Ashley, Grant (and especially) Kendra and Elliot

Kendra at play

2012-02-15T19:28:00.000-06:00

I've commented before that Kendra makes two types of messes. The first type is the mess she makes as she rummages through her toys, sometimes just to see what is there but often in search of a specific object (and her recall is uncanny). The second type of mess she makes are the little piles of collections she leaves all over the house. This is an example of the second type of mess that was out in the middle of the afternoon after she busied herself with another activity.

And this is a very, very deliberate mess here, for those of you who think it's just a few piles of toys.

The pile on far right is one we've mentioned before; her Land Before Time puppets.

This is actually the collection she's most consistent with gathering every single day. First thing in the morning she'll ask for her dinosaurs and sometimes, she doesn't even want to play with them, she just wants to pile them somewhere she knows where to find them.

She has a large plastic tub filled with stuffed animals and fairly regularly she likes to sort out all of a certain species of animal. The middle pile in our mess is comprised of most of our monkeys.

And Brandy, if you're reading this, yes, that one on the right is the one you gave me on my 18th birthday.

And the final pile is another collection of like animals, but this time it's all the elephants we've acquired.

And this group is actually one of the many families in our house. The black elephant is the Daddy Elephant and the other two are the Mommy and Baby, respectively.

I love watching this kid grow up. She's always doing something awesome.

The straggler

2012-02-13T13:45:00.000-06:00

I forgot to mention and post one of the videos I uploaded in my last batch. We took it back at the beginning of January on Grant's birthday. As we were enjoying his chosen treat (an ice cream cake), Kendra had some rather hilarious instructions for us.

She says this from time to time now, and we're not sure where she got it because while we do put forth a great deal of effort to encourage her to eat a bigger variety of food, I don't think that either of us ever just tell her, "EAT IT."

Funny girl.

More fun with two

2012-02-11T11:07:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, as I was getting some information I needed off the interwebs, I realized this was happening behind me:

I love how excited Elliot got with each pass!

Speaking of Elliot, he's been doing some fun stuff around here. Behold:

Actually, this video is dated, he doesn't even crawl like this anymore. He's totally on all fours all the time now, no more wounded soldier here. He's growing so fast!

He's also started doing something pretty cute:

Clapping! I'd forgotten how much FUN older infants are...

Meanwhile, Kendra is adding more and more songs to her repertoire. We listen to a LOT of music around here...

And she's still a great big sister. Apparently, she's had plenty of positive reinforcement in her time...

I say it many times a day and I mean it every single time...

I'm just the luckiest Mommy in the whole wide world.

Last Day in DC at the Zoo

2012-01-22T21:22:00.000-06:00

Our last morning in DC, we packed up, checked out of the hotel and headed over to the zoo. It's a pretty dang big zoo!

We took several dozen pictures, but I managed to whittle it down to this collection for your viewing pleasure...

Of course some things were closed because we went at the end of December, but we did see plenty--though we would like to go back in the summer when everything is open.

And as per usual during our trip, some of Kendra's reactions to the animals were just too dang funny and/or cute not to capture on video.

We have decided that the zoo is infinitely more entertaining with kids. :)

Day Two in DC: The Museum of American History

2012-01-21T21:51:00.002-06:00

Our last stop on our second day was the National Museum of American History, and it was both Grant's and my favorite place we went during our trip. And considering that about a third of the museum was closed off for renovations, I think that's pretty impressive. There is just a whole bunch of neat stuff in there, man!

One of the most noted displays is that of the original Star Spangled Banner. Like, the one that was flying when the dude wrote the poem that became the song that is our national anthem. I was really surprised how emotional that was for me--I got a little misty-eyed looking at it. We couldn't take pictures inside the display area, but a kindly stranger snapped our second actual family portrait outside it so we could remember the moment.

There is just a bunch of really, really, really neat stuff in this museum. When they say "American History" they mean actual American History. They didn't just have a sword from the Revolutionary War, they had George Washington's actual sword from when he was a general in it. They didn't just have stuff from soldiers in the Civil War, they had the table and chairs Lee and Grant used when they signed the treaty that ended it. It blew us away.

They also had some neat but less significant things. Things like the original Muppet puppets.

The hat Michael Jackson wore in one of his videos.

A quartet of Stradivarius instruments.

When I was in junior high, the Smithsonian Institute brought a big exhibit of items to Kansas City and I was able to go see them on a school trip, and I actually saw this next item there for the first time. But it was like 1994 and the camera I owned just couldn't capture any light to prove that I'd seen it, so when I saw them here, I was kinda excited because I'd just purchased a pretty good camera that had been taking amazing pictures in low light conditions our whole trip. Behold: the Ruby Slippers Judy Garland wore while filming The Wizard of Oz.

And since I'm from Kansas and all, I had to snap a picture of the dang buffalo.

This museum also had plenty of interactive pieces to the different exhibits, which means that Kendra had stuff to do besides look at display cases.

She also particularly enjoyed the giant Christmas tree on display in the main foyer--she was pretty excited every time she saw a Christmas tree, actually, so we let her finally get a closer look at one instead of rushing her towards something else.

AND! Stairs! Ohboyohboy!

"My Daddy is the BEST. He takes me up and down escalators over and over again!"

She also noticed something that she really wanted to ride...

And she was pretty disappointed when we explained that this one is just to look at. But we told her that there is a place where you can ride on elephants just like that one, and we'll totally take her there when she's bigger (and old enough to remember it).

We meandered through a re-creation of one of the El stops in the downtown loop and an old car from one of the trains, so we had to pay homage to the city where we started our family.

They had really interesting exhibits about the American Presidents and First Ladies, I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed those. Apparently, the china is a really, really big deal in the White House (but since I already use Correlle and plan to for the rest of my life, I guess I just don't get it). Here's a sample of Mrs. Lincoln's setting that was used for state dinners and things.

Elliot took the whole visit in stride, as per usual.

It's just really hard work being that darn cute.

And in the moments when he wasn't doing so well with his situation, Kendra always stopped what she was doing and entertained him.

It's unbelievable how big of a help stuff like this is. Now that we're out of the crazy newborn phase, I often feel like having two kids is actually easier than one because they take care of each other in ways I didn't expect at all. Elliot never cries very long when his sister is around because she always rushes to him to help him or play with him and it always calms him down.

While we were in the museum, it finally stopped raining and I just happened to walk past one of the few huge glass walls in the place that gave a perfect view of a pretty fantastic rainbow.

I'm not sure if you can tell in this picture, but it was actually a double rainbow, and while it was nothing worth crying over, I thought that it was pretty.

And so concludes our second day in our nation's capital. And we had so much dang fun the first two days, we decided to stay an extra night and get another day's fun in!

Day Two in DC: The National Aquarium

2012-01-21T20:41:00.000-06:00

It started raining as we entered the first museum of the day and we sort of hoped it would ease up while we were in the building, but alas. It was a wet walk to the other side of the mall to the National Aquarium (which isn't part of the Smithsonian, but we wanted to check out anyway).

Unfortunately for us/the aquarium, we lived in Chicago long enough to visit the Shedd Aquarium not once, but twice while we were there. This whole aquarium was only about the size of one small part of Shedd...but Kendra was still excited for some fish.

However, the very first habitation was set up for a special guest of the aquarium. There are only 100 in the world, actually. An albino alligator--they get killed off very easily because they're so easy to see, so they often don't survive into adulthood. Kendra was quite taken with it.

So, we stayed and watched the alligator for at least 15 minutes...long enough that it was even worthwhile to let Elliot out of the stroller and let him have a good look, too.

Eventually we were able to stroll through the rest of the room and see the other tanks as well. Kendra liked the seahorses.

And of course, the tank with Nemo and Dory and in it was also a big hit with all the kids.

So, it was short and sweet, but it was pretty fun. On our way out, we stopped for our favorite souvenier--a smashed penny. We get them pretty much whenever we see the machines in a place we visit.

Fun stuff. Unfortunately, it was still raining when we left the aquarium, but our walk to the next stop was very shot.

Day Two in DC: The Museum of Native American History

2012-01-21T20:04:00.000-06:00

While the kids were pretty good for us, it turns out it's still a liiiiittle bit of a handful being in a hotel room with people on several different schedules, but we still made it out of the hotel in decent time and had already plotted our course for the day.

Since the Capitol building was right across from our first stop, we stopped to stroll around a little and snap a picture. Unfortunately, that reflecting pool was also torn up for construction, so this was the best we got. It's a lot bigger than I thought it was, for some reason...

This museum was pretty neat, I liked the set-up. Inside and out, it reminded me of the Guggenheim in New York City. There seemed to be a lot of different cultures represented there, many tribes I'd never heard of. There were lots of interactive screens in the different small exhibits where you could get more detail on particular aspects of that tribe. Someone in our party got particular enjoyment from those screens...

They also had several different set-ups of many, many examples of different common objects throughout all the tribes and times represented. I thought it was neat to see them all together like that.

Another random fact about my genealogy: my great-great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee Indian. She was won in a poker game. She was my great-grandfather's grandmother and while Kendra's blonde hair and blue eyes don't exact suggest that it's in her DNA, you could definitely see it in Grandpa. So I was excited to see that the Cherokee were represented at the museum and carefully read and watched everything in that exhibit.

This is just the sign at the entrance, there was more too it than this.

At one point in our viewing, I went to the bathroom and left the kids with Grant so I could do it without them. This is what I found when I was finished:

Like father, like son?

There was a pretty neat interactive area for kids where they had all sorts of different things you could do to get the hands-on experience of a few aspects of the different cultures. Kendra really liked the kayak.

There was also a life-size tepee but my shot was so limited you probably couldn't gather that just looking at the picture. I actually got a couple of other pictures, but for some reason I feel weird about posting pictures of children I don't know on my blog...

And Elliot did was he does best...just be a lovable, adorable ball of goodness for the whole world to enjoy.

There was a fantastic view of the Capitol building out the window of the children's area, it was pretty neat to see from up high.

There were also several pretty neat statues throughout the building--Kendra really got into ~~shouting at the top of her lungs~~ pointing out the names of the different animals she saw on them.

Not a bad way to spend a morning, if you ask us. We heard the cafeteria in the basement is one of the better ones in the Smithsonian because it features native food, but it was still pretty early when we were ready to make our next stop, so we opted out. Maybe next time...

Our DC trip: Day One, the National Air and Space Museum

2012-01-20T21:30:00.000-06:00

After our trek through the monuments and memorials, we hit one last museum before calling it a day.

While I looked for a changing table, Kendra and Daddy saw a BUNCH of moon rocks.

There was actually a bunch of neat stuff to see here, too.

She seemed to particularly enjoy herself in this museum, I think because of all the big open spaces the building had to accommodate the shuttles and planes and things. Just because she couldn't read any of it, doesn't mean she didn't want to see EVERYTHING.

One of her particular favorites was a small airplane they had set up so people could "fly" it.

She didn't even seem to mind waiting her turn in line for it because she really loves stairs for some reason--I must be depriving my child with my fancies for our ground-floor apartment.

However, her very, very favorite experience in the whole Smithsonian rather surprised us...though in retrospect it probably shouldn't have.

Not the plane, though she did go through the line to play in it several times. Not the many interactive stations. Nope.

It was the stairs.

She really never got sick of it. Ever.

I wasn't kidding when I said she's obsessed with stairs.

Meanwhile, though Elliot's main activity was making people fall in love with him by making adorable faces.

"I'm a certified professional at adorable faces."

The kids were pretty good for us during the whole trip, but I did come prepared. Every time we travel I stock up on goodies at the Dollar Store and the Dollar Bins at Target and every time Kendra gets bored and starts causing problems, I pull something out and she's entertained for a while and then we toss it and it's totally worth it. So when she got sick of walking around, she'd sit down and do this:

Elliot's still too young for that coping mechanism, though, so I have to pack toys carefully. Luckily, my dad has a pretty awesome knack for that kind of thing so we brought along several things he's sent, including this neat little arch that attaches to a stroller/carseat/whatever you want.

Totally kept him entertained for extended periods on end. That, my friends, is a WIN for everyone. He was a real trooper, especially since he literally figured out how to do the little wounded soldier crawl and have all kinds of mobility on Christmas Eve and then spent over 90% of his waking time strapped in a seated position for 3 days.

The walk back to the hotel from there was pretty quick, and we snapped this pic with the Capitol in the background. Pretty neat how everything is just right on top of each other in the same square mile or so in that city.

And that concludes a very tiring but VERY fun day for us in DC!

Our DC trip: Day One, the monuments

2012-01-20T16:05:00.000-06:00

That first day in D.C. was just gorgeous, so we went ahead and made the big, long, long, long, long trek to see some monuments and memorials. It didn't seem like it would be that long when we started...

First, the Washington Monument because we were already pretty close to it.

Then we made the schlep down to the Lincoln Memorial. The reflecting pool located between these first two sites was all torn up for construction, but there were still some pretty neat things to look at along the way. Most of them we knew about beforehand, but one surprised us. Particularly, this black and extremely not-afraid-of-humans squirrel.

Seriously, this dude was this close to climbing up into our stroller.

We would have liked to take a look at the White House, but this was as close as we got.

And the Vietnam memorial--I don't think I have any family whose name is on the wall, but I do have a great-uncle who was there.

Then we got to Lincoln.

Random fact about me: I'm related to Lincoln somehow. If I weren't so lame, I'd know the facts, but that's as specific as I know for sure.

And there's a pretty great view of the Washington Monument from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

From there, we headed out to the Jefferson Memorial. WOW, was that a walk! But it was pretty great and the weather was beautiful, so we're super glad we took the time to do it.

We know the significance of all this is totally over her head, but it was still neat to show them to Kendra.

A pretty neat way to spend an afternoon...

Our DC trip: Day One, the Museum of Natural History

2012-01-20T15:47:00.000-06:00

For Grant's big Christmas gift, I shopped around and found a decent rate on a hotel in downtown D.C., not far off the Smithsonian campus, which he's been dying to visit since we got to Pennsylvania but as soon as we got here I got kinda...pregnant and not up for a trip. Then I had a baby and I was soooo not up for a trip. But we finally, finally made it.

We could see the Washington Monument from our room:

Then, the next morning after a pretty awesome hotel breakfast, we headed out. We were trying to get to the Museum of Natural History as soon as it opened, but we noticed that we were walking by the National Archives just as it opened, so we made a small detour there. We totally recommend hitting the Archives first thing in the morning because it's deserted, but the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are definitely worth a gander and it was nice to not have to fight a crowd to get it. No pictures allowed inside but we snapped this one on the way past it another day to prove we were there.

It took all of 15 minutes, in and out, and we still made it to the museum pretty close to opening time.

I'm finding it pretty hard to pick and choose which pictures to share because there was just so much to see and we took lots and lots of pictures of it...but here's a few.

The Hall of Mammals was pretty neat...

This is as close as he'll get to a bear. Ever. Because he knows it's not alive.

"Hop, hop, HOP!"

And lots of rocks, too...

And whatever this is...

And did you know that early humans were only as tall as this head?

Kendra liked this cave, too.

Besides running from one point of interest to another, Kendra was also a very helpful big sister.

By lunch time, the museum was getting pretty packed, but it was an awesome way to spend a morning!

Christmas Eve

2012-01-20T14:24:00.000-06:00

We actually started on Christmas Eve Eve with some Indian food with the family.

Yummy food, awesome company, that's a WIN.

On actual Christmas Eve, we went to our family's pageant/party, which was pretty dang fun.

Grant was old, frail Zacharias.

And Kendra was a shepherd(ess?)...

...of dinosaurs.

But she still played her part well.

Elliot was supposed to be the older baby Jesus...

...but it just ain't a party until Ashley falls asleep. Still.

It really was a lot of fun!

Gingerbread houses

2012-01-20T13:43:00.003-06:00

Every year, my sister-in-law hosts a gingerbread house party.

It's delicious, and fun.

Yeay, gingerbread!

Thanksgiving

2012-01-11T20:20:00.000-06:00

We had a pretty fun Thanksgiving here in the Happy Valley. It's so nice to have family right in town!

The festivities actually began with something a little less traditional...

YES.

Can't say it was break-through cinema but it was a fun night out with some really great girls.

Another family joined us (and then kindly supplied their copies of the pictures they snapped of our group).

And the feast...oh, the feast....

My mouth is watering looking at the pictures and remembering...

Have I ever mentioned that this family is seriously into pie?

And, of course, it ain't a party until Ashley falls asleep.

At least this time I wasn't on my own.

But I guess Brittany had, like, better things to do than keep the rest of us propped up all cozy.

And this is what happened when she left.

"Cin-der-EEEEEE-LA!"

Pretty fun times. :)

Our actually bilingual child

2012-01-09T06:40:00.000-06:00

I have a confession to make. About the same time this happened for the first time, we began what I refer to now as "The Summer of Dora the Explorer" and she just got a ton of screen time. I know it's a choice that a lot, a lot of other mothers wouldn't have made, but I did. Often, I feel like a lesser mother for it because I see soooo many other women who just seem to seamlessly transition to adding a new baby to their family and I am just...clearly NOT one of those women. And that's okay. I have other strengths. But Grant was teaching a summer class that didn't end for a month after Elliot was born which meant he had to teach and work on his class every single day, so he simply couldn't help out at first as much as he did when Kendra was born. So, while I was struggling doing the newborn thing, we got some help from Dora. And a little from Blue's Clues. But mostly Dora.

After a couple of weeks, though, I started to feel a lot less guilty because her verbal and overall communication skills just took OFF. She started understand and point out a lot more about the world around her because she saw it on Dora. It was so weird. And then one day, out of NO WHERE, she did this:

After we treated the distress of the bonked head, we were kinda blown away. Neither of us had ever gone over Spanish numbers with her. In fact, I'd gone over Hungarian numbers with her at least a dozen times over the couple of months before this and they never seemed to sink in. So, we went with it. Dora got us started and we took expanded.

Clearly, fruit chewies aren't the most effective teaching tool. So we grabbed something else that she couldn't consume by the fist full.

These videos are already six months old, she gets to 20 pretty smoothly nowadays. And I'm feeling pretty okay with the Summer of Dora the Explorer.

More catching up

2012-01-08T20:16:00.000-06:00

Buckle your seatbelts, there's totally more.

A couple of months ago Elliot made a discovery.

His feet!

It's adorable and it's easier to change diapers. WIN.

We also got Elliot a good warm hat, and we put it on him even inside when he first started sitting up because he'd fall backward from time to time.

I would say that is another WIN.

And! He can even sit on his own in the cart when we shop!

It's just WIN all around!

And there's also his big sister.

This summer while Elliot was a newborn, we thrived on short little outings. We lucked out that the town's lunch truck literally set up shop less than 100 meters from our door (it provided a free lunch to all kids under 18 One we often repeated was to simply walk across the street to one of the grocery stores where there is a small carousel. That doesn't work. But it makes no difference to Kendra, she loves going to see the horses.

And speaking of shopping, Kendra has been broadening her horizons also.

It's cute...if a liiiiiiittle troublesome when Mommy just wants to shop and get back home.

And speaking of cute...

Our own little Cindy Loo Who.

Also, our awesome nieces were in their high school's production of A Room with a View this fall.

And they were great!

We've had a pretty great fall around here.

Company

2012-01-08T10:03:00.001-06:00

We had a couple of visitors this fall, which was very nice for us. The first was my dear friend Amanda from college. It was such a fun weekend showing her around our humble town! Unfortunately, I was terrible at recording it and this was the only picture we took all. Weekend. Long.

No, Amanda isn't invisible. I just completely spaced out on having her actually join the picture. I seriously felt like a complete idiot after she left when I realized that we didn't take a single stinkin picture. Ugh! You know I love you, right, Amanda? And if it's any consolation, the event totally snapped my rear into picture-taking gear!

Just after Grant's family reunion in New York, my Dad also came to visit. For some reason, Kendra was rather ~~uncooperative~~ shy, but Elliot wasn't any kind of mobile yet, so we got him to sit still for the camera!

So much fun!

I thought this was kinda funny.

It was soooo great to have Dad here and introduce him to our little man. We had a really great time together, just hangin' out all weekend. We even got the most snow we've had this season while he was in town. In October.

While we didn't get any pictures of Kendra and Dad, she really had fun with him. They played lots of little games together, it was pretty fun to watch. At a slow point in their play, Dad excused himself to go to the restroom and after a few moments, Kendra suddenly noticed he'd gone missing. She left to investigate and started pacing the hallways (even a 2-year-old only needs a few seconds to traverse our entire apartment) searching for him. When she realized he hadn't left but was in the bathroom, as she paced she started shouting, "Hurry! Hurry, Pa-Pa, Hurry!" over and over again.

She totally has him wrapped around her little finger.

And he seems pretty comfortable with that residence.

So. We've been having some really great fun here in Happy Valley! We hope we get to see lots more of our friends and family in 2012!

Seriously. Our tiny little airport is like 15 minutes from our door. Please come visit!

Yes, you.

The past few months

2012-01-06T23:22:00.000-06:00

It turns out, I haven't been the most efficient blogger lately and now I'm a rock in a hard place. I have a BUNCH of really fun pictures that we just took over the holidays of all the fun stuff we did that I'm itching to post and share with everybody.

But there's a problem.

I still have a huge backlog of pictures that I haven't posted from the past few months, so I gotta compress em all into a few posts instead of dragging it out like I like to do.

So, here we go.

Elliot is ~~sitting up~~ crawling now, but we used that dang Bumbo just about every single day before he got so comfortable with his body.

For checking Facebook with Mommy.

For sharing a snack with the women in his life.

For keeping an eye on what's going on in general.

In the meanwhile, he also discovered his fists.

"I don't care what you say, I know they'll fit in here somehow!"

He's crawling now, but before he did that, he had to learn to roll.

While he was learning, he'd get his whole body turned over, but that Farnsworth head...

...just took some time to build up the strength the flip on over.

My neck is tired looking at that!

And he's just about to reach something that always been out of his grasp...

It might be time to put the swing away (Grant will be thrilled).

And, Halloween happened sometime in there...we only went to a couple friends' houses here in our apartment complex but we did have some costumes lying around.

For this evening's performance, "Toto" will be played by Sheep.

We kept the bassinet basket out for a good while for convenience.

And that was for Elliot's use...

...but good luck explaining that to someone else.

One day, Kendra marched into the living and did the following:

It's a monkey. That she decided should wear her boots. Like Dora the Explorer's friend, Boots the monkey.

Also, the cold weather has set in. Kendra's pretty enthusiastic about always wearing her hat.

We also got her some giant blocks.

It's kinda fun watching her build towers taller than her.

A while back, we introduced her to Ramen Noodles.

Forks are for the weak.

Doesn't food just look more delicious when you see someone really enjoying it?

Maybe that's just me.

But anyway, that catches us up not all the way, but quite a bit.

Fun times all around.

Our sweet little man

2012-01-05T22:11:00.000-06:00

These are just some shots I got while combining two favorite pastimes:

getting more comfortable taking pictures.

And hanging out with my son.

Love this face!

Mixing the past and present

2012-01-05T21:51:00.000-06:00

A while back, Kendra started really getting into The Land Before Time (but just the original because we're LBT purists, we've never messed around with any of those musical sequels). I get a real kick out of showing her things from my own childhood and LBT certainly was a favorite (but that was back before Amazon when you couldn't just think of something and have it at your door a few days later and we never saw it for sale anywhere).

As I saw Kendra become more and more enthralled with the tale of the dinosaurs, I remembered that Pizza Hut did a promotion when it originally ran in theaters and offered character puppets from the movie with their kids' meal (which you could totally double with the Book-It program and get it for free). My sister and I had a couple of them--I remember being jealous of her that she got her favorite character (Cera) and I never got mine (Littlefoot).

Well, you can't get them on Amazon.

But you can totally find them on eBay.

These things come with Kendra a lot of places she goes...

And we have lots of lively dinosaur games in our home these days.

Poor little girl

2012-01-03T23:42:00.000-06:00

After I gave birth the first time, I decided that it must be just as rough on the baby as it is on the mother. The longer I'm a parent, the more I feel that raising a child is just as frustrating and challenging for the child as it is for the parents.

Kendra is a pretty good girl. Most of the time, when she throws a tantrum, it's because she's either famished or exhausted and the really awesome ones happen when she's both at the same time (she just doesn't seem to like food that much, it puzzles me).

One evening, we went for a short walk to drop someone off at a neighbor's place here in our apartment complex and when she realized we had to go back inside, there was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

During the fit, she laid herself on the ground in front of the door wailing to go back outside. We took the following picture about 10 minutes later.

Passed.

Out.

Cold.

The saga of the perfect Christmas card photo

2012-01-03T23:34:00.000-06:00

You might remember our first attempt to take our own family portrait for a card two years ago.

Last year I was pregnant and didn't bother sending out cards at all.

(So we totally weren't snubbing anyone, promise!)

This year we did try to give it another shot and we loaded up our camera stuff and headed to Grant's brother's very picturesque house across town to set things up and get the perfect shot.

While testing the lights, we got this one:

Stephie: cutest photo-bomber ever.

And then our camera's battery died. And the one thing we left at home were our 2 spares.

Fail.

So we decided that the kids were what people really wanted to see anyway, so we'd dress them up and take our stuff over to the super-beautifully decked out office in our apartment complex and snap a few shots in front of their tree, 10 minutes in and out tops.

We totally walked over there on the day it closed early. Which they posted a notice about a week beforehand right on the door.

Fail.

So, we decided to salvage the moment of the kids being dressed up and take a few shots at home:

Well.

Maybe next year.

Sweet moments

2011-12-19T21:08:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I turned around to see this:

And my heart just totally melted.

Even though she sloughed him off her lap at the end.

(I'm hoping this video will remind her how much she really does love him in about 10 years when he's annoying the daylights out of her...)

Elliot's new trick

2011-12-17T13:09:00.000-06:00

For a few weeks, Elliot's been able to sit up on his own.

It was still a bit tipsy for a while, but he's got a pretty solid handle on it now.

Overall, he seems pretty pleased with his new development and way to experience the world.

And we even took a video.

We got it out to show that he was sitting but the next few minutes were pretty cute, so I didn't cut them out.

Enjoy!

(Or not, I totally understand if you don't want to spend an extra 4 minutes watching our kids.)

Mommy's helper

2011-12-16T21:54:00.001-06:00

As a mother, I'll take all the help I can get.

So when my incredibly generous mother-in-law bought us an ExerSaucer, I was pretty stoked.

When Elliot turned four months old, we let him give it a whirl.

He wasn't so sure about it at first...

But he quickly came to love it, and now he does this:

So much fun!

Name that tune

2011-12-16T21:28:00.000-06:00

We've demonstrated here and here that Kendra has had a long-standing love of music.

(Which we think is totally awesome, by the way.)

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I walked into the living room and found this:

Can you name that tune?

Give up? Here you go.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2011-12-15T23:56:00.000-06:00

We have such great helpers!

She really loved putting the ornaments on our tiny tree.

She also helped Daddy put up our big tree.

Even Elliot got in on the fun.

So much fun!

Awareness

2011-11-25T12:25:00.000-06:00

One of the coolest things about being a parent is simply watching the progression your child. Kendra knows and recognizes a lot of stuff.

While we were walking a few weeks ago, she spotted a horsey.

It wasn't one of the horseys in the field in the park behind our apartment complex.

Nor was it one of the horsesys on the small carousel outside the grocery store across the street.

It was on the grill of a Mustang.

Awesome.

Cute little ducky

2011-11-21T23:03:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer: I'm totally obsessed with recreating pictures of our first child with our second one. Heaven help me when the next baby comes around because I'll get to put him/her in the same outfits as the older sibling of the same gender.

But we do have a few items of gender neutral clothing...

Here's the nicer picture:

But here's the funnier one:

See the family resemblance?

He's such a sweet little thing...

It feels like he's going to be a baby forever...but I know he's not. His big sister was just wearing this thing yesterday...or something.

Big Sister, Big Helper!

2011-11-16T17:49:00.000-06:00

About the time we moved here, it made sense that Kendra should have a household chore.

This is what we came up with.

It would probably be faster for me to just do it myself, but hopefully she's learning some values this way.

Hanging out with Elliot

2011-11-09T14:54:00.000-06:00

I can not believe our handsome little man is already five months old!

Not in this picture, though. He's 2.5 months. I might be a little behind with blogging.

He's a pretty sweet, happy baby.

Over Labor Day weekend (yeah, I know it's after Halloween now), we blessed him here at home.

It was really nice to do it at home, it felt really special.

We just adore him.

Our dear Elliot.

A Day at the Park

2011-11-05T17:54:00.000-05:00

When we uploaded the pictures from Grant's point-and-shoot that he took at the reunion, we discovered an old batch from April that we'd never seen. I love little things like that. This wasn't anything special, just a beautiful day that we enjoyed together as a family.

Our upstairs neighbor's 4-year-old has a little bike that Kendra just loooooves.

"Nobody rocks socks with sandals like me. Nobody."

And as she's gotten older and more confident, she's enjoyed the little playground by the office in our complex more, too.

Right behind the back fence of our complex, there's a big field. And right behind that field is a pretty nice park. It's bigger and has more stuff and we often run into friends from the ward when we go (because it's a small town and lots of families live nearby).

Fun times.

Mr. Poopy Pants

2011-11-01T22:16:00.000-05:00

For an extended period of time, Elliot had something of a nightly ritual.

(For those of you with a delicate sensibility, read the title of this post and put 2 and 2 together.)

I can count on one hand the number of blow-out diapers Kendra has had, but this guy...?

Half his clothes have HUGE stains on the back.

We're hoping he'll grow out of it.

The Sacred Grove

2011-10-30T18:43:00.000-05:00

After we got into the Sacred Grove, we got a couple of nicer photo ops.

It was a really neat place to be, especially with my most favorite people in the whole world.

And! There was a stream to boot!

Such a pretty girl...

Joseph Smith Farm

2011-10-30T18:22:00.000-05:00

Another must-see among the Palmyra sites is the Joseph Smith Farm.

The first stop outside of the Visitor's Center is the log home.

These tours are pretty neat--they're part peek-into-the-past type information about life in general of the time the events took place and part super significant information about different events that shaped the church as we know it today.

After the log home comes the frame home, which is also very neat.

Inside, while we were listening to the different accounts that took place there, Elliot got wiggly and we just set him on the floor (we'd left the stroller in the car since the paths were all gravel and it'd be a pain anyway).

Those mobs wouldn't have been able to handle all of this.

Even the barns are interesting there.

Even though Kendra was less than enthused, we have to post this one because it's actually our first photo as a whole family of four.

Pretty neat stuff!

The Hill Cummorah

2011-10-30T18:00:00.002-05:00

After Niagra Falls, we all headed the 100 or so miles due East to Palmyra.

We started our time there at the Hill Cummorah Visitor's Center and then trekked up the hill.

It's a surprisingly steep climb, even with the nice, smooth, paved paths.

There's a pretty neat statue thingy at the top.

Elliot got carried up the whole way by doting older cousins (and he's 17lbs, it's no small feat).

We just hung out at the top admiring the different faces of the statue and such.

These two were a riot to watch all weekend long, they're less than 5 months apart in age.

But it was pretty windy and brisk, so we didn't stay up there too long. There's a way back down that more winds through the trees and is less paved, but I opted to carry Elliot back the paved way we'd come. I actually had a really interesting experience because he was pretty fussy at the top of the hill, he was cold and he was past due for a nap, poor guy. I got him bundled pretty well and held him close and he almost immediately just passed right out in my arms. I didn't have the heart to set him down in the stroller and expose him to the win, hence inching back the paved way because I couldn't see my own feet with him bundled in my arms. It wasn't easy but it made me think of the pioneers and all the hardships they faced. I wondered how many women carried babies bundled in their arms because they didn't have any other choice and didn't have paved paths to make the way easier with a warm, comfortable building at the bottom waiting for them. It made me grateful for all the little conveniences that I tend to take for granted every day.

Grant and Kendra took the scenic route though.

From there we headed into town to check out the Grandin Printing Press, where the first edition of the Book of Mormon was published.

It's a pretty neat tour with a lot of information and even some awesome original paintings (including one that happens to be Grant's very favorite, it was awesome that he got to see it there).

Kendra did her thing where she just charmed the pants off everyone there.

Be sure to check out the press if you ever make it to Palmyra, it's awesome!

But Kendra's highlight of the day?

The acorn she found along the way.

Oh my CUTE!

2011-10-29T01:01:00.000-05:00

This picture was taken during our recent reunion with Grant's family.

But it has absolutely nothing else to do with our trip, so I'll just give it a post of its own.

Nothing like snuggling with a couple of your own babies.

Goals

2011-10-27T00:11:00.000-05:00

I hope my mother-in-law will find it her heart to forgive me for pausing my posts about the reunion to do this one instead...

The first significant purchase we made as a family after our car (which we didn't get around to doing until a few months after we got married) was our camera. We had a baby on the way, after all, and basically we wanted to have amazing pictures of her from day one.

Our goal has been to take pictures at least once a month and since I've had something to blog at least once a week since we started this, I'd say we're doing pretty good.

Most of the time, our pictures are just to keep up with that goal. This is one of those times.

"Does this baby make my face look fat?"

But we also know how to have a little fun.

"No, Mom, your technique is all wrong, you seriously need to get the thumb in there, too."

I can't say it's nothing special...

Because most moments in our family feel pretty darn special.

Pictured: Love.

So here's to goals and keeping them and making memories forever.

Niagra Falls

2011-10-25T12:26:00.000-05:00

This past weekend we met up with Grant's family for a reunion that began in Niagra Falls. We packed up our "little blue car" (Kendra always refers to it as such) and away we went. I was a little nervous about the drive because the most direct routes were all little highways and back roads through towns--I was so skeptical I totally considered adding 100 miles to our journey by taking the interstates around, and I didn't know how my kids would handle the drive. But it turns out my anxiety was for naught, because the drive was super smooth, we made awesome time and both kids handled it great. And, the East is just beautiful in the fall. Behold:

And we didn't even pull out our big guns for her until were over 2/3 of the way there.

"I've got my binky, my sheep and the Lion King. Hakuna Matatta, people."

After some sleep, some breakfast and a good run for Mommy, we bundled ourselves up and threw everything in the car to make the walk over to the falls. We were less than a mile away, it was awesome.

"DAD! Will you keep up, please?"

When we told Kendra that we were going to go see a waterfall, she somehow knew what that meant and was chomping at the bit to get there. In fact, she was so excited that when we turned the corner and came upon a small fountain, she gleefully declared, "WATERFAAAAAALL!" and jumped over to it. So we got a kick out of explaining that oh on, we're going to go see a BIG waterfall.

"That's a little more like it."

We also got to hang out with these guys the whole time.

He looks more like Seth and less like the Unibomber sketch from the font, I promise.

We had already decided to brave the chill (it was the of the last week of the tourist season) by hopping on the Maid of the Mist. We originally planned on just doing it ourselves, but when we got to the observation deck, Kendra saw the boats and got really excited by them, so we let her come with us while lots of loving family members stayed with Elliot (who apparently is a tourist attraction in and of himself).

Unfortunately, even though we arrived at the jetty (dock) just after a boat had departed and had lots of time on our hands for capturing the moment, Kendra was too excited and distracted to stay still long enough for a good picture. This was the best Grant could do:

"I was promised a boat!"

Being the last week of the season, the boat wasn't crowded at all. In fact, we were able to plant ourselves in a corner against a wall and it was empty enough that we had an open view of the falls. Which are not pictured because there was so much water spraying around every where. But it was pretty amazing. And Kendra really got a kick out of it. If you ever go to Niagra, you have to ride the boat because you can't see the coolest, most spectacular falls from the American side, you have to either be in Canada or hop onto a boat that will take you right up in there. Pretty awesome.

You can kinda get the idea from the observation deck...but seriously, pay the $13.50 and get a really good look from the boat.

So much fun!

Kendra and the Rabbits

2011-10-24T09:34:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago one of the local farms had a little festival that advertised a petting zoo.

This was the main reason we went, and the petting zoo really turned out to be just a pen of rabbits.

But she loved it.

Like, had to physically carry her away while she screamed after staying there for over half an hour, "loved".

Above: one happy camper.

Many older children there gladly let her pet the rabbits they held, it was very kind.

But she still got a pretty big kick out of holding them herself.

Just so darling.

A True Richardson Baby

2011-10-23T22:26:00.000-05:00

As if we weren't convinced by the family resemblence...

We gotta keep up the tradition!

This seriously doesn't faze this one at all.

Big Sister

2011-10-14T00:29:00.003-05:00

Kendra kind of adores her baby brother.

"Using the embroidery on this pillow as a map, our point of entry for the heist will be here."

Even when he pulls on her hair.

Seriously. He did this over and over while she played with him and she stayed there for over half an hour.

She even shares her toys.

Ariel and Flounder aren't just any toys, either. This is serious love for her to pull these out.

Though sometimes he's not quite interested.

"Mom? Isn't it a little early for me to be emasculated by playing Barbies with my sister...?"

We'll see how it holds up when he's grabbing for the toys...

"I'm just the luckiest Mommy in the whole world!"

2011-10-12T23:44:00.000-05:00

I say that to my kids at least a dozen times a day.

And I mean it.

Even on a day like today...which has passed with much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I know I'm biased, but our kids are awesome.

They rock my world, at least.

I've heard that boys really love their mommies, and here's something that Kendra never, ever, ever did.

I absolutely love it.

And did you catch that little glint in his eye? I swear, it's just for me.

And speaking of rocking, Kendra was delighted when we showed her our MP3 players and how to put the buds to her ear and wala! Music!

So we played some of her favorites for her.

Here's her singing along (though she's usually much more enthusiastic when she sings along).

Any guesses what that is?

Hint: you've probably heard the original before and the cover is from a movie I've mentioned here. But if you're still stumped, click here.

Yep, like I said, I'm just the luckiest Mommy in the whole wide world.

Just layin' around...

2011-10-05T22:00:00.000-05:00

We sure do love this little man...

Bumbo

2011-10-05T21:48:00.001-05:00

We love our Bumbo!

"Hey, I've got a serious drool issue here--can someone help me with that?"

It's been Elliot's favorite perch for a while now.

"Seriously. Put that camera down and wipe my mouth already."

Though someone else gets a little distracted when we pull it out, making other shots difficult...

...unless it's a shot like this.

(Apparently, it's not obvious that she kept climbing out of my lap and sat herself in the Bumbo RIGHT in front of the photographer over and over and this was the only pose she'd actually give us a smile.)

Funny girl.

Playing around

2011-09-24T17:18:00.000-05:00

Kendra's imagination is really starting to take off...

"Mommy's nursing pillow makes a perfect garage for my cars..."

"Just line them up in a row..."

I love watching her play games of her own creation for hours...

Milestones!

2011-09-19T21:10:00.000-05:00

This day came way too fast! And a month earlier than it did with Kendra!

I set Elliot on his back on the floor and stepped into the kitchen to get Kendra some juice. When I came out to offer it to her, Elliot was on his stomach! He's been rolling onto his side for about a week and a half but before this hadn't ever managed to plop himself all the way over to his stomach.

Go Elliot!

Alas, although we pulled out the video camera and took footage for several minutes, he didn't repeat the accomplishment for film. I'll have to see if we can get him to do it another time.

But since blog posts are dull potatoes with just a story, here's a completely unrelated picture from a little over a month ago that I haven't gotten around to posting yet...

"I was this close..."

I guess he really isn't going to be a baby forever...

Good old-fashioned FUN

2011-09-10T00:43:00.000-05:00

One thing I love about parenting is introducing my children to the world.

I seriously can not wait to watch The Empire Strikes Back with them and watch their minds get blown by the biggest plot twist of ALL TIME.

A while back, that came in the form of Play-Doh.

Because Play-Doh is awesome.

I still remember the time my Dad gave me a set of like 30-40 colors and ohmigosh it was amazing.

Kendra though it was pretty cool, too.

We actually combined a bit of blue and a bit of hot pink to get this lovely purple--she really got a kick out of that.

We spent a whole morning playing with this stuff, it was pretty good times.

Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

A real stand-up guy

2011-09-10T00:22:00.000-05:00

We play this game a lot around here.

And we just can't get enough.

They grow so fast...

2011-09-01T13:58:00.003-05:00

Kendra is doing pretty well mastering her ABCs...

Meanwhile, about an hour ago I had Grant pull out the camera because Elliot was being adorable.

But he totally blew us away by laughing for the very first time while we did it!

I'm totally considering this my compensation for him getting up at 2am and 5am every night for the past 4 nights. Because mothers need their sleep!

Enjoying the moment

2011-08-24T02:27:00.000-05:00

Here's a good representation of my life right now:

Elliot is almost exactly two months old...and everything else is a byproduct of life with a two-month-old.

I may or may not have showered that day.

Seriously. I have no idea. The hair up doesn't bode well for odds that I did.

I'm wearing gym clothes; not for going to the gym, but because not much else fits properly.

I have circles under my eyes.

Look in the background--the apartment is trashed.

As people have asked me about the adjustment from being a parent of one child to a parent of two, I think that just being okay with everything I just mentioned is the biggest adjustment for me. I like things tidy, including my own body and while it's important to me to still try to have a clean home and such, this isn't the measure of my worth as a wife and mother. I'm grateful for moments like this--I asked Grant to take this picture because I wanted to remember this specific moment where I feel like I really had my brain wrapped around that.

Because right here, the only things that matter are the willing cameraman I'm so blessed to be married to, the daughter we have together asleep and thus absent from this picture, and the sleeping baby on my chest.

Everything else...is just a detail. I'll remember/be able to shower every day. I'll wear my "real" clothes again. I'll get some sleep. I'll keep things clean.

Later.

When he's grown, I seriously doubt I'll say things like, "I wish I would have showered more when you were a baby..." or "I wish I could have kept things cleaner when you were a baby..." But if I don't just stop and let those things go, I will be wishing I had just stayed up with Grant for a while and held Elliot more while I could hold him on my chest.

So here's to greasy hair and messy houses. Here's to crazy schedules and late nights. Here's to enjoying what there is to enjoy about welcoming this precious little one into our home, our family and our lives.

After all, we just wouldn't be complete without him.

Beware of sharks!

2011-08-21T23:43:00.000-05:00

There is a little shark prowling in the waters of our complex's pool...

But don't worry, he's a friendly shark.

Though he's a little wary of his big sister...

"Wait a minute, lady! Why are you leaving me here?!"

...but she knows it's okay.

Because fish (and sisters) are friends!

Not food!

Not quite cooperating...

2011-08-20T00:32:00.001-05:00

A few Sundays ago we put a dress on Kendra for the first time and, as we are wont to do, smiled and awed how cute she was. She's been a beautiful child since the moment she was born.

So when we got home from church, Grant decided to take a picture.

Kendra had other ideas.

"If I close my eyes, you can't see me!"

And she asserted those ideas pretty strongly.

Not quite the Kodak Moment we had in mind.

That's our girl.

Oh, well. In January we'll switch to starting church at 12:30pm instead of 9am, so maybe we'll be able to take pictures of cute Sunday outfits then (because we're lucky if we make in the door before they go through announcements, items of business and 2 hymns when they pass the Sacrament, there's no way we'll ever be ready early enough to take a picture).

Why I LOVE our camera

2011-08-20T00:19:00.000-05:00

When Kendra was an infant, we tried to catch a shot of the face she made right before she started crying, because it was so sad that it was cute. This was about as close as we got.

Elliot makes an equally (if not more) adorable face. He really pouts out his bottom lip right before he cries out (because this kid just doesn't really truly "cry" very often at all). It's the saddest and yet the sweetest little thing I've seen.

So the other day when he was acting like he was going to cry out, I got out the camera and sat myself down in front of him and waited. I was not disappointed.

That is one pouty lip.

However, while I was sitting there, I also got a pretty priceless shot of his amazing smile--have we mentioned how much this baby smiles? A lot. We remember Kendra as a very pleasant, easy-going baby, but he completely surpasses her. Here's one of the nicest shots we've got of that smile we see so often.

I should warn you though, you probably shouldn't look at this picture unless you are prepared to have a baby. Because unless you have one already, you'll want one after this:

Told you so.

I guess in a pinch you can just come hold him if you want. (I'm not really joking about that, actually...)

So, I really love our camera! So far, our children have extensively recorded lives and it is so much fun!

Etymology

2011-08-12T05:03:00.001-05:00

Ever wonder where the term, "sleep like a baby" came from?

Mystery solved.

Closing the distance

2011-08-05T22:27:00.000-05:00

Since so much of our family and so many of our friends live soooo far away, here are a couple of videos to help everyone get to know our kids.

First, we have Kendra. Her verbal skills are getting better a little at a time, all the time, and she's really developing a very distinct personality.

(It's kind of a long video, the best part starts at 01:05 mark and lasts about 20 seconds.)

And our little man, Elliot. He's only two months old but he is an incredibly smiley guy!

See for yourself:

This is actually not a very good example. This kid smiles and coos alllll the time!

We love our children to pieces and it's pretty strong motivation to share them with everyone any way we can.

A face I recognize...

2011-08-05T00:14:00.000-05:00

My Dad passed on my Grandma's photo albums to me when Kendra was a few months old and we're (okay, I'll be straight up, it's all Grant's doing) finally getting around to digitizing the content of those bad boys.

This particular picture is absolutely awesome to us, because we see this exact same look at least 15 times a day. On Kendra's face.

Momma's boy

2011-07-28T20:37:00.000-05:00

I love this guy.

Our Bi-lingual child

2011-07-27T00:18:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-24T18:01:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-21T05:15:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-20T07:17:00.000-05:00

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!

2011-07-20T07:10:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-09T23:54:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-09T23:51:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-04T15:46:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-01T18:03:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-01T17:34:00.000-05:00

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.

Introducing...Elliot!

2011-06-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

Elliot is four weeks old today and I just now realized I haven't posted a single video of him.

D'oh!

Here's one of the first ones we captured, about 20 minutes after delivery.

And here's another of the moment I wanted to make sure we recorded--when Kendra met him for the first time.

I think it's pretty rad that they'll both be able to watch this when they bring their own children home...

Life is a Highway

2011-06-25T14:26:00.000-05:00

Kendra's recently developed a new obsession.

She loves, and I mean loves, cars.

Both Cars the movie and any small box-shaped toy with wheels.

Notice the face of concentration here. This is serious business.

Our favorite wrap...

2011-06-25T13:54:00.000-05:00

...is a Baby Burrito Wrap!

Looks like he enjoys it, too.

"This is for me, right?"

2011-06-24T01:48:00.000-05:00

As we prepared to transition into being a 2-child family, it was necessary to get a double stroller. I lucked out and found one I loved for an okay price on Craig's List (though in retrospect, I wish I would have talked the seller down, hmph).

Anyway, I also got our infant carseat out to keep with it and stashed it all in the backroom, but every time we go back there, someone gets a bit curious about it.

This was taken before Elliot was born, so she looked at me like I was crazy when I tried to explain to her that somehow the Baby (which to her meant my belly) would be riding around in it.

Hard to believe she used to be this size...

So tiny!

Photo shoots

2011-06-21T05:31:00.001-05:00

We love having this guy around.

(I think his cheeks are weighing him down...and check that calic!)

It's so much fun to be able to just sit a newborn somewhere and snap away.

Especially while he's still too young to get away!

To our favorite Daddy

2011-06-20T02:19:00.000-05:00

Doin' what Daddies do best...

So, who do you think is enjoying this moment the most?

Cus it looks like this might be a four-way tie...

Three generations

2011-06-20T02:05:00.000-05:00

None to old or young to need his beauty sleep.

And oh, how we love them all!

"How do I look, Mommy?"

2011-06-18T20:31:00.000-05:00

Shopping with this one has become a whole new level of "FUN"!

History repeating...

2011-06-16T22:22:00.000-05:00

We took this picture earlier this week:

Kinda reminds me of this other picture we took about two and a half years ago:

Just a little case of history repeating.

Moses baby

2011-06-16T22:17:00.001-05:00

Unfortunately, Elliot got a pretty nasty case of the runs after we got home from the hospital and the high acid of it really did a number on his poor bum, which lead to an equally nasty diaper rash that only got worse when we cleaned it with even gentle wipes. It's very, very sad--especially for a baby who essentially never cries (seriously, he just doesn't get very worked up at all).

Our treatment is two-fold, and it's been working great. For changing his diaper we basically give him a little mini-bath instead of wiping his bum. And at least once a day, we forgo the diaper altogether to dry it up. Grant has developed a very cool little system for wrapping him and we put cloth diapers under him that we check pretty often and change out as needed.

So we see lots of this around house:

Baby yawns are so cute!

Since he looks like he's all tucked in a basket, I dubbed him "Moses Baby".

So cozy...

More from the hospital

2011-06-09T07:45:00.000-05:00

Well, when you have a newborn, time has a funny way of just morphing into one big day and it's easy to lose track of. We can't believe that Elliot has already been here with us for a whole week!

Here we are in the labor and delivery room, less than half an hour after he was born.

Everything about our two children has been different so far, and labor and delivery were no different. Heck, for this one just going into labor on my own was different! I was so scared of being the woman who cried, "Labor!" only to get to the hospital and be sent home...but luckily that never happened.

When we saw him, we both commented on how small he was. We were sure that he was significantly smaller than Kendra had been (who came in at 8lbs 8oz). In fact, one of the reasons I had worked so hard to stay in shape and not put on too much weight was because she had been so big. I figured less weight meant smaller baby, so if putting on 60 pounds gave us and 8lb 8oz baby, only 26 would mean like...

9lb 2oz.

Dang. That seems like a pretty big baby! I guess we are just so used to toddler Kendra! We think he definitely looks like a boy. A Richardson (Grant's maternal grandparents) boy, actually (because Danielle--Grant's cousin for those of you who don't know her--there has been a consensus that he looks remarkably like your last two boys).

Grant accompanied our new baby boy to the nursery for his going-overs and took lots of pictures. I had more than one nurse report to me that they don't often see new fathers quite as enthusiastic as Grant. I love that about him.

After giving birth the first time, I realized something that I found a little unbalanced. A great deal of attention is given to how difficult birth is for the mother...but after seeing 2 newborns now, I'm even more convinced that it's just as difficult and painful for the baby, too. I think this picture captures pretty well just how wiped out we both were.

I guess even "only" 8 and a half hours of labor (versus 25) is pretty draining.

But he's worth it.

It's funny...we didn't realize how incomplete our family was until he arrived. He's only been here a week and in sometimes it's still hard to believe (yesterday I walked into the bedroom totally surprised to see him in the bassinet because I was used to seeing it empty) but other times...it's like he's been with us forever.

Little Brother and Big Sister

2011-06-08T06:14:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, our situation is a little different right now than it was when Kendra was born--Grant was able to take 3 weeks off work then and this time he is teaching a summer class that meets daily and requires him to work. Luckily Grandma and Grandpa Farnsworth have been able to come help out (ie: love up and entertain Kendra so I can focus on sleep and the baby) and we only have to hold out for two and a half more weeks until he can be with us at home much, much more and blogging can pick back up its pace.

But since I've got a few minutes while I'm waiting for something to finish up and go back to bed, I thought I'd at least give you a peek at what our world has been like...

We've been curious to see how Kendra would react to bringing Elliot home and thrusting him into our lives. It's still very early on, but so far...

...she seems absolutely...

...positively...

...without a doubt...

...smitten.

We all are, really.

She's going to be a fantastic sister--but that's just our humble opinion.

Elliot is born!

2011-06-01T17:16:00.003-05:00

We are still at the hospital so our opportunities to share have been limited. In fact it all happened so fast that we haven't fully wrapped our minds around it yet.

This morning Ashley got me up at 3:30am saying we should probably start packing our hospital bag because we were likely to need it today. We sat around timing contractions until 6:00am because we wanted to let Kendra and also Heber and Debbie get some sleep. Then we took Kendra over to Hebber and Debbie, who graciously took care of her (and Heber taught my class for me). Then to the hospital.

A few hours later we were ready to push. Well, Ashley was, in fact she declined the epidural and just went for the gold. 28 minutes of really pushing and we had our son, Elliot Landon Farnsworth.

He weighed in at a generous 9 pounds 2 ounces and arrived looking very manly for a newborn. We'll get some pictures and a more detailed description after we get home and can upload from our cameras. For now we are just sort of recuperating. Especially Ashley. She burst all sorts of capillaries all over her body and is now spotted. If she pushed any harder she would have literally been sweating blood.

IT'S A BOY!

A Real Professional

2011-05-27T08:02:00.000-05:00

My friends, if you happen to have a need for some serious circles to be drawn, you have come to the right place.

There's not a blank spot of paper or chalkboard that she doesn't love to fill with faces!

And speaking of faces...

...we just think this one is the sweetest thing around.

Though these days she's a little more camera shy and not as willing to smile as she used be.

But that's okay. She's still a beautiful little girl.

"I'm ready for my close-up..."

2011-05-22T23:23:00.000-05:00

Kendra loves her some "shashee" (sunglasses).

34 Weeks (and counting...)

2011-05-21T19:16:00.000-05:00

Well, even though this picture is already weeks old (I'm at 37 weeks now), here's the Bump.

And just for funsies, here's me at this point with Kendra:

The biggest development in pregnancy lately has been managing water retention. Things got pretty intense the first time, but I didn't really try to do anything about it and just accepted it as part of the end of pregnancy. Well, since then I've been married to the Farns for two more years and have adapted his mentality. Meaning, if there is a problem, there's a solution! And so I started experimenting...drinking even more water helps. Good hard workouts make a difference, too. But the thing that really keeps it in check? Low sodium diet.

And you know what's got plenty of sodium in it? EVERYTHING. I had no idea until I started looking at labels and cutting things out. I'm pretty much living on green salad and cold cereal. It's so depressing.

But it's worth it. It's TOTALLY worth it to bypass the discomfort of water retention. Ugh. For those of you who haven't been pregnant or haven't had this problem in pregnancy it just feels like suddenly your skin isn't big or stretchy enough for your body and you can feel yourself swell up, it's so awful. But it does make for a lot of bland eating...I pretty much make dinner for Grant and Kendra and then...watch them enjoy it while I have my salad. There are some dressings that are even too much.

It's only for a few more weeks, and it's just to keep me more comfortable. Some people have to do it as a permanent lifestyle, to keep them alive. It's not that bad when you look at it like that.

But you know what consistently has very little sodium? Chocolate. Chocolate and ice cream.

You might call it something else, but I take that as proof that there is a God.

2011-05-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

I know I'm biased...

But this is just about the prettiest little face I've ever seen.

Enjoying the outdoors

2011-05-16T12:30:00.000-05:00

The chalkboard isn't the only place Kendra likes to draw...

(And she totally dragged that rocking chair out to the patio by herself. This girl knows she's got country roots.)

Since she likes to be outside so much, we busted out the PlayYard which beautifully adjusted to our current needs so now we can let her play while I get stuff done inside if I need to.

As long as I only need to be inside, that is...

Because this sort of looks like someone who's not content to be confined.

Oh, the frustration!

Luckily she didn't have to suffer the insanity long--our camera takes pictures very quickly. :)

Spring!

2011-05-16T12:17:00.000-05:00

Last fall we planted some crocus and tulip bulbs outside our patio doors. Boy was it exciting when green shoots appeared in March!

And there were a couple of other bulbs in there we totally didn't put there...but they sure smelled nice.

Unfortunately these were the only pictures we got.

A couple of weeks after the beautiful blooms appeared, they wholly disappeared, snapped clean off.

At first we thought someone collected some Mother's Day corsages, but after watching all the tulips in the complex vanish in the same way it seems more likely that something came by and ate them.

We're planning on replacing them next year with something less delicious to the local wildlife, but it was fun while it lasted...

Make it better, Daddy...

2011-05-15T17:46:00.000-05:00

From the day she was born, it has touched my heart to no limit just how much Grant loves our daughter. He is a really fantastic father (even if I do say so myself). He's always happy to see her and his feelings get pretty hurt for an extended period of time if she's in a bad mood when he gets home and doesn't want anything to do with him.

In fact, lately she's been awake when he's been heading out the door and he can barely contain his glee that every time he leaves and we tell her she's not going with him, she breaks down into inconsolable tears. He does feel bad that she's sad about something, but he loves that she's sad that he's leaving.

And even though I'm the one left behind to soothe the tears, I think it's kinda cute, too.

Last Sunday I sort of squeezed the Mother's Day thing for all it was worth and asked him to take the diapers out because the can had just filled up. And Kendra gets pretty excited for any opportunity to go for a walk, so she happily accompanied him to the dumpster in the opposite corner of the complex--she doesn't care where she's going, she just likes going for walks.

We put her in some sandals that while cute and functional, occasionally catch on the pavement if she starts really running and can result trips and falls and sent her out the door. And unfortunately, one of those occasions happened just as they were getting back from the dumpster..while still wearing the skirt from church that morning. She skinned both of her knees and even bumped her head on the sidewalk, it was very, very sad for all of us.

We cleaned and dressed her little wounds and called up good ole about-to-start-residency Uncle Seth to ask what to look for when littles bang their heads and tried to cheer her up, but she was sad for the rest of the evening.

And while we tried to split the load of comforting her, she was pretty insistent that only Daddy would do most of time.

So he spent the rest of the evening like this:

She stayed in his arms so long she got bedhead. AND she wasn't even interested in Fruit Chewies. That's pretty serious business in this house.

Luckily some Tylenol and a good night's sleep made her right as rain the next morning, but she wouldn't budge from his arms for hours.

My heart swelled up and brimmed past capacity with Love for these sweet people who took part in making me a mother and whom I feel so blessed to be able to call my own. It was a real reminder of what my life is all about, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I could not have even asked for a better Mother's Day present.

Getting our money's worth

2011-05-14T22:53:00.000-05:00

I still have all those headbands and hairbows I've stocked up on since we found out she was a girl..

It's totally worth it for pictures like this.

And I think she knows I think she's completely adorable.

Excellent driving

2011-05-09T06:41:00.001-05:00

Some time this past winter, Kendra developed a deep fascination with driving.

Although sometimes we appease it with those handy dandy car carts, she's even more enthusiastic about the REAL THING.

So, we got into a little habit.

Every time it snowed and I'd need to shovel a bit to really clear out a space (because even in January I was just too pregnant to clamber over huge piles of snow just to get in and out of my car), instead of using her precious nap time, I'd let her play in the car while I shoveled around it. She never got tired of it, even if I took a ridiculously long time (and I'm a pretty anal parking-spot-clearer-outer, so that happened pretty often).

Well, there's no more snow and I'm even more pregnant and she still loves playing in the car.

Sometimes, I really need to just get inside for one reason or another...but I try reallyreally hard to be someone who doesn't get so caught up in the "business" of life that I forget to take opprotunities to do the simple fun stuff, even if there's a whole pile of to-do waiting somewhere.

After all, this time just ain't gonna last forever--and there's only so many times I can look into those big blue eyes so innocently asking me to play in the car when I can really think that whatever is waiting for me inside surely can't wait another few minutes for her to play...

So every now and again, even if it's not convenient, when we pull in and park, I turn off the engine and reach back and unbuckle her from her car seat and help her get out of the straps (because she'll frantically scramble once she realizes she gets to do it) so that she can take my place when I get out of the front and do this:

I love that she wears a seat belt for this because she totally did that of her own accord, I never even showed her where it was.

We've got a pretty sweet parking situation that allows me to leave her in the car but keep her in eyesight as I unload our groceries--there's often a spot open that's about 10 meters in front of our side door.

So, to really let her get her fill, I usually bring in the bags one at a time. Even my purse gets its own trip to stretch it out a little more.

She really gets into it. The first thing she does is turn on our hazards and often I have to turn off the wipers when I get back in to drive somewhere the next time. She has so much fun that if she's not ready to get out by the time I've stretched out the unloading as far as I can, I take a moment to throw melty things in the freezer and grab a magazine and just sit with her until she's had her fill.

I could barely get her to look at me to take this shot after she'd been doing this for at least 10 minutes.

This awesome little person has given us a healthy dose of over-the-top cute and adorable since the day she was born--this is just one example of the sheer FUN we get out of life through her day in and day out.

Her father's daughter

2011-05-07T21:45:00.003-05:00

"But Mommy, I want to keep playing with the tablet..."

ABCs

2011-04-25T00:31:00.000-05:00

I have been embarrassingly behind posting current videos.

And it's really a shame because she's been doing a lot of really cute/awesome stuff over the past few months.

Like learning the ABCs, check it out!

But you'll get the drift after 30 seconds, I only posted the whole version because I know there are grandparents out there who will want to see the whole thing.

Again a moment where we show her to the universe and say, "LOOK! We made a person! And she knows letters!!"

She's come an awfully long way...we love it.

Mother's Helper

2011-04-20T21:43:00.000-05:00

I can see how an actual Mother's Helper would be awesome.

Lucky for me, I've got one built into the family.

She loves to cook, clean and organize things just right.

Of course, safety comes first.

Now she's all ready.

(Whenever she sees me pull out a pair of oven mitts, she has to have some, too. And they have to be these two. We have a set of each one, and I store them on two different hooks but she has to have the ones that come from a specific side. No joke. Whatever floats yer boat, I guess, kid.)

Daddy's Girl

2011-04-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

Kendra went down about half an hour ago and we could hear her making quite a ruccus over our movie, so I went back to check on her after it kept getting more and more persistent.

However, when I got to her door, I could hear her better and she wasn't just calling out randomly like she normally does, oh no.

"DA-DDY!"

And then again a second later, "DA-DDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

Turns out, silly old Mommy had forgotten to hand her the special Mermaid book she likes to look at when she goes to bed but before she goes to sleep, so she called out for Daddy to get the job done right.

Naaice.

Our little stepper

2011-04-16T20:24:00.000-05:00

Kendra is no stranger to step aerobics--I've been doing it several times a week most weeks of her life. At our last apartment in Chicago, we had the step set up all the time unless we needed the floor space to do something else. This lead to a pretty natural curiosity about it which I documented here and here.

However...

Last week, she decided to give it a try for herself.

She actually did this for a good 15 minutes and even ran to go grab her tennis shoes when she noticed that I and the girls in the video were all wearing them.

Besides being cute, I was also happy because hopefully from watching stuff like me doing step all the time, she'll develop her own appreciation and maybe even passion for some form of physical activity.

As long as she has fun doing it, that is.

But right now, she seems to have that covered. :)

Uncaptured cuteness

2011-04-13T18:20:00.000-05:00

It's difficult to get a video of this particular Kendra-ism, but it's pretty dang cute.

Lately, when she makes a request, she'll say it at a normal or even slightly louder-than-normal volume.

And if the answer is, "No," then she tries again, but in a whisper.

So it goes something like this:

Kendra: "MOMMY! May I have this, please?" (in her own way, she's not nearly that articulate--don't we wish she were...)

Mommy: "No, honey. Not right now. But maybe later."

Kendra: "Mommy...may I have this, please...?"

Mommy: "No, sweetheart, we're not going to do that."

Kendra: "Please...?"

It's so darn cute that I have to keep myself from laughing...but the answer is still, "No."

The Artist in the family

2011-04-05T20:45:00.001-05:00

Kendra draws on her chalkboard every single day.

And she turns to us and asks us to draw something for her...

Every. Single. Day.

I often draw letters or objects when I get handed the chalk, but Grant often does family portraits.

And she totally caught on...(I recommend clicking to enlarge these pictures as you scroll down)

Do you see it? It's like those 3D pictures that were so popular a while back--gotta try to see the hidden image...

Here, I'll help.

Eh?

(I drew the heart, and she took it from there. But we know it's me because she said so.)

Not bad for a barely 2-year-old, eh?

While this was something we noticed after she went to bed, she's done it many times since and she's turned to us and pointed out "eye", "nose" and "mouth", so we're pretty sure she's doing this on purpose.

Our own little Rembrandt!

Starting them young

2011-04-03T20:49:00.000-05:00

Recently I set a goal to read the Book of Mormon through by Easter--and it's certainly a manageable goal, but it does mean I need to stay on top of it every day to get it done.

So if Kendra gets up before I've had a chance to read, I have to get that time in while she's up and eager to play...which I do for a while and then try to explain that Mommy needs some time for something important. She's surprisingly accommodating, as long as she can do it too, of course.

Some time last year, she was curious about what I was doing one day when I pulled out my scriptures so we dug out my pocket-sized copy of the Book of Mormon and gave it to her.

Now she has her own scriptures and I have mine...she knows they're about "Jee-jee" (Jesus) and she points out lots of letters on the cover and on the pages that she's learned over the past couple of months (we're *this close* to her actually recognizing that the letters b-o-o-k put together is the word "book", it's pretty cool).

It'll still be a while before she can take a turn by herself when we read together as a family, but she still looks darn cute pretending to on her own.

The Menagerie in the Bed

2011-03-31T22:14:00.000-05:00

As Kendra has (thank goodness) begun to develop verbal skills, she is able to make requests very clear.

Up until this point, the only things she's ever had in her crib were 2 blankets, her lambie and her seahorse.

One night as she was going down, she asked (in her own little way) for one of the toys in the bucket in her room.

Then another.

The requests kept on coming...

There are even more friends in there with her now.

And she specifically asks for The Little Mermaid board book now.

Every.

Single.

Night.

Whatever works, kid. Whatever works.