The Farrells

The Farrells
Matt, Nicki, Owen and Nora live in the San Francisco Bay area. Matt is a research analyst at CBRE and is loving his job. Nicki spends her time playing with Owen and Nora, reading, crafting, and taking lots of pictures. Owen loves to read, sing, throw toys, and quote movies. Nora is growing quickly and loves to be the center of attention. We have a wonderful life!

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Friday, February 24, 2012

Nora Nicole Farrell

Here she is! Born Feb 23, 2012. 8lbs 11oz, 20.5 inches long. We love her super chunky cheeks and her double chin. :) She's got the same mouth/lips as Owen, and possibly the same chin dimple (though it's hard to tell  yet because her cute face is so chunky). She's got super blonde eyelashes and eyebrows, and hair about the same color as Owens. We'll see if it lightens up over time like his did. We love this squishy little cutie already!


Check out those cheeks!
Family photo!
Proud big brother.
This little guy loves her SO much. He would hardly let anyone else hold her. :)

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Life with boys...

Since in a few days I will no longer be the only girl in our house, I just wanted to record some things about life with my two boys. I grew up with a lot of sisters. My walls were painted pink. My bedspread and sheets were pink. We had a dresser drawer full (like, overflowing) with ribbons, bows, and other hair accessories, and another desk drawer downstairs full of more hair things, just in case we didn't have time to run upstairs. We had more curling irons and hair brushes than you care to imagine. Our closets overflowed with fluffy church dresses, and we had dress-up clothes and doll clothes and accessories all over the house. Needless to say, it was a very girly home (don't ask me how my youngest sibling - a brother - made it through unscathed). Since marrying Matt and having Owen, I've gotten to experience the other side of things.

Owen and I spend our days building towers and knocking them over or throwing things at them. We play cars and trains and build things with his tool set. He is great at running, jumping, and climbing - especially the furniture. His stuffed animals occasionally "eat" each other or other toys (particularly his stuffed lion - you've really got to watch out for that one). We come home from walks with our pockets full of rocks. There are a lot of wrestling matches and comparing of muscles in our house. We frequently sing the theme song from Star Wars. We talk about carving wood, practice throwing balls, and discuss theories and techniques for wilderness survival. Getting ready for church involves shining shoes, matching ties, and combing gel into hair to make the perfect spike. Though it's completely different from how I grew up, I have loved every minute of it. Life here is about to get a lot more pink, and I'm not sure Owen (or Matt) is quite ready for the sheer amount of ruffles or accessories. Anyway, here are a few pictures that capture what we do every day as a predominantly boy household. 

Climbing as high as he can (or as high as I will let him) at the playground

Pirate treasure hunt

With his treasure box

Surveying the booty

Pirate faces

Practicing his remote control car skills

Working hard... can you see that tongue?

Hanging out in the Jeep at grandma Bromley's house

One of Owen's favorite things to do with daddy is watch funny YouTube videos. His current favorite is  "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard". He watches it over and over, and cracks up every time.

Eating a potty prize from grandma in the bathtub

Throwing rocks into the lake at Shadow Cliffs park

Searching for the perfect rock

My two boys on the hike back to the car

Silly boy

We had to stop in this "bampoo" fort several times during our walk

I love my boys. I love being with them and I love the fun and craziness they bring to our home. I'm excited for our little girl to get here too - not only because I'm excited to have pink and ruffles in the house again, but I'm also SO excited to see Matt become a dad who can accessorize his little girl, and Owen become a big brother that does everything he can to protect his little sister. Love these two. :)

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Valentine's Day

Things are a bit hectic around here, as you can imagine, with a baby coming in fewer than 12 days, so our Valentine's Day this year was pretty low key. Owen and I spent the day at home making treats for our little celebration that night. I told Owen that Valentine's colors were pink and red, so that's what he made us all wear. :) I made a quick treasure hunt for Owen to find his Valentine prize, which he loved! He really likes being able to figure out clues and puzzles. He gets so proud of himself, which I love to see - he's generally a pretty timid little guy, and I love it when we find something that boosts his confidence.

For our Valentine's celebration we had yummy pizza for dinner, and then chocolate fondue for dessert. Owen didn't really get the concept of fondue... he kept eating all the strawberries and bananas without actually dipping them in the chocolate, which is totally fine with me, but it cracked me up. Anyway, here are a few pictures!

Chocolate fondue!

Matt reading Owen the Valentine's book he made.

We told Owen that the rule was whoever dropped something in the fondue pot had to give a kiss to the person next to him. He started throwing things in so that he could give us kisses. Funny boy. :)

I made the boys tin can treats (the idea is from the Our Best Bites blog) with some homemade caramel-chocolate pretzel rods. Owen thought it was pretty cool that he got to pop open the lid of his can. 


I love our little family. A lot of people get sick of being at home all the time with kids, or not having a social life outside of spouse and kids, but I love it. I love our funny little traditions and activities, and the crazy things Owen comes up with for us to do. I can't wait for this next little girl to join us - Owen is going to be such a good brother. :)

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Zum-jacked

Our Primary is working on learning the Articles of Faith, and each week a kid from the Primary gets up and says that month's verse. This last Sunday was Owen's turn, and he worked SO hard the whole week on learning his words. The Articles of Faith are supposed to be memorized when said in Primary if possible, but Owen is the littlest kid in Primary. I wanted him to feel confident the first time he got up to speak in front of people, so we worked really hard on helping him memorize it, and he finally did it! He got up to the microphone in Primary and did the whole thing by himself. It was great!

Originally when he learned his verse (he was assigned number 12), instead of "subject" he would say "zum-jacked". It took us nearly the whole week to break him of that - we practiced the word "ssssssss-ubject" over and over and over. He finally got it. :)

Anyway, for all the out-of-town people (since he practiced it many times in front of everyone in town), here's Owen saying the 12th Article of Faith completely from memory. We're so proud of him!


Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Bowling boogie

Sometimes Owen just can't help dancing. This explains why he had such a hard time bowling on Matt's birthday. :)


Friday, February 3, 2012

Matt's Birthday

Matt's birthday was this past Tuesday, and we had a great day - totally chill and relaxing.

Matt came home early from work and took us bowling. It was Owen's first time and it was hilarious - he wanted to do it by himself, which meant that his ball literally took 20-25 seconds to get to the end of the lane. At one point, his ball stopped about 10 feet out and slowly rolled backwards to us, and of course we had one time where his ball had to be rescued by the staff. We had SO much fun, and found a great deal near us, so we're planning on going back again sometime to do it again!

We had a make-your-own pizza night for dinner, and then played some board games and opened presents. Matt requested a baked Alaska for his birthday cake, so we attempted that. It turned out pretty good - although we probably should have taken it out of the oven a minute or two earlier than we did. It was a bit slidey and didn't look very pretty, but it tasted great! Overall, it was a great relaxing day with our little family. :)


Can you tell which shoes are mine???

Waiting... and waiting... and waiting for Owen's ball to reach the end.

Owen thought the ball return was magic (come to think of it... so do I!).

Trying to give his ball a little extra push without him noticing.
It looks kinda like I swallowed a bowling ball, doesn't it?

We don't have any streamers, so this balloon rainbow was about as good as the birthday decorations got.


Board gaming it up!

The awesome sign that Owen colored.

More board games, and Matt's birthday cheeseballs (ew).

Little naked boy helping us cook... we think he looks like Dobby.

Personal pizzas for dinner!

Birthday presents from grandma Auman and Karen!

Some little boy wrestling...

Quick! Eat the cake! It's melting!!

A closeup of the baked Alaska... we even forgot to pull out candles and sing because this thing was melting so fast. It was yummy, though!