is helping Angie is that Ryan is home a lot right now. He has been searching for a new job for a few months now but when he went back to work after Aubrey was born, he was let go. He is now able to put in more hours into the search, and we are grateful that he is also able to adjust those hours so that he can be at home to help out and hang out with us some.

It's so fun having two little girls... for a couple nights we had them both sleeping in our room because of some flooding after a heavy rain, and as I was lying there trying to fall asleep the first night, it was sweet to hear two little ones breathing, snoozing, and moving around - and trying to figure out who was making what noise.

Tiren Halloween - In Pictures

Hillsdale & My Garden

We're in the middle of a crazy busy time right now... we just got back from going up to Hillsdale, MI to see Alex star in Much Ado About Nothing.

Angie slept for about half an hour during Act 1... we covered her with a blanket as it was sprinkling on and off, I thought it just looked so cute.

Alex did a great job as Benedict.

The setting was beautiful, perfect for this play.

It was quite a fun trip

This past week, my Mum & I headed over to Home Depot to pick up some seeds and plants for my garden (a Christmas present). Here's what it looks like so far... I've planted some herbs (rosemary, parsley, and chives), fruits and veggies (jalepenos, tomatoes, and strawberries), and some sunflowers. I've started the strawberries inside until they get going... I've not seen anything yet but I'm hoping they may still grow. Here's what it looks like now, hopefully soon it will look a lot better!

Update

A cute picture to start us off ;o)

Here is a bunch of random stuff that has happened since the last post...

_Susie (Ryan's grandmother) came for a great visit - it was so good to see her
_Erin & Will got engaged (yey!!) and will be getting married this summer (my bridesmaid dress has already been ordered)
_Ruth & Alex and Dave & Casey had check ups on the babies and they are all doing well
_Angie has tried: peas, carrots, squash, sweet potato, apples, avocados, and bananas. She has been enjoying eating solids
_Angie is now 7 months old!

Reading with Daddy before bed

_Ryan & I cleaned up his grill and it is now open for the season (and has already been used)
_Evangeline has learned to sit up by herself, crawl backwards (still working on the forward motion), and she has learned some sign language (she doesn't do it yet, but she understands what it means and can respond)

Sitting up like a big girl in her bed

_My parents went to England and came back with a few treats for us (yum! :o)
_Ryan & I have tried out a few yum recipes in the past few weeks

Bobby Flay's Cheyenne Burger (from Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries, & Shakes)

Evangeline Meets Uncle Alex

Finally Angie has met all of her aunts and uncles. The day before Thanksgiving she met Alex...

Day 4, Sunday

Family. I am so thankful for my crazy, fun, godly and loving family.

Update

Well, it's almost two months since the last update... so it must be time for another :o)

Quite a bit has happened since April, and our summer is looking to be a fun and full one... but we can't wait for it to be over so we can have our little one in our arms.

At the end of April we headed up to Baltimore to visit with Ryan's grandfather and Uncle Scott.After Ryan and I had looked around and chosen items together, I went to the store and set up our baby registry! It was a lot of fun (using the little scanner thingy) and my Mum went with me. As a result of that trip we got our first baby clothes!

We had been talking about the kind of car we wanted to get as we needed to get one that a car seat could fit in properly! And so we looked around online... and it all happened so quickly, the next day we were driving a new car home! God was so kind to us, we got a good deal on an AMAZING car... we are still making up excuses to go out and drive it. This isn't a picture of OUR car, but it's one of the type of car we got (ours is a charcoal gray):



Mother's Day came and Ryan set the alarm early, told me to go back to sleep, and proceeded to make me breakfast in bed! It was so good, he spoiled me :o)


Chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries and freshly whipped cream. He also gave me some beautiful deep red gerber daisies in a pretty flower pot and also a cute little onesie for baby.

Erin graduated nursing school and despite Ryan being super-incredibly-insanely busy at work he was able to take the day off to go to her graduation. It was great to be there and we're so proud of her years of hard work to get to this day.

This past weekend was the end of that very busy season for Ryan at work: he's still insanely busy but not super-incredibly so and it happened to coincide with my birthday. :o) He got off early from work on the Friday (I was expecting him to be working until 9 or 10pm again) and surprised me at home long before I expected him with flowers in hand and we were able to have the entire weekend together (he was on-call but never got called and even got memorial day off; we were not expecting any of that)! It was great fun.

The past couple of years we've gone to Georgetown for the day for my birthday - this year we did it a little differently though. We went to a Farmer's Market and Whole Foods to pick up some food items that we wouldn't normally eat (including the BIGGEST chocolate croissant ever) and then took it over to Brookside Gardens for a picnic in the back of the car (since you can't take food into the gardens). We then walked around the gardens for a while before heading back home to watch a movie and pick up some dinner. It was great fun... and just wonderful to be together after the long hours he had been working.



We're now looking forward to the rest of the summer which will include 3 weddings, several family get-togethers, Ryan being super busy at work on and off (mostly on), celebrating 2 years of marriage (!!), and then finally the arrival of our sweet baby. We're praying the baby will come 2 weeks early so that he/she can meet their Uncle Xan before he heads back off to college and, let's face it, we are impatient to meet them... but we'll see what God has in store - not long now!