Our Little Boy

Nathan is officially a little boy and not my baby anymore. *Sob*

Brian took him to the park yesterday and took the camera out for a ride. The best part of Virginia Park (aka Hippo Park) is that there are these great trucks and diggers that are there for all of the kids to play with. No plastic here folks, they are metal and quite serious. For a boy whose favorite thing right now is playing "little builders" with a mega blocks set, this makes the park quite the fun place for our guy.

He's pretty good with other kids. He does a lot of watching before joining in and generally if another kid takes away whatever he's playing with, he just moves on to the next thing without hesitation. I'm sure that will change over time, but at least for now we don't have the play yard bully. (Imagine me spitting on the ground, throwing salt over my shoulder, and knocking on wood.)

You can also see how fun the video capability is on our new lovely below or here:

Our Little Lady

Oh, you'd like to look at a few pictures of our darling girl? You're welcome. 

New Camera!

I got the most wonderful gift for my birthday - a new camera! Our "old" camera is 5 years old and so very trusty. I don't want to disparage old faithful, but let's just say that the flash has to be held down with a rubber band due to an unfortunate fall a few years back. The new lovely is just LOVELY. Can you tell a difference???? The video is especially awesome, but I'll have to prove that to you later since the only ones we've taken so far are walkthroughs of the house. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

In case you were wondering my kids have blue eyes and excellent eyelashes - thanks, Brian! Someone please tell me that they see the red in Viv's hair too. N is even looking a little strawberry blond these days.

I think it's hysterical that when Brian was playing around and testing it, these are what he chose as hist subjects. I think it says a lot about what we have lying around the house. They were artfully displayed by Nathan.

Nathan Says

I'm pretty excited for this post. We are moving from a list of things that Nathan can say to actual cute things he does with the English language.

Cottage quotes:
"dang it!" - as he swept bugs off the boat.
"turn it, like this" (complete with hand motions) - trying to get one of the flashlights to work

He tends to use "you" when he really means "me," so he'll ask me to "hold you," During bedtime I list all of the people who love him. While he worked on falling asleep, we would overhear him saying, "Mama love you, Daddy love you, Nonnie love you, Viv love you, Pop Pop love you, Nathan love you..."

Other quotes

"Plants are crying" - talking about the flowers after he waters them

"Cherries snuggling" - looking at the cherry pits in a bowl

He also knows all of the words to a few different songs, especially Five Little Monkeys and Ba Ba Black Sheep. Periodically he will just rattle the whole thing off when he thinks no one is paying close attention. I love this. I tried to get him doing it at dinner one night, but he was too aware of the camera. I'm not sure what he was doing with his finger in his mouth...

He also is a fan of pretending to pump and then feeding his milk to Viv. I find it hilarious and sweet. He'll be appalled in 15 years that I documented that.

"Breast pumpin'"

Cheery Cherry Girl

 I don't know if you can tell, but Vivian seems to have a bit of red in her hair. It's mostly her eyebrows and in the sunlight that I really see it, but it's fun. 

In other news, she's also started rolling both directions very reliably as of yesterday. Seriously, she seems to opt into tummy time and only be a little frustrated that she hasn't figured out that she can end it whenever she wants now.  

Typical younger sister gets a truck driven on her during the photo shoot...

Murray Lake

Friends of ours, Martin and Vanessa, have a year pass to Murray Lake north of Ann Arbor. We went with them last week for a dinner picnic and swim and it was perfect! We may need to get a pass next year...

Watching Nathan and Tillman together is pretty adorable. They are almost a year apart, but they get along pretty darn well. We can't wait to meet their #2!

Cuties

I was curious how much Vivian looks like Leah did when she was around the same age, so I dug this photo up from Liz's blog and tried to recreate it. I don't think I did particularly well in capturing a similar look, but - NAKED BABY ALERT!!!

In comparison, I don't know how much they actually resemble each other, but I declare them both cute as heck.

Leah around 4 months, so a little older - look at that belly!

Rusty and Jason Visit!

Our excellent friends (there is no way either one of them actually read this blog) Jason and Rusty visited us last weekend from Philly. It was awesome. For two guys who claim to have very little experience with small children, you wouldn't have guessed it. Both of the kids were enamored with them and we were enamored with a few extra hands on deck. 

Jason picked up an old school calculator for Nathan (new favorite toy) and Rusty had matching grey New Balance shoes. The crazy rain in the Detroit area delayed their flight almost 24 hours... sorry guys!