You'd Probably Want to Come Home if This Was Your Reception Too...

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A Day with Isaac and Rachel

I'm so lucky that my family all live within a short drive from us. I'm also lucky that my sister has a son, Isaac, who is the same age as Ashen, and that she stays home with him. We try to get together weekly, and last Friday we spent the day at their house. The highlight of the day was at their local park. The boys had a blast. The slide was a bit scary as it is literally a death drop--but the boys loved it. Torin slept soundly in a front pack.

First KISS!

Granny Annie caught this little PDA last week. Claire is Mark's cousin's daughter (and our Goddaughter)...she's almost 2. Looks like she likes Ashen :) Ashen wasn't quite sure what to think, but he let her do it--twice! It was SO fun to watch these two play together. All we heard all morning were squeals and giggles throughout my MIL's house as the two of them chased each other.

They were tuckered out by noon!

Claire, we love you!

My boy can smile!

Oh my, Yamika!

I've never met anyone who gets so excited about seeing themselves in the mirror. We do a lot of "dressing up" around here, so there are lots of opportunities to visit the mirror to admire the new addition to the wardrobe. Most recently, Ashen put on his brother's hat that grandma J made for him (which is unfortunately already too small!), and decide he liked the look of his yamika. He usually checks himself out in the mirror just to see "what's different" and then grins his famous grin and sometimes he dances if he loves the look. Any excuse for a dance! If this guy doesn't get to dance at least 10 times a day, we hear about it! Soon I'll post a video of A dancing to his favorite CD.

The Joy of Slides

Oh, remember the pure joy of sliding as a kid? On Wednesday I packed up the kids rather haphazardly and headed to a local outdoor play area. Unfortunately, upon arrival I realized that I'd forgotten my baby carrier for Torin at the back door...and all I had was a single umbrella stroller for Ashen. Arghh! For the next hour and a half I walked around carrying Torin wrapped up in a blanket, trying to make sure that Ashen didn't step off the side of the play structure, or try to "walk" down the slide...or up (as other kids prepared to slide down). It was a juggle, but gosh, just one (continuous) gigantic smile out of my little guy made it all worth it...until I realized there was no way I could feed Torin while keeping an eye on Ashen. So we packed up, headed home with a screaming, hungry baby...we'll figure this out some day.

Uncle Scott

My dear little brother, Scott, lives in LA...too far away. Fortunately, he's been up here at least 4 times since Ashen came home last July. One of Scott's great wishes is for Ashen to say, "My favorite relative is Uncle Scott." Well, we couldn't make him say the first part of the sentence, but how's this?

*The voice is my mom...

Big kids

My husband is one big, fun, kid. That's one of the things I love about him. For years before we had our kids, he would fantasize about all the toys he would soon be playing with when he had kids. He even once bought a big toy ship that jets fly onto (why am I forgetting the name of that?) in anticipation of impending fatherhood. Unfortunately, we've since found out that it was made in China and was likely recalled, so alas it must be recycled. Last weekend I caught him making a castle out of the new blocks I recently assembled for Ashen. He reluctantly posed for this picture after finishing his masterpiece. Unfortunately, I was unable (aka, probably bouncing baby T) to get a photo of the aftermath that occured moments later when Ashen knocked down the structure. Oh, I'm sure there will be many more...

This is a photo I got of Torin waking up the other morning. Think he's a morning guy?

Torin has recently become much more alert and observant. He loves to stare at this daddy and I think is getting used to having the camera in his face too.

Wish I could post more, but both the boys *just* woke up. It's a choir of crying in my house!

Never...

...let your toddler hold a big unopened chocolate bar on the way home from the grocery store and not anticipate that he's going to take a BIG bite out of it (even though he has no idea what it is). Oh, and in case this has never happened to you...foil is a little hard to get out between teeth.

Look Who's Growing Up!

Our baby is getting bigger! Well, of course that's to be expected, but this guy is going through a growth spurt, I think. He's such a sweet boy. So fun to cuddle with and we're looking forward to his smiles (coming soon!). Yesterday we had our class reunion with our fellow childbirth class friends. All 9 babies were there, all between 2 weeks and 2 months old. Torin was the biggest baby there. He tied with another baby for the biggest birth weight, but clearly he's been eating well the last 4 weeks because he looked larger than even the 2 month old! He's wearing 306 month clothes in the pictures below. It was sad to have to put away most of his newborn clothes after only a wearing. Ah well, they're just clothes. We're hanging in there on the sleep front. The little guy wakes up 2-3 times a night and we're awake for 30-45 minutes depending on if he feels like falling right back to sleep. Have I ever said that I have the most amazing husband? Though he has to tear himself out of bed to get the little fellow out of his cradle next to the bed, he then dozes while Torin eats, then I wake him again to change babe's diaper. Though many men let their wives handle all the night duty, he considers even night waking a partnership--hallelujah. We're both not 100% during the day, but truly we're not as exhausted as we pictured we would be. I haven't done anything totally crazy yet that I can attribute to sleep deprivation. For all my loyal readers, here are some pictures from today and the one with his Aunty Tricia is from Saturday. Enjoy!