Monday, March 09, 2009

Playing in Utah

Utah here we are! Can you tell we're sooooooo excited?
How about now?
I bought Jasper a sticker book for Valentine's day. It had over 700 stickers in it. They are from the Cars movie, of which Jasper is a HUGE fan. This photo is from the first day in Utah. Jasper and Azalea covered themselves in stickers just about every day, and we still never ran out of stickers. That book paid for itself on this trip ten times over. It was awesome!
As a sidenote, Jasper is really methodical about the stickers. He only put each sticker on the right page. So, for instance, he put Mater stickers on pages in the book that have drawings of Mater. It's an activity book with stickers and pages to color.



Stacy and Joel kindly rented baby gear for all the kids while we were there, but Benjamin and Ryker still spent time on the floor.

Ryker can feed himself his own bottle!


Mornings with the kids are fun! Here Stacy and Mark are hanging out around the exersaucer. I heard there was a dance party around the exersaucer the last day we were there. Jasper and Azalea took turns playing music. Jasper's favorite is the duck and Azalea's is the lion. I don't know exactly what tunes they are - but they're both Mozart.

Gideon gets his own music started.


Here are Joel and Gideon. You might assume it's morning from the fact that Gideon is in his PJs, however Gideon was on vacation and more than one day spent the majority of his day in his PJs. Is there any better way to spend the day?


Forget gender specific toys! Both Jasper and Gideon enjoyed playing with Azalea's pink Polly Pocket cars.


This little corner of the ski in/ski out condo could be considered the laptop couch.

Jasper did not like it when Drew left to ski the first day, so the second day I set him up with a Clifford DVD as a diversion. There were no tears the second day. :)



Here are the bundled boys. Ryker is 5-6 weeks older than Benjamin. Unbundled, both boys can roll around, but once they're bundled like this they really can't move. However, both boys enjoyed being outside. Benjamin would quickly fall asleep in the ergo and Ryker was just super chill in the baby toboggan.


While we were there, Jasper learned how to make snow angels.



Miss Sarah helped teach him, and he was a huge fan of Sarah. He was sad when he had to say goodbye to Sarah, and as he came to bed after saying goodbye he told Drew: "that was nice of Miss Sarah."

The weather was not cold while we were in Utah, so spending time outside was a total pleasure. Jasper loved being out, so we explored while Drew was skiing.


We decided to do some equal-opportunity skiing/parenting. The dads went out in the morning, and the moms went out in the afternoon. Here Sarah's taken a photo of Stacy, me and Ame before we went down one of our favorite runs at Brighton: Lone Star. How appropriate?

And here are the dads with the babies. Ryan is holding Ryker and Drew has Benjamin.

One afternoon Drew took Jasper down to the Brighton resort to check out the snow machines.

The location of our condo was such that we would see groomers go up the mountain in the late afternoons, and Drew had pointed them out and told Jasper what they were. When they were down at the resort, they saw groomers up close, and Jasper thought it was awesome!




And here we are all together.


Monday, March 02, 2009

Sledding in Utah

Erica and I are vacationing in Utah, and I took Jasper sledding one afternoon. He LOVED it as the photos show. He would start by saying, "Ready. Set. GO!"

We would ride down the hill to the sound of Jasper giggling. I've highlighted moments in time that I hope to remember as a father. This is one of those moments for me.


Sunday, March 01, 2009

Benjamin in the Sun

This photo was snapped by a friend. I think it captures our smiley boy.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Benjamin in Sunglasses

Just in case you are curious, we are starting Benjamim off with sunglasses just like we did with Jasper. Here is a photo from a recent party we attended.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Giggling Benjamin Video

We shot this video before bath with Benjamin. He can be quite the giggly boy.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Ash Cloud

Since our boys have been sick this week, we chose not to put them in the nursery this Sunday. Instead, I went to the 9 AM service, came home, and then Erica went to the 11:15 AM service. While Erica was gone, the boys and I spent some time outside on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I was doing some work in garage while Jasper ran around the yard kicking the soccer ball or throwing a frisbee (one of his new favorite activities outside. Then, it got quiet which any parent knows usually means your kid is into something...and it rarely is good. I went out of the garage to see this...





I stripped him down at the opening of the garage, and we went inside to clean up.

Cars Fanatic

Jasper is really into the characters from the Pixar Cars movie. Here is our little driver showing his Cars toys with a make-shift ramp at our front window.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

New Trick!

This just makes me laugh - seeing Benjamin already trying to curl his tongue. Such talent!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Headlamp

Jasper has a book that talks about the number of people you should take on an adventure is 4. I've been thinking about that, and it does make sense. If one person gets hurt, one can stay behind while two leave to get help. Nobody is left alone. That is not why I am writing this post. The page shows the four animals repelling into a cave while wearing headlamps. Of course Erica made sure to tell Jasper that his dad has a headlamp. I arrived home from work one evening with Jasper asking me about my headlamp. The pictures below are the results of Jasper's first exposure to headlamps.


Thursday, February 12, 2009

4 months old

We took Benjamin's official 4-month couch photo last Saturday afternoon, and we had him in for his 4-month check-up today. He official tipped the scales at 18lbs 6oz. I won our bet ... our "over/under" bet. Drew was sure he was over 20lbs by now, but seeing as we've cut off the middle of the night feeding(s) as of last Monday, I thought he had probably not continued to put on the weight at such a breathtaking pace as before.

With Benjamin, we're skipping Ferber and pulling up our boot straps to handle letting him cry it out overnight. The first night was painful. The second night was painful. The third night was painful. Since then, I've learned that the baby monitor is really an amplifier and can be turned way down to nearly inaudible levels. I can handle just faintly hearing him cry from three rooms away when it's 3am and we all need to be sleeping.


I've gotta say, we have not had the one-week success with this Weissbluth method as I had hoped would be the case. We're definitely off schedule. Week 1 = sleeping through the night. Week 2 = figure out when he needs to nap. Week 3 = get him to sleep in the pack 'n play for said naps. We're still on week 1's objective even though we're nearly through week 2. I don't like falling behind. Aren't 2nd children supposed to be easier? Clearly, I could be to blame. As soon as I finish this post I'm going to return to Weissbluth and figure out what I'm doing wrong or why we are statistical outliers.

The following are not for the faint of stomach. (Lindsay, beware.)

I was trying to get him to smile during our photo op, and it really worked. And then he burped and ... well you can see why I do laundry every day!


Aunt Lou Comes to Austin

On Superbowl weekend, Drew's Aunt Louann traveled to Austin. She was here for a weekend of meetings for the national nurse practitioners' organization, of which she is an active member. (The organization may have a different name; I don't know what it is.) She was pretty busy while she was here, but she was able to walk to Dominican Joe's for coffee one morning, check out the Austin hike and bike trail (including the dog park) along Lady Bird lake, as well as make it over to our house for Saturday morning pancake breakfast and for a chunk of the day on Monday. We capped off her visit with lunch at Rudy's, a perennial favorite. Door to door, it's 5 minutes from our house ... not to make anyone salivate or anything.


Jasper had fun running around with Lou outside, and Lou enjoyed the lovely early February Austin weather before heading back to lake-effect snow storms in northeast Ohio.


She got a chance to feed and hold Benjamin too. People seem to like holding our chuckalicious guy, even if it does put a strain on the arms.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Sleeping with Benjamin

One night, I got up to calm Benjamin, and I chose to lay down with him on the couch. For whatever reason, he likes sleeping on his side. Erica had told me this, and he definitely was most content this way. I don't usually do middle of the night Benjamin intervention, but on this night I wanted to give Erica a break. She had already been up with him more than once.



Erica took this photo in the morning while we continued to sleep.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Mountain of Pillows

Last week Jasper helped me change the sheets on our beds. He thought it was so much fun to jump into the pile of dirty sheets and blankets, that I figured giving him a mountain of pillows in which to jump would be even better. It was. He loved it and told me, "good seat, mommy." When Drew got home from work, they had even more fun together.










Benjamin just watched and wondered what they were doing!

Jasper is blissfully unaware of what daddy is going to do next.



















Time for clean-up. These cushions are big!






Double-Fisting


Sometimes when we offer Jasper something to drink: milk or water, he responds with "milk AND water." (emphasis his!)