2010’s Missing Pictures, Part III

April 13th, Ian removed a cushion from the couch, and laid down in the spot where the cushion was not. Two separate actions, really. If he’d had another 10 calories to burn he’d have made it to the cushion side, I think. See this image larger.

It looks like all of these were taken around that date. I can’t tell if this is cute or “No speaky engrish.” See this image larger.

Meanwhile, on “The Bathtub Deck” Nina flirts with the wait staff and orders a vodka martini. (So cute!) See this image larger.

I helped Ian build that helicopter back there. You can open a door and put somebody inside of it. He thought it was the coolest thing ever. He’s really great with legos though. I’m not sure if I shared this story or not, but apparently one of his teachers sends the other kids to him when they want an airplane built. He built them for most of the class. See this image larger.

“HEY HAI!” See this image larger.

I should probably animate this picture and the next one so that they go back and forth. See this image larger.

Does anybody else think Ian should take over for that red-haired creep on CSI-Miami? Looking at this pic, I can almost hear the bad pun, followed by YEAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! The Thomas pajamas would probably have to go, but we can negotiate wardrobe after salary. See this image larger.

So How’d That Turn Out, Part II

Last night Ian counted bunnies on the back of a book properly… as in, pointing to each character and assigning them a digit. “One…” “…Two!” And the two had a sense of finality to it, so this felt a little different than his usual counting, in which he points all over the page and counts to ten, regardless of the number of characters. To be sure, I turned the book over and showed him the other two bunnies. He counted them. I then opened the book so that both covers could be seen, and he counted to four. This morning he looked on the back of his cereal box and perfectly counted the six characters on the back of the box, pointing a finger at each, with the last number given that same sound of finality. Awesome! Just to be clear, he’s been reciting numbers for a good long time. Now he’s actually taking a true census of whatever it is he’s counting.

This morning Ian woke up dry, was directed to the bathroom, and he peed in the potty! Same thing happened after breakfast!! We’re showering him in praise and even a little bit of candy so that he knows he’s doing the right thing. You go, kiddo!

EDIT – UPDATE – Ian peed in the potty again later in the day, and then actually did a 1 AND 2 combo after that!!! Four for four!!! AWESOME!!! (If you’re wondering when this turn around happened I mentioned it a few days ago, and I will mention it again a couple entries from now.)

EDIT – UPDATE – And another pee… Five for five!

EDIT – UPDATE – And another poop… Six for six!

So How’d That Turn Out?

Wanted everybody to know that Nina’s first week at daycare was an excellent success. She has a smile on her face when we drop her off, and a smile on her face when we pick her up… she’s been drinking between 3-5 bottles of milk a day. So that turned out great!

And Ian in his big boy underwear, you ask? Well, he’s been getting them dirty quite a bit, as you can imagine, but today he had TWO successful potty visits at daycare, and came home, ate dinner, and at our insistence, went right up to the bathroom afterwards. We didn’t quite get to him in time, and he ended up peeing next to the potty, in his pants, but he had the right idea. I’d call that 2.5 successes today! So that turned out awesome!

2010’s Missing Pictures, Part II

Ian, Nina and Melissa traveled down to Ohio without Daddy, remember? These were all taken sometime around April 4th-5th. See this image larger.

Unfortunately I can’t really say what was going on, because I wasn’t there. I can only guess. Here Ian practices opera while Kaylee jumpstarts a career in archeology. See this image larger.

Connor apparently has a friend that’s a girl that lives across the street that waited patiently to play with him. None of that is pictured above. See this image larger.

This is where Kaylee and Ian slept, in Connor’s room. Ian told me all about this when he got home. See this image larger.

Wow everybody is getting big! See this image larger.

This looks like it must have been Easter morning. I understand that Ian screamed loud enough in the church daycare that mommy could hear him from the sanctuary… sigh. See this image larger.

Nina got some fun Easter presents too! See this image larger.

Ian snuggles up with a Snoopy motorcycle for a nice nap… See this image larger.

Brace yourself, Part III is coming soon! (If you can’t tell, I’m finally off of the latest deadline du jour… updates should be much more frequent. Remember, a good daddy keeps the blog updated… a great daddy keeps a roof over everybody’s head. Ok, so an awesome daddy could do both — nobody’s perfect. 😉 )

2010’s Missing Pictures, Part I

Ok first things first… and I’ll say this again in the caption because you probably skipped this part. These are OLD PICTURES. Nina is NOT back in the hospital!!! I just found a bunch of pictures on Melissa’s laptop that I never ended up with on my computer… so now I’m passing on the love to you!

This picture, FROM FEBRUARY… (Please read the above, if you have not already… I found some old pics… please remain calm.) I’m glad they didn’t need to hook up anything else to our little girl, I’m not sure where they would have found room to put it. See this image larger.

The “cage” suited the hospital’s purpose just fine; not very homey, but hey, as long as she gets better right? Thankfully she did, thanks to a lot of love and prayers. See this image larger.

Believe this picture was toward the end of her stay at the hospital. See this image larger.

Melissa’s computer claims this was taken on march 17th, but it said that about one of the hospital photos as well, so who knows. Looks snowy though, so it is probably sometime between July and June. See this image larger.

From the same outing. The hat says it right! See this image larger.

Modeling swimsuits already? See this image larger.

I’m pretty sure “Flashdance” is before her time, but apparently leg-warmers are making a comeback. See this image larger.

First Day of School, and Other Stories

(Still plenty of catch-up to do, but I figured I should say this on the day it is happening!)

Today we loaded the kids in the car and took them both to school. We dropped off Ian first at his class and he had what we call “a good drop off.” This means he went off and started playing with friends instead of crying. By coincidence, this morning he also happened to ask if he could wear big boy underwear, so plenty of milestones today!

The bigger milestone was for Nina… we brought her into the infant room and reluctantly said our good-byes for the day. She smiled a lot and looked around in curiosity. It was a rough night last night so we’re all dog-tired — I think Nina will probably sleep the day away, as will Mommy, if I were her.

Other Stories:
Ian now has a favorite bear as of a couple weeks ago. We find him clutching it in the middle of the night, and asking for it from time to time, almost as much as his blankies. Melissa had a conversation with him about the bear’s name that went something like this:

“What’s your bear’s name?”
“Um… bear.”
“Well, that’s what he IS, that’s not his name is it? What do you want to name him?”
“Um… Grampa Dave!”
“Grampa Dave is Grampa Dave, won’t that get confusing? What’s another good name?”
“… … Goldilocks.”
“(Laughs) Is that because Goldilocks is with the three bears in her story? Goldilocks is the little girl!”
“um… Cookielocks.”

And thus, welcome to the family, Cookielocks.

With recent deadlines taking their toll on my family life, (and the number of blog entries I’m able to do) it was sad to hear Ian ask Melissa the other day “Can Daddy come home from work?” This is even sadder and perhaps more amusing because I work from home.

Hopefully I’ll remember a couple more stories soon, but this is all I have at the moment. I have a ton of videos and photos to share, but I need a day to myself to catch up, and that hasn’t happened yet. Soon though, very soon.

Catching Up to Do, Part II

April 12th, and here’s some great shots for Nina’s passport! See this image larger.

Hey there, pretty girl! See this image larger.

They said she needed to be wearing clothes, sadly. I could have photoshop’d something in place, but let’s face it, I didn’t have the tools with me at the post office. Personally I think they turned these shots down because they were too cute. “Sorry, if the customs people coo, we’ll never hear the end of it.” See this image larger.

I think we used this one for the final product. Our application is in… (thank you Mommy, for handling all of this, you’re a saint!) now we just have to wait a bit before going up to the cottage again. Looking forward to it! See this image larger.

Catching up to do…

Sorry about the delays… I will continue to update the blog only as much as I’m able with my work schedule. Things right now are pretty horrible work-wise. Melissa has been a saint about the strain this is putting my family under.

By the way, if I didn’t mention it, there’s a whole slew of pictures that I need to get on here from March and April… I’ll get to it, I promise.

April 11th, and we’re just playin’ outside… See this image larger.

I made him pose like this… it isn’t as if he’s got his own sassy attitude… cough. Cough cough. See this image larger.

He looks like one of the Little Rascals, although I couldn’t tell you which one. Spanky? See this image larger.

April 12th, this was probably just before Nina started using a zooey/pacifier… It hasn’t done much to alleviate the need for Mommy’s constant attention, but it has made for less screaming. Which means a little more sleep. See this image larger.

Still April 12th… Ian and I messed around with my camera. This isn’t a bad shot for a self portrait! See this image larger.

This was just a nice smile while running up from downstairs. See this image larger.

These were funny because I just called out emotions as I was clicking the shutter. These were all one-offs as well, meaning that I did not try for more than one of any particular facial expression. Here I called out “Make a happy face!” See this image larger.

“Mad.” See this image larger.

“Sad.” See this image larger.

Much more Nina on the next entry, sorry!

Nina’s Baptism

June 13th, 2010, 10am

Mark your calendars, please!

A Bit More Easter

Because Melissa, Ian and Nina scooted out of town to Ohio during the Easter weekend, some packages and cards were not opened until after the fact. Thank you everybody for sending great stuff! I’ve got to get a bunch of pictures off of Melissa’s laptop so that the Ohio journey’s story can be told!

In the meanwhile, here’s the post-welcome home party images — these were all taken on the 7th of April.

Me – “Look it says ‘Ian.'” Ian- “Can you get this sticker offa here?” See this image larger.

He was so excited to open the packages, he left his shoes on and ran into the house. See this image larger.

The big hit was this egg with a spring-loaded top. Much time was spent scaring each other with the pop-up peep. What do you think of his shirt? Apparently Ian’s daycare doesn’t consider his foray into the art of pudding Expressionism worthy of a change into the fresh clothes we provide each and every day. shrug. See this image larger.

Did I mention this was a hit? *pop!* (Shirt cleaned up via Photoshop.) See this image larger.

This was also a big hit… See this image larger.

Candy! Always worthy of a touchdown victory dance. See this image larger.

Everybunny needs some bunny to… you know I can’t even finish it. How does Hallmark write this stuff? We think we might have heard the strained screech of a near laugh yesterday, by the way. And you should see Nina smile these days! I’ll get some more pictures up here ASAP. For now, to bed! See this image larger.

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