Christmas in September

Last weekend, we took a long weekend trip to South Carolina! Gi Gi had mentioned buying a few Spiderman items and that she had a few folks designated as Spiderman spies to be on the lookout for any good merch. What she DIDN'T tell me was that she had gone absolutely wild buying anything and everything Spiderman-related! Walking into the house on Thursday night was like waking up on Christmas morning...Owen let out a gasp and ran over to dig through the huge display of gifts from Gi Gi and Granddaddy, which included a lunchbox, sandwich box, meal set, 2 cups, markers, crayons, poster set, inflatable punching bag, stickers, toy cars, puzzles, books, clothes, and this....
....sleeping bag. What an exciting arrival for the world's biggest Spiderman fan!

Friday morning we went to see Nana, Papa, Lori, and Preston. Nana has just finished her second chemo and Owen brought her a special "get well soon hug" he colored for her. He soaked up all the attention and gave out lots of hugs...




I left Anderson on Friday afternoon to spend the night in Charleston with Miriam. While I was gone, the Listers went out on Granddaddy's boat to 'Lister Island'. Owen had a blast on the boat and especially loved swimming in the lake. Hopefully I can post pictures soon from the rest of the weekend--they are on a different camera and I'm working to upload them to our computer.

Sunday we went the Electric City Fellowship and then had a yummy pizza lunch before hitting the road back to Nashville. Owen is staying in Anderson until this weekend. We have missed him so much, but enjoyed going on a DATE on Monday to dinner and the movies! Below is a portion of an email update from Gi Gi on all the cute things Owen has been doing this week so far:

=============================================

Owen fell asleep in the car on the way home from Anderson University
last night..around 10:00 and slept til 8:30 this morning.
He is having fun right now standing on top of a shampoo bottle in the
kitchen floor pretending like he is skating....Now he is checking out
my spatula drawer and taking a swig of his grape juice. ( I hid all sharp
objects...I hope)  He's been running back and forth from watching ETV
to playing. I think we can safely assume that he is having fun. Now he is
singing with a musical Christmas book.  Richard calls Owen The
Bullet...because he is so fast.

Owen was so sweet this morning trying to help Grand Dad get his socks
and shoes on...which is a VERY painful process with Richard's feet in such
distress. We enjoy every minute with Owen Edward Lister.  He is so sweet and fun.

Little Cutie Pie just found a three inch flip flop refrigerator magnet
that he is trying to put on his foot.  Now he's back at the spatula
drawer and using my whisk to play as a drum stick. That drawer has
become the source of at least 5 things to play with.  Who needs new toys?
What fun memories this brings back!!!

I wrote the above info this morning.  It is now 8:20 pm.  We met Uncle
Jon for lunch today then we took Owen to see Nana at the hospital. 

Owen enjoyed jumping on the trampoline with Jonathan late this
afternoon. I'm so glad Owen likes cheese pizza.  He ate three pieces for supper.
(We get pizza on Tuesday nights for the college age small group that
meets at our house.)  Pat Austin brought a small rocky horse and a big
box of lego blocks for Owen to play with while he is here.  He let me
feed him his pizza while he was rocking on the rocky horse.

It's 9:15 now.  Owen brought me some books to read to him and then he
let me rock him to sleep.  He decided that life was too fun today to take a
nap so hopefully he will sleep good tonight.  I hope you will too.

Busy weekend!

Other weekend happenings:

Ava's candy-themed birthday party, complete with princess castle jump house! We were the first people to arrive and the last ones to leave. What a fun party!

Owen wandered into the bathroom while Ava and Lilly
were bathing and just stripped down and jumped in with them.

We met up with the Conrans for a fun evening at the Shelby Park playground. Owen and Liam chatted it up on the bench for a minute and then jumped down to play with dirt and sticks.

So half of his head and body are missing, but I think he looks just like my brother Minor when he was little, so I had to share it. This moment of joy happened right before some older kids on the playground tattled on Owen for throwing mulch. Party poopers!

On a side note, the cowgirl hat and belt were a success! Maggie and I have picked a new craft project to work on together...more to come on that!

We proudly present to you...

Owen's beautiful little face without hair covering it up...
isn't he the most spectacular little boy ever?!

Crafty birthday to you!

This post doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Owen, but I'm posting it anyway...you've been warned!

So a few months ago, I decided to challenge myself to be a better gift giver. Not that there's anything wrong with a thoughtfully purchased CD, sweater, or gift card. I have just set a goal for myself to hand craft the gift, the wrapping, and/or the card for as many gift-giving occasions as possible. I've made some cards recently, but I have just completed my first set of handmade gifts. These will be given to our little friend Ava, whose birthday party is Saturday:

Belt made out of a vintage tie...note to self: thoroughly dust house before
taking pictures of recently completed crafts...

Added the ruffle detail to Ava's cowgirl hat

So there you have it! It may not seem like much, but it feels really good to have started a project and actually FINISHED it! That doesn't happen often enough in my world. Hopefully there will be more to come. Who knows...I might even have to start a blog about crafts. HAHAHAHA! Sheah!

Duck, duck, goose!

Sunday afternoon, Richie met up with our friends Bill and Peter for a round of golf at the Shelby Bottoms golf course. Shelby Park is humongous and so beautiful. There is a greenway set next to the Cumberland River, a dog park, a baseball park, numerous picnic pavillians, several play areas, and one large pond that is home to fish, ducks and geese. We had some stale bread and decided that rather than throw it away, we would feed it to the ducks. Our friends Maggie and Liam met us there for what turned out to be several hours of fun!

Photo 'borrowed' from the fabulous Maggie

Yes, that is a duck house he's sitting on top of...and duck poop he's sitting in.

As you can tell by the chunk of moldy bread he just hurled into the lake, Owen never did catch on to the concept of breaking the bread into smaller pieces.

Sweet boys!

Such a fun afternoon--we followed it up with a last-minute grill out at the Conrans with Peter and Linnet. We love our Nashville friends...this is home!

Genetics

All part of being a Lister...

Labor Day weekend roundup

Don't know why he looks so glum, but he soon perked up...

The twisty slide is his favorite--it goes fast and gives him crazy static hair!

I took a picture of Richie and turned around to see Owen testing out his Spiderman moves!
Yes, he got up there quickly and without a bit of help!

The Incredible Hulk undies were lots of fun until an accident happened in the backyard. Poor Hulk. We're just going to stick to pull ups for now, I think.

We went to a wedding Sunday afternoon. Yes, it was rather, um, warm, but we had lots of fun exploring and swinging. Check out the smocked outfit!!!

And lastly, we all let out a big sigh of relief on Monday after hearing that Gran, Pop, Minor and G. G. (great grandmother Griffin) had all made it safely through Hurricane Gustav. Now we just have to make sure Aunt Mimi and all the Shaws and Listers in South Carolina don't have any run ins with Hanna!