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Celebrating Six

We had a bit of down time on Sunday too for some porch sittin' and toodling around.

Grammy & Aidan | Wheelbarrow Rides | Alex helps pump up the bike tires.

By Winkler World Online
On Monday, June 29, 2009
At 7:06 PM
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Summer is finally here and we are rrrrrrready! Last weekend we celebrated Father's Day (and the first day of summer) in the great outdoors. On Sabbath, we headed for a hike at the Botanical Gardens (where Serena and the girls had wedding pictures taken almost six years ago!) just for something different, but though the trails were flooded out we got to see a miniscopic frog hoping across the path and had some fun exploring the garden areas.

Father's Day was pretty low key. David had an appointment in the morning, but after a mini-nap for Alexander, we headed to a new (*free!*) Splash Pad in Canton. Alexander absolutely loved it.... loved eating his crackers and watching everyone else play in it, that is. He went in a couple times- once with Mama, once with Papa but was pretty unenthusiastic about all the spraying going on. Still, he was ever so content to sit on his monkey towel with his snacks and didn't really want to leave. Maybe he'll warm up to the idea on a day it's less busy, and he gets used to everything. After a bit we headed over to swim at Nana's pool so Mama and Papa could cool off too. And of course we had to round out the evening with a Father's Day dine-out treat for the ride home in the car :). It was a fine introductory weekend to all the summer sunning that awaits us.

By Winkler World Online
On Tuesday, June 23, 2009
At 3:44 PM
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Cousins!!!

This week was a fantastic week with the arrival of some very special visitors from Minnesota. Aunt Karen, Uncle Dave (Serena's brother) and cousins Lauren, Megan, and Cody made the long journey to hang out with us for several days, meet new little Aidan, and get re-acquainted with Alexander and all his two-year-old tricks. We had a great time celebrating both Megan and Nana's birthdays, and picnicking and grilling to our hearts content. Dave and David did some yard work for Nana, and Uncle Dave helped us out with a bit of mowing as well! We did a bit of swimming, a bit of play in the basement and a whole lot of baseball for Cody and toy lawn mowing for the Alex. We spent one day in the great state of Ohio visiting the Toledo Zoo complete with train ride (though Alex opted out at the last minute and waited with the grown-ups), animals galore, monstrous ice cream cones (Cody and Alex even got their own!) and some funny orangutans who put on quite a show for us complete with swinging, water gathering, and lettuce spitting right on the glass. Lauren and Megan stayed with us one night for our traditional game of competitive Sorry and some girly time for a movie, craft and more ice cream, of course. But we also just got to spend a lot of time chatting and just hanging out. Alexander's 'big boy' spirit was revived watching and playing with Cody and seeing all the fun things he could do. Alexander completely took to the girls and loved all the attention, being carried everywhere, and just enjoyed hanging out in the business and whoopla "with the kids." Aidan, who's been opening up more and more the past couple weeks, was happy to share smiles, tell a few stories, and soak up all the attention, holding, and special snuggles only aunts, uncles, and cousins can give. It was really a lovely visit that's left Alexander talking and talking about 'cousins' and "when they're coming back?" Time flies little Alexander... it was a visit not so long ago that they met you at Aidan's size. A whole lifetime of family fun awaits you!

By Winkler World Online
On Friday, June 19, 2009
At 11:04 AM
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Getting to Know Our Six Week Old...

Aidan is now six weeks old! At his appointment he weighed in at 11lbs 6.5oz (60th %ile) and 24 inches long (94th %ile!). The past week or so, it's like someone woke him up from his own little world and invited him to join ours. He's been enjoying a little more awake time, and is more interactive with us during the day. He's got these cute little smiles that appear from time to time- like he's enjoying his own inside jokes, and it's been delightful watching them become more and more frequent and reactive to his surroundings every day. It's been a little harder to get to know Aidan as he's been such a sleepy baby and also does get a lot of 'divided' attention with his older brother. Sometimes Muma feels bad that he doesn't get all the doting, attention, and time for understanding and 'signal-reading' that Alexander was able to have being on his own. But we're getting very excited now that he's a little more 'with us' and seeming a bit more baby-like than wormy-like :). And we're having fun discovering new little hidden little charms every day:

Since birth he's almost always given an little smirky smile right before he's done nursing with Muma.
After a sneezing bout he lets out this most adorable little "ooohhhh" and scrunches his nose.
He's just recently started being a little more vocal during his happy wake times with little coos and sounds. He has this very intent look on his face like he's really trying to tell you something.
Sometimes we jokingly call him 'Snivels' as he's got these little grunty snively moments that are half cute, half just outright funny.
He seems to like to have little things tickle his face- Muma's hair, the corner of a cloth, light kisses on his cheek, or "boops" on his nose.
He's rolled over from his back to his side a couple of times... maybe just a fluke?

Overall, Aidan is pretty laid-back, and seems to take everything in stride. He's a good traveler

for out and abouts, and he loves his car seat. Muma will sometimes use it as a perch for him during meals or outside for sleeping when playing with Alex. As long as he isn't hungry :), his wake times are pretty much contented and cheerful. He loves studying and tuning in to our faces, especially when we make such goofy ones for him. He even has smiles for Alexander when he brings him a blanket, his binky, or is just greeting his baby brother with a friendly 'little' voice. Aidan has been eating pretty much every three hours to the letter, with the occasional hungry day, but just the last couple of days he's been experimenting with some longer stretches. We still have him sleeping in his crib in our room as he still has his middle of the night feeding around 2-3 am (sometime we'll post a schedule just for fun) but he's getting harder and harder to wake up for his late night feeding, so we're waiting for that 'through the night' experience- though we'll give him a couple of weeks yet :). But it's hard to believe how quickly he's grown already, and so so beautiful to see him as more of an involved part of our family and our lives.

By Winkler World Online
On Sunday, June 14, 2009
At 10:15 PM
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A Photo a Day in (April &) May

... almost. Since we'd taken so many pictures this month, I thought it'd be fun to plug one in from each day. Since we have over 500 pictures for May it was actually kindof tricky to pick one some days... For those that we missed by chance, I tossed in a 'flashback' from that date in years back and put it in black & white :)... Yah, I know- we take a lot of pictures. So far, we don't seem be concerned that the second child doesn't get as many pictures taken as the first. I'm sure things will slow down eventually; Maybe when they move out of the house or something, or when they become a teenager and we start getting a lot of hand shots or grumpy faces, you can only have so many of those :)