Mowing buddies

Shane finally mowed the yard, but this time Little Buddy was out there helping! The mosquitos were (and still are) bad, but both boys were wearing Off! and Logan is faithfully takes his yummy Zyrtec every morning (every day he says, "More? More?" after he has his medicine). No more horrible reactions for the little man!

Computer babies

Our kids are computer GENIUSES! Look at them work the computer from such and early age!

Logan, January 2008

Kayleigh, May 2009

Bathtime for babies

I have decided that it's easier to give baths to two babies at one time.

Although it can be a challenge to keep Logan from (1) moving his sister (2) throwing plastic shapes at her (3) knocking her off her chair (4) drowning her as he tries to "help" get her wet. But Kayleigh seems to take all this big brothering in stride, so there is only crying when she's ready to get out, or Mama is washing her thick head o' hair. Baths are fun! (or at least tolerable)

Bathtime is also Bible reading time. Shane reads our daily devotion since we're all a captive audience (for some this is more literal than for others). Anyway, he was reading about God the Creator today, and I could only tell you the first part, because halfway through there were two crying babies in the tub. Could God create a mute button? heehee

After their bath, Logan wanted to get up in Kayleigh's bed. He had a great time throwing her Nukkys overboard, walking around and plopping down, hiding behind the bumper and popping up saying "boo", throwing all the stuffed animals at Daddy. What a good time!

Memorial Day boating

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and we decided to go out on the boat once Shane woke up, figuring by then all the crazies would be packing up and getting ready to go to work the next day. It was a little after 1pm when we had the boat, kids, and ourselves ready to roll. By the time we got to the San Bernard River close to Freeport, it was past 2:30. It's about a 50 mile trip, but worth it - so much wider and nicer than Dickinson Bayou.



As we rolled up to the dock, there was a huge raincloud, the kind you only see on the coast. But we decided to put in anyway. Yes, we got rained on a bit, but after about 30 minutes, it was clear enough upriver. Both Shane and I went wakeskating, and it was a blast. Yeah, I know, I hadn't gotten the official blessing from my ob/gyn, but what's 24 hours? It was super fun to be flying across the water. I love wakeskating, because you can look down and see your barefeet standing on a board, skidding over the water. Awesome! As you can see, the boys were having a great time, too!



This was the first time we've been out on the boat with a toddler. Logan did great, once we figured out where the best place to put him was. When you pull a skier, you take off hard, and Logan fell down, which scared him. But we put him in the drivers seat and stood next to him, and he did great! Of course, when Shane was wakeskating, Logan's head was twisted around so he could see Daddy.



Kayleigh did great on her first outing. She wasn't too crazy about the wind (cry), the cold air as we drove down to the beach (cry), or the life jacket being all up in her little face (cry - but seriously, would you want to have your lifevest pushing your cheeks up into your eyes?). Most of the time, she slept peacefully under the passenger console. For a 6 week old, she was such a trooper. I'm so glad that both our kids seem to be pretty laid back (more like their father than me, PTL). And let me tell you, it's a different experience to breastfeed an infant with a lifevest on! There's an added 2 inches between you!






Logan and Shane went tubing while we were out. Logan thought it was okay; Shane said he was just sitting in the tube pointing at birds and boats. Just kinda like "whatever". He seems to like the wind in his face when we're cruising the best. Maybe he'd like the waverunner - especially with his favorite Daddy behind him.





The San Bernard was dredged this year, so it now opens up to the Gulf of Mexico. We decided to go down to see what had changed from when we were there in October. After an almost 15 mile ride (one way) we saw the waves of the Gulf, and sandy beaches on both sides of the river. There were about 3 boats beached there. Maybe next time we'll bring a picnic and play in the sand for a while.


It was so great to be out on the water! What a fun day!

New sink!

Guess what! We have a new kitchen sink! We finally got sick of the tea colored stains, chips, and scratches in the bottom of our white one. So we bought a new stainless steel sink and a stainless steel faucet. It looks great! Shane (with a little help from Bapa) does good work!

They're BACK!

Gram and Bapa are back from their mission trip to Baldwin, Louisiana. At Bapa's request, we went back to Frobergs for some more yummy vine ripe strawberries.




Gram and Logan made brownies - Logan likes to be a helper and stir. He has his own little "helper chair", aka our utility stool.


The kids enjoyed spending some quality time with Bapa. Here they are with him as I was getting down the coffee maker. I was holding Logan, but couldn't get the thing down with only one hand, so I dropped him into Bapa's free arm.


Kayleigh loves to be walked. So Bapa walked her a lot...and he put her to sleep. But this is the weirdest position I've seen a little one in a while!


Then Bapa tried to put her to sleep again, but she just wanted to look at him in her little swing. She's really alert for much of the day.

On Sunday, Logan waved "bye-bye" to them. He was saying "Bapa, bye-bye" for about 5 minutes after they left. Nice that he knows who Bapa is - but he gets Gram and Sam mixed up (you know, one's a dog, the other's a crazy lady).

Sleepy time

Sam is staying at our house for a week. And apparently, he's okay with Kayleigh. No, I don't usually let the dogs up on our couch, but I accidentally patted the couch for Logan to come up, and I had both Sam and Zoe running to get on the couch. Sam obviously won.

Kayleigh, sleeping finally. This girl can stay up for hours at a time already! And when she's awake, she really wants to be held. Though she did great on the couch. Yes, I did move her head so it wasn't into the couch. No worries, I'm not completely negligent...

Every mom needs a portable swing. I can put this in the kitchen, living room, Logan's room, Kayleigh's room. So wonderful. As you can see though, Kayleigh loves sleeping in a ball. Her legs are usually up in her chest.

Or she sleeps on her legs. Whatever works!

Curly head

Kayleigh's hair is not only thick, it's curly. Really curly when it's wet. Craziness! If it keeps this up, she'll hate it when she's a teenager, but people like me with straight hair will envy her! And her Uncle Doug will love it...he told me once he thinks women with curly hair are cute.

SWA HOU MX Family Fun Day!

For those of you not familiar to these acronyms, that would be Southwest Airlines Houston Maintenance Family Fun Day. But seriously, that's a lot of typing...

On Saturday, May 16, the four Flachmans went to the family fun day. Logan had a great time running around like the active little boy that he is. We thought he would have fun on the bouncies, and he thought they were okay. But he was much more interested in the fans that keep them blown up, and the generator that was brought from the hangar. He even picked up a portion of the extention cord and carried it over to Shane. Think this one is going to be an electrical engineer?

Here are Logan and Daddy in one of the bouncies.

This bouncy was huge! It was a really big slide, and the one that Logan kept gravitating to. So Shane took him down. As it was really sunny and warm that day, the vinyl was nice and hot. But the boys had a good time going down the slide. The second time, Logan wanted to walk up himself.

Logan got to see live crawfish for the first time. He was really helpful and picked up one of the crawfish that was on the ground. Of course it was dead, but the nice man who was cooking said he'd fish it out, no worries. It's nice working for an airline - these crawfish were really fresh - flown in from Louisiana that morning!

There were some teenagers at the party passing around a soccer ball. Logan saw it, and ran over to them yelling "Ball!". Thank goodness he ran over to the girl because she thought he was really cute. After picking up the ball a few times, the teenagers were rescued from the toddler by my knight in shining armor.

Just before we were leaving, the Kazmerik triplets came to the party. They were so cute! Little Tommy looks almost exactly like his daddy, except he has less hair (the baby that is). Well, they brought their stroller with them, and Logan had a blast pushing it around the park for a few minutes.

Kayleigh got passed around to a bunch of people, and of course, her hair was often a topic of conversation. She was a trooper in the heat, and slept most of the time we were there. We had a great time at the fun day!

Gram and Bapa - Part 2

While Gram and Bapa were here, we also went strawberry picking at Froberg's in Alvin. There were so many vine ripe strawberries, it took us longer to drive there than it did to pick strawberries! We got about 12 pounds of strawberries in less than 20 minutes. And they were YUMMY!

Logan loves to eat strawberries. Especially right off the vine. He's gotten good at pulling off the green tops, but doesn't seem to mind the sandy dirt on them. Builds character - and iron stomachs!

Here is Kayleigh with her Bapa. I think she's going to have all her grandpas around her little pinky (which Gram swears is slightly crooked). Think it might be the hair that they love so much...

We went to the park and had fun going down the slides.

We went to Chick-Fil-A and had a blast in the play area (seriously, we stayed for almost 2 hours).

Logan and Bapa watched a Baby Faith video. Bapa ended up falling asleep, and Logan went off and played. When Bapa gets still, he falls asleep!

Logan and Bapa "fed" the doggie bank. They fed it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 pennies! It must be full!

Update on the kiddos

I wrote an email to my good friend Mary Mallof (yes, that would be Dr. Mallof - scary, isn't it!). Anyway, she was asking for an update on Kayleigh, so I wrote her this email, and thought, hey! I should share this with everyone. So enjoy!

Kayleigh is the spit up queen! Oh my goodness. I put her on Logan's bed yesterday so I could change him (never have two in diapers - what a hassle!), and she spit up on his bed. So into the laundry with that sheet. She spit up on her own bed. Into the laundry with that sheet. She spit up on me in the morning. Into the laundry with that T-shirt. She spit up on me in the afternoon - and got herself that time. Into the laundry with that T-shirt and sleeper. Needless to say, the washer is getting a workout (figures that the Y connecter on the water would give out today and flood the laundry room).

She is also a cuddler - which is great if you're not trying to do anything. She wants to be held (and preferably rocked or walked) at all times. She often will wake up immediately when she's laid down in her bed. So she's often sleeping in her swing in the middle of the night. She has beautiful blue eyes that love to look around at things and loves to study your face when you hold her.

Logan is a great big brother. He will pick up Kayleigh's Nukkys and give them back to her. Doesn't matter if the orifice he's shoving them in is her mouth or not. The eye or nose will do. But really it's the principle. He's trying to be helpful. Maybe he really does have a servant's heart, as someone at church said. He loves to pet Kayleigh's head, and he's actually very gentle. Logan will give her a kiss, unbidden on occassion! And so far, she likes to look at him. Of course, he doesn't like it much when Daddy holds Kayleigh, because Daddy is HIS. But Shane is great, and he'll hold both of them at once.

Hanging out with Gram and Bapa

Well, Gram has been here a while (since May 2nd), but Bapa just drove in May 13th. Logan has been having a lot of fun with them. Gram and Logan enjoy washing dishes, doing laundry, and cooking (I'm so going to print this off when Logan's 16). Anyway, Logan has his "helper chair" and loves to get into anything Gram is doing. They also like to play with blocks.

This morning at breakfast, Logan started playing "boo" (peekaboo) with Bapa around the cereal boxes. Plus, Bapa plays with him in the play room. Fun times!

Kayleigh likes them being around, too. Kayleigh loves to be warm, so Bapa held her after he went for a run this morning. She got a little wet, but she was so nice and warm she didn't complain at all. And now, Gram is giving her a bath - because she's been sweated on, sweated herself (seriously, this girl has had a wet head before), and spit up on herself (we affectionately call her the "spit up queen"). So she's going to be so fresh and so clean, clean, clean!

Yesterday, we went to the Aquarium Pyramid at Moody Gardens. Super fun! Logan was running around like a crazy man. He enjoyed pointing to all the fish and seals. His favorite was the suspended megamouth shark (a prehistoric shark). He ran over to that several times. I personally enjoyed the penguins and the South Pacific exhibit (because we've seen those fish in the wild while we were scuba diving).

After the Aquarium, we went to The Spot for a delicious lunch of hamburgers and waffle fries. Yum! While Kayleigh was eating her lunch, a squirmy Logan and Bapa went across the street to the beach. Mainly, they stood on the sidewalk and watched the seagulls. When I went to change Kayleigh, a woman said she should be a baby hair model. I also got asked if my husband was hispanic, because white babies aren't supposed to have that much hair!

Mosquito feast

After all the rain we've had, the mosquitos are now really bad. And Logan, being the sweet little boy he is, is a feast for the blood suckers. He has about 25 bites all over him, and they have a pimple like center and a bright red ring around them. The doctor said his reaction was "goofy". One on his ear made his ear swell up - sort of made him look like an elf. So now, he's on Benadryl 6 times a day, Tylenol for the fever the bites gave him, and antibiotic creme. You can kinda see his swollen ear in this picture and a few of the mosquito bites on his forehead.

Of course, I'm now paranoid about letting him outside, because even in the heat of the day, I've seen mosquitos in our yard (which my sweet husband would say is not possible, but he sleeps in the day). The doctor said to feed him garlic...apparently that keeps away mosquitos without using DEET. Added bonus - no vampires!

The new method of mowing

I forgot to post this - Shane's new method of mowing. Notice the squirt bottle is hugged tight. Don't know if that's a security blanket or something...

So glad...

I am so glad that my mom is here in town. She came in, and that night I got sick. Let's put it this way, something I ate at Freebirds did not agree with me. Ugh. Then I was running a high fever and achy all over on Sunday. So much for going to church again this week. One breast was sore, but I really didn't put that with the fever.

Went to the doctor on Monday morning. The fever was probably from my sore breast - yup, mastitis. And after taking my blood (the vampire), my white blood cell count was 19K, which apparently is really high. My doctor freaked me out saying that if the fever didn't clear up in a day, that I might have to go the hospital for IV antibiotics. Real ugh.

But I'm so thankful that Mom was here to keep the house running (better than I can, honestly), have me eating the right things so I could stay out of the bathroom, keeping Logan entertained (along with Shane), and allowing me to be able to veg on the couch for a few days.

Even better - since I'm not really contagious (don't know how infected milk ducts would be), Mom watched both kiddos and Shane and I got to go see "Wolverine" on Monday afternoon. Sweet! It was nice to be out for a while, just the two of us, plus it was a pretty good movie (seriously, the critics need to actually try to be entertained instead of stimulated - movies are an escape for most people).

Yup, so glad Mom's here. Thanks Dad for letting her come down!

Sleeping Beauty

Isn't she so sweet?