6 months

T turned 6 months old. For his six month birthday, he got himself the flu.

Yup, that's how I felt about it, too.

But he's getting better, and even sick he was one of the mellower little dudes you've ever seen (we did his chair pictures after he'd been fever-free for a day. He still has the cough). We did pull the swing out of the basement, because he just wanted to move, constantly, and frankly, he's getting heavy! (18 lb by the bathroom scale - doctor's visit is next month when E goes in for his 3 year)

T's favorite occupation is EATING ALL THE THINGS!

You have a thing? I'd like to eat it! Please, can I eat that?

Please? Banilla does not, in fact, taste like vanilla, despite my brother's name for him. 
(her?)

Happy 2013 - A look back (and a night at the zoo)

There are a bajillion "year in review" memes out there, so I thought I'd try one that amused me. I'm skipping all of the links I should put in, but feel free to check out the archives via the calendar over on the right-hand side here.

For those of you who aren't interested in random highlights, I'll throw in some pics from Zoo Lights. To fill in the pictures: 1) If you go to Zoo Lights, wear lots of layers (we knew this, note the obnoxious hat I stole from Ray). 2) Parking by the museum to get into the Zoo isn't that bad, since it's a lot easier to get out from there (I think some of my relatives will understand this). 3) If you see a long line at one side of the pavilion and noone on the other side, perhaps that's not the line for tickets, but the line to get in. Somehow we ended up inside without anyone taking the tickets that were part of Laura and Brad's Christmas gift. 4) Giraffes are just goofy.

Now, 2012 in review, per some random meme I found with a few extras thrown in:
-Number of full nights of sleep: about 6 since mid-July
-Longest nap on record: 4 hours for E?
-Number of bottles washed/diapers changed: Few bottles, but if you estimate 7 diapers a day since T was born, it's about 1200. E had a few diapers at the beginning of the year, but that highly traumatic transition is now forgotten. Really.
-Number of baby teeth erupted: 0
-Number of date nights the new parents have had: 3, but all were afternoons
-Hours logged at park or playground: So many. Fortunately most were with our neighbors at our playground, which makes them vastly more fun
-Greatest consecutive number of steps taken: T: 0 E: 8 bajillion, while reenacting an in-progress football game
-Number of airline flights survived by parents: 3 with 2 in tow
-Boxes of Mac + Cheese prepared: 52 meals worth of Annies, which is probably about 75 boxes
-Teeth lost/tooth fairy visits: 0
-Shows the parents watched all of due to disrupted schedules: Dance Academy, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy (you can guess who watched what)
-Weirdest music video our children have been forced to dance to: Gagnum Style (or Tigh-ey Style) (no they haven't SEEN it, but a baby doing the horse-riding move cracks us up)

Number of time T has been somewhere E would never have been at this age just because we wanted to take E: many, oh so many (Yes, that's T sleeping in the stroller in 18 degree weather, inside his spacesuit and one of my coats.)

Number of children who lost their ability to ham for the camera this year: 1
Most significant event this year: The arrival of one TR, of course
Other significant event: E potty trained and went from "toddler" to "boy" sometime this year (sniff), E started swim lessons, we converted the mudroom and redid the family room floor, we built vegetable gardens... yeah, this year has been largely about survival

Speaking of survival: Again, giraffes are just weird (what else fills this niche elsewhere??). E is now in love with them because this one started stomping and the zookeeper said she was mad because she was put in timeout earlier. E sympathizes.

Anyway, it has been an interesting year, and I'm sure 2013 will be much more eventful overall (although Ray is hoping for less terrifying individual events)!

We hope you all have a wonderful new year!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of you! Here are a few highlights from our Christmas season.

CLICK FOR MORE CUTE

Iphonography October

More from the phone that sees all - and sees that I am WAY BEHIND.


October brought the end of our harvest (including the sole butternut squash)...
...the end of swim lessons (the last set essentially private due to E's solo enrollment, and ending with a pretty impressive little challenge course)...

... and the beginning of T's time as second child, stuffed in this snowsuit (ask Ray for the pictures of E towing T about on a sled!).

E discovered that raking is worthwhile if you get to jump in the leaves (I'm not sure if that pile ever did get raked up - you can see it in the Halloween pics!)

I went back to work full-time and so did Ray, which means the ipad and Facetime became key to family dinners.

I mastered the art of the sharpie jolly roger tattoo (originally on my leg for work, then on E).

And E mastered the art of making Thanksgiving just as fun as Halloween. Gobble!

RAWR!

Mom, I sense something amiss... 



EEK, it's a dinosaur!

Do T. rexes usually have chocolate chip breath?

Lashes...

...we have them.

Iphoneography September

More from the phone that sees all...

MN car trip 2012 part 4

I did get a few other pics at Clarks. Like the huge colony (?) of turkey vultures, of which I only got half:

And Ray stealing apples on the way out - he should have stolen more, they were AWESOME (thanks Brian and Tiff).


Then it was back in the car for the drive home, and some Americana.

MN car trip 2012 pt.. 3?

From Lessingers we went on to Clarks so that T had someone to socialize with.

Actually, we all had lots of fun at Clarks, but most of the pics I took inside can be summed up as "blurry three and five year old". So you'll get pics of our day out in Stillwater instead.

MN car trip 2012 pt 1

Yes, we did it- one car, two kids, about 2000 miles (total). For my own recordkeeping, we left at 5 AM on Sept. 16, the day after our trip to Washington. I packed the car while everyone else was at our neighborhood block party. I reallly wasn't ready to hit an airport after two days of flying already that week. I'd stink at Ray's job, apparently.

Anyway...

An artistic view of driving into Nebraska. For some reason we had no 3G service until we left Nebraska, which is when our families saw this pic.


Fun at the rest stop. Not sure why we thought the poles were SO fun, but I think 200-odd miles had something to do with it.

Survival - just before the kid starts to whine, suggest a show.

Eamon learned to climb trees at a rest stop in Iowa.

Ok, not really, but that pair of pics cracks me up. We did have a good long stop to play frisbee and make E run in circles. Ray had the genius idea of bringing a cooler of food, and being able to grab food we wanted whenever really did make the stops more relaxed. E was a trooper in the car, and T did well - but had a 240 mile limit that was amazingly predictable. Case in point, on the way back Ray was putting T in the carseat and told him he had to wait until the west side of Lincoln for his next stop. I was driving and realized eastern Lincoln would be 240 miles, western lincoln would be more like 280. Guess where we should have stopped? Guess which town had a lot of construction and  closed exits...

Anyway, first actual stop: Lessingers.

These two get along so well. I also love how concerned T is about the situation.
However, T got in plenty of his own fun and relaxation.



Perhaps too much relaxation?


Ray and the twins played a lot of games of "melting", which was basically hide and seek for stuffed animals. I tried to get decent pics of the game, but three active 3yo= blurry. I did get these, though, and they don't show the game but I love them:
]

Speaking of pics I love- Jen was kind enough to take a few pics while we were there. Next post!

Washington- First Plane Trip

Waiting for the plane.

First flight. Looked like this the whole time.

Entertaining himself waaaay too late at night in Spokane airport.

Enjoying his first hotel stay at Benny's Colville Inn, in Colville, WA..

Cousins and grandma.

Second and third plane flights on the way home.

Probably the only time E has ever been asleep coming off of the plane.

Our trip to Washington was for a sad reason - we lost Ray's grandmother, an amazing woman who really enjoyed life. I am glad, though, that we got all of Ray's family in one place and they got to see the boys, and the boys got to meet their new cousin a week earlier than planned - since the planned meeting was cancelled due to illness. It was a beautiful send off and a good honor to a life well lived. In a week to be thankful, I am thankful for the time we got.

Iphoneography August

There was a lot more going on in August, but here are a few quick looks at what hadn't made the blog yet.

E's favorite new form of interval training:

It's a long slow walk around the lake this way, and a long fast walk if I push the stroller and E is free to run.


I thought this was the cutest gift from Ray's work. Already featured it on T here.

And: I finally managed to drag Ray to a baseball game so I could get a good hot dog (not so much on the beer, Coors field has become very disappointing in their selection). T's first baseball game:

E LOVED the game and was actually pretty focused on it, although his favorite part was probably Dinger. We celebrated the Rockies' win over the Marlins at Breckenridge Brewery. E went for his new favorite menu item (the kids' menu is for coloring!)

Denver Children's Museum

One of my missions while we were all on leave was to visit as many of the "sights" that we've been missing as we could. After all, we were free on weekdays, when everything is so much quieter -and it is, it was great! Anyway, one of the highlights for E was the Children's Museum in August.

Their big feature this summer was a water exhibit, which of course gained my attention. It was fun, and E would have liked to do more, actually...

E really liked this, which was just PVC that you could move around to make the water flow down different ramps. Obviously Ray was entertained as well. We should probably just build one...

E would also like to have this fishing game in his house.

He was impressively good at it, and VERY persistent. (E, that is, although I just realized that Ray has both rods in this pic).

Speaking of persistent, E would wait for FOREVER to catch one of these bubbles.

Success! Look at those determined little shoulders.

This was the highlight for the adults:


T and I had to stay out of the soap filled slippery room, so we have to go back for our turn. Soon.

I would never have thought the pretend grocery store would be such a hit, but here you go:

Cracker and dairy shopper extraordinaire. Carbs and dairy, just like his mama.

And then there was the woodland playground. I had to take E through the intimidating tunnels the first time, and then this rabbit came out and dragged Ray through.


There was even fun to be had outside after the museum closed.



(Hopscotch, the chalkboard cow. Ray's signature duck on her shoulder.)

Follow that up with dinner at the alehouse (probably my first whole beer in a LONG time) and it was a pretty awesome day for all of us!