Photo extravaganza!

Last October, we had a bunch of professional photos taken with my photographer friend, Kathryn. Some of me pregnant, some newborn pictures of Spring, and some pictures with all my immediate family. It's taken me a while to post these, but here are my favorites!











Bright eyes!

This one melts my mommy heart!

Asleep on Daddy's chest.

My handsome boy!


Having fun in the autumn leaves. I took pictures of Reed last year in the leaves. I think we're going to try to make an tradition out of it!

My brother had the brilliant idea to make a pile of leaves for Reed to play in!

Everything is funnier when you're on Daddy's shoulders!

All the women of the family, my mom, Gerry's mom, Spring and me.

All that modeling can wear a girl out!

Taken just a fraction of a second after Reed kissed Spring for the first time!

Just beautiful!

Catch up

It's been a while since I posted so it's time I caught up a little!! I hope you all had a wonderful New Year celebration. We stayed up late enough to celebrate 2009 coming to the east coast time zone and central time zone, but we were in bed by the time 2009 hit the mountain and pacific time zones. Spring did wake me up just after midnight for a little snack; that's as close as I come to staying up late these days!

A few days into 2009 we ventured to Pacific Beach to spend some time with our friends Dave and Sarah and their son, Robbie. The trip proved a little trying with two little ones to take care of, but we had fun all the same and it was great to see our friends! The pictures in my previous post are all from Pacific Beach. Sadly, that was the only picture we took of Spring there. I was behind the camera most of the time and I had her on my chest in the wrap, and that just doesn't make for good pictures.

My new favorite video of Reed came while we were at the beach. Who, but a northwest native toddler would be so excited about razor clam digging. Reed went on his first razor clam dig when he was only a few months old, so I guess it's in his blood!

What's the only thing harder than getting a good picture of an active toddler? Getting a picture of two active toddlers! The boys had tons of fun jumping on the beds together. :-)

"Here Robbie, if you're going to sleep, you need all the stuffed animals!"

And while we were in Pacific Beach, Reed finally cut one of his bottom eye teeth! It's a tooth that, according to the charts I found, is supposed to come in when a baby is 7 months old... Reed starting teething late, but jeez, this tooth was a year and a half late!! I was starting to think it might not be there at all!

And here are some more recent pictures.

Spring, enjoying naked baby time (and yes, we sing the naked baby time song for her!)

I know the picture is a bit dark, but here's Spring, standing (supporting most of her weight) on Daddy's chest.

Here's one of Reed's late arrival presents and perhaps his favorite. It's a ukulele, or as Reed calls it, a bitar (like guitar).

All the really cool firemen wear their hat backwards like this!

Ask...

And you shall receive! :-) I'll have more to say later, but Grandma Lisa requested some pictures, so I thought I'd hurry and post those for now.

Holiday pics

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season! We had a lovely Christmas with our family, despite the fact that we still haven't received some of the packages we were expecting.

Christmas day.

My mom, dad and brother, in the kitchen.

And I finally got a couple of pictures of Spring smiling today!!

She's a very chatty little girl. She coos much more than I remember Reed cooing. I love our little mother-daughter talks!!

Port Orchard Ski Report

12-1/2" base with 3" new.

Ug, is this ever going to end?

Merry Christmas Eve!

** update ***

Measured our outdoor table, and it was over 14". Cammy and I figure we've probably gotten close to 20" this storm.

Snow... all done... bye bye

(gerry here again) That's how we've been feeling. It's been never ending, at least it looks like there will be no more until wedensday. But weds supposed to bring another snow and rain mix, which is what it was supposed to be tonight. Tt's looking like it will be until next weekend before we get any serious melting.

Here's picture from this morning. You can barely see the snow pile Reed and I made on thursday, and our giant ferm in our front yard is nearly burried.

We managed to get out yesterday evening to go to a friends solstice party, the subaru barely made it up the hill to their house... and coming back down was quite the adventure. We were like one of those bad snowboards who skid down the hill sideways in order to keep their speed low and in control. Not exactly fun.

Solstice Storm '08

(Gerry here)
Happy first day of winter! We are finally past the days of increasing darkness, and today, the days start getting longer again. The sun is reborn, and the light will now begin the long process of overtaking the darkness.

I actually had to go buy a snow shovel yesterday. The subaru has been having lots of fun finding donuts in the snow. The stores were crazy busy yesterday, and after a chaotic trip to costco, we tried to go to the grocery store and gave up. I went back after the snow started to fall in the late afternoon, and it was a bit less crazy. The snow shovel works ok, but once I got to the ice below, I busted out the weed dragon propane torch :)... it made quick work of it. Is there anything a weed dragon can't do?




Reed has been enjoying the snow... he wants to go out to play, then we get outside and he doesn't want to walk in it or touch it. But he loves watching mommy or daddy play in it.

And a big congratulations to three new Momma's. Congratulations to Emily, Cara, and Katherine on their new babies. Ms. Jeanette, you're next! Any day now!

sNOw

I was excited to take Reed out in the snow this year. I figured he'd be old enough now to actually enjoy it a bit, but I was wrong. Here's how it went...

Me: "Reed do you want to go play in the snow?

Reed: "No"

Me: "Are you sure?"

Reed: "No, no, no, no, noooo!"

After much convincing, we get outside...

Me: "Do you want to walk in the snow?"

Reed: "No"

Me: "Do you want to touch in the snow?"

Reed: "No"

Me: "Look, mommy eats the snow, do you want to eat the snow?"

Reed: "No"

Okay, I'm seeing that the snow is not a hit. I figure I'll cut my losses and we'll go inside and make some hot cocoa. So Reed helps me make the hot cocoa, and he seems pretty excited about it until...

Me: "Reed, do you want to drink your cocoa?"

Reed: "No, no, no, no, noooooo!"

LOL! Maybe next year all this stuff will be more enjoyable! He did eventually drink some of the cocoa and once he tried it, he seemed to enjoy it. :-)

We also got a Christmas tree this weekend. We didn't even get poor Spring out of the car because it was just too cold. Usually we like to hike around and find the best tree, but this year, we scouted our tree from the car.

Reed helped decorate the tree. That dense patch of ornaments is his contribution. So far, our ornament death toll is four. One broken in storage, one broken by me, and two broken by Reed. I'm thinking that's not too bad for our first todler Christmas!

And can I say how much I love digital cameras? Spring was smiling and cooing at me and I took 26 pictures trying to catch a smile (of course she stopped smiling once I got the camera). That's an entire roll of film! Here's the best of the batch.

Roly poly

Sure, Spring is a bit chunkier than Reed (who was super skinny), but the roly poly in the title does not refer to her weight, but to the fact that she rolled over for the first time on Sunday! Not just once, oh no. She wanted to show us that she really knew what she was doing so 4 times in a row, she rolled from her front to her back! She's only 7 weeks old!! I knew it was a bit early, but I looked it up in a baby book and they don't expect babies to roll over till they're 6 months old (though I suspect most babies may do this sooner). Sheesh, I guess children with older siblings really do hit their milestones quicker!

As luck would have it, Spring had just had a bath (her first bath where she didn't cry which I was thinking was a pretty big milestone in and of itself) and I had told Gerry to get the camera so we could take pictures of her cute naked bum. When I put her on the floor for pictures, she rolled over, so we actually have pictures of her rolling over for the first time! How cool is that!?

It started with a look of fierce determination.

Then she got onto her side.

Then on her back. It might be a little hard to tell the way I cropped the pictures, but I really try to keep my children's future modesty in mind when posting for all the world to see so you'll just have to believe me. It was hard to resist helping her, but she did it all on her own!!

And what has Reed been up to? He's cutting three teeth right now, two molars and I think he's finally getting his last eye tooth. He's doing amazingly well considering he must be pretty uncomfortable. Yesterday we had some fun carrying our babies in our wraps. Reed knows that when Spring cries, I put her in a wrap and walk around with her. Often when Spring gets fussy, Reed will say "baby wrap" and "mommy, walk around". Reed wanted to put wear teddy in one of the wraps, then insisted that we both walk around!

Santa!

Saturday our neighborhood fire station held a Santa breakfast so we took the Reed and Spring. We missed it last year, but we'd gone when Reed was just a baby and enjoyed it then, so we had been looking forward to going this year. Reed ate a big pancake, then it was time to sit on Santa's lap. We let Santa hold Spring first, figuring that Reed might not stay in Santa's lap long. Sure enough, this was all we got of Reed with Santa.

So this year, mommy got to have her picture with Santa too!! :-)

Perhaps the best part about Santa breakfast at the fire station is that they pull out a fire truck and an ambulance for the kids to look at and sit in. Fun for kids and adults alike! It was a little funny to me to think that the ambulance we were looking at could have been one of the two that responded to my mom's call when I had Spring!

Busy, busy, busy

This is a busy time of year anyway, but with three family birthdays, Halloween and Thanksgiving in the space of 6 weeks, it's an especially busy time in our household. I joked with Gerry that I was pretty sure that from now on, my birthday (the last of the family birthdays) would be on the brink of being forgotten! It's just hard to get excited to plan one more celebration when we've already had the two most important birthdays in our family just weeks before!! :-)

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had my parents and later in the evening, my brother over and were also able to share the day with our good friends Dave and Emily. Gerry and Dave went out in the Zodiac and caught six crab which we cooked up for dinner in addition to the regular Thanksgiving turkey feast! Emily and Dave are expecting, so it was fun for Gerry and Dave to get some guy time, while Emily, my mom and I had a great time talking pregnancy and babies.

Reed has finally gotten to the age where he likes showing off for people! He spent much of the day yesterday leading Emily and Dave around the house to show them various household attractions, but especially his car bed!

Spring is cooing and smiling more and more! I LOVE it!! We're still getting her bed time needs figured out. For example, last night was fairly teary, but tonight, no tears at all!

All smiles

Well, I thought I may have seen a smile two days ago, but yesterday, I was sure, Spring is smiling!! We've gotten lots of dreamy smiles already, but yesterday she was nursing, and pulled away and gave me several great big, wide awake smiles! It melted my heart!!! And to go with the smiles yesterday, I got a couple of cooing noises. So exciting! :-)

And, I've been able to get Spring to sleep in a co-sleeper for at least part of the night for the past few nights. It's taken me a while to figure out how to get her to sleep since it's different from how Reed would go to sleep, but I think we're finally making progress. I thought we might be heading toward having a colicky baby since for several nights in a row, she would cry for at least an hour, usually more, before bed time. We've learned that she really needs to be close during that time, so I put her in my wrap, and she's a whole different baby. She still cries a bit, but nothing compared to the nerve-wracking hours of crying we had before.

And a fun Reed story. Reed and Gerry were playing in Reed's room a few days ago, and Gerry was pretending to sleep in the rocking chair. I gave Reed a mischievous suggestions, something like, why don't you go tickle Daddy while he's sleeping. But even with that suggestion, what does Reed do? He gets blankets to cover Daddy up!! He really likes taking care of people and things right now. He's been trying to nurse his animals (or minimohs as he calls them) and yesterday, he tried to put on the wrap to carry around his dinosaurs! He's such a sweet little boy!!!

This picture of Reed is unrelated to my post. He's showing what a messy snack freeze-dried blueberries can be!

Happy Birthday Roo!!

Yesterday we celebrated Reed's second birthday! I can't believe my little boy is two years old already!!

We started the day by taking the ferry to Seattle and going to the aquarium.

It was Spring's first ferry ride!

Reed had a ball at the aquarium, especially splashing around in the touch tanks!

When we came home, we had dinner, and Reed got to help decorate his birthday cake. Here Daddy and Grandma show him what licking the beaters after making frosting is all about!

Putting sprinkles on the cake was fun, but it required constant vigilance to make sure that the holes were not getting clogged with frosting!

Unlike last year, Reed thought that cake was a wonderful food! "Seriously guys, why don't we have this everyday?"

Picture time

So it has been brought to my attention that we need more pictures of Spring on the blog, so here you go!

Spring is doing really well! Our goal with her right now is to get her to sleep in the co-sleeper (a type of bassinet which is more like a side-car for our bed). Since day one, she has refused to sleep for any prolonged period of time in any place other than on a person, which means she's been spending the night in our bed. I'm not opposed to bed sharing with my babies, but I'd be more comfortable if she'd spend at least some part of the night in her own space. Last night, we had our first little victory when she slept till 1:30 in her co-sleeper! Woot!!

Spring giving us a dream smile!

Grandpa and Spring.

Trick or Treat

I love halloween, it's the only day of the year that you get to dress your kids up in silly costumes, and parade them around the neighborhood. Granted, WE do this several times a year anyway, unlike normal people...

What you see here, is the rare Northwest Growling frog. We tried to teach Reed to say "Ribbit", but anytime we asked him "What does a frog say?" he would growl... too cute! Spring had a good time too, bundled up next to nice warm Mommy, under her coat.

-Gerry