It's the MOST wonderful time of the year...

So!  I've been be-moaning the lack of official photos for the babe... and made it a point to get one with Santa for his First Christmas (the babe's, not Santa) (at least I don't think this Santa is a rookie).  I was SURE that Sammy boy would cry his lungs out.  I was a bit nervous.  For the past few days, I've been saying "ho ho ho" in a deep voice, to get him ready to meet the big man.  Oh, and Kaden and I have worn a Santa-hat-with-beard and gotten in his face.  Dry run and all that.  Most of the time, we'd get little baby laughs in response.

You can see how well all that smiley preparation paid off.  There's our serious Sam, looking a bit bewildered.  It *could* be because it was 8:30 at night, and we're normally winding down for bedtime, not partying in a candy house.  Or it could be because he had just woken up from a 2 hour nap. Or... maybe it was Santa after all?  If you can click and make the photo big:  notice Sam's curls.  Also notice Kaden's tentative smile:  he was so focused on what to say to Santa, he was a bit more nervous than I thought!

And I'm not sure we'll get those Christmas cards out this year... or that I'll post before next Thursday.  So MERRY CHRISTMAS dear friends and net stalkers!  From our scraggly little love-filled tree to yours!

First Steps, First Turkey

It's been a bit busy around here lately... well, here and there.  So I'm just catching up!

For some family health related reasons, I was out of town the week before Thanksgiving... and flew in that morning.  Timed it perfectly (!) to arrive between Jim's annual Turkey Bowl game and the family dinner.  The original plan was to fly Wednesday and get bumped a few times, thereby scoring some free plane trips for the year... but snow came and I was happy to stay an extra day.  So no free tix, but no snow delays and an extra night with Mom:  I can't complain.

Thanksgiving was one of the normal large-family gatherings.   There was another babe present, maybe 5 months old?  And cute as could be in a little brown outfit, with a matching bib that said something about "first thanksgiving" or "mom's favorite turkey."  I can't remember now, but it was cute.  I realized, with a bit of a start, that it was Cubby's first Thanksgiving too!  So I looked over at my little bear cub, who rips off any sort of bib these days, and who was at the time, under a table growling.  Honest.  I sincerely feel for this second son, who is equally loved and adored, but has a LOT fewer cute photos to prove it!

He did take a few steps that weekend- his first on his own!  They were shaky and only 1 or 2 at a time, but still.  He thinks he can walk, and would pull himself up... then promptly fall in the direction he was heading.  There's a lot of little bruises this days.  He seems fairly determined.  Although, I must point out that his crawling is amazingly fast- especially when a "forbidden door" opens.  He can be in a bathroom quicker than you can turn your head.  And if you call out NO as he heads down the hall, he will put his head down and go faster.  Fun times.

The best month of the year...

What's not to like about October?

It's fall, but usually not too cold.

It has great birthdays:  a nephew, 3 friends, me, my godmother and my dad.

And then there's Halloween!

Our boys went as a bullfighter and a bull this year.

The idea came out of nowhere.  Our local library had a costume exchange, and Kaden fell in love with the bullfighter outfit.  Right away, he started yelling TORO TORO.  Of course we had to get it.

And then one of us came up with the idea of having SamCub as the bull.  His costume was super easy:  black sweats, a sock pinned to his pants for a tail, and a knit hat fixed up with felt.  He was kinda like Ferdinand, though- often looking anywhere BUT the red cape.  Inside was a different story- he'd crawl after Kaden, who was waving the cape and yelling TORO TORO again.  Fun times.

Around these parts, Trick or Treating isn't on Halloween Day (I don't understand, either).  So on 10-31, the boys wore other holiday-ish clothes.  I surprised Kaden with a teeshirt that had Darth Vadar and stormtroopers trick or treating.  He loves the Star Wars part, I love the incongruity:  win/win. And of course I couldn't pass up a Tigger costume for the babe.  He kept pulling off his hat, though.

Birthday selfie!  We adventured out to an alpaca farm... where a baby alpaca had been born an hour earlier!  and so they named her after me!  See?  BEST MONTH EVER.

Night in Bethlehem (preview)

Kaden and I have been having some GREAT conversations lately... but he's also at the age where he knows about "posting things online" and doesn't want everything up here.  So I'm not posting *everything*.  But I had to post this...

After seeing a box with a nativity photo on it, he asked what it was.

Me:  It's called "Night in Bethlehem."  It's a program we're doing at church this year.
Kaden:  really?  So, what grades will be in it?
Me:  All the grades are invited.
Kaden:  even FIRST grade?
Me:  yes.  (realizing he thinks it's a Christmas program the kids act out...) - Not like last year.  It's a little like a VBS night, for families, about Christmas.  So we make the gym look like the village of Bethlehem might have on the night Jesus was born.  And you come and get to walk through town and do fun stuff.

Kaden:  ALL RIGHT!!!  Will Mary be there?
Me:  yes.  at some point.  I don't know if you'll get to see her or not.  They were traveling, remember?
Kaden:  I know, I know.  HEY!  Does Sammy get to be baby Jesus?
Me:  No, silly, he's too big.  Remember when he was just born, how tiny he was?  Now, he'd be sitting up and waving and smiling at people, and Jesus didn't do that on his first night.

Kaden:  Yes he did, Mom.  It's in the story, remember?  The Drummer Boy (one of his faves).
Me: um. yes. well, that was probably not his FIRST night on earth.
Kaden:  I think it was, Mom.

~~~
There was more, of course, as the conversation unfolded to other Christmas memories and general celebrating thoughts.  After bedtime, I found out that he had a chat with JimDad just after he came home (about a half hour after our original chat).   Loosely translated:

Kaden:  Dad, did you know that we are doing a Bethlehem night at our church?
JimDad:  yes.
Kaden:  And Mom says that Sammy can't be baby Jesus because he's too big, and Jesus didn't smile or wave when he was born, but she's wrong Dad because remember the Little Drummer Boy?  Jesus smiled at HIM.  I think Mom is wrong on this one...

the Many Sides of Serious Sam

So I logged on with a specific idea to post today... 

and then went looking for some photos.  I got distracted. 

Our little cub has grown so much!  He was never "small" per se (I met a 3 month old baby the other day who still wasn't at Sammy's birth weight!).  But look how small he was!  and red!

And... innocent looking!

There were a lot of times he just looked... bored with us.  Or maybe long-suffering?

Around six months or so, he started to get curious...

Some days, he wore himself out.

But then he started crawling... and sitting up... and about 2 weeks later, he'd pull himself into a standing position.  He's pretty good at pulling himself up (or pulling things off the table.  We may not be using table clothes for a while).  He thinks he can walk, but he can't.  Mostly he moves one leg, loses his balance, hits his head, and cries until we pick him up.  Then he's off again.  The babe can CRAWL, people, and he's pretty fast.

And he's starting to develop his personality!  He normally stares down strangers, but if he's seen you a few times before, he'll give a shy smile.  And if you're his big brother and walk into the room, his face will light up!

But if you try to feed him sweet potatoes.... even if yells because he wants to eat them... you'll get a look.  The expressions he has!  From serious to smiling, he's got 'em all now :)

Look who's SIX already?!

Pretend this is written in July 2014, ok?  That's when I started writing it in my head.

July is a BIRTHDAY month around here.  There's America's birthday, a few days later it's Nana's Birthday, late in the month it's JimDad's Birthday, and... hmm... oh, yes:  KADEN'S birthday.  The day around which all others rotate!  You're not going to believe this, but...

He turned SIX YEARS OLD.

But Little Brother isn't about to be upstaged.  He finishes off the month with a HALF birthday... 

so he turned SIX MONTHS OLD!

Each of them is growing in leaps and bounds this summer, so I think I'll just try to summarize what we did in this post, and then give each of them a specific post later.  Er, soon....

But Summer 2014 was the Summer of Family Vacations.  In July, we had a few days at the Outer Banks with (most of) my side of the family.   The very next week was a week in the PA countryside with Jim's family!  Three weeks after that, a family wedding in southern Indiana.  We drove everywhere, of course, and the boys wound up being great travelers together, all things considered.  I wouldn't mind a slightly roomier back seat, but then again, it all worked out fine.

I was sorta off the hook with birthdays this year:  my mom's happened while vacationing with her family, and they took over cake and what not.  Jim's 40th was last year, so this year = low key.  And Kaden's birthday was while vacationing with the cousins, which is sortof like a party everyday anyway.  I have discovered his 3 main ingredients to a great party:  a pinata, a cake with action figures on top, a version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey... all adapted to 'the theme' of course.  Which was Star Wars this year.  I should do a post on that, but I need to wait until I get the pics from my sister in law.  My camera batteries died the 2nd day of vacation.  Fun times.

All the pics here are from a family wedding.  Kaden likes ties, but I bought his from the 'young man' section, which is *vastly* different from the boy section.  Who knew.  I didn't try it on him before getting dressed for the wedding (rookiemom mistake!) and so he wound up with only the vest.  And he was initially perturbed by that, until I told him he looked like Han Solo from Star Wars.  

Then his eyes lit up.  "All I need is a blaster," he said, "and a wookie friend..."

Summertime...

It's been a while!  I'm noticing a trend with this favorite second son of ours.  We had much fun cheering a friend on for her first race- bright and early on the 4th of July.  (Thanks for inviting us!).  And then we hung out at a nearby park for a while.  

Sam is 5 1/2 months now... and not colicky, per se.  He is a bit of a mama's boy, which surprised me because I didn't think that separation anxiety kicked in just yet.  But there are days (or nights!) when all he wants is for me to hold him. If only that 'power' could last...

He is doing all sorts of  things lately, rolling over, grabbing stuff, laughing at his brother.  He has re-started his newborn habit of smacking his lips, and it's quite possibly the cutest thing he does.

 And while he likes to sleep- he's got no discernible pattern. Some days it's a quick 30 minutes, and other days it's 2-3 hours of zzzzz's.  But we never know which is coming, so that's fun.

PA is pretty in the summer.  I'm still astonished that I can be cold in the early am or late nite, but the days are great.  Even when they're hot!

4 Months Later...

Well, hey there!  We've survived the 'most brutal winter in a dozen years' or something like that.  The sad part is, the last 'record snows' the state had...is when we were in college here.  Sigh.

But, all winter long, I kept my eyes on Easter.  If we make it to Easter, I thought, life will be good!  The babe will stop crying, and we'll have a bit more of a routine, and we'll be able to go outside again...

Heh.  The babe mostly stopped crying- at least those eternal colic fits.  And we sorta had a routine- which I promptly messed up by working again.  Only part time, but still.

And THEN, the weather played us.  Now- almost a month after Easter? - we're starting to hit 70 degrees more than once a week.  But it's not 70 in the morning, which means layers.  Still.

But I found my favorite fleece vest!  And almost all the crazy work events are over! and it's 70+degrees out - at least part of the day!  And... AND, the babe is LAUGHING.  On purpose.

We're falling in love all over again.  Ah, spring!

Speaking of Spring... though we live in an apartment, the grounds here are nice.  We see all sorts of critters when we're out.  A chipmunk that likes to race across our porch and under the table.  Squirrels that like to bury their nuts in our planters.  Large birds holding small ones in their talons.  The occasional deer (while driving, not in our 'yard').   Oh, and falcons on the highway signs!  Here:  Bunnies, mostly at dusk.  And- the best part- a pair of chickadees nesting in a birdhouse Kaden made last year!  Right on our porch, which is pretty awesome to see and hear each morning.

And, of course, our favorite little groundhog- who may or may not be teething at 4 months.  Drool or no, we'll keep him!

Ten Weeks along...

It's hard to believe that LittleManSam is 10 weeks already.  It feels like forever! In a good way (mostly).  His crying jags have lessened.  We're rarely on the "level 3 alert" - which was eyes scrunched closed, mouth wide open and WAILING at the top of his lungs repeatedly.  Not fun for any of us.  He still cries and fusses, but at (usually) lower levels and (usually) not 3+ hours at a time.

We haven't taken too many photos of the cry jags.  I've been TRYING to get a photo of his smile, which is completely adorable.  But it comes and goes rather quickly.  His first smile was around 8 weeks.

You might think, from the photo above, that we entered him into some sort of old-tyme photo shoot.  Not at all.  He's not pretending to be a founding father (with their white wigs)- this is actually his baptismal outfit.  It was mine, actually, which is kinda cool.  (Kaden used a combination of my 2 brothers' outfits.)  I swear he looked much more normal when he was baptized.  That was around... 6 weeks old.

My thinking brain hasn't fully engaged yet.  It does, for brief spans of time, and then... it doesn't.  Very frustrating on some levels.  A bit worrisome since I ease back into work this week.  But most of the time, with those cute toes, a bit of aspirin and strong coffee- it's all good.

Here's the close up of our founding father.  I love all the expressions on his face here.  All these photos were taken by a (new) friend of mine... she offered to take newborn photos, but she has a toddler and it took us about 7-8 weeks to synchronize :)   She's pretty talented, though, and the day was a lot of fun.

Sam's face seems to be changing day by day this week.  Kinda amazing, watching him grow.  The 2 month doctor visit went fine.  We're still doing both nursing and formula.  Kaden is still over- enthused about his baby brother.  Spring has sprung, Easter's around the corner, and all in all, life is looking better each day :)

OH! and this week, Sam has started focusing more intently on stuff (and people, too).  He really likes patterns and the feel of flannel.  One day he was wearing a footie outfit, where the footies were little bears, and it looked like he was trying to grab them.  He hold his head up really well, and usually prefers to be in a sitting position.  If you try to lay him down, or just recline his head/back a little, he grunts and moves his head up.  It's kinda adorable to see him trying to do stuff, but not having the body control to do it.  I'm sure he'll get there soon.

And, even though it's way too early for him to be teething, we've noticed that sometimes he likes to bite down on stuff.  Interesting, that little boy.  Another fun tidbit- when he sleeps, he'll often still do the moro reflex (where his arms flail out for no reason).  He's almost 12 lbs of fun, that little boy!

What did you say?

Hi!  Thought I'd catch you up on things around here.

Mostly, I sleep...  and eat, and pee.

I make all sorts of odd noises (grunts, squeaks, smacks).

Some days, I cry.  A lot. But never when there's company.

Can you believe I'm a month already?

I open my eyes a little bit more now, and look around at people.

Even though I'm just 4 wks, I weigh about 10-11 lbs.  That makes it hard for mom to figure out which clothes will fit me.  Below, I'm pretending to be a meditating monk.

And here is my first or second walk outside.  It's freezing out, so I have about 3 layers of clothes plus 2 blankets on, and Mom still doesn't let me stay outside for more than 10 minutes or so.  Sigh.

This is my big brother, Kaden.  He's really nice to me.  He talks a lot.

Yesterday, I was crying, and he told me:

"Don't cry, Sammy, this is a happy house."

And the other day when I was crying, he told me:

"I know it's hard, Sam, but you gotta face your fears if you want to grow big and strong like me!"

I don't know what he meant by that.  Where's my monk robe? I need to think about it.

PS- like my sideburns?  Mom thinks they are cool.

Birthday plans

We were just looking over on Pinterest.... And Kaden saw a Disney themed pin.  "Ooh, what's that?"

The art of animation, it's a hotel near Disney.    "Can we go?"  We don't have plans to go to Disney this year.  "Not Disney, just the hotel near Disney.  Ooh, can we go there for my birthday?"

I don't think so, buddy.  That would be really involved.  " no, it will be fine, see, Daddy can take the truck and you can drive the car and...."  WAIT a minute, son, why do we need so many vehicles?  Who all is going?   "My friends.  And my cousins."    (That's over 15 kids...)

You want me to take all your friends and all your cousins all the way to Disney for your birthday?!?
"Yeah."

No.

But, we could have a Disney themed birthday party.  "What do you mean?"  We'll, we could watch a Disney movie and play Disney games and have Disney decorations.  "Yeah! That would be awesome!  So, on my birthday, have Daddy wake you up early so you can get everything ready for me, ok?"


(Two weeks ago, he planned out a Lego police themed party... And his bday is in 5 months yet.  Should we start a betting pool on the actual theme?)

quick takes: Brotherly Love

** Kaden came in the door with an empty donut bag.  "Did you bring me a donut?" I asked.
"No.  But I'll give you a thousand kisses, and that's worth more than one donut."

**  Nicknames Kaden has called his brother:  Little guy, Little man, little brother, baby brother, my baby, cutie patootie, squirrel, the cute one.

** One day, about 2 inches from his face, he jabbers away at Sam, who promptly started crying.  Kaden hung his head and softly said, "I think he hates me."  We re-explained that of course he loves you, but he's just a BABY, and babies don't do anything except eat, sleep, poop and cry.

** The next day, Kaden pops up into Sam's space and says "Hi there! It's me, Kaden, your big brother.  Do you remember me?"

** Sometime when I was pregnant, Kaden had mentioned something about someday he'd have a baby in his belly.  Without going into a lot of detail, I explained that no, only women have babies, because they're not really in the belly- we have a special organ called a uterus that grows babies.  Fast forward a few months, to a few days after Sam was born.  The first time Kaden saw Sam with a bottle, instead of nursing, he was a bit surprised and asked, "What, he doesn't he like drinking your uterus milk anymore?"

** Sam doesn't say a lot these days.  But his smacks and squeaks have us smiling!


There's a lot more, I'm sure- our oldest is all superhero and sweetness rolled into one.  But I'm still working on lack of sleep here, so we'll go with this for now!

Introducing...

In late January, our second son arrived!

Meet Samuel Joseph, 9 lbs, 2 oz, 21 inches long.

His birth story is a bit long- we'll get to it in another post :)

His older brother, born in a Florida summer, was 4 months old and traveled 4 states away before he saw his first snow- which was a light dusting.  This little guy, born in a Pennsylvania winter, was 4 days old, stepped outside his house and had over 4 inches on the ground!

Isn't he adorable?  Even when he looks like a little drunken sailor!

We haven't gotten a lot of great family photos yet. 

I'm working on it.   I'm also working on thank you notes, but then lost the list.  

And my brain is mush from sleep deprivation, so that put everything on hold until I found the list (which I did, earlier today!).

Kaden is thrilled to be a big brother.  There's a good many posts in the future about how sweet and gentle he is (and some of the funny things that come out of his mouth!).  Perhaps the next one we'll recount as much as I can remember of brotherly love from the last few weeks...

It is life with a newborn, though- so it's not all roses.  Like all new humans, he's a bit squirrel-y.  

True to his genes, he also has stomach/gas issues. Poor guy.

The good news is that his lungs are just fine, thankyouverymuch.  Very strong lungs, indeed.

Another "odd" thing (not really bad, just.. an adjustment) to having two BOYS in the house... all the nicknames I have for Kaden have to be adapted.  Because if I say "What's wrong, little buddy" - Kaden answers "nothing, why?".  Or if I say "are you hungry, goose?"  Kaden answers "no, Mom".  So we're adapting:  littlest buddy, baby boy, littlest man, littlest brother.  Geesh, I hope Sam doesn't get a complex.  Maybe we'll have to adapt those nicknames again!

One of the most fun side benefits is that we've recounted a lot of "when you were a baby" stories to Kaden.  I almost forgot what fun he was.  Especially when he hit the older baby - toddler phase. And the preschool phase.  And... oh, really, he's just a fun kid... a good son to have in the family.  

And now we have two of them :)