Those Chapmans – Page 146 – Out Of Their Minds Design

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.