PJ's are Great!

Yesterday was PJ day at Daniel's school. He was thrilled to be able to wear his Elmo jammies and slippers all day long. Daniel really wanted to help take out the trash. Maybe this will be a life long passion. I dislike taking the trash out so much that I will stuff so much in the can that you can't even get the bag out without ripping it. Matt finds this a particularly attractive feature :)

Who knew that an island could be so much fun?

I think he is going to love the swingset this summer.

We can't forget about the monkey jammies either.

Winter Fun

The playground can be fun in the winter, well after Daniel gets over the fear of walking on the snow.
Airplane!

Some indoor fun.

Christopher Smiles

Here are a few pictures of the little guy winding up for a big smile. He is still a relatively mellow baby and doing well at night. He normally gets up a couple times to nurse, and seems to be better about keeping them less than an hour. During the day he is pretty happy and really enjoyg the swing and the sling. Evenings are difficult. Evenings are busy and Christopher usually wants to be held or to nurse. That makes getting dinner and bedtime done difficult. Daniel was fussy in the evening, too. I'm starting to think that it must be a baby thing. They like to get you at your worst moment. No, I think they just like you to know who is in charge.

We also have some other exciting things going on. I ordered a double stroller yesterday! After much deliberation, we decided to go with the Tike Tech Double City x3 Swivel Stroller. I'm really excited for it to arrive next week. Also, we are going to Florida with the boys in March. It will be interesting travelling with two lap children. Hopefully the weather will cooperate!

Christopher Antics

This was in the fist two weeks.
Big event! The first bath! He really enjoys his bath.

Hanging out in a handsome suit last week.

Here he is wiggling.

Sorry I don't have more exciting pictures for you. I always forget to take pictures of the real antics things like spitting up in mass quantities and deciding to stay awake from 2 am until 4 am. I swear that there are some outfits (mine and his) that require that they get dirty within five minutes of putting them on. Ironically it's the same outfits that Daniel ruined within minutes. Of course, the outfits are some of my favorites.

Despite the spitting up and occasional sleepy time confusion, Christopher is a pretty easy baby. Maybe babies are just easy in comparison to toddlers? He enjoys napping in the swing, and he has started looking at the Rainforest gym. He is also starting to bat at the toys and caught one by accident the other day. He seemed suprised to actually touch something and tried to do it again. I can't believe that he is a month old already. I apologize for the lack of pictures. Taking pictures with Daniel around has become difficult. He always wants to be taking the picture rather than being in it.

Daniel Antics

Daniel has been loving life these days, well in between the toddler moments which happen regularly. He has started talking in phrases and I can tell he wishes he could express his thoughts better than he is. It is often a source of frusteration, but I'm sure the days of full sentances are right around the corner. He is really into throwing everything including his dinner which is a souce of much father-son debate.

"Aah kick," Daniel. "Be careful, your brother is right there," Mommy.
I pulled the Exersaucer out for a playdate. Daniel got home from school and climbed right in it. He played in it for over an hour that day.

Daniel also wore that jacket with the hood on right through nap and until dinnertime. He loves to have things on his head - hoods, hats, etc.

Daniel and his buddy Henry playing at the kitchen.

Daniel helped Kelly and I make brownies. He really enjoyed the licking part :)

Baby Brother

Daniel seems to really like being a big brother. He always has to go check on the baby when he wakes up in the morning or from his nap, and he really likes to give the baby kisses. Daniel actually likes to give everyone kisses, but that's a different story. We were a little nervous about letting Daniel hold the baby, so we started out slowly.
Then we got a little braver about three weeks later.

And moments later, I took the leap of letting him hold his baby brother. He did a great job!

We have a problem..

...we've developed a serious Sesame Street dependance. Daniel loves Sesame Street. He has been able to sit through an entire episode since he was just over 1. Sesame Street time is precious to me as I can do pretty much anything, and I'll know that he is sitting on the couch glued to the TV. So I have really encouraged the interest in Sesame Street, but I'm starting to wonder if it's too much. I was singing the theme song to Abby's Flying Fairy School all night last night. We have added much more Sesame Street to our lives in the past couple months. I downloaded a Sesame Street CD on the iPod and now it plays almost all day. Daniel repeatedly asks for, "Cookie C," "Ernie Moon," and "Street." He has suffed characters that he brings to parties in the couch cushions which includes four Elmo's of various sizes. We also have at least four Sesame Street books. To top it all off we get to finish our day with Elmo, Cookie, and Ernie bath toys before putting on the "Elmo Jammies." It is rare that I go an hour without a Sesame Street moment. Alright, time to go read a Sesame story before nap time :)

A Room of His Own

I almost titled this post, "Kicked Out," but I thought Christopher might resent that later in life. We decided to move Christopher to his own room a few nights ago because he grunts all night long. He is the noisiest sleeper sometimes. It was nice having him in the pack'n'play for the first three weeks, but he is ready for bigger and better sleeping spaces. He seems pretty happy in his own room, and we are sleeping a little better now. He usually wakes up a couple times a night which seems pretty managable.


One of the biggest changes with Christopher's move is that we had to move the baby monitor to his room and now Daniel is monitorless. Ironically, moving the monitor has resulted in him sleeping later...I promise we do listen for him.

80 Percent Good

Today was my first day home with both boys by myself. I was still kind of cheating because I had a bit of help. Matt took Daniel to school and a friend brought dinner over for us, but this was the most I've done solo so far. The day was pretty good, but the bad moments were pretty low. They mostly involved both boys crying loudly and the phone ringing at the same time. I would say that the day was 80 percent great. To give you a glimpse of what things were like today, here is a little story.

So Christopher and I were totally ready to head out the door to pick up Daniel at 11:30. We were both dressed, Daniel's lunch was mostly prepared, and Christopher was in the carseat. I did not need to leave until 11:35, so, feeling good about the way things were going, I decided to check my email. When I went to grab the carseat to go, I discovered that Christopher had spit up all over himself. Daniel was a spitter, but he has nothing on what Christopher can produce. This kid was covered. Almost his entire torso was covered and he had soaked the carseat cover and the carseat. So I had to take him out of the carseat and completely change him which made us late to pick up Daniel. I felt really badly having to put him back in the dirty carseat, but I did not have time to wash the carseat cover before going to pick up Daniel.

The highlight of the day was probably when I decided to take Daniel and Christopher over to the neighbors for a visit. The three of us got bundled up and walked across the street. Wow, what an adventure, right? I've been so worried about taking Christopher out in the neighborhood since it's so cold outside. Today I had Christopher bundled in his bunting over his clothes and hat, then I put him in the sling, then I put a coat on over everything. He was so warm that he fell asleep immediately and did not wake up until I took the bunting off after we returned home. I'm not usually a worrier, but something about a newborn in the winter makes me quite nervous.

Also, Christopher had his two week appointment on Monday. He is already 8 pounds, 13 ounces, and everything checked out great.

Christopher's Photo Shoot

Two of my girlfriends came over this week to take pictures of Christopher. Here are a couple that my Mom snapped while they worked. He was quite agreeable during the two and a half hour event. I can't wait to see the pictures. The 'sets' were so cute!