Merry Christmas!

Another tooth gone!

Jake loses his first tooth!

I clearly remember the morning we saw Jake's first tooth growing in. It was a weekend in October 2006, and we were taking him to the pumpkin patch that day to get him his first pumpkin.


And today, I nearly cried when I saw that same tooth sitting in Ralph's cupped palm at the winter concert at Jake's school. I'm not usually an emotional mom when it comes to these types of things, but it seems like Jake is getting bigger, taller, older and more mature each and every day and that the baby I once held is becoming less and less of a baby and more and more of a big boy. It hits me sometimes that my baby boy is no longer a baby. Times like today, when he lost his first tooth:


The left bottom tooth fell out, and now the right bottom tooth is creeping into the open space:



And he seemed all grown up last night, when he read a book to me, 62 pages all by himself with only a few words he needed help identifying.



Where did my tiny chubby-cheeked baby go?





*(I just realized in looking up the blog that the first tooth to fall out was the second one to grow in, but the first one is loose too.)

After school snack

And watching a show on my iPad, cuddled up together on the couch :)

Halloween 2011

Jake and Alex dressed as a fireman and his Dalmatian, respectively. They were super-cute and had a fun time trick-or-treating in our neighborhood (for the most part). For Jake, trick-or-treating is serious business, involving hitting as many houses as possible, quickly and efficiently, for maximum candy collection. For Alex, who was not feeling so hot this Halloween, it was a cruel game of visiting people's houses, but not being allowed to enter to pet their dogs and play with their things.







Alex was confused and upset by the entire process. She dropped her Halloween candy bucket whenever she decided she was sick of carrying it, candy be damned. Then she didn't want to be carried or hold hands, so she bolted off on her own for half a block, only to trip and scrape her hands and elbow. The next block and a half home was a screaming, slobbery, nose-running hissy fit. I tried to hold her tightly to help calm her down, but she was cold and had enough of this Halloween baloney.



A few days before Halloween, we were treated to a bizarre and unusual treat: SNOW! I've never seen colorful orange fall leaves covered in white flakes. It was a beautiful but dangerous combination, as tree limbs snapped from the weight of leaves and wet snow.





Back home at the end of the night. Alex wanted NO PART of having this picture taken:



Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

After seven years of marriage...

...this is what our life looks like :) Happy Anniversary Ralphie Bear!

All About Ali

I think it's about time I devoted a post to my beautiful baby girl. Alex just turned 19 months old, and gave me exactly two minutes to take an impromptu photo shoot this morning. She looked so adorable in this outfit that I had to take her out back and take a few pictures. She's wearing my headband (we swap hair accessories all the time!), but wore it for precisely 120 seconds before tossing it to the ground.


If you look below, you'll see that Ali is wearing her big brother's old shoes in this pic! I think little kids in Converse All-Stars are one of the most adorable things ever! I've been scouring the old blog posts trying to find a few pics of Jake at about the same age wearing the same shoes. No luck. I know it's there somewhere, I just can't find it.


I think Alex resembles Ralph more than Jake does, but I still see a lot of me in her. Ali really resembles Ralph's little sister Laura as a baby. But in this picture below, the one on the left, I think she looks identical to me. Well, in the face at least. The last time my legs were that thin was probably 1989!

Jake's First Days of Kindergarten

My little baby boy is all grown up! Jake is having a great time in kindergarten, he enjoys riding the bus with our next door neighbor Gabby, and having lunch and recess every day at school. We are still adjusting to getting up early every morning, but so far it is working out well for everyone.

Binky Mania!

Jake has long since given up on the pacifier, but his sister has picked up the habit. And every once in a while, when there are spare binkies laying around, Jake will pretend to be a baby and pop one in his mouth. Tonight however, he was up to his old tricks again and sported multiple binkies. Alex is mostly allowed to have her binkies ("bee-bee") at naptime and bedtime, but she uses her skinny little arms to reach between the slats of her crib to procure additional binkies as needed. She refers to bedtime as "ah, ah, baybee" and calls her blankets "ahbees".

She is talking quite a bit lately. Today she was wishing Ralphie a "Happy!" (birthday). She says all of our names: Mommy, Daddy, Jake ("DAY!!"), Geedah, Peepa, Danny, Mema, Papa, "Cuh" (Uncle Chris), "Guh" (Uncle Greg), "La" (Aunt Laura), and of course Ru.

She also says hi and bye, love you, thank you, yes and no, dog, up, out, gotta go ("Gaaah GO!"), please, hat, shoes, belly, and many others. She will repeat many words for you if you ask.

Alex is incredibly smart (in my humble non-biased opinion) and has amazing fine motor skills. She is strong and capable and extremely independent and strong-willed. She's a fearless dare devil and an absolute handful. She drives me completely bonkers and I love her like crazy. She is sweet and cuddly and absolutely Mommy's little girl.

Seventeen months have gone by in a flash, and they have been such a joy and a blessing. I love watching my two beautiful babies grow up together.

I wanna be just like my big brother!

Alex does everything she can to be just like her big brother Jake, including wearing his batting gloves.

Ralph in the News!

Ralph was recently interviewed by a reporter who had covered him back when he was playing high school baseball. Sort of a 'Where Are They Now' piece. Jake had a small cameo in the article, I recently photographed Ralph's headshot in our backyard. You can read the article here.

Having Starbucks with my little Movie Star

I've got some big shoes to fill!

Family Photos!

We haven't had pictures taken of our little family since before Alex was born, so when I met this very talented photographer named Zoe Berkovic recently, I thought it was a great opportunity to have some new pictures done. I am always on the other side of the camera and have hardly any pictures of myself with the kids, or all four of us together. We had our pictures taken on Sunday and already Zoe posted some of the sneak peek images on her blog. I can't wait to see the rest! :)


Ruth hated this:


Alex LOVES balloons, and since we share a birthday, I liked the symbolism of them too


Jake and I performing our signature gymnastics trick, "the Tuck and Roll"


I love that we now have pictures of Ralph and Jake playing baseball together. Jake is OBSESSED with baseball, the Yankees, and his new tee ball team. He tries to wear his tee ball uniform every single day.


I think this one of Alex is magical! The funny thing is, she threw all of the dolls and stuffed animals out of the wagon and then tried to steal the one doll's pacifier. And I'm pretty sure her constant string of drool was Photoshopped out.


My handsome little rockstar and his most prized possession, his 3/4 scale Fender Strat from Uncle Danny! Je was pretty much done being photographed at this point, so the bad-ass look is kinda genuine.


And finally, my happy Beezer girl! (Did I tell you I call her Beezers? I'm not sure why or when it happened, but Jake (aka "The Boop") and I call her that at least 50% of the time).

Kids like to play in the darndest places...

Alex crawled under the stool in our kitchen. Just the right size for her :)

Rockstar with a Mohawk

Just another ordinary day at home...

Sandbox fun

It's a beautiful day to enjoy our new sandbox!

Easter 2011

Ralph got a new phone and it takes much much better pictures than my cell phone. But you know, as a photographer, I should have a real camera on me at all times. Mommy fail. His new phone takes pictures nearly as well as any digital point and shoot. And then it goes a step further and emails the pics. Win-win. Anyway... here are a few pictures from this year's Easter celebration with the kids.


Alex had a full selection of Easter dresses to choose from, while poor Jake had a pieced together "Uh, these pants are clean...and, umm, this shirt still kinda fits" Easter outfit. I have to get better with that. But Alex is still at the age where most of her clothes are gifts from family (she got lots of pretty dresses for her birthday), and Jake, being a boy much less concerned with fashion just gets new clothes when too much of his socks are showing under his ever-shrinking pant legs. But he is still as handsome as ever to me :)



And a few from last year, as a comparison. What a difference a year makes!





And a bonus photo of Ru "playing" Twister. Front Paws on Green!

Ice Cream (I Scream?)

This picture is a hilarious snapshot of our lives currently. Alex, spoon clutched in one hand, screaming defiantly, empty ice cream cone dripping on the ground, pants growing short in the legs, bib a constant necessity due to teething drool. Jake, posing politely for the camera, ice cream cone protectively gripped in opposite hand, a look of exhaustion on his face due to his sister's antics. I'm just along for the ride, having fun capturing it all :)

SO PROUD!

Yesterday was a VERY big day in our house!

After six long months of cruising around with one hand on walls and furniture to steady herself, Alex decided last night was the night she was going to start to walk. And, just like that, she walked lap after lap around our house. Clear across our kitchen in 29 steps. The entire length of our living room. And up and down the hallway. Previously, at least a month ago, she took two steps toward me. Since then she has made it maybe one or two steps before giving up and landing on her butt and simply crawling. When people would ask if she was walking, my answer was always, "She is perfectly CAPABLE of walking, she just hasn't decided to pursue it yet." Do I know my daughter or what?

I have a video that Ralph took of her walking last night, but the house is such a disaster area in the video that I can't bring myself to post it.*

ALSO, yesterday, my big five year old boy was writing out thank you notes to his friends that came to his birthday party. Jake wrote the names of each of his classmates all by himself! Jake's classmates have names such as Lizzie, Sophia, Yelena, McKinley, Ava, Gianluca, Adelia, Cody, Isabella, and Jack, so I realized we had probably written most of the letters of the alphabet already! We looked for the letters that we had missed (F, P, Q, R, T, W, and X) and Jake wrote them too!


I was smiling ear to ear with pride last night. I am so, so proud of my favorite son and my favorite daughter!! :)


*You know what your house looks like after your kids and your dog have torn it apart all day and you are too busy chasing them to pick up all the crap that they insist upon throwing on the floor? And then your husband works late and you are ready to tear your hair out since it's been 13 hours since you have spoken to another adult? And it's time for dinner but you haven't made anything yet? And now it's getting close to bedtime and you have to figure out how to feed them/clean them/change them before you can even think about getting around to cleaning up the living room? And you have a bunch of emails to return and work to do because the new babysitter you hired stole money from you and then had the nerve to quit? No? Oh well, that's what it looked like in our house when Ralph took the video. At least when I tried to take video (13 secs then the batteries died), I was innovative enough to position baby so that she would walk in an area where the background was clean. (Photography is all an illusion anyway.) Ralph on the other hand took a walking tour down tornado alley. Or, should that be "Tornado Ali"? I crack myself up.

Alex eating oatmeal

Alex has been very eager to feed herself lately. She is a fantastic eater and will gobble anything you put in front of her. Both Alex and Jake are pretty good about eating healthy breakfast foods, and we've been on an oatmeal kick lately. I made too much for myself this morning, and Alex was eager to finish my bowl for me. It was a lazy sunday, so after a bunch of clean spoonfuls from me, I decided to let her have the bowl and spoon all to herself, not caring too much if she made a mess because we didn't really have any place to go today anyway. I think she liked it:


We went directly into the bathtub once she had her fill. Ruthie volunteered to clean up most of the mess left on the tray of the highchair.

Five Years Ago!

Five years ago today, my baby boy was born!


And our lives have never been the same since! Happy Birthday to my beautiful sweet boy! I love you so much Jake!!