Easter with our small group!

Just one more Easter catch-up post!

We had a lovely Easter dinner with friends from our Sunday night small group.  Good food, good friends, good times...  :)  The majority of my photos from the evening are of the kiddos -- they're just such fun models!










Hope you all had as lovely of an Easter as we did!

A surprise shower for Aime!

[Yep, it's another Keddiebears blog burst... I'm just going to have to make my peace with the fact that I can't blog more regularly about our wild and crazy lives.  Thanks for bearing with us!  :)]

A couple weeks ago, on February 19, we had a *successful* surprise shower for our dear friend Aime!  I feel like it's rare that surprise parties actually end up being surprises -- especially when the guest of honor is as wily and smart as Aime.  :)  But our lovely hostesses Andréa and Hilary managed to pull it off... And did so very beautifully!

Aime and Greg are expecting a daughter in early April -- and this baby has been eagerly anticipated by so many, for so many years.  They've chosen the name Eliana, which means "God has answered," which is incredibly fitting for this baby who is the answer to so many prayers.  We just can't wait to meet her, and this surprise shower was a wonderful way of showing Aime just how excited we all are for her and her family!

Just a few of the lovely details (girly jungle theme inspired by the bedding the parents-to-be have chosen), including a homemade cake baked and decorated by Carrie, and a beautiful diaper cake made by Mary:




The arrival of the guest of honor -- I still can't believe she was actually surprised!


And then a ton of fun and games! There was the always, um, appetizing melted candy bar dirty diaper game...


And then one really fun "feed the baby" race.  Where both the baby and the feeder are blindfolded -- because, you know, feeding a baby really is that messy and difficult.  :)  And much hilarity ensued:






Poor Andréa is wearing sunglasses here because she'd had a pretty nasty corneal laceration, at the unwitting and excitable hands of her 13-month-old... She'd had Caleb on her lap to read him a book, and he flailed his arms, somehow managing to scratch her eye.  Thankfully, there was no permanent damage, but she was functionally blind on the day of the shower.  So she did what anyone else would do in her position -- she kept planning the shower and doing the non-lab work of her PhD program and caring for her family and just generally being Superwoman...  :)  But even Superwoman can't write if she's blind, so Bonnie filled out her guesses for her in Aime's baby pool.


Aime is such a radiantly beautiful woman just in general, and pregnancy certainly suits her.  :)




Aime with the two hostesses, and then with her college friend Annie, who is also expecting a little girl in early April!



Aime, we love you!  And we're all so incredibly excited to meet Eliana!!

Halloween and Steven's birthday!

I'm really late on blogging about this, but -- here's what we did on Halloween!  :)

Our friend Steven (known around these parts as Phil's dad) turned 30 on Halloween, so Hilary threw a Halloween/birthday party for him that evening after small group.  The kiddos dressed up (along with some of the adults!), and we all had a grand time eating Indian food, watching the kids play, and greeting trick-or-treaters.

I think it's so funny watching Joshua and Phil together.  Phil is about 4.5 months younger than Joshua, but he's bigger and heavier... So I'm always a little surprised that he's not sitting or crawling or anywhere near as active as our little guy!  He's certainly getting more interactive these days, though, and it's a joy watching our boys get to know each other and figure out this whole playing together thing.  :)


Before the costumes (since Joshua in his very padded tiger costume wouldn't have fit in his carseat):
playing with Phil's toys, Phil's mom, and Phil.  :)


The birthday boy and his son 

Phil the puppy and Joshua the tiger! 

The B family in their Halloween/birthday getup 

Joshua got overheated in his tiger costume, so we took off the top part 
Most of the gang who were there -- yay for small group friends!
We always have the best time at Hilary and Steven's parties.  :) Thanks again for hosting us and giving us great memories for Joshua's very first Halloween!

A playdate with Anna J!

We joke a lot about little Anna being Joshua's future wife -- complete with Lady Catherine de Bourgh quotes ("It was the favorite wish of his mother as well as hers!").  :)  But in all seriousness, we do hope Joshua and Anna will grow up to be friends.  And it's so sweet to see them starting to interact with each other!

Lucy and Anna came over to play the other day, and we had so much fun watching the babies together.  Anna is about four months younger than Joshua, so she kind of sat back and watched intently as Joshua ran roughshod all around her... We're working on teaching him how to be a more gentlemanly host.  :)  For instance, here, it looks like he's lovingly stroking her hair, but he's actually leaning on her head, and trying to figure out how to use it to torque his body around, so he can walk off the edge of the bed.


Oh, Joshua...
And that brings me obliquely to another developmental milestone -- Joshua is regularly (and constantly) pulling himself up to stand these days!


Yeah, I'm standing.  It's no big deal.
We had so much fun playing with little Anna, head-leaning-body-torquing incidents notwithstanding.  :)  And from what I've seen on her dad's Facebook page [link should work if you're friends with him], it looks like Anna is training to be able to push back against Joshua's friendly rough-housing...  Can't wait to see how these two grow and play together!

A playground playdate

Last week, we took Joshua out to the playground for the very first time!  Normally, we're total homebodies -- Joshua is happy to play with his toys in the living room, and if we're feeling really wild and crazy, we'll mix it up and play in his nursery!!  Real daredevils, we are...  :)  So it's a good thing we have friends like Erik and Andréa to push us a little bit out of our normal routines!

It's been such a joy watching our little boys play with each other.  They're just getting to the point of noticing other babies, and Caleb can really bring out the giggles in Joshua.  :)  So it was a lot of fun going to the playground and watching them play!

Caleb, having the more adventurous parents, is a total natural on the swings.  Joshua was a bit more unsure of it all... But as long as daddy was there and helping him out, J-bear had a pretty good time!

Nerdy photography note: I also got the chance to play with my 85mm f/1.8 lens -- such a sweeeeet focal length!!  The photos below with the prettiest compression and background blur were taken with that lens.  :)


I'm kind of a swinging champ.  It's no big deal. 

Unsuspecting Joshua; unsure Joshua 

 Nothing says "Let's be friends" like a poke to the eye! 

Yummy sand toys; heart-melting smile!

Heart-melting smile, part 2! 

The beautiful G family
We all had such a blast -- we're definitely going to have to do something like this again, now that cooler weather is finally here!