New (and old) friends!

We got to visit with the Brooks family last weekend!  So fun to have them over for the day and introduce Gabe (9 months) and Lydia (just turned 1!).

Gabe's been pulling himself up on furniture, and Lydia is wanting to let go of furniture and stand on her own.  It was funny to see how excited we parents were about their respective triumphs in development (...as in:  I stopped Lindsey mid-sentence to exclaim that Gabe had just pulled himself up on the outside of the playpen and he'd never done that before and I had to get the camera (thank goodness Lindsey is a great friend and sympathetic new mom who understands the importance of stopping all adult conversation to exclaim at something profound and simply earthshatteringly brilliant your child is doing, haha!) and later both Lindsey and Thomas had separate outbursts of proud parenthood as they watched Lydia let go of her handhold on something and try to balance on her own).

Was a great visit with great friends!

Because it's Wednesday.

Reminiscent

This:

Reminds me of this:





...except for the part at the end where Gabe sees a cat on the fence outside the window and the part where Kip tells Napolean they're late for prime rib. Those parts are included just because they're funny.

Carousel

Gabe went on his first carousel ride at this year's Sultan Shindig.

I am concentrating very hard on not letting my kid fall off the carousel.  And I don't think it was even moving yet at this point.

Just when I started to relax and have a little fun, Gabe seems to be over the whole thing.  Could it be that my vice-like grip around his stomach was ruining the experience for him?

Bret took him on the carousel a second time, and even with Bret's more confident (and therefore, relaxed) hold on him, by the end of the ride Gabe's expressions seemed to indicate that he was humoring us and indulging our excitement, yet not really feeling it himself.

And perhaps this is the reason why:  the weekend before the Shindig, we went camping and Gabe had his first motorcycle ride with Daddy.  So maybe it's not too surprising after all...would I be thrilled with a plastic horse going up and down and around and around after learning what real horsepower* was on a motorcycle?  Probably not!

*yes, I am quite proud of myself for this pun

Oh sure, shopping for a new carseat is all fun and games...

...until Mommy and Daddy stick you up on the display carseat at Babies R Us...

...buckle you in...

...and leave you there while they take pictures, exclaiming over "what a big boy you are!", as if they think a display carseat in Babies R Us is completely the appropriate place to discuss this observation with each other.

 

Um, Mom & Dad? 

It's not.

Sincerely,

Gabriel

Homework

Lately I feel like this blog is homework I don't want to do.

Which isn't really true, but sort of is.  I have stories and pictures I want to post, memories I want to preserve, but the end of the day rolls around and doing a blog post becomes another item on the (ever growing) list of things to do.

But tonight I came across this picture, and it made me happy, and the thought of posting it didn't feel like homework.

Perhaps I will just forego the stories part and only post pictures. 

(ha...who am I kidding?)