January 20

These two pictures are very random... Riley really wanted me to take a picture of his mail truck, and what better place to have that truck's picture taken than on his head! He loves to see the pictures as soon as they're taken, so he always rushes right over to me and peers at the back of the camera.

You all know that this kid loves to eat, and apparently now that includes the furniture!

January 19

On a good day Riley can be a very helpful big brother. Today he decided that he wanted to be the one to help Jonah with his morning bottle - he did a great job!

January 18

The highlight of today was Riley getting a haircut. For a long time, Riley hated getting haircuts - it always involved a LOT of tears. But a couple of months ago I took him to a Sweet & Sassy salon for a haircut. It's a place that is definitely geared to girls - it's pink and purple and sparkly inside, has mini pedicure chairs and a runway, but they also have pint-sized haircut chairs and staff that are GREAT with kids.I took this first picture with my phone so it's kind of crappy, but the fact that Riley is sitting still while Gabrielle is using clippers on his hair is still a little amazing to me!

But before we left, Jonah was sure that he could use his baby-sized might to break into Abe's office.

January 18

We decided to spend most of this day at home to get caught up on the important things... you know, baths, laundry and painting. Riley painted a few pictures at the kitchen table after his bath that morning... yes, I know it's January and very cold outside, but he insisted that he didn't need clothes. I swear this kid never gets cold!

January 16

Tonight we went to Nanny & Poppop's house for dinner, which always includes a lot of playing. Tonight the most fun thing to play with was Poppop. :)

January 15

This was a busy Saturday for us - Riley has been taking a gym class at Parkettes in Allentown and we did a make up class today (since his Wednesday class was canceled because of snow). Then in the late afternoon, one of the boys' sets of godparents came over with their kids to play and to have dinner.


Jonah is contributing to the dinner conversation:

Christy is helping Joseph dig into his dessert:

Snuggles from Riley!

January 14

Today we took a 45 minute car ride to one of my new favorite places - Trader Joe's! It has been years since I had been to a store, but we went down this morning with a few of our playgroup friends. I really wish we had one closer - you can't beat the good food for such affordable prices! Riley's favorite part of the store was the pint-sized carts. He insisted that many of the things we bought went in his cart - too cute!

Jonah is excited about all of the yummy new foods he's going to be able to try!

 

Riley took his cart for a few spins while we were waiting for our friends to arrive.

January 13

Riley goes to a school twice a week taught by his friend Nash's mommy, Christina (she's also an amazingly talented photographer !)
Jonah and I went this morning to be the special helpers. I brought my camera with me, but we were so busy having fun I barely had time to take pictures!

January 12

We had some snow overnight so we ended up staying in the house for most of the day.... perfect opportunity for some extra pajama time! Riley thought he'd be the monkey today and climb in one of our laundry baskets!

January 11

Riley was under the weather today with a little tummy bug, so today's post is all about Jonah. He spent  most of the day with Nanny & Poppop, but I took a few pics before he left.

Can we ever get enough of his cute monkey grin?

January 10

This afternoon with the boys was just unbelievably pleasant! The boys were both in great moods and they played so nicely together. I'm the helper at Riley's school this week so we made a special snack to take in with us tomorrow - cookies! Riley is a great baking assistant - he yells "DUMP!" whenever it's time to add an ingredient to the bowl.

Jonah spent his time taking the magnetic letters off the fridge and spreading them around on the kitchen floor.

And then he realized he could open the spice cabinet... he could reach the half used head of garlic I have in there so I just heard the garlic "paper" crinkling as he was smiling with pride that he found another cabinet to play in.

January 9

I feel like Sundays go the quickest in our house. We always start out by going to Sunday School and then church, then we come home for a quick lunch and naps, and then squeeze in a little bit of playtime before dinner. Today this playtime involved a lot of climbing on Daddy.

Riley also got a camera from Santa this year... he loves using it, but hasn't totally gotten the hang of holding it up when he takes pictures yet. So we have a lot of pictures of the floor. :) But once he gets better at it I'll let him be my guest photographer for a day.

January 8

So every Saturday morning for the last several years, we've gone to Billy's Downtown Diner for breakfast. We love the food and the friendly owner & staff. I also recently (and unexpectedly - ask Abe about his most expensive cup of coffee sometime) got a new phone. I downloaded a "retro camera" app and love the special finish that it puts on pictures. Today's two pictures are from my camera at today's Billy's breakfast

January 7

We had a little bit of snow on the ground this morning, but we still made it out to go play at Riley's friend Will's house! Even though I've resolved to take pictures every day, it doesn't always mean that they'll turn out well. I wasn't so thrilled with the pics that I got of my own kids today, but here are two of the best (and I use the word 'best' lightly!).

January 6

Here's a peek at bedtime in our house... Jonah goes to bed first around 7 pm, and then Riley follows around 7:30 pm. When Abe is home, Riley always wants him to put him to bed, so I take care of Jonah.

Getting into jammies... (clearly only one of us is distressed that it's bedtime)

Every night Riley has the choice to jump (be lifted)  or climb into bed. Tonight, it was climb.

Heading for the pillow...

Good night!

January 5

Santa brought Riley some new slippers for Christmas, but since they didn't fit right Riley got to pick out his own pair of slippers. This is what he chose... he seems pretty happy with his decision!

That afternoon Riley, Jonah and I played in the basement. Riley LOVES mail trucks, Fed Ex & UPS trucks... basically anything that delivers mail or packages. This particular afternoon he decided that his little plastic Elmo had to be the mailman... here he is ready to hop in his truck.

 

When we play in the basement, Jonah spends his time just crawling around checking out all of the toys. His new favorite thing to do is to pull up to standing on the train table. Riley thinks it's cute when he does that, but I can't wait to see his reaction the first time Jonah starts to cruise around the edge of the table!

 

January 4

Tuesdays and Thursdays Riley goes to school in the morning, and we usually either stay home or run errands in the afternoon. Today we were invited to go play at a friend's house, which is always a treat.

Jonah got up very early from his afternoon nap, so we had some Mommy/Baby time while Riley snoozed. He's always so proud of standing up on his own!

Jonah was checking out all of the bells & whistles on this truck.

Naturally Riley headed right for the trains.

This is how Riley likes to end his day.... with some milk watching an episode of his favorite show, Curious George.

January 3

Today we did something extra special... I took the boys to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. Riley enjoyed it the last time we went, but I think today if I would have let him move in he would have unpacked his suitcase and kissed me goodbye.

First Riley took Jonah for a ride in the car:

Then Jonah decided to snack on a potato (he didn't believe me when I told him it wasn't real):

Riley picked up a few groceries...

And drove a blue boat around.

Throw in hot dogs for lunch, and it was a great morning!

January 2

This is one of those "everyday life" posts. Riley got this Radio Flyer bumper car for Christmas... and to say the he loves it is an understatement! Anytime he needs to go somewhere on the first floor of our house, he gets there on his bumper car. When we leave the house it's parked right by the door to the garage, and when he needs to go upstairs it's parked right by the bottom of the stairs. The rest of the time he's flying across the wood floors on it. Today he was making laps around the dining room table.

Jonah loves to crawl around, pull himself up to standing on things, and just check out what his big brother is up to. But he's a little bit of a mama's boy, so as soon as he sees me sitting on the floor, he's speeding over to me and crawling into my lap. Which is why a lot of my pictures of him look like this:

Happy New Year! My 2011 Challenge is...

In 2011 I'll be taking a photo a day, so stay tuned for lots of updates! I'm so curious to see the progression of the boys' growth throughout the year, and excited to document not only the big events & holidays that we celebrate, but our everyday lives also.

I hadn't yet gotten a great picture of the boys in front of our Christmas tree, so while my mom and sister were over for our New Year's Day pork & sauerkraut, I thought I'd tackle it while I had some extra hands around to place the boys and make them smile.

Jonah thought it was funny to start crawling away...

and then Riley thought it was extra funny to join him!

And then we got a keeper!