Nana and Pop visit

Mason and Alice had a visit from their Nana and Pop (as Mason decided Ken's dad should be called) over the weekend.

On Saturday we went to the park and enjoyed the swings.

The highlight though was probably our bike ride on Sunday. Jeni hadn't been on a bike in two years and Alice had never ridden in the bike trailer before. Mason was good and scooted over to make room for Alice and some toys.

Poor Alice was tired and would fall asleep only to awaken when we went over bumps. She and Mason did pretty well together though. Jeni did great as well.

Time to rake the leaves

Last weekend was our first pass at raking up the leaves. The trees in the back are still about half covered, which means that we'll have to rake again soon and Mason will have another chance to jump into the leaf piles.

Alice enjoyed just sitting in the pile with the occasional nibble of a leaf.

This might be the best picture of Mason and Alice that we've taken in months.

Happy Halloween

Mason and Alice both dressed up as robots for Halloween. We went trick-or-treating with Leo for the third straight year. He went as Charlie-Brown-as-a-Ghost.

I think you can see that Alice is still awake when this picture was taken, but she fell asleep soon after.

Feeding the squirrels

Mason and I carved a pumpkin and we have also been refilling the bird feeder regularly. In other words, we've been feeding the squirrels. They are pretty entertaining though.

The Great Pumpkin Patch

Like last year, we went down to the Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur to buy some pumpkins (including black Japanese pumpkins) for making pie (and cookies and brownies and muffins).

We also took lots of pictures.

Fall walk in the woods

We've really been enjoying the fall (when it hasn't been raining). A few weeks ago we went for a walk in Busey Woods with Bubba and Gramp (Mason's new name for Jeni's dad).

Yes, Mason's sweatshirt is on backwards. He likes it that way sometimes.

Welcome back

Wow! Time flies when you have two kids.

Things are going well with us. Just busy with work, pre-school, swim classes, learning to sleep through the night, etc.

Here are some pics from the last few months. More are on our Flickr page.

Alice back when she was happy to ride in the carrier.

Mason hiding during a game of hide-and-go-seek.

Mason at his first day of pre-school (and obviously wanting to go play).

Another picture of Alice taking a bath.

Mason holding a bug at Allerton Park.

Alice can scoot....life as Mason knew it is over

We're still mostly babyproofed, but Alice puts everything in her mouth (which Mason didn't really do). Life as we knew it is over for all of us.

Potpourri

Here are a wonderful assortment of beautiful pictures.

Feeding Hogarth apparently requires boots now.

Alice during the part of the bath she enjoyed.

Alice before she learned to scoot around the floor.

Mason and his new friend Ainsley (who is really his old friend Ainsley).

Museum of Science and Industry

We took Mason and Alice down to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. We got Mason excited by telling him all about the trains and planes in the Hall of Transportation. He did enjoy all of that, but later he only wanted to talk about the miniature electric circus. On to the pics!

Mason driving a combine.

Alice spent a lot of time in her stroller, but seemed to like all of the activity.

These last two pictures are in front of the huge model railroad.

Mason and I are in front of the formerly-known-as-Sears Tower.

Summer pictures

I've fallen into the habit of only updating this blog once a month. Too busy in the summer! Here are some pictures of what we've been up to.

We took cousin Joe (and aunt Amy) on a train ride for his birthday. Before the ride we had lunch at a train-themed restaurant.

Right after this picture, Alice hit her head on the table and laughs turned to cries.

We took the train down the line a few stations then got out and walked around a bit.

Alice's 6 month check up

Alice had her six-month check-up yesterday. She was a good little trooper. Mason went along and consoled her after her three shots. He also was a bit of a hero during the car ride home. He said, "Stop Allie!" and told Jeni that Alice was about to eat one of her bandages.

On to the stats!

Alice now weighs 19 lb 5.5 oz (94.5 percentile) and is 28.5 inches long (99.5 percentile). Those numbers put her in the 44.6 percentile for weight-to-length ratio. Time to start basketball practice?

Too hot for shirts

This weather is terrible. So Mason and Alice did without shirts at dinner tonight.

You'll note that Alice can't keep her eyes off of her cereal spoon.

We had beets which Mason really liked, especially the pink stains they left behind.

He was a bit disappointed when his tongue was no longer red after he brushed his teeth tonight.

Happy Father's Day to me!

I had a nice Father's Day. Jeni made us waffles for breakfast and then we went to a park for a walk in the bugs and mud and then a picnic.

We had a good time despite the heat.

Mason's first picture of Alice

Jeni has been teaching Mason to take pictures. They plan to take pictures of Mason's favorite things and then make a collage of the results.

Here's Mason's first picture of Alice. Pretty good!

Summer camp!

Mason is attending "camp" at a local forest preserve. Each Wednesday morning Jeni, Mason, and Alice drive out and Mason learns about animals, insects, and plants while Jeni and Alice relax with some other parents.

Some of Mason's friends are attending as well. Here he and Natalie show off their hats.

Mason showed absolutely no apprehension about being away from Jeni for the hour and a half of camp. This made Jeni both happy and sad.

Just another post with cute pics of our kids

Alice is sleeping so well these days, but is having a few issues with the heat and a cold that she is getting over. She is still sleeping, but does a lot of moving around her crib and grunting/moaning.

We thought she looked like she was doing tai-chi so we snapped this picture.

We didn't want Mason to feel bad so we snuck into his room to take this.

So they don't feel like we are making fun of them, here is a picture where they both look really nice.

Baseball in the yard

Mason's uncle Chris visited this weekend and brought Mason a belated birthday present of a baseball glove and tee. Mason has been having a lot of fun with them.

Alice posed for some pictures with her grandparents.

And we occasionally have a request for Hogarth pictures so here you go.

Happy sleeper

Now that Alice is sleeping so much, she is much happier during her waking hours. She and Mason "play" together a bit too, now that she can sit on her own.

We took these pictures of Alice a few days ago after a bath. We put some mineral oil in her hair to try to get rid of her cradle cap. It worked a bit, but had the side effect of making her hair a bit stiff.

Our backyard

Our backyard is looking pretty good so far this year. I'm sure that later this summer, when it doesn't rain as often, everything will die because we won't water. For now though we have been having some fun back there.

Mason really likes his swing.

We also have a little garden. We had bunny issues until I put a little fence. Hopefully we'll have some tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries later this summer.

Nice farmer!

Shhh.....Alice is asleep

A few weeks ago, Jeni and I decided that we needed sleep and that we would need to get Alice to sleep through the night.

So for three nights when Alice would wake up, we let her cry until she fell back asleep. And then, it worked! Just like that! For the last week Alice has been sleeping from 7pm to 6am, sometimes waking to eat around 1am. Additionally, she is a very good napper now as well.

Hooray!

Mason had been acting up a bit, but now that Alice is napping and Jeni and he can spend time together during the day, he is doing really well.

He still loves to "read" books.