A girl after my own heart

I love watermelon. I have bequeathed that love to Alison. So much so that when the watermelon was all gone last night. . .

. . . she just had to finish off every last drop.

Taking an interest

Me: Alison, what are you reading?
AK: A book about kids!
Me: Oh!
(???? how did she know?)

Another yoga baby

This is what happens to your babies when you do pre-natal yoga. Never mind the yellow spit up stains on his outfit - this kid can do a mean down-dog!!

He's also learning to use a sippy cup. The concept of using the handles was lost on him. So he just bent down to get to the spout! He'll be a champion at Bobbing for Apples.

He got it!

How much is that baby in the mirror?

I needed Andrew to be busy for a minute the other day. I put him in front of the mirror. This is what happened.




It was VERY funny. He was completely entertained by sticking out his tongue and making faces. Later that night he was close enough to try and grab "that kid" in the mirror. I took all of these and was going to toss the ones I didn't like. But I love them all, and I love that his expression in each picture is so different. The mirror is my newest distraction for him when I am trying to get dressed or something.

Summer Fun

We went to the Lake on base for a family picnic hosted by Nick's work. Of course Alison wanted to spend the whole time on the swings. She is addicted. And she always wants to go "super high!" High is not good enough, you have to push her so there's some slack in the chains she's gone so high. It's a little tiring and hard to do with Andrew in the Bjorn. She and Nick spent some time on the little dock throwing rocks into the water. She has a thing for "wocks". She's got a collection. Or at least she would if I let her bring in every rock she ever picked up!

It was such a nice day yesterday I got the camera out to take some pictures. I love these two. Calm and serene and then Andrew attacks - Tickle time! Hilarious! I hope these two always have this much fun together. Alison's big sister rules are 1. Be nice and 2. Have fun. So far, so good.

Clearly someone is a mama's boy.

Okay, so maybe he likes Daddy too.

Daddy-Love

We had a little dog-pile daddy time the other day and I tried to get some pics. Unfortunately, Nick has a hard time keeping his eyes open for the camera. And so does Alison. Andrew seems to be the only one who can keep them open.

Andrew did really well in the bathtub the other night. He's really doing a great job sitting up on his own. He had his 6 month check up last week too. He's 2 inches and 2 ponds bigger than Alison was at 6 months. He's 16 lbs 2 oz and 27 inches long. And he didn't even cry when he got his shots!

I bought this hydrangea to put in the front of our boring unlandscaped house. It's really pretty and Alison's has dubbed them "her flowers". So we took a little Sunday best picture with them.

More videos

5 little monkeys


Alison 'reads' the baby faces book.


Trying to get Andrew to say dada.

life with the sillies and a crawler

Here is Alison with the case of the sillies. I was trying to get her to sing for us, oh well.

So then I got Andrew laughing when I tickled him and by the time I pulled the camera out - he was all laughed out, but he still looks cute.

And then, yes, oh yes, he's on the move. I better start paying attention to where he's going!

like sister, like brother

It cracks me up when I see Andrew doing the same things that Alison used to do. Okay, well only some things I find truly funny (getting into things and eating paper - not funny), like the penchant for sleeping with blankets on their heads.

Alison at 2 months

Bike Rides!

Thank you Megan Y. for the generous hand-me-down bike trailer! We got Alison a helmet and she and daddy take evening rides together after dinner. She LOVES it.
And they look pretty cute getting on their way....

Together Time

Sometimes I'll put Andrew in Alison's bed while we read before naps. Alison is always asking to hold and snuggle him. He never looks quite as happy about it as she does. Oh yes, and she's mastering the art of winking.

He does look happy about learning to sit up.

And being naked.

A New Guessing Game

Alison and I started playing a game a few months ago where I put her toys in a pillowcase and she has to feel them and guess what they are. She's gotten pretty good at it. I got the idea off of one of the many new blogs I've discovered. . .

Anyway, lately we've been playing a new kind of "guessing" game. It goes a little something like this (and usually after she's been rummaging through my purse).

Alison: (very inquisitively, like she's just discovered something brand new) Mommy, what is THIS? (holds up a lollipop, or a pen, or fruit snacks - you get the idea)

Me: I'm not sure, what do you think that is?

AK: a sucker! can I pweeeze have one?

She's a sneaky little one!

I'm going to start calling her Maude when she wears these.

Andrew Candy

Andrew decided he needed to try out the Bumbo seat at Heather's shower. He looked so cute in it and seemed to like the vantage point of looking out instead of up from the floor. So I got on Freecycle to see if anyone had one they weren't using anymore and some generous person offered us this!
Now if we could get him to stop slurping on his bib and hand while we are feeding him sitting up in this, things will be pretty good!

Cutie-patootie

I have trimmed his hair since this next pic. Everyone, okay, a couple of people, had suggested that I cut his hair. WHAT?!!? CUT HIS HAIR!!!? He actually had hair when he was born and I wasn't ready to say good bye to it yet. Well, I have finally cut it, but here we have:

Hitler Hair

If Hitler had been the 4th stooge.

Blue Lips

Nothing says Happy Birthday like blue smiles from yummy cupcakes!!




See some more cutes pics of these little hilarities HERE.

It was a dark and stormy night. . .

We had a horrific storm come down our street back in Jun. We've actually had quite a few tornadoes and crazy thunderstorms this summer. And most of them seem to happen on Sunday nights. This night started out no differently.

Nick was at work and I had just put the kids down when there was a huge lightning strike and thunder following almost instantaneously. That jarred me a bit. Randy (my father-in-law) came in just then to use our computer. So at least I wasn't alone. The wind was really strong and it was dark. The trees were blowing so far over I was surprised they were still standing. Since we don't have TV we started looking on the internet for tornado warnings. As I was sitting on the couch something changed outside and I looked out the window and there was a WHITE-OUT. No kidding. It was crazy. I couldn't even see my driveway or his car parked in it. My first thought was, "I've got to go get the kids out of bed and lay on top of them so that when our house is blown of it's shoddy foundation we don't all end up in munchkin land!!"

When it passed/calmed down/stopped and I could see out the window this was what I saw across the street: (these pics were actually taken all the next morning - too dark that night).I'm not really sure if you can tell, but the tree on the left used to be as big as the one on the right. 2/3 of it was strewn across the lawn. Here is another shot.Neighbors started spilling out of their homes to collect trash cans and recycling bins and debris that had been blown down the street. We didn't see any funnel clouds - but with the winds as strong as they were it was something like that.

Nick was on his way home from work and was unable to get into our street because trees had fallen blocking the only street access. Luckily he was able to go around and come through the park several houses down.

Here are more branches down.
And this one, you have to see that that big mound of dirt is actually the root base of a VERY large tree. The roots are taller than the 6-7" fence!This about 1/3 of my neighbors Bradford Pear. so sad - I love that tree in the spring!
And here are the tree cleaner-uppers taking care of part of a tree that had fallen onto the neighboring house.
It was definitely the most exciting thing that has happened here on Dewey Drive. Randy emailed the local weather guy and asked if it was a tornado. His response was basically - the radar doesn't show that it was, but the winds and damage do, so if you want to tell people it was a tornado, I won't dispute it.

Someone said they thought it was a Microburst. After reading about them and seeing the trees down around our street (some facing in opposite directions) I am inclined to believe that's what it was. Either that or aliens. Scully, Mulder? are you there?