Family Photo Time!

As a general rule, Keith hates photographers.  I think it comes from a childhood of comments like: "Hey, are you two twins?!?" and "Now, turn your head 1/4" that way".  Anyway, it can make finding a photographer we like a bit of a challenge.  So, when the son of a friend of ours offered to take some photos of our family, we jumped at the chance.

John has been doing weddings for years, but now he's looking to do more with kids & families.  Since we are a family with kid(s), we seemed a good match. 

John came over last Friday to take a few photos of our family as it is now.  He'll also be back to take some newborn photos of baby girl once she's here.  I am SO excited about this part, since I learned quickly after Parker was born that taking photos of newborns is a special skill (one I do not currently posess).

We had a great time with John and I think the photos turned out great.

Now I just have to pick out which ones I like the best.  I currently have 39 photos in my "favorites" list, and unless I plan to literally wallpaper the house with Parker's cute mug, I think I'll have to weed out a few.

If you'd like to see ALL the photos, check-out John's website here.

We're also featured on John's blog here.

If you're looking for some family photos, I'd highly recommend checking John out at: www.crozierphotography.com

His prices are reasonable and when you consider how much you end up spending once you buy the packages at the mall places, this is a great alternative with a much more personal experience.

We went to the Shoreview Park to take these photos.  Parker & I have been there to play on the playground before, but we'd never been on the trails, it's a great place.  Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long because it started POURING.  We were soaked just from walking from one end of the parking lot to the other.

Notice Daddy on his cellphone in the background here?  Keith "took the day off" to take these photos, which means he only ended up working something like 7 1/2 hours on Friday (some sort of engineering-emergency came up, you know how it is).

A HUGE thanks to John for taking our great photos!  We look forward to doing it again.

Dressing Baby

When we found out that baby #2 was a girl, I think everyone expected me to go on a massive shopping spree.  Turns out, I seem to have inherited my Dad's "thrifty-ness".  I've discovered that I won't buy anything that costs more than $2; seriously, I've become the cheapest person ever!  When did this happen?  (Probably right about when our household income was cut by half).  This is all great for our budget, but I've discovered that baby girl doesn't have any new clothes.  Don't get me wrong, everything is new to us, and we are EXTREMELY grateful for all the hand-me-downs we've received, but a girls got to have a few new things right?

So, today, I loaded Mom, Jared, & Parker into the car and headed up to the "Seattle Premium Outlets" for some shopping.  I haven't been up there since that horrible day three years ago when the first sale of our house fell through, so this was the first time I've ever gone to the kid's stores.

I might have gone a little overboard:

But I didn't pay more than $5 for anything.

I love these purple pants!  They were two dollars at the Children's Place.  I bought the last pair they had in purple, but I'm kind of wishing I'd bought every size in the navy as well.

I think this will be her home-from-the-hospital outfit.  I got it in newborn, which means that she'll probably outgrow it by her one-week appointment, but summer will be over by then anyway.

And, not to worry, big brother got a few things too.

I bought each piece at a different store, I didn't realize I was so plaid-happy until I got them all home & in the same place.  Oh well, he'll be cute too!

22 Months!

Believe it or not, Parker is 22 months already.  It's hard to believe that in two months, he'll be two...and I'll have a newborn.  I'm not sure which I find more terrifying at the moment.

But, we're here to talk about Parker right now.

We took Parker to his first baseball game a few weeks ago.  He LOVED it!  He loved the noise, and the crowds, and all the bikes, and riding the bus from downtown...and the french fries (junk food is an essential part of baseball, right?!?)

Unfortunately, he turned out to be a bit of a Giants Fan, cheering every time the Giants did something good.  He can't really be faulted for that.  We were surrounded by Giants fans, and if he wanted to clap, he would have been waiting a long time for the Mariners to make a decent play.

We left at the end of the 6th inning, and it was already clear that the M's were in way over their head.

Parker has become quite the little jabber-er.  Nearly every morning, we have some version of this conversation when he first gets up:

"Good morning little guy!"

"Daddy?"

"Daddy's at work."

"In the car?"

"No, Daddy took the bus"

"In the car?"

"No, Bus"

"Car?"

"No, Bus"

"Bus."

"That's right."

"Daddy?"

Some of Parker's current favorite words or phrases:

"Is Okay."

"There you go" - Apparently Mama says these two a lot

"Potty" - Occasionally he really does mean that he wants to use the potty when he says this, but more often than not, he means that he thinks Mama should go potty.  Considering my current "condition" he's probably right.

"Hide?" - If it's not directly in-front of him, whatever he's looking for is hiding.

"Shoe" - Parker is always keeping a running tally of who is & is not currently wearing shoes.

And the usual: Car, Bike, Bike, Bike, Ball, Milk, and Bike again (this guy has a one-track mind)

In the past few weeks, our super-duper sleeper has gone from super-duper: sleeping 12-13 hours at night and a 2-3 hour nap to just super with 11-12 hours at night and a 1 hour nap.  This may be a natural progression, but neither of us are all too happy about the change.

I probably should explain this binky - it was a gift from a friend of mine from college.  Parker has always been extremely particular about his binkies (he'll only use the Dr. Brown's brand), so he's never really used this one.  But, apparently, today the binky situation was so dire that he pulled his chair over to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and pulled this guy out of Mama's "secret" binky hiding space.  It's becomming harder to find places that he can't reach.

Parker has recently started enjoying coloring.  Mostly, what he likes is taking the pen cap off & on, he never gets more than 2-3 scribbles on the paper.

Parker is also obsessed with elbows.  Nearly every time I change his diaper, he grabs my hand and pulls down my arm until he can reach my "el-bo-bo".

Parker is growing & learning so quickly, he seems to have new words every day.  What he is not learning, however, is names.  We've been trying to teach him baby sister's name (don't ask, we won't tell you), and every time it comes out sounding like "Kyla".  In fact, all of Parker's cousins appear to be named Kyla, and it seems that his name is also Kyla, because that's the only name he seems able to remember.

That, or he thinks his name is "You".  Whenever I show him a picture of himself and ask who it is, he says "You".  Makes total sense, when you think of it.

Parker is equally determined to not learn his colors.  We read Richard Scary's "Cars & Trucks & Things that Go" probably five or six times a day.  After the first few rounds, looking for bikes & Goldbug, we start trying to find different color cars.  Every single car seems to be whatever color Mama mentioned last.  He can say all the color's names, but can't seem to attach any of them to the actual colors.  Guess it's good to have something still to learn.

He is one fun little guy and we are quite enjoying his company.  I'm a little nervous to see what sort of monster he turns into when baby sister comes, but for now, we're loving this time in his life.



Julie's total geek-out moment

So, according to the above banner, I only have 43 more days until baby sister's arrival.  If only I was so confident in the actual number.  Anyway...  That means that in six-ish weeks, there is a great possibility that one of our very generous friends or family will get a panicked phone call at 3am, asking them to rush over to our house so we can leave Parker & head to the hospital.

I've realized that if they're willing to do that, the least I can do is have the bathroom stocked for their arrival.  So, this afternoon I bought a few basic necessities and organized the medicine cabinet in the guest bathroom.

Really, this is just a combination of two of my favorite things: buying toiletries and organizing anything.

Okay, fine, I'm a geek, BUT if you're the un-lucky soul called here at three-am, won't you be glad to wash your hair and brush your teeth in the morning?

They say the first six years are the hardest...

Keith & I celebrated our sixth anniversary on Saturday.  We will both admit to only having vague memories of what life was life before getting married, but it still seems like it's gone quickly.

It's been a pretty amazing six years, and I wouldn't change any of it (well, except maybe for every February).  I spent many years of my young adult/adult life wondering if I'd ever find someone and get married.  I don't think I'd ever imagined that I'd find someone as great as Keith.

I'm lucky to have him as my hubby, and our kids are lucky to have him as a Daddy.

To celebrate the day, we left Parker with a friend and had dinner at the Ivar's Salmon House in the University District.  The food was excellent, and the sun came out just in-time to give us a beautiful view of Lake Union.

(This isn't our actual, literal, view, however.  It's from the website, I was too busy enjoying the meal to take any photos, so this will have to do.)