4 Months

At 4 months Graham is doing great.  He is sleeping through the night pretty often, though naps can be sort of hit or miss.  He grabs at his toys and tries to eat them and he's pretty close to being able to use the jumperoo/exersaucer.  He likes to babble and squeak at us and is becoming a little busybody, insisting on always being walked around the room to see what is going on.  Graham is still a little peanut, hovering at the 5th percentile for weight and 42nd for length.

Scenes from January

We've had a cold, stir crazy month here.  But managed to take a few cute pictures and have a few laughs along the way.

We keep having snow storms coupled with below-zero windchills.  It's just no good for frolicking in the snow, so yesterday I came up with indoor snow play.  I was so proud of my Creative Mom Idea.  Of course, the snow lasted 10 minutes and Andrew complained that his fingers got cold.  I asked Andrew if he thought it was a good activity and he said, "It is truly not my favorite."  Oh well, I managed to finish making dinner in those 10 minutes.

Andrew came downstairs wearing his baseball cap the other day, saying he wanted to be "extra fancy."

Here is Andrew playing with legos.  But don't let that fool you.  Our main activity since Christmas has been card games.  We play a couple hours of War, Slap Jack, Old Maid, Go Fish, etc each day.  I might need to be committed soon.  But I am enjoying it (the first hour each day, anyway).

Ah yes, and let's not forget Graham.  Graham has slept 12 hours straight a couple of nights now, so he should get some sort of baby prize for that.  He continues to like playing on his playmat and he just beams and starts babbling when you get in his face and smile at him.  It is priceless.  There are less priceless moments too, but such is life with a little one.  He is four months old tomorrow.  I am so looking forward to the coming months with him.

 
Good blanket for photo shoots, lest we forget which kid is which in the years to come.  :)

My New Favorite Photo

Where was this level of smiley cooperation when I was trying to get a Christmas card picture?

 

Birthday Boy

Andrew celebrated turning four by going bowling with his best friend and then having lunch together at our house.  He was so excited!

It was his second time bowling -- the first time was 5 months ago on Cape Cod.  I am astonished looking back at the Cape picture how much younger he looked then.  I think he grew about 2 inches this fall.

Besides bowling, the celebration had a Thomas the Train theme.  I once again scoured the internet for a cake design that I could manage with my limited skills and minimal cake decorating tools:

My favorite part of the Thomas theme was "Pin the Funnel on Thomas."  The blindfold cracks me up.  The boys loved it and Andrew was happy that he got to mimic a party game that he read about in The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Birthday. Apparently this has been a very influential book on him -- he recently subjected his aunt and uncle to a round of musical chairs in our dining room because it had looked like so much fun in the book.

His big present from us was a new bicycle.  We managed to find a brief window between snow storms and deep freezes to try it out this week.  The best part about it is it comes with a little tool kit mounted on the front to tune up your bike.  Andrew was very diligent about checking his tire pressure and tightening up several bolts.

Christmas Morning 2013

Some belated photos of Christmas morning

 Graham's new crinkly starfish toy

Graham getting a handle on the whole Christmas stocking thing

Poor Andrew, we made him pose for so many pictures when all he wanted to do was rip open every gift one right after another

Marble maze!

Awesome hat from Thailand

And our most ironic Christmas snapshot, posing with Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food with a mouth full of Skittles.