Jack Around The House

Jack has two new favorite pastimes. The first is opening up my (pathetically stocked) make up drawer and tossing all of the contents on the floor or into the sink above. Had Anna pulled something like this back in the day, I would have been all over her, but frankly, any time Jack's not crying, I pretty much let him do whatever he wants. Much to Jack's chagrin, Anna often gets in on the action and tries to "make up him" while he's playing, as pictured.

Jack's second new activity is hiding in his outhouse. This cardboard beauty was initially intended for Anna, but Jack has now claimed it at his own. Sometimes he's just in and out for a quick game of smash-the-house/peek-a-boo, but he also uses it to take care of his serious business which has led Josh's dad to correctly assert that we now have a 3.5 bath house. We'll be cutting the crescent moon in the front door shortly.

11 Months (Side by Side)

Pathetically, we still have at least six or seven moving boxes that we haven't unpacked. It's been almost a full year since we started the moving process... and yet. Happily, however, I finally dug out the old hard drive that has all of our pre-2010 photos on it, so I could FINALLY put photos of Anna & Jack side by side. Here they are at 11 months. I think they could almost pass for twins if it weren't for Anna's (still) wildly oversized noggin.

And now for a video of Jack's latest "go crazy" move:

Happy Halloween Jack!

As usual, Halloween was a sugar-fueled whirlwind. This video (especially the end) pretty much sums it up.

Down On The Farm

This past weekend, we finally got a chance to visit my family in Delaware. Living in Rhode Island for the past four years made it more or less impossible to get down to the farm for any stretch of time, but now that we're just two hours north, we're thinking of making it a monthly event. Since Sugar Hill Farm holds a special place in my heart, I was really looking forward to sharing it with Anna and it did not dissapoint. Anna was completely in love with the whole deal. The house in the middle of the woods. The snacks. All the animals. The pond. The dirt. The Trail Gator. And most of all, getting to ride Snickers the donkey. As it turns out, I think Josh is just about ready to pack his bags and move down to the farm too. His list of loves is a bit different. Guns. A knife show. Multiple fried chicken-laden events. Snickers the donkey. So, if you see a sale sign in our front yard, you'll know what happened.

September Update

The two big headlines this month were "Anna Starts Pre-School" and "Jack is a Boy". We'll start with Anna. Back at the beginning of the month -- September 14th to be exact -- I dropped Anna off for her first day of pre-school at Happy Times. I've never been more thankful about having a child who is completely fearless about venturing off into the world without me. Her school uses a drop-off and pick-up car line, so I didn't even get out of the car. Anna just hopped on down, grabbed her teacher's hand, and said goodbye to me without even looking back. As I pulled away, I caught one last glance of my sweet girl and her enormously oversized Dora backpack heading into the building. For a moment, I got weepy, and then, very quickly, my overarching feeling of happiness (for her and for me) took over. Anna loves being around lots of people and doing organized activities, so I knew she would love pre-school. And she does. She goes two days a week and is now also going to AWANA at a local church on Sunday nights with her friend Emma and she loves that to. Her ability to memorize Bible verses (or at least the gist of verses) for AWANA completely amazes me. As for Jack, well, he's definitely a boy. Everyone told me how different boys and girls are, but I don't think I was fully prepared for the wild abandon with which my newly mobile baby boy approaches the world. Just last week I found him climbing Anna's bookcase which made me think back to those furniture anchors I saw once upon a time in Babies R Us. These seemed silly at the (pre-baby-boy) time. Now I get it. I think even Josh is a little surprised at how recklessly Jack launches his whole body toward whatever goal he has in mind. He's also fabulous at just generally getting into things he shouldn't. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage Jack and a world of windpipe sized objects.

Sweet Jack On The Move

I love Jack's initial determination in this video... and then ultimately how easily distracted he is by a new toy. He just started crawling two weeks ago, but now he's all over the place. My sweet boy.

Finally (sort of) Settled In

It's been so long since the last time I blogged and so much has happened since then that I hardly know where to begin. For starters, we're finally semi-officially moved into our new house. Unfortunately thanks to a handful of unexpected, um, glitches, it will probably be a couple months before we feel fully settled. The good news is that at least Anna's room is done. After all the upheaval, Josh and I wanted to make sure that her room was all girly and good to go before we got into the house. Mission accomplished. She loves her room. She especially loves her big new closet because she can see all of her clothes at once and put together fancy ensembles and demonstrated below. Mary Kate and Ashely Olsen have nothing on Anna when it comes to creating those wildly disheveled yet somehow chic looks. She is a true fashionista which must be the result of my eBay escapades because it certainly did not come from me directly. (And doubly certainly did not come from her father whose idea of great fashion is his "Many Faces of Chuck Norris" t-shirt that he paid a dollar for at a thrift store.) What's not so great is just about everything else that's going on with the house. There are about four hundred years of weeds and overgrown trees to deal with, a broken dishwasher, a broken dryer, and a leak in the downstairs bathroom ceiling. All of these, though, pale in comparison to the wonderful buckling wall that we discovered shortly after settling on the house. Josh eneded up having to rip the whole back of the house -- roof included -- apart and basically rebuild it. Right now that skeleton of a room is just standing there staring at us and has forced us (and the oversized furniture we bought for the room) into our tiny living room. It feels constantly cramped and chaotic and frankly, if I step on a plastic farm animal one more time I think I'm gonna lose my mind. I'm sincerely hoping we're able to finish the family room off soon, soon, soon. At least we know (or hope) that this is our forever house, so all the work and money is a good investment. And lest I give the impression that everything is just awful right now, let me state for the record that I love my hard working husband and my two crazy kids more than ever. Jack is still a ridiculous handful -- shunning sleep almost as much as ever -- but he's adorable and sweet. It also doesn't hurt that now we have about a billion family members and friends who are nearby and willing to help me whenever I need it. So, even though the move has been stressful, it is all working out for the best.