Cuteness

Same outfit, same seat, different baby

Can you guess who's who? I don't really think they look alike.

2 years

Dane's first 'growth' picture from when we was only 6 weeks old. Look how much he has grown.

As you can see it was next to impossible to get a growth picture.

Today we sat down to color together. We were having fun and next thing I know he leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Oh how I love that sweet boy.

Recently we have been reading Love You Forever. The endearing yet very creepy children's book how the mother sneaks in the boy's room at night and rocks him clear into adulthood. Dane loves this book, we taught him how sign I love you and then on his own he said "love you forever mommy" How sweet is he? I do crawl into his room every night and check on him, but can you imagine me doing that when he is married? I promise I won't.

He is one of the funniest boys I've met. He still loves to tease me. Last night he started calling me daddy instead of the usual mommyjenn. His other favorite thing to do is grab my phone from me and start pressing all sorts of buttons and say "texting china" Sometimes he even puts the phone to his ear and says "hi china, hi people".

He can also do some 'chores' now. He has been helping with the dishwasher and laundry for a while. But now he is tall enough to open and shut doors. So I can have him put the dog in the basement before we leave and then when we get home he lets him out again. What a good little helper. The other day I sat down to nurse Caed, got all situated and realized I was thirsty. I could see a half full glass of water sitting on an end table about 10 feet in front of me. I asked Dane to help.

Me: Can you do Mommy a big favor?

Dane -nodded and jumped up excited to help

Me: Can you bring mommy that glass of water, I am really thirsty....

Dane- confidently heads over to the table

Me: ..with out spilling?

Dane: stops dead in his tracks - "Nope"

I guess the orders got a little to tall for him. He knows his limits.

1 month (ok 6 weeks)

I got a late start on the growth pictures, but I think that happened with Dane also. Six weeks old today. Can you believe it? He has settled in quite nicely. I already can't imagine life without him. He is a sweetie pie, he had a fussy couple of weeks but I think we are figuring each other out.
Like now that I understand when you are really upset, and are fed and dry it means you just wants to be laid down and left alone. Ok now that we have an understanding, things are better. I also have realized you really don't like your sleep to be disturbed. So having big brother come up and scream "eyes open" in your face is really not helpful and usually ends badly.
It's probably about time to move you into your own room but you always wake up around 3am and have a hard time going back to sleep after you eat. Usually because you have all sorts of mucus choking you up, and being so little you don't understand how to sleep with your mouth open. I lay awake in my own bed trying to help you you breath and clear your throat.
I love all of your smiles and coos and I respect your need for space, though I could hold you all day long. You are growing so fast. I want you to stay small forever, but I am looking forward to seeing you interact with your big brother. I think he will be thrilled once you start playing with him.

Goodbye first car

and goodbye matching set. I thought it was fun that we had a set of black cars, but now we are mismatched again. Technically it wasn't even my car, my name wasn't on the title, though I was the main driver. So that means I have never even owned a car :o( Andy bought it brand new a few months before we were married. We logged all of the 128,000 miles on that Impala. Andy driving most of them because I am a happy passenger. We drove away from our wedding in that car. It moved us to Albuquerque, we moved it to Iowa - notice our stuff didn't fit in the car once we moved to Iowa. It drove both of our babies home from the hospital. We have drove all over the US in that baby. 128,000 miles of driving. many many trips to Colorado. Many fun vacations. I even rode in the trunk once. with a friend. good times. i think it was my idea. i know i am weird. there was room for one more too.Hello 4runner. Beautiful and silver, not black and probably won't need washed as often. (Does that mean our vehicles are now unequally yolked?) Last weekend Andy took off early early Saturday morning and drove to Georgia to pick it up and got home Sunday morning. That was a lot of driving I think about 27 hours worth. But it is worth it. We like it. I took her out yesterday. Dane thinks it's great. He even made sure to show me which door Caed should enter through and where he should sit.

P.S. I was going to post a picture of Andy and I from the party we went to on Friday night. We went as 80's rockers. Andy was complete with a mesh sleevless shirt, black tights, and combat boots. But I think that picture is best laid to rest, well I will keep it on the hard drive, you never know I might need to pull it out someday.

Smile

Caed has been smiling for about three weeks now and I finally caught a few little smiles on camera. I love those first smiles so quick and brief but so much fun! I can't believe is is 6 weeks old already.

Birthday Boy

It's official, he's two! Dane's birthday would not be complete without a picture of him in his birthday costume. No not his birthday suit but his birthday costume. Given his birthday is 10-31 I think it is only fitting he dress up every year. Though Des Moines does trick or treating (beggars night) on the 30th. Which is an entire rant all on it's own. It's just weird.

Anyway we celebrated Dane's birthday on Sunday, complete with a monkey theme. We had a very busy weekend being out of town so I was a little stressed out about making a cake. I was exhausted Saturday night but had to bake the cake anyway. It turned out gross looking especially the cupcakes. It has been forever since I made cake and it was only a box mix, and I had never tried one in my 'new' oven. I think they were over baked. I was going to toss them and start over but I was too tired so I decided to make it work. The cake turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. I just copied the idea from this website. They have many great ideas that seem pretty simple to pull off. All you need is a box mix, a can of frosting and candy. And yes I can make cake and frosting from scratch, but this was way easier given the time crunch.

We attended a pumpkin carving party last week. We decided to double up and use our carvings as decoration. We weren't trying to win any prizes, but we still won a sympathy prize for the most kid friendly pumpkins :o) We even won a prize that we wrapped up and used as a birthday present. I think it ended up being one of his favorite presents!

Here he is with all of his loot. It was hard getting him to sit still for a picture after all of the excitement of the evening. He kept going from toy to toy playing with each one for about 30 seconds while rotating in his all time forever favorite- a cheap ball from Walmart that we have had forever.