My sweet family

This picture makes my heart so happy.

Ahhh... the things she says

Yesterday while rough housing in our living room with Eric, Annika announced that she needed to take off her pants. We told her that she needed them on to stay warm. She responded with, "I need to take off my pants so I can see better." Ummm.. yeah. Apparently, the glasses, contact lenses, and laser surgery paths are bunk and all people need to do is take off their pants. We were laughing too hard at her comment to stop her from ditching her sweats. Annika: 1, Parents: 0.

Later in the day, Eric and Annika were playing dress up. She put on her pink tutu and announced to me that she was wearing a silly skirt. I told her that it was called a tutu. She corrected me and told me it is a skirt. (I know her internal monologue was something along the lines of, "that poor old woman. She doesn't even know what a skirt is!") I tried to explain that the kind of skirt had a special name and it was "tutu." Annika then proceeded to repeat the skirt's name: "choo choo." Close enough! :)

Crumpets

Recently, I made a comment about wanting crumpets to Eric. He said that he wasn't sure if he'd ever had a crumpet. WHAT?? Really? Wow. OK, I had to fix that right away; being married to a crumpet virgin just wouldn't do. Of course, I decided that making my own crumpets would be a great new challenge. I turned to the Internet for recipe guidance and quickly found a crumpet recipe on the BBC's website (how perfect!). I whipped up a batch and found it to be a bit easier than expected, but the crumpets had a stronger yeast taste than I'm used to with the storebought crumpets I've enjoyed over the years. I'm not sure if that's the difference between homemade and purchased crumpets or due to the recipe. I'll hunt down another recipe for the sake of comparison and will keep you posted!

Assembling the ingredients


Batter after the 1-hour rising period


Cooking, cooking, cooking

The prettiest one

Conor's 1 month old

Amazingly, a month has passed since Conor made his grand debut. It is astounding to think that he's already been an active member of our family for a month. In his first month of life, Conor has learned what it means to be a little brother to a big sister who LOVES to give him kisses and pats. He has also learned how to sleep through spells of barking dogs, to roll his eyes (and head) at the goofy things his parents say and do, and has learned that he really likes to be held. His mommy and daddy have learned the true meanings of sleep deprivation, time management, and the multi-tasking. Annika has learned (err... is learning) how to share her mommy's lap with another child and how much fun it is to have a little "brudder" - especially when that doesn't entail sharing her momm's lap.

One thing I wish I'd done with Annika was take a photo each month during her first year to track her growth. In all honesty, the idea didn't even occur to me until she was about 6 months old. So, I'll take what I learned from that experience and apply it to Conor. His first picture is below.

Eric, the modern father

Recently, I witnessed an interesting conversation between my mom and one of her lifelong friends. They proclaimed how proud they are that their kids are such good parents and how parenting has changed so much from when they were raising little ones. True. For example, it was the exception, not the rule, to have children in seat belts as they rode in a car when we were little. Now, we wouldn't think of stepping near a car without our kids in their 5-point harness car seats. Eric and I frequently laugh about how different things are now compared to when we were little and wonder what things we're doing now that will cause our kids to roll their eyes at once they're parents to their own children.

While moving pictures from our camera to the computer, I ran across pictures of Eric wearing Conor. Let's face it - slings weren't very common until fairly recently and I can't imagine very many dads in past generations happily carrying their infants around in them. The idea of my father (and most of his counterparts) lugging any of his kids around in a sling makes me laugh; it simply wouldn't have happened. That generation of father (typically) was less hands on than modern dads. Each time I see Eric with our kids, I fall in love with him even more and smile just a bit wider.

Eric... the modern man, the modern father.

New baby portraits

When Conor was a week old, we had part 2 of our time with photographer Jamie Neilsen. Yet again, we are very happy with the images that Jamie captured with her camera. Click on her name to take a peek at a few of them. Enjoy!

New pictures

It is so hard to believe that Conor has been with our family for a week already. Since his arrival, we've quickly discovered that he is a very snuggily baby and Annika is very keen on helping us take care of him.

On Saturday, we had our follow-up photo session with the same photographer who took our prenatal family pictures. This time, Jamie came to our house to take pictures of our family; our last session with her was at a local beach. She took pictures of our entire crew, but definitely focused on capturing Conor in all of his cuddily baby splendor. Annika was VERY intrigued with the beanbag chair that Jamie brought as a prop... I think a trip to Target is in our future so Annika can have one of her own. We are very excited to see the images that Jamie captured; will share some as soon as we see them (stay tuned).

We have, unfortunately, realized that our family has established a tradition that we'd like to break .... that tradition is being sick on holidays. Last Halloween, Annika had the flu. Last Christmas, the three of us were incapacitated with nasty colds that resulted in us canceling all of our holiday plans. Yesterday (Easter), Annika wound up with a tummy bug that seems to have carried over into today. A holiday without germs and general yuck would be a welcome change! That said, a yucky tummy didn't stop Annika from enjoying the fun items in her Easter basket, however.

Annika modeling some of her Easter goodies


Conor taking a snooze in his swing


The Olson Four