Thank you, Miss Emily!

Last summer we had Jonah evaluated by Early Intervention because at 16.5 months he was neither walking nor talking. He qualified for speech and physical therapy (even though he started walking 3 days after his eval!), and has been doing both regularly for the last almost 6 months. Happily, Thursday, January 5 was his final PT session! His therapist, Emily, has been amazing. She's so patient and fun and flexible. Jonah fussed a LOT at the start of his sessions because the things she had him do were so challenging for him, but her consistency with him paid off. We're going to miss seeing her so often!

Happy New Year!!

The picture-a-day challenge that I offered myself for 2011 was definitely a good one... I did pretty well for most of the year until I hit November and December, where I think I averaged about 50% for those two months. Oh well... no one is perfect, right? :)

My posts this year will be a little more free-form for a while, centering around themes/events with some extras. I was also talking to a friend the other night about doing a "day in the life" post, so that may be coming along at some point also.

From the looks of the pics I took this week it looks like the boys spent a lot of time shirtless! Usually when one of them takes their shirt off after a meal (after getting too much food on it) the other one follows behind closely.

The boys got umbrellas for Christmas... Riley fully understood its purpose, but Jonah still has a little bit to learn about it:

Abe spent most of the last few weeks looking like this, "pushing dots on a map" as he likes to describe it:

Abe's Wednesday night ski group also started up this week and he went up tonight with my friend Meg's husband Andy. So the deal that Meg and I made is that when they were skiing together we'd have dinner together (because 2 mommies and 5 kids 3 and under is good math apparently). After dinner we watched one of the train movies we had gotten from the library. Gwen and Riley made a huge pile of pillows and blankets on the floor, Cole was RIVETED by the movie, Jonah puttered around the whole time and little Reid (4 months) just took it all in!

January 31

I always love when the sweet side of Riley and Jonah being brothers comes out... I had run something to the kitchen this afternoon and came back to see the two of them propped up in their chair smiling and having a great time!

And just as a fun piece of trivia - I took 360 pictures this month. Can't wait to see what the end-of-year total is!

January 30

We decided to try a bubble bath tonight to change things up a little bit... Jonah was a little skeptical watching the bubbles grow as the tub was filling, and even more wary as he explored the bubbles with his hands in the tub. He wasn't a fan!

January 29

Abe is our guest photographer this day (and he took these pics with  his phone, so that explains the quality). I spent the entire day with friends helping another friend pack up her house for a move, so Abe, Riley and Jonah had a boys' day!

Riley loves to brush his teeth, but his favorite part of the process is where he drinks about 4 cups of water.

They had dinner at McDonald's, and Jonah loved exploring the play area!

January 28

We visited the Crayola Factory for the first time in November, and Riley asks to go back about once a week! He loves seeing them make crayons & markers, making projects in the different areas of the museum, and using his coins to 'buy' markers & crayons to take home. We went back today for a morning of creative fun!

January 27

Many mornings last summer & fall Riley would head out to our patio to play right after eating breakfast. I can only imagine that Riley is thinking about those same mornings on this morning... wondering when the 14 inches of snow is going to go away!

January 26

Riley got a set of animal shaped beads and string for Christmas, and I'm amazed how quickly he's gotten good at it! He needed a little bit of help at the beginning to learn how to push the string through, but today he had them all on the string pretty quickly. (Ignore the laundry in the picture... he just happened to play right where I had been folding!)

Jonah seems to have a love/hate relationship with this lion he got for Christmas - he gets so excited when he sees it, scurries right over to it and pulls himself up, but then only stands there for a minute before he's off to something else. He's only ever taken a few steps with it, but I'm sure he'll be using it to tear around the house in no time.

January 25

For a few days in a row this week Riley thought it was hysterical to take the rug in our foyer and play in it! Jonah didn't think it was so funny when he got rolled in the rug, but was a little happier when he decided to climb on top of Riley.

January 24

Today was special because it's my birthday! I wanted to get a picture of myself with each of the boys, but Riley wanted his picture taken with Daddy. He really misses Abe when he's traveling for work, so he likes to spend as much time with him when he's at home.
 

January 23

We've ended up with a few train sets in our house, and Riley loves them all equally. He loves to make as long as a train as he can, and group his cars together by type - all of the box cars together, all of the gondolas, etc. I think it's so funny when he talks about train cars to our friends because everyone is always surprised that he knows what they all are!

I think Jonah's expression here is priceless... it's like he's saying, "It takes a lot of work to get this rear end off the ground!"

January 22

Riley and Jonah got this adorable (and massive) train shaped tent from their Great Aunt Sandy and Great Uncle Chuck for Christmas. We have it set up in our basement and the boys have migrated a lot of their toys into it. So funny how a new location makes toys exciting again.

Jonah is becoming quite the accomplished musician, and you can see he's very serious about his craft. It's really the funnies thing... you put the cymbals down in front of him and he snatches them right up and starts banging them together!

January 21

 So we've had a little snow lately... pretty when it's falling, but the fact that it makes us stay inside all day is not always so pretty. But I noticed a gorgeous sky one morning as the sun was coming up - these pictures don't quite do it justice. This is the view from the front step of our house towards the Lehigh Parkway:

We headed to a playdate this morning... it always amazes me how each family that we go to visit seems to have an entirely different set of toys than we have!

Riley took to a golf set - I don't think he put this purple club down the entire time we were there!

And Jonah had a great time with this toy, until he tried to use it to try to stand up. :)

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. :)