August 7? Excuse me, where is summer going?

Hello, little blog.  I haven't forgotten about you, I just haven't had my computer all summer and my work computer is terrible.  Blogger and the work computer do not cooperate.  Soon I will be updating and posting lots and lots of new pictures of all of our fun summer adventures.  Until then...

Walt Disney World, Florida, July 1, 2010

Mama's Little Man

In the last installment of Jack pictures, I promised pictures of him when he was actually awake. Tonight I promise to deliver! Here are some more "vintage Jack" pictures...



From very early on Claire has definitely had a lot of love to give Jack...sometimes it gets a little rough, but she really does love her brother very much!



Tummy time! Jack slept so much that this didn't happen very often. As a result he has a flat head...sorry, Jack!



My bright-eyed boy, hanging out in his bouncy seat. Can I just say again how "chill" this kid is? He has been so easy going from the start, just sitting in the boucy seat or the swing, or whatever, and taking it all in.



Jack loved to be held, something that is tricky when there is a 2 year old running around. Best thing I ever could have bought--The Sleepy Wrap! No buckles on it to rub on his face, just stretchy material that held him close to mama. He spent a lot of time in there and always fell asleep (hello, the name definitely fits it!). Um, and now I sound like a magazine ad. But seriously. This thing was a lifesaver when Jack wasn't so content to just "hang out"!!



First smile caught on camera, June 2009.



Can we just discuss for a moment how tricky it is to take pictures of both kids at the same time and have said pictures come out in focus? Not an easy task...as demonstrated by Claire's slightly out of focus face.




What a serious little boy! Jack has spent the last 14 months of life just studying things. He's a quiet observer, watching, learning, and listening. I can only imagine what is going on in his head and I know that he is going to surprise us big time, when we least expect it. This picture also reminds me of the first time Jeff and I realized that we could eat dinner as a family even though there was a baby in the house. When Claire was a baby she needed to be held pretty much all of the time. At dinner time, we ate in front of the tv and just took turns eating and holding her. Jack was just a couple of days old when I set him in the bouncy seat so that we could have dinner. He sat for the whole time...and I got to eat. I didn't even know what to think! It was nice to realize that having a newborn in the house did not have to entail listening to screaming and crying for hours on end. Life with Jack was calm and fun...for the most part!

The Next Mia Hamm?

Every year, Claire's daycare has Hobart soccer coach Shawn Griffin run a soccer camp for kids ages 3-5. This year, Claire got to be a "Little Kicker" and had a lot of fun learning about soccer. Some days she was nervous about playing and would tell me in the morning, "No, Mommy, I'm not playing soccer today. I don't wanna go to daycare!" Once she got out there, though, she had fun and even came close to scoring a few goals. I think her apprehension for playing came from the fact that she was playing with kids who are older and bigger than she is. Camp ran for five weeks and we got to go to a special family clinic the last night. It was at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, on the soccer practice fields, and all of the Little Kickers showed us what they learned this year.



Listening to Coach Griffin's pre-game speech



Warming up and practicing dribbling the ball



When Coach Griffin said, "Freeze!" the kids had to stop the ball with a certain body part.



Freeze!!



One last time!



Claire got picked to be on the "Shirts". How cute is she in her pinny??



At first, she did not want to go out on the field. Daddy got her going, though!


Out on the field and ready to run!



Go, Claire! She came so close to scoring!!



Helping a friend who was also nervous about going out on the field.



Yay! Everyone is ready to go out and play now!



On second thought..... I think they were just ready to play, not necessarily ready to play soccer!



Each kid got to bring home a soccer ball!



My favorite Little Kicker


We took Claire out for ice cream after the game and walked down the long pier at Seneca Lake. She seemed to have fun that night, and she really loved the special attention she got from Mommy and Daddy, since we left Jack home with JoJo (for his own special attention!!). When I was putting Claire to bed I asked her a question, one that we ask her at the end of every day, "What was your favorite part of today?" I expected her to say, "getting ice cream" or "playing soccer" but my sweet little girl really surprised me and said, "Helping my friend Emily when she was sad at soccer." Claire D., you are the sweetest litle girl I know!

It's not summer 'til you've had your first Ball Park

Saturday night we had Matthew, Alexe, and Avery over for a cookout to celebrate their move back to Geneva (and to give them a break from the chaos of unpacking) and there were Ballparks on the grill, so I guess it's official! Summer is so close I can feel it. Today marks the true countdown until the last day of school, June 24. This month promises to be a great one: Father's Day, Jeff's birthday, my solo trip for Kara's wedding in Hilton Head, SC, and our family trip to see Sarah, Ron, Allison and Emily in Florida with a two-day side trip to Disney! How can I not be excited on this June 1?? The heat came early this year, so we've been pretending it is already summer for a couple of weeks now.




I treated Claire to a little mani/pedi. Clearly, she didn't like it at all...


It has been hot, hot, HOT, so we got the sprinkler and water table out. We've learned to embrace our tiny backyard (can I even call it that?) and cram as many toys as possible out there, much to the dismay of the neighbors, I'm sure. Now that Jack is older, bigger, and more resilient, I know we will be outside a lot this summer. Our kids certainly don't appear to mind that we don't have much of a yard!























It's a rule that every child has to learn how to turn a blade of grass into a whistle, right?


Let the countdown to June 24th begin!!

More Old Claire

I still have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to Claire's baby days! Here are a few more pictures and stories of what it was like when Claire was an itty bitty baby...



In April our shower leaked into our kitchen for about the billionth time. We decided to redo not only the shower, but the entire bathroom. Jeff, his dad, Ron, Thomas, and Matthew (even though it was like 2 days before his and Alexe's wedding!) all came and helped out when they could. Our house was a disaster, so Claire and I went to stay at Ann and Don's. Claire was still pretty difficult at this point, but was starting to become a little more relaxed and easy going. She was also starting to smile and show happiness much more often!




Claire loved to watch Baby Einstein DVDs. I didn't love sticking my infant daughter in front of the tv at such an early age and felt bad doing it, but many days it was the only thing that calmed her down and gave us some peace. Note the little holes in the bouncy seat frame by her knees. Yeah, they were for a toy bar that lit up and played music and was supposed to keep her attention. A toy bar just wasn't going to cut it with Claire!




Our little peanut had good head control from an early age, but was too short for her exersaucer. Nothin' a pack of copy paper couldn't fix!

 Check out how big our girl is getting! She was really at the tail-end of the fussiness by this point, though it was still another month before she was truly pleasant to be around all of the time!




Cutest. Baby Girl. Ever. Disagree...I dare you.




Blurry, but her first taste of rice cereal.




Success!

In case you needed more convincing that she was the cutest baby girl ever.

Someone likes her sweet potatoes! And check out that bald head...poor girl literally didn't have so much as one hair on her head when she was 5 months old. A little teensy bit of peach fuzz, but that was it for months and months!



I could be all profound, but I've got nothing. So, until next time...

New Beginnings...and Sad Goodbyes

First of all, today was gorgeous. Like, absolutely the most beautifully perfect day you could ever dream of seeing. Adam and his friends graduated from Hobart and William Smith and it could not have been more perfect out for their ceremony.


Claire and I went to the ceremony because Claire's "College Friends" are all leaving (or have left!) town. I couldn't bear to explain to her that she won't see her friends anymore. She loves them so much and I know that it will break her little heart when she realizes that they aren't coming over to play anymore. She got all dressed up and has been talking about "graduation" (despite the fact that she had no idea what that truly meant) for weeks now.




Check out the paper in her hands. She sat this morning at her little table in the playroom and decorated cards for Adam, Trevor, Lauren, and Emma. Each card had a different design and she had me write notes to each person inside. She wrote her name as best as a three year old can inside. Those cards? They are filled with a whole lot of love. She carried them from the time we got there until the very end of the ceremony, when she handed them out to her friends.




Um, is someone texting and trying to hide it with his newly-earned diploma? Yup, yup, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what's going on here.




We needed to take a cookie break partway through!




So happy and so much to look forward to...yay, Adam!!
















Congratulations, Adam, Trevor, Lauren and Emma! We love you!

Vintage Jack, Vol. 1

Jack is 13 months old today. I cannot believe how fast the last year has gone. It does not seem possible that my baby is 13 months old, but at the same time, I can barely remember life without Jack. Without further ado, a look back at Jack's early days...aka my most favorite days of my entire life, tied only with the first couple of weeks of Claire's little life...




Let's start by saying, boy did this kid like to sleep. Swaddle him up, stick him in the bouncy seat, and that was it. He would sleep for 3 or 4 hours straight. Wake up, eat, poop, repeat. Jack literally slept through the first 5 weeks of his life. I'm pretty sure there are about 725 pictures of Jack sleeping. I was so grateful to have a calm, easygoing baby after what Claire had put us through when she was a baby. I spent my entire pregnancy with Jack anxious about how I would take care of a 27 month old and a newborn because the only newborn I knew was Screaming Crying Claire Elizabeth. Whenever I pictured life with another newborn, I pictured walking around and doing the bouncing-patting-shushing-rocking-holding-the-pacifier-in-the-mouth routine I was used to. Thankfully, that was never the case. In fact, I don't ever remember having to do that routine even once with Jack (though I could be having selective memory problems). We were blessed and I was beyond thankful.





Sleeping...and looking very thoughtful. I remember the first night we realized we could actually eat dinner at the same time and have Jack sleep or sit in the bouncy seat. When Claire was a baby we had to eat in shifts because she had to be held all of the time. If we set her down she screamed, and we refused to just let her cry so that we could eat together. Instead, we took turns eating and holding. Jack, on the other hand, was completely content to just hang in the bouncy seat not only during dinner, but any time we needed him to sit and relax so that we could get something done.





Uh, yup...sleeping again!





One of my most favorite pictures from when Jack was a newborn. And look! He's actually awake!





My sweet babies





Sleeping...again. Only this time, we were outside. I remember this day so clearly. Jack was about 10 or 11 days old and it was a gorgeous day. All Claire wanted to do was go outside and blow bubbles. All Jack wanted to do was nurse. Luckily, Claire was very patient and was such a good big sister. We tried to go out, only to have Jack start screaming. We went back inside, I fed him (again), and finally, we made it back out.





I think Claire only got about 15 minutes of bubble blowing in before it was time to go in for lunch and her nap. And so began my quest to try and keep everyone happy and balanced...





I wasn't kidding. There are a lot of pictures of Jack sleeping. If I hadn't taken sleeping baby pictures, I would have no pictures of Jack as a newborn!





We went to the zoo when Jack was about 2 weeks old. Clearly, he loved it there!





Sleeping on Mama, still at the zoo.





Sleeping on Mama after a long day at the zoo.





I know I'm biased, but we obviously have the cutest kids. Ever.





When Jack was 3 weeks old we took the kids to Strong Museum. Yes, Jack slept through the whole trip. I know you're shocked.





I promise, the next installment of Vintage Jack will have pictures of him actually awake and lovin' life...