The Day Big Brother Parker Discovered Baby Grant

Yesterday Baby Grant turned one month old! Even though he has already been a part of our family for thirty days, he (and I) have only been home from the hospital for 10-days. Big Brother Parker has been such a trooper during this transition and through all of the irregularity lately. For the most part it has seemed like Parker has hardly even noticed that Grant is even here…

Until yesterday. When Parker "discovered" Baby Grant and then played a little game with him! It was adorable and I took maybe a million pictures of them together. Fortunately I'm only sharing a few hundred here!

My mom, Twinkle, was burping Baby Grant and Parker came over to check out what was going on. He "helped" burp Grant:

Then we asked if he wanted to kiss his little brother:

Well that started a game Parker made up where he pretended to kiss Baby Grant, then walked to the end of the couch, then came back to pretend to kiss him again. Laughing the whole way of course! He did it over and over again. He LOVED it!

Most of my pictures look like these because Parker was in constant motion!

But I somehow managed to get a few of him playing:

Once we took Baby Grant's bib off, Parker found the moon and stars on Grant's outfit. (Parker is very into suns, moons, and stars right now.)

We also took a few minutes to identify Grant's body parts that Parker knows like "hair":

And shortly after that Parker got SO excited he could hardly contain himself! It was quite funny. I was so proud of him though because he was still so gentle with Baby Grant:

 

Parker Bear even showed his little brother how to make funny faces:

My heart was so full watching them "play" and interact together! I never ever want to forget these precious moments as Parker learns about becoming a big brother!

Oh and did he ever actually kiss him? Well, almost. This is as close as he got!

Such a sweet big brother! I am so proud of our Parker Bear!

And because I never want to forget this day, the day that Parker "discovered" his little brother, I'm including a 30-second video of these two playing this "game"...

Our Happy Easter

What a wonderful Easter we had! It was Parker's second Easter and Baby Grant's first. Of course Grant slept through most of it but Parker had a great time!

We kicked off the holiday with a visit to the Easter Bunny. Parker, who loves bunnies already, had absolutely no fear of the big bunny. He waved to the Easter Bunny and couldn't wait to get a closer look. When I placed him in the bunny's lap Parker just smiled so big and couldn't have been happier! (If only he was that excited about Santa Claus!!

Our fun neighbors hosted a glow-in-the-dark Easter egg hunt for the kiddos on our street. There were seven children but only two under two. The "big kids" were so sweet about hunting eggs further back in the field and letting the babies get the eggs that were right up front. Parker loved spotting eggs and putting them in his basket! We had such a fun time!

When we got home Parker Bear checked out his loot!

The night before Easter we dyed our Easter eggs. We let Parker help us and he was pretty into it. He really liked "stirring" the eggs in the dye.

On Easter morning we finished up breakfast and then showed Parker that the Easter bunny had come and left surprises for he and Baby Grant in their Easter baskets! He loved going through his basket, stopping to play or read each gift. After he had seen everything in his basket, he helped Baby Grant open his basket too!

The rest of the day was spent playing with the new toys, eating some good Easter food, and of course playing outside enjoying this wonderful spring weather that has finally found Kansas. It was a great Easter!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter holiday as well!

Happy Birthday Twinkle

One of the best parts about having my mom here to help me transition from one-to-two-with-the-second-one-being-a-preemie is that she was here over her BIRTHDAY!! It was so fun to be able to celebrate her birthday in person.

We have a history of being together over our birthday's not because we plan it but because it just seems to work out that way for us time and time again. Which makes for some fun memories!

To celebrate "Twinkle", Parker Bear took her to his play group in the morning, and we celebrated with a good dinner and cake and ice cream and presents that evening!

First up… the cake! We made our favorite preservative-free "clean" chocolate cake with chocolate frosting!

Parker was ready to dig in!

We ate that with some good chocolate ice cream. Parker loved every spoonful!

And then we opened presents. Parker was a great help!

He even showed Twinkle how to wear her new beach hat:

It was a great day and so much fun celebrating the woman who has given selflessly of herself to help our family through this transition in our lives.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TWINKLE!

Kansas U Football Game: A Catch Up Post

You know what goes with college football and road trips? Lederhosen. At least that was the case for our college football-roadtrip in October...

While we are here at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for Honey to complete a master's level program required of him by the Army, my ambitious husband is also getting a separate master's degree from nearby Kansas University.

Since he is a student at KU we headed out watch them in a college football game! The main campus is located 2-hours away so we decided to make a weekend out of it. It would be Parker's second college football game since he went to a game at West Point in 2012 when he was 5 months old!

A gentleman that my husband flew with when he was stationed in Germany, lives near the school and was having an Octoberfest party at his house before the big game. (That's where the Lederhosen came in…) Here is a review in pictures of our weekend and Parker's second college football game!

We got there around dinner time and went immediately to fill our bellies and then to bed! We had a big day coming up!

The next morning, Parker was appropriately dressed!

First stop was the Octoberfest Brew-Ha-Ha! The german food was quite good! My husband was an old pro at naming the dishes. It was all new to me...

I didn't get any pictures of the party scene but there were several gents dressed in full German attire! They were even drinking from authentic beer steins. For a minute I really felt like I was in Germany!

Parker was unsure about this new cuisine...

Finally it was game time!

Parker had a great time! He watched some of the game, played with his truck on the bleachers, snuggled with me and eventually, took his afternoon nap!

Even though KU lost, we had such a great time together!

We were so exhausted that night that we just ordered take out and got comfy. A great way to end a fun weekend making memories in Kansas!