At Home "Photo Shoots"

Just some pictures of the kids I've taken in the last couple of weeks.

Future Best Buds

It's like baby central around here lately. We've met so many new babies in the last couple of months! What's especially neat is that Russell's best friend and my best friend were due to have their 1st babies around the same time we were due to have Nathan. My best friend Melody had her baby on my due date, August 14th (which I never reached). Russell's best friend is his cousin Ben and his baby was due 3 weeks before ours but, as it turns out, came 3 days later than ours.

Unfortunately for me, Melody lives in Fresno and I only get to see her about once a year. Ben, however, lives down the street practically now and so these proud dads get to raise their strapping boys together.

Here are Lucas and Nathan meeting for the first time.

Luke is only I think 2 days old here and Nathan is 5, but Luke is quite a bit bigger than Nathan.

Here they are hanging out taking a nap last week

We hope they grow up to be not only cousins, but good buddies like their dads.

"Big Girl" Room

Before the baby came we were working on getting the girls in their "big girl" beds and painting their rooms. We didn't get it all finished until after the baby came since he was early, but we have managed to get most of it done now. I'll take pictures of the complete room when I'm all finished (it looks so cute!) but here is a little preview and the beds.

We let the girls "help" a little bit. They each got to roll on just a little bit of paint before we kicked them out of the room. They loved it. Now when they show people their room they say "pink room- I help paint"

Madylin is in the white and Morgan is in the pink shirt.

While Russell and I were painting the baseboards we let the girls have one last "hurrah" in their cribs. This would be the last time they would be leaning over their cribs talking to and giggling with each other like this and it makes me kind of emotional thinking about that fact.

As soon as we put their mattresses in their little toddler beds they jumped in and wanted to be covered. They talked about these beds for days before and after they finally got to sleep in them.

And here they are- their first night sleeping in their big girl beds.

For the first week they never got out of bed once we put them in them until they woke up. They have since learned how fun it is to have the freedom to get up once they've been put in bed for nap times. That's been a little difficult, but I think most kids do it so we'll just deal.

Isn't He Cute?!

I know at least 2 people who think so!

They won't stop kissing him!