Their chariot awaits

The other day^* we decided to take the kiddos out for a walk. This may^** have been motivated by my impatient desire to try out our new "kid chariot" - our Bumbleride Indie Twin. I've been drooling over this stroller since Graham was itsy-bitsy, and I was pretty convinced this was "the" stroller I "needed" as soon as I found out I was going to have two under two. And it did not disappoint!

The Bumbleride gets Graham's approval!!

We ended up walking down to our corner market and grabbed some bagels and (much needed) coffee.

Smiling and drinking coffee. Coincidence?? I don't think so :-)

Eating a 'nana (yes, in his jammies!!) and lovin' it

Graham takes his milk drinking very seriously

After our al fresco breakfast, we continued on down the road to what will be Graham's elementary school. They have an incredible playground!!

SEE?? And this is only half of it!!

We were highly impressed with the elaborate play structures, and even moreso by the fact that the elementary school is a "green" school, with on-premises recycling and a playground composed of recycled plastic :-)

Enjoying the fruits of mom's recycling obsession ;-)

I give the day, the stroller, AND our first outing as a family of four a BIG THUMBS UP!



^* and by "the other day," I really mean "many, many days ago. Like 14. Or maybe 21. I'm a little behind on my blogging. I plead "newborn, nursing, sleep deprived" insanity. K?"

^** and by "may" I mean "absolutely it was!"

How is it June already?!?!

Um...wow... has it really been an entire month since I've updated the blog?? And how in the world is it June ALREADY?!?!? It's so surreal, we get to meet our baby girl next month - Cecilia is due in just 37 days :-)

35 weeks pregnant, ready to head out to our fantastic sprinkle!

For Memorial Day, we all went up north to Traverse City to visit Graham's Grammy and Grampy. Graham had his first adventures playing in sand and the lake. And I think it's safe to say he enjoyed both! I don't have any pics of him swimming in the lake, I was too busy trying to keep my little fish afloat, but I did capture some of his grins in the sand:

Enjoying the view of the lake

"Here, Mommy, stop taking pictures and play with me!"

Soaking up the rays after a long swim

(don't worry, he was slathered in sunblock!!)

Another first for Graham was his visit to the zoo with our friends Melissa and Hailey. We had a great time, Graham really enjoyed running around the monkey house and loved the lions. If you ask him what the lion says, he'll tell you "rawr". Ah-dora-ble!!


And for *some reason* the kangaroos reminded me so much of our Maggie and Gibson, I just had to take a picture. Ahhh... nature at its finest ;-)

All grows up

When Graham was 3 months old, we started going to a parenting group, organized by Beaumont Hospital. All of the babies in our group were born within a month of each other, and all of us parents were first-timers. The group was really beneficial, bi-weekly topics ranged from feeding to safety to baby learning. Most importantly, it gave all of us the opportunity to vent about, identify with, and get advice for what we were all going through. We had a great group of parents, and friends, and now that our 6 month session is over, I really hope we can manage to keep in touch and continue to meet up - we met some seriously cool parents with equally cool kids!

This first picture was taken 2 weeks into our group meeting, when they were all smooshy babies who couldn't even sit up on their own:

From left to right: Kelsey, Elias, Lily, Graham, Samantha, Jacob, Jack and Anna

And now look at them! This one was take this past Monday, at our last official parenting meeting. Look how big everyone's grown!!

Back row (L to R): Anna, Madelyn, Graham, Jack, Samantha
Front row (L to R): Elias, Kelsey, Jacob, Lily

Catching up, the lightening round!

Whew, busy month! Sorry for the lack of updates, here's a quick month-in-review:

Graham went up north and saw his Grammy and Grampy

...and the tree planted in his honor

Got a new stroller

Started crawling, and is going everywhere, FAST!
...and getting into EVERYTHING


The lucky boy got some fun new toys (thanks Melissa!)

And gets cuter by the minute!

Nothin' but Neck...

We don't have a whole lot to say here, as the entire family has been busy recovering from a variety ailments, germs and downright ickies. Thankfully, we're all headed toward feeling normal again, and I thought I'd post a few pictures from Graham's most recent tummy-time adventures as he works on strengthening his neck:







And here he's looking all Serious! Baby!

So, let's share....

Ok, I've decided that I need to "get with it," join the masses, and become part of the blogging culture. It wasn't an easy decision to come to - mainly because I'm insanely hard to please, and I KNOW I won't have enough time to devote to adequate blogging and updates. Because there's nothing more irritating than reading someone's blog, and then having it go in hiatus for weeks on end.

So, I promise to try to update as much as humanly possible, if you promise not to uphold me to impossible standards. Deal??

So what's going on in our life? Notawholehelluvalot, and that's not exactly a bad thing! Graham's been with us for an entire 12 weeks, and Erik and I haven't yet gone insane, gotten divorced, or otherwise inflicted bodily harm on eachother. I'll even put myself out there and venture to say we might actually be getting a hang of this whole parenting thing.... not that it's been easy, but honestly, we are really lucky and have an adorable, well behaved, enjoyable son to ease our learning curve.

I started back to work last week, and we're finally settling into our routine. So far, Graham's been really good the days I work from home. He's so happy playing on his own in his bouncy chair, and he's starting to understand the dynamics behind the Jumperoo. Thank goodness for all of the toys we were fortunate enough to receive from our generous friends at our showers!

Here are some images of what I get to look to my left and see every Tuesday and Thursday. This DEFINITELY beats staring at a cubicle wall!

Playing is such tiring work!

Watching mommy work

My little thumb sucker!