Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Beach in Autumn

The first official day of autumn was perfect weather for the beach.  Jessica's wedding was in LBI and my cousin let us use her house for the weekend.  Back on our OBX trip, Evan refused to put his feet in the ocean.  And when we arrived in LBI, he was the same.  If we put him down in the water, he screamed and cried hysterically as though we were torturing him.  But somehow, with the prodding of me, Brian and his nana, we were able to coax him into the water.  By the end of the two days, he was running and "swimming" in it like a pro.  Here is on Saturday morning running through the water:
 Staring at the ocean:
 "Swimming" in the ocean:
"Popping the bubbles" with daddy.  This is how Brian first convinced him to come near the water - he had to step on the bubbles in the surf to pop them.
I can't get enough of pictures on the beach.  It's the perfect setting for photos.  It's too bad it will be a long time before we are back there again.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Eric is 6 months old!

Where has half of a year gone and how can I make my baby stop growing up?? 

Eric turned 6 months old on September 13th but this post is a little bit late as I've been rather busy these past few weeks.  At his doctor's appointment, I found out that Eric is a whopping 14 lbs, 14 oz . . . with a completely full belly.  Evan was in the 14 lb range at 2 months old so these boys continue to be so different in their builds, despite eating similar amounts of food.  Eric was in the 9th percentile for weight and the 9th for height as well (25.4 inches).  If he hadn't had that full belly, he may have been 0 percentile, something which I was unneccessarily worrying about.  He is developing normally, though.  He is sitting up on his own, babbling away ("dadadada" is his favorite word, though he doesn't say it with any meaning at this point) and loves us to play peek-a-boo with him.  We've started feeding him veggies and fruit now and he's come a long way with his eating. 

I finally got a chance to go get his 6 month pictures taken this past weekend.  I remember this age vividly with Evan - 6 months old is the PERFECT age to take pictures.  They sit still, can't move and smile at anything and everything. Eric is no different than his older brother in this perspective.  And this picture may be the best one we've gotten to date of Eric - it perfectly captures his happy personality:
 A close up on his face:
Now sitting up easily in his frog chair - what a difference a month makes as he was nowhere near sitting up when we took the 5 month picture:
Close up with his favorite new toy . . . his feet.  I coudn't get a picture of him without the flash because he wouldn't stop moving for even a split second:
 And I love to compare to Evan at the same age:
And lastly, one more comparison of the two.  Now you can really tell the difference in build.  Someone asked me recently if I noticed their personalities being different yet.  And I honestly can't say I see a difference as of now.  They were/are both happy babies, easy-going, good sleepers, easy to entertain and have developed similarly. I'm sure the personality differences will come soon enough, though. 

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Jessica's Big Day!

This past weekend, we got to celebrate the wedding of one of my best friends, Jessica.  What a beautiful weekend for a wedding at the Jersey Shore. Jess couldn't have lucked out with any better weather. And her wedding site was one of the most beautiful wedding venues ever: 
Brian and I posing in the garden next to the chapel.  If only I could get my hair and make-up done professionally on a regular basis:
The wedding party was a big one - here are all of the bridesmaids with Jess & Walt:
The barn/chapel where Jess & Walt got married - just gorgeous:
The Weiss ladies:
The Weiss family:
The cousins:
Everything about this wedding was fantastic.  Congrats to Jess & Walt!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Thomas in Strasburg

Thomas the Tank Engine made a visit to Strasburg, PA (near Lancaster) this past weekend.  We bought tickets to go with my sister's family several months ago. Here is Thomas pulling into the station for his first ride of the day, which we were lucky to be a part of:
Here are Brian and Evan posing right in front of Thomas.  Evan was so excited to get to see Thomas and to get to ride on a train for the first time:
Here is the Felt family on the train.  Poor Eric had a 103 fever all day and I was battling a horrible cold.  We were both troopers, though I was probably less of a trooper than he was.
And here is our full crew trying to fit together for one photo in the smallest train seats you've ever seen.  No luck getting everyone to look at the same time.
After our ride on Thomas, we got to take a longer train ride on a steam engine that took us to Paradise, PA and back.  Evan loved waving at people as we went by them.  Brian took these pictures as we were in the station and getting ready to go:
 Our little trooper with a 103 fever:
Here are two cute cousins - Claire giving Evan a kiss:
All in all, it was a great day.  I am sure we'll be going back again in the future as Eric gets older.  And hopefully we'll all be healthy next time!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Eric Gets a Taste of the Good Life . . .

Eric has waited a long 6 months to get introduced to food.  I was hoping he'd take to it as easily as his big brother did.  Not so lucky so far, but hopefully he'll get there soon enough.  Here is, such a big boy in his high chair.
And his first taste:
 Not quite too sure of it:
Really not sure:
Not too thrilled:
A little bit happier:
 We're still working on it with him but he'll hopefully get there soon enough.  We know he needs to add some pounds on and I'm hoping the food will help.

Separately from that, Eric has really started sitting on his own in the last 2 weeks.  It's so much nicer to be able to put him down and let him play with some toys now.  He's nowhere near crawling yet and I'd like to keep it like that as long as I can:
And this past weekend, we did a picnic lunch with our neighbors after playing outside together in the morning:
Lastly, I love comparing my two boys at the same ages.  Here they are, both just shy of 6 months and sitting up.  Eric is SO skinny compared to Evan - his weight is actual worrying me right now.  And to me, they look nothing alike. 

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Kelly's Wedding

The month of September is going to be a very busy one for us.  How often do two of your best friends get married in the same month?  It started on September 1st when we had the pleasure of attending and (for Brian) officiating the wedding between Kelly & Jeff.  Kelly and I have been two peas in a pod since freshman year of college.  This is her second wedding, joining two families together: Kelly & Katryna with Jeff and Jake.  Before the wedding, here is a picture of Kelly with her adorable daughter:
Tryna loves all things girlie, so this day was right up her alley.  She got a mani-pedi with her mother on Thursday and got her ears pierced.  She got to wear a beautiful dress, put on make-up and carry flowers.  Every little girls' dream:
Kelly is from a small town on the beach in NY.  We all just walked down the street to the bay to the ceremony:
Chris & Bill came down for the celebration - it was so great to get to spend a whole day together:
 Kelly and Tryna walked down a long pier to kick off the wedding:
 Brian got ordained online by the Universal Life Church to be able to officiate over the ceremony:
 Jeff and Jake had to look over the water so as not to catch a glimps of the bride before the ceremony:
 A shot during the ceremony:
 A new family of four:
After the wedding, we decided to take some cheesey photos.  Throughout the day, people seemed to think that Brian and Kelly were the ones getting married, so here they were posing for wedding photos when I jumped in as the third wheel:
 Being silly and re-creating a photo from the past:
 And a more serious one of me and Brian together:
All in all, it was a perfect day for a wedding.  Congratulations Kelly, Jeff, Tryna & Jake!