catch up #6: Halloween

We had Hosanna's nephew Tobin and his half-brother Aidan up for Halloween this year. It was the first year that Aria was really, really, *really* into trick-or-treating, as well as the first year that Audrey was walking for it. With all four kids going door to door, it was the most fun I've experienced on Halloween for years. They LOVED it and their excitement was very contagious.

We carved two batches of pumpkins, but only got good pictures of the first set. The kids got to carve too. Even Aria got in the action - she drew the picture on, then Nana carved it for her. (Hers is the small pumpkin on the left.)


Aria was pretty stoked about her dragon costume, which Hosanna found in a thrift store for super cheap! Notice the cookbooks all piled up on the shelf behind her - we had to do that to keep Audrey from ripping them up.


Audrey was - what else - a little angel. :)



On the left is Tobin the ninja, and in the middle is Aidan as Jango (NOT BOBA!!!!) Fett.

catch up #5: San Jose visit / playing in the park

In early October, we took a trip down to see Grandma & Grandpa, and quite unexpectedly ran into Lisa and her kids at the park.

Here's Adamen and Audrey (can you believe how big he is?!?):



Audrey enjoying the thrill of swinging:




Grandma pushing Aria on the swing:



Audrey's not too sure about the crawling tube. She tried to stand up inside it and bumped her head.



See-saw silliness:



One of my new favorite pictures - it reminds me of a goofy cartoon that my Dad used to draw when we were kids:

catch up #4: sleep?

Audrey's on-again, off-again sleep schedule continues to dominate our house, resulting in scenes like this being all too common. This is from early October, but it just as well could have been last night. I've learned that when tired enough, I can fall asleep just about anywhere, in any array of bizarre positions:



This is just one of those areas where our decision to do things a little differently makes it harder on ourselves in the short run. We just can't imagine letting her cry alone in her room though. It's not in our nature. So instead, we get up and go hold her, rock her, nurse her, whatever it takes to get her through the night. She tends to sleep in small chunks, anywhere from 1-5 hours. On very rare occasions she's made it all night without waking up at all, but they've been few and far between. An average night still has three wakeups between 10 pm and 5 am. Hosanna and I trade off as much as possible. It's strained our relationship a bit, frankly, because it's really hard to muster the energy to work together as a team when we're both bleary-eyed, grumpy, and desperate for some time off.

We stick to it though, out of the conviction that in the long run, our approach will pay dividends.

catch up #3: Aria's 4th birthday

On Aria's birthday weekend, we first had a small party with her good friends Genevieve, Annalise, and McKenzie:



Some adults were hanging around too, trying to nab some cake or something. From left: Catherine (the friends' mom), Aunt Lynn, and Nana.



The next day, the bay area crew came out, including Grandma & Grandpa, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Jason, Machen, & Adamen.

Aunt Lisa read Aria one of her new favorites, "Room on the Broom" ...



... and general silliness prevailed:





Puppet show!

catch up #2: visit from Aunt Jane & Uncle Jim

Hosanna's Aunt Jane and Uncle Jim were in our neck of the woods on September 12th, and stopped by for a quick visit. Aria dazzled them with her book skills:

catch up #1: pics from Audrey's birthday

We finally have the computer issues solved, so I'm going to do a flurry of catch-up posts to show what's been happening around here for the past three months.

To start with, here are some pics from Audrey's first birthday party, which we had September 8th at Lisa's house in Santa Cruz. Lisa graciously offered to host and make Audrey's cake.

At first, neither mom nor kid was too sure about this whole thing:



Now Audrey makes the furrowed-brow face that means she's not too sure about what you're feeding her:



Warming up to it:



Oh, it turns out cake is yummy?!?

explanation

Quick explanation of why there's been no blogging for such a long time:

Principally, it's because we're still having a problem accessing the external hard drive where our iPhoto and iTunes libraries are stored. I've been a little tired of writing lately, so without the pictures to share, I haven't found much inspiration. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Secondarily, it's because we're tired.

Lastly, it's because of Facebook.

Yeah, we should probably just blame it all on Facebook.