Welcome to the world!

Do you know that there is a sub-culture of moms who keep their kids rear facing until they are like 5?!??! They just think it is safer. Me, I think eventually, you need to come into the world the way it is. If you were really worried about it, you can just stay home. The law is 1 year AND 20 pounds. Andy is not quite a year yet, but we had the car seat out for some other reason, so we went ahead and turned it around. As you can see, he was blown away by the change:


Just kiding, Andy always looks like that. Here is James and Andy in the car:


Andy looking out the window. You can't see the train going by, but that is what he was looking at. Or that is what we were telling him to look at, but he doesn't care...yet.


One more of James, I was trying to take a picture of his FRECKLES!!!


Not sure if you can see them, but it really is super cute...although I guess it means I haven't been so good at the sun screen this year.

Boys will be boys

So, this is what it is like to have boys. It is loud. And messy. And they love to roughhouse.

Even Andy at 11 months old loves it. James will just beat the crap out of him, and he just laughs and laughs. These pictures were taken when John was over for dinner. A good time was had by all.

Fly In

"Wook! Its a PANE!"



We went to the local regional airport for a fly in to benefit a no kill animal shelter. Are you kidding? These boys are all about the planes!



James and John flying the helicopter.


A red plane...


Mark explaining to James why he can't fly the plane.


Juliet explaining to John the physics of flying:


What is wrong with this picture?


Andy really just loved Keats.


One more picture of James. He always puts his hat on like this.


One more picture of Andy. He isn't always the cutest baby!

Video from Fly In

Forgot to post this earlier.

Meet our new neighbors

Also, a whole lot of pictures of NOTHING...



I was so excited to see that we had a little birdie build a nest outside our carport. It was a little mama cardinal. Well, we don't see her a lot, for some reason, she doesn't like the fact that we are always going in and out of our car that is right there and putting things in our nearby trash can.

That is her where you see the orange. It is her beak.


I think there were three eggs:


We noticed on Monday that there were no eggs, just fuzzy little things. Actually, it was while I was hosting playgroup in my carport. Again, what was this bird thinking?



Here are the little babies, hungry, looking for something to eat. Boy, can I identify with this look!

Mud Run 2009

The purpose of this post is to direct those of you who I told about my Mud Run this weekend to Beth's blog where there are pictures.

So, by now there are some of you who are saying "what is a mud run and what would you do that to yourself?" A mud run is a 4 mile race with 35 military style obstacles through out the course. The reason I allowed myself to be talked into it is that I thought it was a Muddy Buddy, where you just run a race and there is mud. That is a completely different thing.

However, this mud run was super fun. I really was not prepared although I was pretty sure I could run 4 miles. I was significantly less sure about the obstacles, but really, how do you even train for such a thing?

My favorite obstacle was running through the streams, although I kept thinking "listeria!" in my head. It felt really good on my sore legs. I also liked the rope bridge, but that might have been more because it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. My least favorite obstacles...anything with a lot of height: rope swing, cargo nets, 8 foot wall.

I really don't know how I did it. My poor teammates must have done most of the work getting me over the wall. Really, one moment I was getting a boost, the next I was over. It was an amazing thing. However, I really am sore today. It is a different kind of sore. Not only is their lactic acid build up, but there are bruises, pulled muscles, cuts, scrapes, you name it. I am beat up! But I would totally do it again. Thanks to my team: Beth, Jenny, and Christy for talking me into it. We did an amazing job!