Momma's boy

I love this guy.

Our Bi-lingual child

One of Kendra's favorite movies is Finding Nemo (she kinda asks for it every. single. day.).  This week I happened to walk into the room during this scene:




She was totally speaking "whale" in surprisingly accurate tandem with Dory.  I laughed so hard.

Life's little joys

There's not much that tops snuggling up with a sleeping baby.

But having that baby's big sister clamber over to give him a kiss just might do it...

Definitely one of life's little joys.

Bonding

I think these kinda speak for themselves...

I think he thinks I'm pretty cool.

And that works out well, because I'm rather fond of him, too.

Fun facts about Elliot

Elliot is very smiley.

Elliot is also very adorable.

And Elliot is very STRONG!  He stands up all the time!

Mostly, he's just pretty loveable.  Even at 5am.  Not that we'd still know...

Strawberries!

Kendra is (and always has been) a terrible eater.  So when we discovered that she loooves strawberries, I find it hard not to bite the bullet to buy her a box pretty regularly because it's something she'll actually eat.

One day last week, I set out the box of strawberries and got distracted before I was able to cut some up for her.  But it turns out, that didn't bother her one bit and she clambered onto a chair and helped herself.

There was just one problem.  Apparently, unless strawberries are cut up, you can really only get one bite out of each berry, no matter how big it is.

Behold:

Well, at least it's healthy food.

Photo shoot with Daddy

We see this a lot around here.  He's had a pretty strong neck since day one!

While the Farns has been in love with his daughter since the moment she was born, he's having a lot of fun with his little boy, too.

And it's just as endearing to Ashoflower.

Photo shoot with Mommy

Yes, I see his middle finger.  The 6th-grader in me thinks it's hilarious.

"My son."

I love the way it rolls off my tongue.

And I love the pictures to prove it.

Kendra's office

Kendra does love cupboards since she discovered that she fits in them.

So we didn't see much of her for a while when she found one in our hospital room back.

(Yeah, I might be a little busy that I'm only just posting pictures that are a month old...)

Every time she disappears into this or any cupboard, she announces her departure and tells us, "Bye, bye!"

So much fun.  :)

Loving on the baby

These videos tie into my next post but I didn't think to post them until after I published it.

Suffice it to say, though, that Kendra loves her baby brother very, very much.

But clearly not as much as she loves the video camera...

Big Sister

We are often asked how Kendra is doing with the adjustment of having a new baby around.  He's been home with us for four weeks now, and I've been pretty impressed with how she's been taking things in stride.

If we're at home and he starts crying, she'll find his pacifier and give it to him.  She's also been known to lovingly attempt to soothe him by caressing his head or leaning over and saying, "Shhh."  Although in this category my favorite was yesterday in the car when he was getting a bit worked up (actually crying harder than we've ever heard him cry before, but what can you do about it while driving...) and she turned to him saying over and over in a very sweet soothing voice, "It's okay, it's okay.  Shhhhhhhhh.  It's okay, it's okay."

She'll also offer him her toys any time she thinks it's necessary.  Sometimes it seems like she just feels like sharing (let's see how well that concept holds up when he's grabbing for the toys...), or she thinks he's bored, or he fusses a little.  It's pretty sweet to walk into a room and find something like this:

She often proudly offers him her most prized and beloved possessions like her lamb or her new cars (she'll line them up beside him).

And her eagerness to help doesn't end there.  She also is very responsive to fetching his things for him when I ask.  So when I've got my hands tied nursing or changing his diaper and I realize I need something, she's pretty reliable to grab it and bring it to me.  She actually does a lot that has made the transition a lot easier than I thought it'd be.

She's also eager to hold him.  Many times a day she spots him and just shouts, "HOLD!" and throws her arms out for the task.  So this happens a lot around here:

I was worried at first about this because she didn't quite understand the concept of it not being a good time to stop what I'm doing and help her hold him.  However, I quickly learned that while she is very interested in holding him often, she's not interested in doing it for long periods of time.  So it's okay if he's fussing because he NEEDS to eat and she wants to hold him because it all takes less than 20 seconds for her to sit down, get him on her lap and her to announce that she's done before sometimes almost just chucking him back at me.

So she's doing pretty well with it. We're getting into the swing of being a 4-member family, slowly but surely.