Deck the halls

The first ornament:

Our elf and his decorations:

Six Months

Lucas turned 6 months old on December 4. He is a happy and healthy baby. He loves music, other babies and kids, and putting things in his mouth (as he is desperately trying to cut in a tooth). He is beloved by Josh's classmates. He can keep himself seated once he is put into a sitting position, he can hold his body up when lying on the floor, and he can roll on demand, even across the room if he needs to get somewhere. He is trying to crawl, but only ends up scooting backward so far. When he gets excited about play, his whole body shimmies, with arms flailing and legs kicking. After we finally broke down and resorted to the "cry it out" method of sleep training (after everything else failed) at the end of November, he is now sleeping well, though he continues to awaken at midnight and at 3 am for feedings. Unfortunately, he has dropped to the 10th percentile for weight, so not only must we continue the nighttime feedings, we need to find a way to get more food into him during the daytime as well. Some of this is the consequence of his decision back when I returned to work to start refusing the bottle, which limits the amount he can eat during the day. But now that he can eat cereal and some baby foods, hopefully we can add in another daytime meal and help boost his growth.

He may be small, but he has a big smile:

Dance, baby, dance:

His idol:

Next step: crawling!

November 2007

Sorry I have not posted anything for several weeks. We had a number of reasons--camera batteries died, John's been dominating the computer with school deadlines--but also I've just been really tired. 6 months of sleepless nights have taken their toll and most nights I fall asleep on the floor in the boys' room when putting them to sleep and miss the chance to do anything on "my time" after they go to bed. But today I uploaded the photos and realized I had more than I thought, so it's time to dump them into a few big posts.
I'm dating these for when they happened, not when I'm posting them.
This is the collective November group.
First is just a cute picture of Josh and Lucas. Note the hand-holding.

One of Lucas's teachers has been making him really laugh hard at school by yelling "boo" at him, the louder the better. He laughs and laughs. Josh got wind of it and spent a consecutive 72 hours yelling "boo," before he started saying, "mommy, it's not working." I had to explain the concept of moderation. Here is a photo when it was still working, mid-boo:

Gammy and Poppa visiting for Thanksgiving:

Josh takes the "controls" on Lucas's exersaucer and flies it like a spaceship. Mostly, Lucas thinks this is great fun. Sometimes, though, it gets a little too aggressive for his liking. Josh is so expressive in his play.

Trick or Treat

We went trick or treating with two other families in our neighborhood. Last year we did that because Josh was still a little scared of halloween and relunctant to trick or treat. This year, we needn't have worried. He was all about trick or treating. Of course, he still had to figure out exactly how it worked. The first few houses, he would run up (always running up!), ring the bell, jump up and down with unfettered excitement the whole time he waited for someone to answer, and then yell, "I want a treat." I tried not to be embarrassed at how rude this would otherwise sound, given that essentially "trick or treat" means the same thing, but with a threat of vandalism attached. But it still sounded funny. He eventually caught on that he was supposed to say "trick or treat." The running, jumping, and excitement stayed constant. He also started ending each visit with "happy halloween," which sounded so cute with his 3-year-old inflections.
Luke made for a very cute tiny Tigger. The weather was dry and not cold, perfect for trick or treating. We all had a fun time.


Action shot:

Spiderman (Josh) and Batman (Leo), born 12 days apart:

Superheroes are all the rage with Josh and his pals (and cousin!).
Happy Halloween!

Children's Museum Costume Party

The Children's Museum hosted a members-only costume party Monday. John and I left work early and took the boys. We had a fun time, but Josh was exhausted by the time we left (6:45), after a long day of hard play at school and then another couple of hours running around CM. He was also drenched, after spending a lot of his time in the water room. Here he is playing with water, in his spiderman outfit but without the mask (which proved much too difficult to play in).



Luke bubbling out of the fountain:


Josh with the overly-cheesy grin; Luke unhappy at being made to sit still for a picture. Such are our attempts to photograph these two! Rarely successful.

A Tale of Two Spidermen(and one Supergirl, and a pirate)

Josh and his cousin Logan are both obsessed with Spiderman (and superheroes in general). Superhero play is very big in Josh's class at school. And Logan just turned 4, and had a Spiderman themed birthday party, with a live visit from Spiderman.
So with Halloween approaching, it was little surprise what they would want for costumes. Although Josh threw us a curveball as we shopped for the right costume, by saying he also wanted to be Batman. He has never been exposed to Batman here, so he must have picked that up at school. So we logged onto a Superhero costume website and let him pick between Batman and Spiderman, and he picked "Venom" Spiderman.
My sister valiantly attempted to lure Logan out of Spiderman with the very cute Supergirl costume, but she was unswayed. She will also be Spiderman, but the "good" one. She thinks it's "so cool" (her new favorite phrase) that she and Josh will both be Spiderman, and claims her good Spiderman will defeat Josh's bad Spiderman.
Luke is going to be a tiger (already had that costume from my friend Kimi), but for fun, and with a little help from Nana, he also got to dress up like a pirate. Aarg.
Josh:


Logan:


Luke:

Pumpkin Patch

After many straight years of going to Sauvie Island for the pumpkin patches, I decided today that we should try a new place. I read about several family farms offering hayrides, animals, and pumpkins of course, and we picked one to try out. It was a mistake. The old adage was true: if it isn't broke, don't fix it. We should have stuck with Sauvie Island.
First, the place was further away than I thought, making for something of a long drive. Then we got lost, making for a longer drive. Then, when we finally arrived, it was small and not very exciting, and paled in comparison to the place we usually go. We'll be back there next year (if not later this month).
Josh had fun though. He picked a pumpkin from the display by the cash register when we first arrived. We talked him into putting it back and riding the hay ride out to the field to see the other pumpkins. But you can guess what we bought in the end: the original pumpkin he liked at the display!
Here we are on the hayride. Lucas was not amused.

The pumpkin selection.

Josh in the hay maze:

The then and present pumpkin:

Josh took this picture of John with a big pumpkin. He is getting pretty good (or perhaps lucky) with framing pictures.

My disinterested boys. Love Luke's arm over the armrest.

Josh

Lest you think otherwise, we do still take pictures of Josh. Here is proof:

He looks kind of grown up here, his face is changing so much from a baby face to a boy face.

These two are also from Lucas's 4-month birthday. Josh is such a great big brother. Josh and his classmates are obsessed with the concept of "best friends" now. He usually identifies either Terence or his cousin Logan as his best friend, but once he said, "baby brother Lucas is my best friend." Way too adorable.

Lucas turns 4 months old

Here's our happy boy:

Lucas turned four months old on October 4. He continues to be extremely dissatisfied with being set down. We were on the hunt for a bumpo, but decided to go with an exersaucer instead, as he is now almost too old to be content just sitting in the bumpo anyway. (How did we get two such active babies??) We found an good used saucer on craigslist and just love seeing Lucas stand up on his own in it.

This picture is from his actual birthday, on October 4. He was smiling and laughing, but I couldn't get a good picture of it. This is the best of the bouncy chair series.

This was after I loaded him up for his doctor's appointment, and I love the intense look he is giving.

All was well per the doctor. She also sees him as a very active child, probably an early sitter, crawler and walker, like his brother. He is 70th percentile for height and 25th for weight, so looking to be tall and thin like Josh, but smaller (Josh was/is always 90th for height and 50th for weight). She has prescribed some sleep changes though, so it should be a difficult weekend for us as we try to implement them. Wish us luck.

Luke's first food

Luke must have been going through a growth spurt, because he could not get enough to eat this day. Since he won't take a bottle anymore, our options were pretty limited, so we decided to move onto rice cereal even though he is only three months old. He still has his tongue-thrust reflex, so he pushes the food back out as soon as we put it in, and we had to push it back in to get it down. Despite this process, he ate almost the whole bowl, so we declared success!




He looks pretty satisfied.

Portland Taiko

Today we went to our third performance by Portland Taiko. "Taiko" is the Japanese word for drum, but also seems to specifically refer to this big drum, physical style of drumming. Last year, we could not make the children's matinee due to John's school schedule, so we went to a regular performance. This year, we made the children's matinee, and were thrilled to learn that children were invited onto the stage during the performance. Josh was one of the invitees, and happily accepted. The picture is dark, and we actually weren't supposed to take any so we only got this shot, but here is Josh on stage doing some Taiko drumming.


He was so cute. Also super cute was Luke, who we outfitted in Bose noise-cancelling headphones (John's) which were way too big but very cute on him. He wasn't bothered by the loud drums at all, and made it through almost the whole performance without so much as a peep.

Cannon Beach

Two weekends ago (yes, late post, typical these days), my dear friend Michele Stone had her baby shower at the beach. Seven women rented a house together in Cannon Beach, Oregon, for a weekend away in her (and baby's) honor. Lucas also got to come as a surprise guest, because he began refusing a bottle when I went back to work in August, so John had no way to feed him while I was gone and I didn't want to subject John and Josh to two days of crying. Plus, Lucas and seven women equals lots of love and affection for baby Lucas, so he had a great time.
The weather was absolutely beautiful. Here is a picture looking north to Haystack Rock.

Here we are enjoying some lazy rest on the beach.

Michele's friend Amanda from Chicago, with me and Lucas, while out window shopping in town.

Erin and Lucas, who is sucking her thumb.

Michele and baby, flanked by Courtney and Erin.

It was a really nice time, sunny, gorgeous, relaxing, and with good company.

Three years // Three months

Luke turned three months old last night at 11:30 p.m. Here are his three month photos, also featuring 3-year-old big brother Josh.

close up:

Luke started daycare yesterday too, and Josh visits him during the day. His teachers are all so impressed with how proud Josh is of his "baby brudder" and how much he wants to show Lucas off to his friends.