Wow it has been awhile

Now I don't think it is that surprising that it has been almost 2 months since our last post. I mean if you read the last post you know that we just had our second baby so things like posting on a blog are a little lower priority. Now that things have settled down a bit, I have a long list of things that we have been up to that I can blog about.

Nolan is doing great. He is growing like a weed and hitting all the typical milestones. He seems small but enormous to us. We forgot how small they start, but he is bigger than Little Colin was at the same age (not by much). He is on the smaller side 40th percentile but Colin was 20th.


Nolan in a milk coma
He has taken to feeding and our schedule really well. For example between 6-8 weeks old, he was sleeping 5-7 hours a night and week 8-9 he slept 7.5-9.5 hours a night consistently (with even a couple nights since that were almost 10 hours straight).


Nolan sleeping before getting shots

Nolan Sleeping with Elmo (Colin gave it to him)
Lisa has really stepped up her game and turned into a super mom taking care of both kids with out skipping a beat. She even has the energy to walk 3 miles a day with her neighborhood friends. I have been extremely proud of how well she has adjusted.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of months. . .


Colin soothing Nolan to sleep

Nolan looking cute

Nolan in his shirt for the Komen Race

Nolan after a bath

Nolan giving the evil eye

Arrival

I know some of the followers may have been concerned that today is 5 days past Nolan's due date. But don't worry, I have just been too lazy to post or update the blog with the good news. Nolan Thomas Caughran was born at 11:03 AM on 8/18/2010 weighing in at 7 lb 4 oz and 19 inches long.

The labor and birth went pretty quick (half the time of last year). Lisa's water broke at 6:50 am and he was crying on her chest by 11:05 am. Just over 4 hours from start to finish (excluding the 9 months of pregnancy, morning sickness, preterm labor, braxton hicks contractions).

The whole process was deja vu. I mean it all started the same way (like most babies), but I will skip the obvious commonalities. Lisa's water broke early in the morning with both. Both times we took it easy getting things together before heading to the hospital (this time luckily Brandon was able to get Colin before going to work), and then the contractions hit and it was go time. Both times we had to traverse the freeway and downtown Houston during rush hour. Both times Lisa terrified someone at the entrance to the hospital (this time was a cop that she yelled at to go faster). Both times Lisa was night and day before and after the epidural. This time she forgot her makeup so she was not plucking her eyebrows during labor like last time.

I got to cut the cord and Lisa got to hold Nolan right after birth. No NICU this time. All and all it went pretty smoothly the second time around.

Nolan was a little jaundice, but not too bad. He was actually less than Colin was and they gave us lights to take home (I wish they had with Colin, maybe we would have avoided the trip to the ER and the TCH NICU).



A few days after birth we learned that Nolan had a broken collarbone. Supposedly this is pretty common. You should ask Lisa about how Randy describes it (NSFW).

So far he is feeding well and is already past his birth weight (and Lisa is already down 20 lbs). He is sleeping well and has taken to the family. Little Colin just loves his little brother and he seems to be adjusting well.





Here is a link to some of our Picasa photos from a few days after his birth.

Champs

In the spirit of continued Victories this post is about the Humble Area First Baptist Church (HAFBC) Men's Softball team.

I recently signed up for the Church's men's softball team for the summer season. It was probably not the best time of year to join the team as almost every day this summer there has been a heat advisory and ozone watches.

Our league is not super competitive and everyone on the team is at a minimum athletic. I made it to every game but one. In our second or third week I was called away to the hospital after Lisa's Chick-fil-a episode and missed half that game and the second game. The trick was on Lisa though since I smelled of death after running around in 100+ degree weather and not showering.

We did not win the regular season as we split games with another team and they had the tiebreaker, but we did get the regular season run title and won the playoffs. For the record we were 2-1 against the regular season champs with the playoffs included.

Here is the team after we upset the top seed.


Here is the boy with the trophy. The trophy is "toddler-sized"


For the record, HAFBC hasn't won the championship in 8 years and I am 1 for 1. Fitting

Prepping for Nolan

We are on baby watch these days. Lisa is full term and we are just waiting for Nolan to make his arrival. Lisa has been nesting and I have been doing the minimum amount of work required of me to help her nest.

Also in preparation we took a Breast Feeding class and took BC to the hospital for a new sibling class.

Here are some pics from the sibling class.


The following are Colin learning to change a diaper.



As you can see Lisa had to do most of the work. I guess Colin learned from me that if you pretend you don't know how to do something, you don't have to do it.

Colin puts in the finishing touches.

This is Colin practicing holding the baby while still watching TV (a skill that I have mastered)





I thought this advertisement was fitting for Lisa to stand in front of (No, not the food sign on the left). We were at the mall trying to walk out the baby. On the elevator ride to the first floor, Lisa had a pretty good contraction that made her double over. It pretty much freaked out everyone on the elevator.

Elevator rides with Pregnant Lisa always make me think of that one Saved by the Bell episode where they get stuck in the elevator after an earthquake and the pregnant girl goes into labor. Hmmm, that gives me an idea on how to get Lisa to go into labor. I just need her to get stuck in an elevator . . .

Pending Guest Post

I am publishing this post as a place holder for a Guest Post. Mimi Robinson just got back from a Cruise and she is going to write a guest post on it for the follower(s).

Waffle House

Lisa and I are fans of Waffle House. I like the fact that we can feel comfortable at Vic and Anthony's or a Waffle House. Now my wallet might enjoy Waffle House more than Vic and Anthony's, but my credit card company doesn't.

Now for our loyal followers (you know who you are) you probably recall that we had a creepy encounter at a Waffle House in the past (Trip to Austin - Post). That one creepy encounter didn't stop us from going to Waffle House again. We went just the other day and the boy had a great time this time.



The boy really liked that the waitress gave him a hat.



He was a little concerned when he realized the cook no longer had anything on his head to prevent his hair from falling in the food. I reminded him that we had already eaten, so it no longer mattered to us.

New Audiophile

The boy really likes headphones and music. We are going to have to get him a pair soon.

Astros Game

After running the Astros 5k last month, I got two free tickets to an Astros game. So Lisa, the boy, and I went to Minute Maid Park to catch the 'Stros take on the bad guys.

Here are some pictures from the souvenir store at Minute Maid.






The boy liked the 'Stros hat and the monkey's that were hugging him.

Nothing really exciting happened during the game. It was actually quite boring. I just wanted to share some pics.

Barking

Barking, Barking and more Barking. Our dogs have a tendency to bark too much. Tyson and Fenton are not fans of the Chihuahuas behind our house and they are not too friendly with Lyndsay's newest dog(s). They make it known that they are the masters of their yard (and Fall Creek in general) via their vicious barks. I am not home during the days, so I don't notice it as much, but they bark enough to wake the kid during nap times and probably annoy the neighbors.

Don't get em wrong, we have great dogs. They play nice with the boy, they are potty trained, don't destroy things and in all regards are great dogs. Their only vice is barking. So we decided it was time to try to stop them from barking. Short of removing their voice (or bark?) boxes, we tried some commercially available remedies.

Last year we borrowed a neighbor's shock bark collar and put it on Fenton. After fiddling with it to finally get it to work, Fenton barked, freaked out, peed all over the place and started wimpering. The wimpering triggered another shock and the cycle continued. We quickly got the collar off of him and gave that idea up.

Recently we got spray bark collars. These collars spray citronella in the dogs face when they bark. These things really work. Tyson doesn't bark at all with the collar and Fenton only occasionally barks with it.

The new collars are not perfect fixes. For one, the dogs know when they have them on and when they are turned on. So unlike other fixes, this isn't something that can be phased out over time, and we need to replace the citronella and batteries periodically. It is a small price to pay to limit the dogs barking. Luckily unlike the shock collar, the citronella is more annoying to them than painful, so if they really need to bark they can (like at an intruder).

The other problem is that sometimes they miss fire from load noises other than barking. I have come up to Tyson to give him some love and it goes off, or the kid can set it off while playing with them. Luckily it is just citronella and not a shock.

The other day, Lisa and I were taking a nap with the boys in the bed. A little background, Lisa is about 8 months pregnant now and has a tendency to snore. As Tyson snuggled up to her for the nap, her snoring/labored breathing set off the spray collar spraying Tyson and her in the face. It was hilarious. Needless to say, the collars now come off before they get in bed.

The "Big" Slide

It is officially summer (as of 630 am 6/21/2010). Well the Caughran Family hasn't waited for Summer to officially start to hit up the neighborhood pool. Of course anyone that is in Houston knows that it has felt like summer for more than a month or two.

Since it is ridiculously hot and too hot to play in the back yard for very long, we have been taking the boy to the pool. The pool has a kid area and then two nice big slides. Howdy (BC's Cousin) went down the big slide last summer. We didn't think that BC was tall enough, but after talking with a lifeguard, they said as long as he had a life jacket on, they would let him slide (note I would like him to go without the life jacket since my kid is no wussy, but rules are rules).

Pics of the pool from www.fallcreekhouston.com


Once we borrowed a Coast Guard approved life jacket, BC and I headed up the stairs to the top of the big slide. Lisa waited at the bottom to catch the boy as he came out of the slide. Here are some pics of him on the slide courtesy of Michelle Purtle.











Once he got a taste of the adrenaline there was no turning back. The slide is all he wanted to do for the rest of the time at the pool. Lisa has even gone back to the pool since then without me and the slide is what he wants to do, but it is too difficult for Lisa to climb the stairs with him and she is too pregnant to slide. So he has to stick to the small slide when I am not there.

Here we are after a nice day at the pool.



BC enjoys the pool so much that he makes it known that he wants to go to the pool every time we drive by now.

Quitting the Poison

If you know me or know my mom or siblings, you know that we drink a lot. It makes me think of my KA Koozie quote "We may drink a lot, but at least we drink a lot". Now to be clear, in my family I do not mean we are drunks and drink a lot of alcohol (although we do drink on occasion), I mean we drink a lot of fluids all the time. Also to be clear the KA Koozie quote specifically refers to drinking alcohol.

I always need something to drink. Every Sunday on our way to Church, I stop to get a drink from the gas station. Before we go places, I plan where to get a drink or get a roadie (Again not an alcoholic Roadie). My sister always has a big gulp-like cup with her and my mom always carries a large water bottle.

In college drinking was also a big part of life (even the non-alcoholic drinking). We had Snapple machines in the Dorms and I would just destroy them. My flavor was always the first to run out.

Now that I am in the real world, I don't drink Snapple (too expensive) but I do drink cokes. I drink so much that I can't have cokes in the house (they will be gone too quickly and we wouldn't have money for diapers if we always kept it stocked). Everyone knows that I drink a lot that even my in-laws make sure that they have cokes for me at their house. (Thanks MEEEEM)

What is awesome is that my office keeps two large sub-zero frigs filled with different kinds of Cokes (DP, Sprite, Diet Coke, Sprite Zero, Diet DP plus others). So now I drink tons of cokes a day (Sprite Zero and Diet DP to be exact). Everyone tells me they are bad for me, but I drink them anyways.

A month ago, Sprite came out with a promotion to collect green tabs and submit them to Sprite and they would donate 10 cents to habitat for Humanity. So I started keeping my tabs to send off. (note I never sent them off) What I didn't realize is that once I started to save the tabs, I was able to see and count how many drinks I had in a day (at least at work). I average 6-7 a day.


Here is a pic of about a month worth of tabs.

For Lent I gave up Candy (we have a drawer filled with Candy at work) and Diet DP. I switched to Sprite Zero during that time. Well Lisa has been bugging me about my Coke habit (Pop Habit for midwesterners) and I think I am going to go cold turkey.

For the last two days I have not had a Coke or Candy from the drawer while at work. It is going to be tough, but I guess water with Crystal Lite will have to do.

Panama Pictures (Some)

Panama Photos from my Cell Phone

Picture of the locks in the Panama Canal. The ">" shaped structure in the middle right of the photo is the actual Lock.


It is hard to see in the Photo, but this is a ship in the canal (after being lowered in the locks) and there is very little space on either side of the ship.


Wild Green Snake that was on the tower that we climbed in the rain forest.


A view from our Hotel


A "spiral" building that is being built. Note the Spiral is just an optical illusion.


Some of the skyline. There was a lot of active construction.




The following are pictures from in our hotel.






There were tons of Concrete/Steel buildings and it seemed like each one was an attempt to out due the last when it comes to size or Architecture. I would really like to see how the Spiral building looks once it is completed.

Random Stories

There is no one story of the past couple of weeks that can carry a whole post, so this post will just cover some of the highlights. The last story is the best.

Some administrative notes: We got the Panama pictures last night. We just need to go through them and post them.

Altima:

The Altima is no longer an outside dweller. In a past post I mentioned that I park in a parking garage now, well I am now back in the garage at home. It has been about 3 months since I let my side of the garage get out of control, but it took a 3 day weekend to finally motivate me to clean it up. The Altima is very appreciative to be back in the garage. I think it just takes me two days to build up to doing major cleanup at the house. Every other weekend, after 2 days I am ready, but then it is time to go back to work.

Panama:

Panama was awesome. Our hotel connected to a mall and casino, we visited the rain forest and saw wild monkeys, lizards, hawks, crocodiles, and snakes. We took a boat to Monkey Island and took a Gondola to the top of a hill/mountain above the canal. We visited the locks of the canal as well. We even saw an open Bennigan's. For those of you that are unaware, Bennigan's went out of business in the US. Needless to say, everyone else on the trip did not agree with me that we should eat at Bennigan's.

Bday:

Colin had his second bday and bday party. Lisa needs to post pictures of this and a synopsis. Get to it . . . btw, where is a post on your trip to Israel?

Running Bug:

I have the running bug again. After partially tearing my Achilles in December, I had some procedures done to my ankle, took a month off and now I am back on the road. Did my first 5k race this past weekend. The Astros Race for the Pennant 5k. Not a fitting name since we are one of the worst teams in baseball. I did decent. 31st in my age group 196 overall (out of 2500). The race was on an overpass that had hills and being born and raised in Houston, the only hills in town are overpasses and I have very little experience with hills. They killed me.

Best Story:

Lisa went to the Grocery store yesterday to pick up some food for dinner and the rest of the week. We are going to be grilling this week. While she was checking out, the check out lady (who I assume is around high school age) notifies Lisa that Little Colin is up to something in the cart. Lisa turns to investigate and finds that Little Colin has pushed up the side of his shorts and pulled out his b**** and was playing with them outside his diaper in the shopping cart. Lisa does what any Mom would and stops him and tells him not to do that at HEB (Does that mean it is okay elsewhere?). I would have just laughed. Lisa said it was the first time she has ever been truly embarrassed by Little Colin's actions.

That's my boy.

Going to Panama

Pictures will follow of our trip to Panama after we get back (haven't even left yet).

Background:

A few weeks back I got am email from my mom about picking up their guns from the airport one day. Random I know. They are going to Argentina to hunt and got permits etc to take their guns to hunt there. My step-dad is left handed, so he likes his left handed guns. Well they were going to Panama right after the trip and only had a 3 hour layover in Houston and I was the only one close enough to come get the guns. Apparently you can't just take your guns to any country you want. I had assumed a US passport meant that you could. Much to my surprise they couldn't and so they needed me to get the guns for them.

Since they were going to Argentina they were allowed to take the guns but clearly had to jump through some hoops. Now to be clear the guns are in locked cases and checked.

So then a few weeks later I get an email about going to Panama with them for the weekend. Since I don't really pay attention to dates I had no idea when the trip was or put 2 and 2 together to realize this was the second part of the trip. Either way Lisa and I thought it was an awesome idea so we are going to Panama.

Of course I have to meet them at the airport to get their guns before we can catch the flight.

Seaworld/San Antonio

In honor of our 5th anniversary and Mother's day, Lisa, BC and I went to San Antonio for the weekend.

Before we left, BC felt he should remind us of our engagement where a small child smashed his head into a tree within 30 seconds of our engagement and busted his head open and bleeding everywhere. Right before we were about to leave (on our anniversary) BC smashed his head into his table opening a good gash. We didn't get stitches since chicks dig scars.

Off to San Antonio (only a few hours late) with no hotel reservations. We arrive in Downtown San Antonio to realize that there are tons of hotels and they are all over (our plan was to find one near the Riverwalk that wasn't near the party area). We started calling and got excessive prices compared to what we had found online. We tried to book on our phones (FAIL) and called MiMi Robinson to book one for us. She was very nice to take time from having fun to help us out and book a room (after quoting half a dozen prices for us). We were booked and ready to go check in. Little did we know that it takes 30 min to an hour for a reservation to process so we had to wait in the lobby to get in. By 11 PM we were in our room.

After a good nights rest, it was time to head to Seaworld to eat breakfast with Elmo and friends. Before we left we realized we only had a couple of band aids, so we needed to stop at a CVS to get more. We exited early and just started driving towards a residential area. After multiple blocks of nothing but houses and apartments, I deduced that San Antonio (unlike Houston) must have zoning since there were no commercial properties around. Eventually we found our way to a plethora or stores and got the band aids and made our way to Seaworld.

The boy loved the breakfast and loved Elmo and Friends. I honestly can not think of a time that he was more excited than he was when he got to meet Elmo.







After Elmo, we saw the dolphins, sharks, sea lions, and shamu. The sea lions were the best in my opinion. Shamu was a good show, but it didn't get the boy's attention since there is nothing and then suddenly a flying killer whale. After Shamu we headed back to the hotel to eat and nap before heading back to Seaworld for round two.



In round two, we saw the Azul show with Beluga whales, Dolphins and high divers. This was a great show as it was a mix of seaworld and the circus. BC enjoyed it.



The next day we toured the Riverwalk and ate Mexican food on the Riverwalk. It was all around a nice day with the family and nice atmosphere. On Monday a co-worker asked me "How was Rita's on the Riverwalk?" As I didn't tell anyone about our lunch, I was quite surprised and thought I had a stalker, but in reality he saw us there as he was taking a river boat tour of San Antonio.

On the drive back, Lisa and BC slept while Dad had driving duty. Right when we got back into Houston, BC started to cry and fuss. I looked back and he was just tired of being in the car. 5 minutes later he started crying again and I looked back to find that both hands were covered in Poo. I quickly woke Lisa from her slumber (awesome Mother's day gift in my opinion) and we pulled over to thwart the crisis.

Once we got home it was time to relax and enjoy the rest of Mother's day/Anniversary weekend. All and all it was a great weekend.

BC loved Elmo