Weekend with family and friends

The air was a bit chilly in Nashville this past weekend, but it wasn't cool enough to keep us indoors. Here's a brief rundown of the weekend's events:

Saturday morning, Owen and I met my cousin Allison and her adorable daughter Mary Frances at the zoo. Owen specifically requested to go see the zebras...so once we made it to the zebras, we stopped to hang out with them for a while.

Upon arriving at the giraffes, Owen was kind enough to point out, rather loudly, that one of the giraffes was peeing. Gotta love little boys. :)

Sharing a sweet hug, despite the giraffe pee in the background

Sunday afternoon, we went on a family outing with the Conrans and the Cassells to the pumpkin patch at Walden Farm. None of the boys had a proper nap, so getting them to pose for a group picture was just simply not happening...

Getting them to pose with during the Conrans' family picture worked out a little better!

Walden Farm has lots of activities for the kids--face painting, sand art, a primitive water well, a petting zoo, hayrides...Owen and Dylan thought the chickens were a particular highlight...

The pumpkin patch closed early on Sunday, so we didn't have enough time for a hayride or picking any pumpkins out. We did devote a good chunk of time to the hay maze. Owen saw a large decorative spider web and really just wanted to stay inside the hay maze checking it out. We finally managed to get a family picture, though...FINALLY! :)

The Listers
October 2008

He's got the blues

A couple of days ago, Richie was playing around on the piano. Owen started singing along and before we knew it, he had worked himself up over this song. He put so much energy and excitement into singing...he must be a Lister or something. Watch at the end...it's like he is overcome with the music and runs to the bass guitar. Richie and I were both overwhelmed by Owen's natural ability to sing and the enthusiasm he has always had for music. Enjoy!

I was tagged!

So my friend Callie tagged me! The instructions were to open my pictures folder, then open the sixth folder and post the sixth picture. And here you have it...

January 2005: Gwyn, Richie and Jeremy

I threw Richie a surprise rollerskating party at the Madison Skate Center. We had so much fun, and it was one of the few surprises I've ever been able to pull on Richie. One of the high points of the night was getting to hang out with the Conrans for the first time. Not that they were regulars at the skating rink or anything...they came to the party with our friend Sunny. :)

So on that note, I think I am now supposed to tag someone else to do this little project. And since I only know 2 other people besides Callie who read this and have their own blog, I tag Maggie and Genny! I feel like an official blogger now!

hopefully callie won't mind...

But I just had to post this most adorable picture of Owen from our visit the other day. See more at her blog!

bad blogger mommy!

I've done it again...gone way too long without any updates! The weekend of October 4th, I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in downtown Nashville. It was an amazing, emotional event. Special thanks to Gigi & Granddad, Gran & Pop, and Jenn for their generous donations for the event. It was confirmed today that there were over 10,000 racers/walkers this year and over $1 million was raised by the Nashville race! I'm so excited to have been a part of such an important day! That night, I went to Aunt Gwyn's variety show at Exit/In. If you haven't checked out her link to the left, you really should! She is breathtaking!

After my long walk and late night on Saturday, Richie and I were relieved that Owen slept in for the first time pretty much EVER on Sunday! We got up at 10:30 and had a donut picnic in the backyard. :) Then we took Barrett on a walk around the neighborhood. It was pretty much a perfect morning!

Then very extremely mind-blowingly early last Thursday morning (hee hee!), Owen and I flew to Mississippi for a long overdue trip to Gran and Pop's house. It is hard to believe, but Owen had not been to McComb since September of last year! He had such a fun time checking the cows, playing with Sky (the cross-eyed cat), riding on the mule, petting the horsey, and especially eating powdered donuts for breakfast every day (thanks, Pop!) Here are a few pictures to sum up our fantastic visit home:

The first words out of his mouth at oh-my-lordy:30 a.m. were "I'm getting on an airplane!"

Pop driving fast on the mule to go check the cows...Owen kept yipping "Wee! Yeah! Shooey!"

Pop explaining the delicate art of casting to a very unattentive grandson

1st fish! Poor fish met his untimely end when Owen accidentally whacked him onto a rock. RIP little fishy

Uncle Minor introduced Owen to his new puppy Chip.

Swinging on the front porch with Gran and Pop--very relaxing way to end a fun and memorable day!

Who knew electric wheelchairs could be so fun!

...and wipes too!

We finally got to meet Hutson...PLEASE go see Hutson's blog (link to left). He is precious!

We found this awesome costume at a consignment store--Owen was naked within 30 seconds of seeing it. He wore it out of the store and pretty much hasn't taken it off ever since!

See?

Walking up to the dairy barn to pet a horse

Perfecting his Spidey skills on the windshield of Gran's car...great idea, Pop! :)

Poor little Spidey was all tuckered out by the time we made it back to the house.

Thank you, Gran, Pop, and Minor, for a very, very wonderful weekend! We love you!

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!