This year's Christmas card

So this year's Christmas card marks a major shift for us -- we've decided that our kids are way cuter than we are, so the front of our card features just them.  Plus, it's significantly easier to get a cute portrait of them than it is to do a remote/timer shot of all four of us at once...  ;)  I did manage to eke one out this fall, so the back of our card has a black and white photo of all four of us.  Which is one of literally only two photos I have of all four of us together this year...  Any photographers in central NJ want to do a family photo swap sometime next year?  :)

Joshua and Sophia were actually kind of happy and excited about photos this crisp late fall morning when I dressed them up for Christmas photos.  Joshua thought it was hilarious, sitting on the leaves -- he kept asking Sophia if she saw the leaves, and laughing when she would try to eat some.  :)  And Sophia was just excited to be outside, giggling when the wind blew and content to sit and smile at the world around her.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2013 in North Carolina

This year, for Thanksgiving, we made the drive all the way down to North Carolina to spend a few days with my parents and brothers.  It was a long drive, with lots of crazy holiday traffic, but it was definitely worth the effort to make this visit!

Sophia is old enough now to be beyond most of the worst of her stranger anxiety, so she deigned to allow her grandparents and uncles to hold her and play with her.  And Joshua is old enough to really play with others and appreciate all manner of fun games!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner, got to meet my brother Eric's girlfriend Heajin, went to see "Catching Fire" while my parents watched the kids, and generally had a lovely time.





Next time we visit, I'll have to bring my proper camera.  :)

Thankful for a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Trip to Indianapolis and Pittsburgh!

Earlier this month, right after Sophia's birthday, we drove out to Indianapolis to visit David's parents for about a week and a half.  We love visiting Indy -- the kids love hanging out with their grandparents, the grandparents love taking care of us, and David and I get to relax and be refreshed!

We've made the long drive out to Indy often enough now that Joshua knows he gets to go through a bunch of tunnels on the way to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  :)  So even though the drive is long and the kids do get antsy at several points along the way, it's becoming slightly easier to make the trip, with Sophia being weaned and old enough to make it longer between stops, and Joshua waiting eagerly for the super fun dark tunnels!  I tried to get some of Joshua's eager anticipation on video -- he's a bit self-conscious here since he knows I have the phone out, so just multiply this glee by about a thousand to imagine what he was like for all the other tunnels we drove through.  :)


And when we got to Grandma and Grandpa's, even though we arrived after 11pm, Joshua made a beeline for the toys (he remembered the "big airplanes" and "different trucks" and had been requesting them for days before the trip), and Sophia was actually okay with being held by her grandparents.  The kids really do know and love their grandparents, and we all had such fun being taken care of by them!






Halfway through our time in Indy, David and I actually got away for a couple days, leaving the kids with their grandparents.  We were only about half an hour away, in downtown Indianapolis, but it was our first overnight trip away together since Joshua was born, so we figured we'd start small.  We stayed in a lovely hotel in the heart of the downtown area, ate out at nice restaurants, and generally relived our yuppy DINK youth.  ;)  Though we kept saying the whole time that we have no idea how we spent our time before the kids arrived...


It really was a win-win-win -- Joshua and Sophia had a blast with their grandparents (who took them to the zoo!  And gave them focused attention!), the grandparents really loved having the opportunity to spend so much time with the kids, and we had a lovely couple days away.  We hope to do this every year!


One of the other reasons why we made this trip when we did is because there was a family reunion in mid-August -- David's grandmother turned 90, so everyone was gathering in Pittsburgh to celebrate.  It was so wonderful to see everyone, especially now that there are more babies!  :)

Sophia really got a kick out of our hotel room bed...  I got her ready first and then gave her Cheerios to keep her occupied while the rest of us got ready.  And then promptly got distracted by how cute she looked in her pretty little dress, and took a ton of pictures!



And just a few of the photos from the birthday gathering, which was held in the community room at the Reformed Presbyterian home, where Great-Grandma relocated earlier this year.  I'm afraid the pictures I took are very kid-centric -- but what can I say, the four youngest family members are undoubtedly the cutest, so there you have it.  :)





And this one just because I love the suspicious side-eye Sophia's giving her second cousin, Adrienne.  :)


And a big family group photo!


(With just one outtake: I got Joshua to look at the camera and smile by telling him to look for the blinking yellow light, but it backfired when he decided to run straight for it!)


We're so thankful we had the chance to spend time with so many loved ones on this trip.  Our kids can't wait for the next family vacation!

2013: Adding Sophia to the Father's Day mix!

Every year since he was born, Joshua has taken part in my little Father's Day tradition for David -- my attempt to get a cute little triptych of photos with letters spelling out DAD.  By now, Joshua is somewhat used to the drill, and he got really excited about playing with the big D and A when I brought them out this year.

And thankfully, his sister isn't nearly as persnickety as he was.  :)  (Remember Father's Day 2010 and 2011?)  It did take a little doing, but we managed to get some really sweet photos for this year's collage!

I took the kids out for our first attempt early in the morning, in order to take advantage of the lovely morning light pouring into our backyard.  It was already really hot outside, and we were running really close to Sophia's nap time, so I was a bit concerned as we headed out -- but the light was just so perfect that I had to at least give it a try.

I put out a blanket for the kids to sit on, and tried to speed up the process by giving them each a letter to play with, figuring I'd be able to merge or split photos as needed in post.  And then I made the grave tactical error of trying to get them to switch letters.  Joshua was very, very upset that I wouldn't let him hold both letters at once, and then he got even more upset that I wanted him to let Sophia hold the D.  And then poor patient Sophia, having endured several minutes of sweaty heat plus a big brother trying to steal the fun new toys away from her, finally reached the end of her rope and clearly just wanted to go to bed.  So I gave up for the morning -- I'd taken a bunch of photos, but wasn't convinced that I really had anything worth keeping.

So I tried again later in the afternoon.  The light was decent, and the kids were in better moods, so I had high hopes!  I also did a lot of prep work with Joshua beforehand, which I should have known would be necessary -- I told him that we were going to play with "just one letter at a time," and that he could play with them both once we were back inside.  He dutifully repeated the "just one at a time" mantra over and over again during this second afternoon session.  :)  And I caught some really playful moments between Joshua and Sophia this time around!

Later that evening, I looked at the photos on the computer monitor.  And I actually really loved a number of the shots we got during *both* sessions!  What can I say, our kids are super adorable and photogenic even under difficult conditions...  :)

So I put together two different triptychs for David.  He ended up choosing the morning set as his favorite, so that's the one I'm having printed out for him, but I wanted to share both, just because of how stinkin' adorable our kiddos are!




And just because I get super weepy when I look at the whole progression (look how LITTLE Joshua used to be!), here are links to all of the Father's Day posts: 2010, 2011, 2012.

Hope you all had a lovely Father's Day, celebrating the wonderful men in your lives!

Easter 2013

We celebrated Easter this year with a variety of kid-friendly traditions and fun events -- it's so sweet to watch Joshua grow in understanding of some of these traditions and take part with such enthusiasm!

Just to start things off on a cute note: here's my favorite of the "official" Easter photos I took of Joshua and Sophia.  :)


The kids and I have been part of a wonderful playgroup of Christian families with kids all around the same age for the last several months -- Joshua looks forward to going to Elliot's house every Thursday now!  So the Thursday before Easter, we spent time decorating eggs with the kids and talking about ways we can teach our children about the resurrection.  I always come away from these playdates with much food for thoughts -- which is seriously impressive, given the amount of crowd control and distraction that comes with wrangling all these small children!  :)

It was Joshua's first time decorating eggs, and he was fascinated by the process.  The moms did the dying part in the middle of the dining table (out of reach of curious little hands!), and then the kids used markers, stickers, and stamps to decorate the eggs.  Of course, Joshua kept turning to me every few minutes to ask me to wipe his hands... I have no idea where he gets this fastidious bent.  ;)






Then on Easter Sunday, after a lovely morning service at Westerly, we had a potluck dinner with our Sunday small group.  And we had a little Easter egg hunt for the toddler boys.  :)








The baby girls were a little less enthusiastic about the egg hunt...



...but still incredibly cute.  :)

We had a really lovely dinner together -- it's funny how we all collectively pull out all the stops whenever there's a food event!







And we managed to get one decent group shot of all of us!  (Including special guests Tae and Jeff, in town for a visit!)


We're so thankful for the wonderful community we have here in Princeton, and all the beautiful ways we were able to celebrate the resurrection with our family and friends.  He is risen indeed!

Christmas in Indy!

[Backdating this post since it's now been a month since Christmas...  This one's a long one, with tons of photos, so I hope that helps make up for the long radio silence!]

We had such a wonderful time with family out in Indianapolis this Christmas!  We've seen enough of Grandma and Grandpa (and Uncle Iain and Aunt Erin!) that the kids are now completely comfortable with them, which makes for an even nicer and more relaxing vacation.  Joshua in particular absolutely loves hanging out with his grandparents -- they shower him with more focused attention than he generally gets from his poor, tired parents on a daily basis.  ;)  And they have different toys!  And books!  And an old helium birthday balloon!!







Christmas day was so much fun this year.  Joshua really got into the opening of presents (so much so that he woke up on the 26th and asked hopefully to open more presents...), and he loved all the very thoughtful and fun gifts he received!  Iain and Erin found these brightly colored silicone coasters, designed to wrap around the bottom of the glass and distinguish it from others' glasses.  Technically, I think they were a gift to me and David, but Joshua saw them and immediately claimed the colorful circles as his own.  :)  As Iain predicted he would!  They also got him a set of building squares (again, symmetrical and brightly colored), and he was fascinated by how they fit together into different configurations.




(You can see he also received a set of stickers from Grandma, one of which was promptly affixed to the front of his sweater!)

But I'm afraid everything else immediately paled into insignificance when he opened his big! red!! FIRE TRUCK!!! from Grandma and Grandpa.  :)  A button on top makes the lights flash and the siren play (thankfully, not too loudly or long), and there's a crane ladder and a rubber hose and two little firefighters to drive the truck.  Joshua was utterly transfixed, and played with nothing else for the rest of the morning.







Where was Sophia during all this?  Fast asleep upstairs, I'm afraid...  But she made out like a bandit with cute and fun presents from everyone, all of which Joshua delighted in helping me open.  :)  And once Sophia woke up, we had a fun little Christmas photo shoot with the kids!  Where I managed to get a photo with both kids looking at me and looking happy!



Most of the other shots I got looked more like this:





Though that last one really melts my heart!

OK, gotta pick up speed and get through the rest of this photo dump recap...

Joshua got his first real playing in the snow experience while we were out in Indy!  There was a massive snowstorm just after Christmas, so David and Iain went out to shovel out the driveway before the snow got piled up too high.  And Joshua went to help!  :)









And to wrap things up, a series of Sophia on various relatives!  :)












All four of us had such a wonderful time over Christmas.  And we can't wait until the next time we get to hang out with family!