Tiger Tiger

Sophie was born in January and in February, we received this enormous tiger for her. It stayed in her room about two days, aaaaaaaand then it was stolen. By Austin:

Maybe "stolen" isn't really fair. We made the mistake of putting it in his room the first night as he went to sleep in his fire truck bed. Then it went to Sophie's room. Two days later, after I put him down for his nap, I heard a ruckus that I studiously ignored, only to find the above scene later when I went to check on him. He had apparently hauled that tiger, which is about as large as he is, off her dresser, out of her room and down the hall to his room. And who can blame him, really?

Now, when we had originally received the beast, I was tasked with photographing Sophie with it, so her great great aunt could have some documentation of her enjoying her gift. And I really meant to do it earlier, but at least I did it before she entered her teens...

 Which is a good thing, because if she was a teenager, these would get Mom arrested. But please don't judge, she doesn't fit in anything that coordinates well with those stripes yet. And we needed some pictures with her beautiful eyes open.

 Not to be outdone, Austin needed to get in on the tiger action too.

Happy Woo Woo

That is what Austin says for "Happy Birthday." We love you, Great Grandmother! Thought you might like these pictures of Sophie...

The New Girl

Is much cuter than Zoey Deschanel. Just stating the facts. I got evidence too:

Word of the Month

Austin's vocabulary has really taken off since November, so I wanted to start a new series to (hopefully) get me posting more regularly. Unsurprisingly, he loves cars, trains and trucks (or, as he would say, "kas, geens and cucks"), so a lot of our words come out of that. The word for February is... "tunnel". There are apparently tunnels everywhere... on the train tracks, under blankets, under Mom... We have little tunnels for Thomas and Lightning McQueen and big tunnels for Austin...

Lovingly handcrafted by Mom and detailed by our resident artist...

New Developments

Sorry Austin fans, I know it's been a long time! I can't promise that I'll be posting very often in the next few weeks but I'll try to share as many photos and stories as I can, starting with the biggest piece of news... I'm not naming any names, but someone's a big brother! Little sister Sophie was born on January 14.

She came home with Mom 5 days later.

So far, she seems to be pretty popular. Welcome home, little sister.

Hiking With Dad

The weekend before Dad went back to work, we took a trip out to the woods. This is one of my favorite parks in the area.

Our fearless leader

Make sure you check out this creek, Mom

We've spotted a banana slug

Admiring all our treasures we collected on the trail

Searching for more treasures

(Fear not grandparents, those berries are not dangerous)

Pumpkin Pickin' Part 1

I'm going to cheat and have this post in October, even though it's almost the end of November. We've been busy! Austin's had school, Mom's got the diabetus, Daddy started a new job... I think we're entitled to cheat a bit. And I want to try to catch up as much as possible before baby girl gets here in January, because I know I won't have much blogging time!

You might recognize this pumpkin patch as the one we went to last year. It's like the Disneyland of pumpkin patches, with two trains, a petting zoo, hayride and a field of pumpkins. Such a treat every year!

Checking out the squash

Trying to taste the flint corn

Posing tragically with a tiny pumpkin

"Zee time, she flies away like this straw through my feengers"

The official pumpkin inspection team

Mom thinks this picture is hilarious

Picking out the wheelbarrow was nearly as much fun as picking a pumpkin