Equal Time

Lest I be accused of favoring my younger child, here is Aaron reading one of his new favorite books. Here's a little free advertising for the author.

The book is called No, David! by David Shannon and is about a little boy whose mom always says "no" just like Aaron's mom. The text is all words and phrases Aaron hears all the time like, "Not in the house!," and "Come back here!," and "That's enough!" Consequently, he can read it by himself because he's memorized each page. I feel bad that he relates so well with little David. Contrary to popular belief, Mom's don't like to say "no, stop, don't, no, stop, don't, no, stop, don't" all the time. Every once in a while it's nice to say, "Yes, you can do that." It just seems that "yes" opportunities (at least in our family) are rare. Perhaps David Shannon puts it best in his Author's Note when he says, ""Yes" is a wonderful word...but "yes" doesn't keep crayon off the living room wall."

Walking Woes

On Wednesday BreeAnna slipped and bumped her head while cruising along the edge of the bathtub.

As you can see, it quickly turned into a black eye...

...which spread across her eyelid today. When her eyes are open all the way it just looks like I put eyeshadow on my baby. The sad tired face in this picture has nothing to do with the black eye. She's teething and so she's tired and grumpy. I'm not sure where the other bruise above the eye came from, but she probably got it trying to walk. Poor BreeAnna.

Breaking News!

BreeAnna's first tooth has finally broken the surface of the gums! It is coming in on the bottom right side, but her smiles are never wide enough to show it. Try as I might, I can't get her to show off her pearly white. In our attempts, however, we did manage to get a picture of her with her best bud Frog. She's pretty attached to the furry green amphibian, and here she holds him for comfort as her mean parents try to get her to smile for the camera.
She also managed to stand up from a sitting position by herself this week. She has been practicing every day, but never in the presence of the camera. She's not quite steady enough to take any steps yet, but she can bend and pick things up without falling so toddlerhood is not far away. Time to break out the baby gates and cupboard locks.

Getting Along Swimmingly

Since we can't go to the beach every week, we set up the inflatable pool on the deck to keep cool (thanks Grandpa). Aaron had lots of fun throwing water over the rail. Luckily, none of our downstairs neighbors were home at the time.

Here are my water babies. Aren't they cute!

Aaron is definitely over his fear of water. This was our second time in an inflatable pool on this particular day. The first time he got his swim trunks wet he ran over to me in great distress and said, "I wet!" I cheered, "Yea! You're wet!" After that he was fine.

BreeAnna didn't really care to be in the water. Aaron's splashing was a little wild for her. She just wanted to pose in her swimsuit.

Beach Bums

Saturday we took advantage of the heat wave and went to the beach.

Aaron had fun destroying all of my attempts at a sand castle. I think it's safe to say he is not a budding architect, but perhaps a demolition expert.

BreeAnna promptly fell in the black sand which, as you can see, became caked to the side of her head very quickly.

But babies are washable. It took about three washings, but she did come clean.

Major Milestone 2: All Smiles

Aaron also had a milestone this week. He finally produced a pleasant smile for the camera on command. He used to squint one eye, turn up the corner of his mouth and say cheese. The pictures looked more like a toddler's impersonation of a pirate. That was cute for a while, but when you're trying to get a good looking Christmas photo to send out, it's kind of frustrating to have to choose between photos of him crying or looking like Long John Silver..."Arrrgh!"

Major Milestone

BreeAnna's hair is finally long enough to put it up in hair clips! Here she is with her new hairstyle, chewing on some other kid's purse. Isn't she cute! Of course, two minutes after I took this picture one of the clips fell out and I couldn't find it. Ten minutes later I found her playing in the toilet so I had to change her wet clothes, and the clip must have slipped into the waistband of her skirt because Brian found it on the bathroom floor after I changed her clothes. Ah, the joys of parenting!

Square Clocks

So, my friends and I decided to have a craft night and I would teach them to make giant clocks. The only problem was, the round particle board I used to make mine is no longer sold at Home Depot, so we decided to make square clocks. For all those who were skeptical about how a square clock would turn out, here is Jackie's without the hands. Looks pretty good, I'd say.

Fellow Parents of Babies: Keep Your Dishwasher Door Shut!

Last week we visited my parents for my commencement ceremony (yes, I finally graduated, pictures to come) and in their house you have to step down from the living room into the family room. BreeAnna spent quite a while practicing going up and down that step. Now I know why. Tonight we found her sitting in the dishwasher. Thankfully, it was clean and Aaron was asleep, so he couldn't come and shut the door on her. She was pretty proud of herself though.

Better Late Than Never

So we've decided to join the blog movement and make it easier for friends and family to feel like they're keeping up with us. By "we" I mean "I" because Brian isn't going to take the time to post anything. I suppose since only our families have seen us since BreeAnna's birth, I'd better start with a family photo. This is probably our most recent family photo at BreeAnna's baby blessing. Of course, the date on the photo is way off. This was in August of '07 and the kids are quite a bit bigger now, but not by much.