·:[ David and Claire’s Blog ]:·
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Please join me in welcoming the latest Valentine to the family:

Rhys Sheean Valentine
8 lb 0 oz
20.5 inches long

Claire and Rhys are doing just fine. More pictures to follow…

Evan had his birthday yesterday and now he’s a little toddler complete with crazy tantrums. We bought him a toy car rescue center which we gave him in the morning. He was playing with it downstairs in a complete trance for a couple of hours until it was bath time. I had to carry him upstairs screaming and crying and then I got him undressed but he just ran to the gate and had a 15 minute naked tantrum, shrieking and jumping up and down trying to get back to his precious toy. Brynn and I could not stop laughing at how adorable he was – which didn’t help his mood much.

 We went up to Connecticut for lunch and cake. We had yummy lamb made by Carol, and Evan took a big piece and started chowing down without waiting for me to cut it – a true Valentine! The chocolate cake was a big hit with him as well. A lot ended up on his shirt but he still devoured it faster than anyone else.

I was trying to remember what Brynn was like when she turned two but I have no particular memories of that day. I guess having a two week old at the time was a bit distracting. Still, I wish I could remember how much she could talk and whether she had any idea what a birthday was. Evan was oblivious to the significance of the day but did seem to understand that we were singing happy birthday to him. Or maybe it was just that everyone was staring at him! He acted shy and hung his head a little which I haven’t seen him do before.

As for his personality, well he is generally fearless and we can let him roam the house and yard without worrying that he will fall over or otherwise hurt himself. He is very physically capable but he doesn’t have much common sense so he’s likely to bolt out onto the street if he gets half a chance. I’ve had to put gates up all over the yard to fence him in. He is terrified of our Roomba (robot vacuum) and hides on a couch behind a cushion whenever it’s running. He has no fear of older children and will try to join groups of them at the playground. The other week there was a group of four boys who were probably 7-9 years old and Evan was hanging out with them while they just looked at him in confusion. He has a lot of words now but his pronunciation is still horrible and he’s not really combining them yet. He’s getting very funny about pointing out things and having us validate the word for him. If we disagree then he becomes furious. He was pointing at the sun in a book and saying “moon” and I kept correcting him but he just got madder and madder to the point where he was crying and flinging himself around on the floor. I finally had to agree that it was, in fact, the “moon” just to get him to calm down.

Probably the funniest thing is that he refuses to acknowledge his own existence and will never say his own name. He also stays mute if we point at him in a picture and ask ‘who is that?’. But he obviously knows his name because he responds to it, and he happily points out Mommy or Daddy in a photo. Very odd little guy! Happy Birthday Evie!!

Brynn oftens acts like a mini-Mom for Evan, keeping an eye on him or telling him off if he does the wrong thing, so for a while there Evan was just calling her Mommy, like he calls me (and, until recently, David), but lately he’s been using the word “Naany” a lot and we finally figured out that he is referring to Brynn. I suppose it’s a little like “Brynny” which we often call her, but it mostly sounds a lot like “Mommy”. I heard them upstairs today and Brynn was screaming at him “I’m not your Mommy!! I’m BRYNN! NOT MOMMY! BRYNN!!!”

Evan has been in mega-mischievious mode lately. He goes out of his way to cause trouble or break things. He is already turning into a very rough and tumble kind of boy. Brynn went to a friend’s birthday party yesterday and we took Evan along. The boys were all 4-5 and were, of course, only interested in running around and crashing into one another. As expected, Evan was right there in the thick of it! The other parents looked a bit worried about ‘the baby’ but they don’t understand that the most fun thing that can happen to Evan is that someone charges him and slams him to the floor. He is still as sweet as pie though. His latest thing is to ask for a banana and then break it in half and offer one piece to Brynn, completely unprompted.

Brynn is also a major pain lately because she is a terrible three year old demon-child; super bossy, demanding, impatient and moody. She can now unlock and open the back door so there is the constant danger that she can just walk out the door and leave if she gets mad enough. Today she threw a major tantrum and tried to escape out into the rain, in her pyjamas and bare feet. I immediately grabbed the tool box and added a latch to the very top of the door (so it is even out of her reach when she inevitably tries to use a chair to reach it). This is of course going to lead to situations whereby David tries to open the door when he gets home and finds that he’s locked out and I’m upstairs giving the kids a bath and don’t hear him banging on the door for 20 minutes. Thanks evil-Brynn!

I never actually got around to writing that post about our vacation in Australia. Brief version: fun, warm, wine, family, sick toddler, Christmas, New Years, plane rides from HELL!!!

It was my birthday this weekend and we decided to go to Philadelphia, although not actually for that reason. I had forgotten about the birthday when I started planning this trip (last week!).

We drove down on Saturday morning and went straight to the Cheesesteak District for some authentic Philly food. The choices are Pat’s or Geno’s. We’ve been a few times before and have sampled both of their wares but we tend to like Pat’s as it is less greasy. The weather was really, really cold and the line was long and very badly organized so we were actually standing in the middle of the street for a while. We sat outside shivering to death and eating our tasty, tasty cheesesteaks. Brynn was unimpressed. Evan liked the fries.

Next we went to the Philadelphia Zoo which is actually a really nice zoo. It was not very busy (probably due to the cool weather) but it had many indoor exhibits so we were able to keep warm for a lot of the time. The best part was the gorilla exhibit which is super cool. They gorillas are indoors at this time of year and they have a multi level area in which to roam and swing around. There was a bigger male gorilla plus one that was, I assume, a smaller male. They were doing a lot of rough housing and they were hanging out in this one part at the bottom so I went down some steps and the massive gorilla was just sitting on the otherside of the glass staring at me. Then the little one came along and the big gorilla moved right up to the glass and reared up and I had turned my head for a second so I looked back and this freaking huge gorilla is right up in front of me. I was so surprised that I actually shrieked. They were doing a little play biting and then started wrestling which got a little intense and scared all of us a bit. Then the big gorilla did a massive jump onto a climbing structure and he went up to the top (two stories up I guess) by climbing and swinging on ropes and his arms were just so powerful that it took him only a few seconds. It was truly impressive.

They have a carousel at the zoo and both kids are huge fans so we had to go on that. Evan starts crying as soon as he gets on any ride because he can’t wait for it to start. He also has some kind of amazing powers when it comes to detecting that the ride is slowing down at the end. He again starts crying and I’m always trying to figure out what’s wrong before it dawns on me that it’s almost over. A few weeks back we went to a mall with a carousel and Evan screamed with joy when he saw it and made a mad dash for it. Unfortunately for us we didn’t realize he could actually fit through the bars in the barrier fence so he ran up and started squeezing his tiny body through before we realized what was happening. Luckily Dave grabbed him in time because if he had made it through he would have tried to board the in-motion carousel and that would not have ended well.

After a couple of hours at the zoo Brynn was ready to go but then we found a place where you can touch some animals (mainly goats) and Evan is goat mad so we had to stay there for a while. Evan bonded with a little white goat and he was actually very gentle with it. He liked nuzzling their faces together. Very cute. Probably not very hygenic. Evan chased many goats and then he discovered that if he held up his hand to their mouth then they would think he had food and lick his fingers, which he loved. So then he ran around shoving his hand into every goat’s mouth, just asking for trouble. At one point, a big goat butted another big goat which then bumped into a dad holding a baby and almost knocked them both over. It made me a little nervous to see Evan wandering around in a large trip of goats just grabbing and petting whatever he could get his hands on, but he emerged unscathed.

Finally we got sick of listening to Brynn complain about wanting to leave, plus Evan seemed to be getting chilled to the bone so we left and drove to the hotel. The hotel was the main reason Brynn wanted to get going. This was clearly the most exciting aspect of the trip for her. We stayed at the Doubletree which was really nice. Warm cookies upon check-in! Although the cookies had nuts so I had to veto them for the kids. The nice guy at the desk gave them teddy bears instead and later brought us up some different cookies to our room. Very nice staff!

We went to a nearby pizza place for dinner and then back to the room for some room service desserts. The kids were exhausted but took a long time to fall asleep. That worked out ok though because we got a bit of a sleep-in the next morning. We had the buffet breakfast in the hotel the next day and then we tried to find the “Please Touch Museum” which took forever. The museum had recently moved so our map showed the old location and that took us a while to figure out. I had the new address written down but it was on a recently renamed street which was not used on the map and I didn’t write down the old street name. Beyond frustrating! But we finally got there and it was a lot of fun. It’s specifically designed for kids 1-7 and everything can be touched or played with. The most popular exhibit seemed to be the Shoprite supermarket. Kids love to pretend to go grocery shopping apparently! There weren’t enough carts and Evan was trying to steal one from every kid he could. He’s a very pushy little boy and is not intimidated by anyone. He was also the master of pushing past kids waiting on line to go down a little slide. He would squirm past them and even though there were about 6 kids going on the slide over and over, Evan was probably taking every third turn. I finally had to get him out of there because other parents were not looking happy. It’s not my fault if a bunch of four year olds let a one year old push them around!!

After a few hours Evan was getting pretty tired so it was time to leave. Brynn had a bit of a meltdown when she found out we were going home. She wanted to go back to the hotel. The drive back was fine and then the snowstorm came through and now I’m avoiding digging us out. I don’t know how much snow we got because it was so windy. One section of driveway is clear but next to it is a two foot high snow drift. I think we probably only got about 4-5 inches but it’s really heavy and a huge pain to shovel.

Some thoughts on Philly:

The people are NICE! Like so, so much nicer than New Jersey or New York. It’s just across the NJ border so you’d think it wouldn’t be that much of a difference but, as Dave said, it’s probably more that our area of NJ is too close to NYC so we suffer for that. But seriously, everyone we dealt with, from parking attendants to wait staff, was just delightful.

We saw way too many examples of inappropriate dressing. We were freezing our butts off on a 42 degree day and we saw a guy in a tshirt waiting on line for a cheesesteak. We saw a guy in shorts at the zoo and then we saw two girls with skirts and bare legs walking around at night in the city. Brrrrr!!!!

The city of Brotherly Love. Everywhere we went, we saw lots of man couples but not of the gay variety. These were straight men on man dates. At dinner on Saturday, Dave pointed out a section filled with pairs of guys eating dinner together. At least six tables! But as I said, these were clearly not romantic dinners. Then at breakfast it was the same thing; half the buffet was filled with male couples. I don’t know what that was all about.

I’ll try to get some pictures up in the gallery soon (of the kids, not the man couples). I recently added the Australia photos so check them out!

Today we headed out to Ort’s farm for our mostly annual pumpkin picking adventure. Last year we left it too late and ended up rummaging through the deformed, left over pumpkins at a local garden center the day before Halloween, but most years we have been going to Ort’s and every year the farm has expanded it’s range of activities for kids. As we were driving there today we realized that we first went there four years ago because it was also an election year and we were horrified to see almost every house had a Bush/Cheney sign on the lawn. Having just left New York for the burbs, we were a little stunned to realize that only 45 minutes from where we were living was an area so infested with conservatives. This year we saw just the one McCain/Palin sign which probably isn’t as encouraging as it might seem (to a Democrat!). I’m guessing more signs will go up in the next couple of weeks and maybe the campaign activists haven’t canvassed that neighborhood yet. The Republicans obviously hit up our area recently as a bunch of McCain signs went up last week. I counted six on one nearby street and no Obama signs. Kind of depressing. Actually, mega depressing. I recently read this article about McCain and my skin is still crawling. The thought of him as President… ugh. I’m also trying to forget that Palin actually exists. I think we really would have to leave this country if those two made it to the White House.

Anyway, back on track. The pumpkin patch used to just be a wagon ride out to the patch and a little fruit/veggie stand with some seasonal goodies. Now it’s got this whole field full of stuff for the kids to climb on and run through. There are farm animals that you can feed and pet. There were also Clydesdales that Brynn rode. She had a blast! What else… a train ride, food, lots of things with faces cut out for cute kid photo opportunities. A hay bale maze that had Evan running around in circles for a while until I went in to rescue him.

Lately we have noticed that Evan’s fearlessness actually seems to be rubbing off on Brynn. It’s like she sees him doing things that she is too nervous to do and it’s encouraging her to be more adventurous. Which mainly takes the form of the both of them runnning out of sight in opposite directions whenever we let them roam free. Brynn is usually very reluctant to touch animals but when she saw Evan doing so today without hesitation, she did the same. Of course Evan touching an animal usually involved him going up to it’s face and grabbing on as hard as he could. It’s a wonder he wasn’t bitten. Seriously, he had a vice like grip on a goat’s face until we managed to pry him off. On top of all the awesome Tina Fey skits on Saturday Night Live, there was one last week that had me cracking up. Mark Whalberg talks to animals. “Hey Donkey, what’s going on”. I just had it running through my head the whole time. “Say hi to your mother for me, ok.”

So we had a really good time there today. The best bit was that they both fell asleep in the car on the way home and we were able to put them both straight to bed upon arriving home. 7pm!! That’s two hours before Brynn’s usual bedtime. Of course they skipped dinner so they’ll probably be awake and starving at 5am. (Update – they were both up around 6.30am – much earlier than usual. Yawn)

I’ll put some pictures up in the gallery.

While there are many, many, many good things about quitting a god-awful job and staying home for a few months, one of the nicest advantages would have to be the use of weekends for fun stuff instead of errands. We managed to do almost nothing summer-specific while I was working and instead we spent our weekends dragging the kids out grocery shopping, dropping off drycleaning or roaming the streets looking for notaries. But now I can get that crap done during the week and we don’t have to do anything on the weekend except come up with a fun activity which is actually harder than I would have thought because we have no idea what kinds of things we would like to do. We went to the Jersey Shore for a daytrip which was pretty good. We had no clue about where to go so we picked randomly based on a “family-friendly Jersey Shore” google search and ended up at Point Pleasant Beach which was actually not too bad. This is only the second shore town I’ve visited but I find the actual beaches disappointing because the water is just too rough to go in, so it’s really just a case of hanging out on the sand. Maybe I need to keep looking for a better town, or maybe the whole shore is that way but it would be nice to take the kids into the water. As it was, Brynn and I were standing well back so most waves weren’t even reaching us, but every now and then a bigger one would come up to our ankles and then we’d get a really big one that would come up to her knees knock her off her feet and scare the heck out of all of us. She was 10 yards from the water line but it seemed entirely possible that she could be dragged out to sea by one of them.

The whole sand thing is a problem with little kids of course. Neither of them really like the texture on their feet but Brynn doesn’t like sand in her shoes so there was a lot of shoe off, shake out sand, shoe on. Evan managed to get it in his eyes within 30 seconds and then started rubbing his sandy hands in his eyes to make it feel better which, obviously, it did not. Thankfully the issue seemed to resolve itself somehow. The other bad thing about the water being so rough is that you can’t really hang out near the water and make sandcastles. The sand near our towels was too dry so that was a bit disappointing. But there’s lots of other things to do instead of just sit on the sand. We walked along the boardwalk, ate some boardwalk food, checked out the aquarium and then called it a day.

Today we went to a church festival near out house. They had a lot of carnival rides set up and Brynn is crazy about carousels so we had no choice once she spotted it as we drove by. She went on the carousel, the ferris wheel, a car ride and then a little mini roller coaster (all by herself!). I think this dinky little fair was pretty much the highlight of her life to date. She was so excited about the rides that she would almost start crying waiting for the previous riders to disembark. Evan also went on a couple of rides and I could safely say that the car ride was also the highlight of his life. I have never seen him more excited about anything. As soon as he was buckled in he had a huge grin plastered over his face and he kept doing his crazy little squeal/laugh the whole time. He threw a fit when it ended.

Apart from that we’ve been having picnics, going to the zoo and of course there was our trip to California last month. What a nice week that was! I put up a Bruinwoods album in the gallery and it is also my intention to get some other albums up there but I have pretty much a year’s worth of disorganized photos to try and work my way through so it will be quite the project.

My grandmother Ruth passed away this week. She was 97 years old, and will be missed. Here’s some pictures of her with Evan and Brynn…

Everyone in the family, with the exception of Brynn, has been suffering from viral conjunctivitis, more affectionately known as “pink eye“. For Evan and Claire it’s barely noticeable. But I turned into a zombie. Not only were my eyes bright red, streaked with veins, streaming tears and frightening everyone on sight- Oh no. I was also running a fever, sore throat, and absolutely exhausted. My back hurt a lot too. So imagine me slowly rising from the couch and lumbering across the room while moaning in pain from my eyes and back, with blood red eyes- pure zombie.

I’ve been holed up at home waiting for my eyes to return to normal, and not be so contagious. Good thing the VPN capabilities at Citi are so good, I can work at home quite effectively. I can still control my computer at work from home without any noticeable lag….

May is the Valentine birthday month.

Evan – 5/3 – 1 years old
Brynn – 5/18 – 3 years old
David – 5/8 – 35 years old (ug)

And of course there is Mother’s day for Claire.

We had a big party at Unbelievabills for Brynn this year. She got to play in the jungle gym, go on stage at a “theatre show”, and sit in a big throne eating pizza. It was a lot of fun, and the nicest part is they take care of everything for you.

My mom and Andy were in town this weekend before they jet off to Italy for a few months. And we decided it was time to take Brynn and Evan to the circus for the first time. It was the typical Ringling Bros circus with one exception that annoyed me- no jugglers. What kind of circus leaves out the jugglers? Still the elephants, tigers, trapeze, and motorcyle sphere were pretty cool and we all had a good time.
So everyone knows the metal cage sphere where 7 motorcycles all zoom around together at the same time. It looks amazing that they don’t ever end up crashing into each other. My theory is that there actually is quite a lot of space inside that cage- a lot more than it seems. This is because the shape is a sphere with more surface area than any other shape, and the motorcyclists are taking advantage of the full z-axis. So it looks amazing, but it’s really a piece of cake trick. But of course you’ll never catch me doing it!

We cooked an interesting meal tonight – salt roasted pork. You basically take 6 cups of rosemary infused salt and cover a pork tenderloin, then roast in the oven for 20 mins at a high temperature. It turned out really well – the meat was at a temperature that would usually make a tenderloin very dry but it was incredibly moist – tender to the point of being able to pull apart with a fork. Salty, yes! But you brush off most of it and the real flavor was the rosemary. Anyway, it was definitely the best pork meal we have ever made so if you’ve ever been treated to one of Dave’s tenderloins, expect this version next time!

We’re enjoying a long weekend here and looking for things to do over the next two days. We are going to try to make it into the city if it warms up a little. Maybe go to a museum or check out Toys R Us with the kids. I’m not sure Evan has ever been to the city, so this would be his first time.

The children are well. Evan is crawling all over the place, at a rapidly increasing pace. His little knees are all red from the new activity. Apparently he got so quick at daycare that he escaped the room before they realized what happened. The next day he got moved up to the mobile baby room. He’s the smallest one there but it’s a bigger, and more contained space so he can crawl after the big kids to his heart’s content.

Brynn is funny. Every time I use a word to describe her (even a nice one), she shrieks “don’t call people that!”. Dave was buckling her into her car seat today and she kept saying “Daddy, you are freaking me out of here”, which was so nonsensical that it was cracking us up. I told her she was adorable and she got mad and of course said “don’t call people that!”. She also hates it if we laugh when she says something cute – “don’t laugh at me!!”. She’s a 13 year old, trapped in a 2 year old body. Her favorite show is Futurama which is cool because it’s at least fun for us to watch, (the other alternative being a princess movie) but the downside is that she uses words like “crap” every now and then. Well, you win some and you lose some.

Claire is an amazing wife and mother, and I would like to dedicate this post to her! Now Claire is a very busy woman, definitely one of the modern types. She juggles a full-time job, 2 crazy kids, and a demanding (but cool) husband all with style and grace. Claire excels at caring for, educating, and loving Brynn and Evan. She even makes a mean Cosmo. Claire is wicked smart, with a good sense of humor. She is also an endless source of information about all current events- epecially those that are disaster or celebrity related. Claire is my own personal readers digest, and she even votes for me! Claire is capable of carrying an amazing number of bags and children all at the same time, kinda like the Cat in the Hat. I look forward to the future with Claire and all the good times coming with the great family we’ll raise. So thank you Claire for being such a great person. Keep up the good work!

 All my Love,
~David

Today Claire and I took the day off to fully enjoy the family Halloween experience. Brynn participated in her daycare’s Halloween Day Parade as none other than a spider princess! We walked around the block while all the kids held onto a rope, and all the parents were madly taking photos of their children. I went a little crazy today with the camera, and 240 pictures lately have a few good ones.
Then later in the day we went trick or treating. I always enjoyed trick or treating as a child, and this is the first time I’ve ever taken one of my own children out. We joined a bunch of neighborhood families with similiar aged children and went from house to house scoring loot for Brynn. She wasn’t so good at saying trick-or-treat, but she sure learned fast how to grab candy out of a bowl. She also used her cuteness to maximum effect going back in the bowl over and over again grabbing as much as she could before being stopped.
I love handing out candy when children come by our house. The last couple years I have been offering chocolate coins amongst other various traditional candies like snickers, mars bars, hersheys, etc. The chocolate coins are in the shape of 50 cent coins with gold foil. Size wise they are smaller than other candy you could get. Also they are just milk chocolate, so nothing special really. They are shiny however, and for the last two years have been the most popular choice by far when children of any age come by. Even over ring pops! This year I tried offering only candy of a similiar gold color and other things just as shiny. It didn’t matter, the coins always went first. So now my theory is that the coins are the rarest of the candy offered. So next year I’ll get some other real rare and weird stuff and see how that fares against the coins…
As for Brynn’s candy preferences, that was a real treat to watch this year. That’s because she’s never actually had any of these candies before, so it’s clear she’s choosing for reasons other than what the candy tastes like. Unfortunately for her, she appears to have an affinity towards the look of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (the size of the package maybe? or just the orange color?). Given her mother’s peanut allergies those candies were promptly removed from her sight when we got home. She also had a big thing for lollipops. That is one thing she has had before, so maybe that choice was just that she knows she like lollipops. Given the choice of lollipop over anything else, she always chose the lollipop. I look forward to seeing how her taste evolves over the years.

The last post was right before I went back to work so you can probably figure out that it’s been an exhausting six weeks. Evan is coming to work with me and going to the Children’s Center but that is only for one more week and then he goes to Brynn’s daycare. That will be very sad for me as I love going to see the little guy every three hours. It’s so nice to have a baby visit to look forward to when the day is going badly. Or even when the day is just… going. He’s been very mellow about the new arrangements. He’s not peturbed to be left with strangers, and he’s never overly thrilled to see me. He’s generally very happy and only cries when he’s over-tired and other babies are keeping him awake.

We just started him on solid food recently and he’s already gained over a pound. His appetite is enormous and he’s getting noticeably chubbier. It’s funny to compare him to Brynn because she was always so physically active. Brynn started rolling in both directions right around 4 months but Ev can still only do front to back. By 6 months Brynn was using the rolling to get herself around the place but Evan has no method for moving around. He’s barely able to keep himself upright while leaning against something and sitting down. Brynn was sitting unassisted around 6 months. Not that Evan is slow compared to other babies, by any means, but he is just fairly passive in general which is a big part of it. I’m convinced Brynn learned to roll and crawl out of anger more than anything. She was just never satisfied with wherever she was and was always kicking and arching and wriggling around unhappily.

There are a couple of other 5 month old babies at the center and they are so much bigger than Evan. Ev is long and skinny but he also has a really small head compared to these other babies. There heads are enormous and they have legs like tree trunks. I actually cupped my hand over Evan’s head and then used that measurement to compare to one of the mega-head kids. The hand shape I was making was about half the diameter of his skull. The infant room teacher and I are always laughing over the size differences.

The one thing that is good about having the kids close together is that they are absolutely enarmoured with one another. Brynn will just go up to Evan and lie there kissing and hugging him and saying “I love you! I love you!” They also do this thing where Brynn mimics Evan’s baby noises and it sets him off and they both sing the same tone together. Ridiculously cute. I have to get it on video. When they are in the car they sit there grinning at one another the whole time. When we drop Brynn off at daycare she always climbs out of her seat and over to Evan and then gives him a kiss goodbye.

Brynn is actually being really good lately. The whole tantrum phase has passed for the most part. She’s not done with them, but the frequency is much, much lower. It’s probably primarily a language thing. All of a sudden it’s all come together with her and she’s now speaking in 7 or 8 word sentences that are grammatically correct for the most part. She has a big vocabulary and says some surprisingly mature things sometimes. Her new one is “I need a binky to calm down!” when she’s upset. Probably time to ditch the pacifier if she can express her need for it like that! She’s a mini-teenager a lot of the time too. Running to her room and slamming the door. Saying “get away from me”, “leave me alone” and “you hurt my feelings!” She’s also really into princesses and pink things while happened so suddenly that it almost seems like it was built into her genetic code and that gene activated when she got to 2 years and 3 months. I had no particular thoughts on princesses before this and I don’t think I ever really talked about them (why would I??) but all of a sudden I’m buying princess everything because life is so much easier when your toddler has an obsession and you can buy those things to bribe them with. She has a princess pillowcase, shoes, dolls, books, tent, sleeping bag, tiara, costumes (x3), slippers, underpants, pullups and probably more. Almost all of those were purchased to shut her up or get her to do something she didn’t want to do.

She has also managed to figure out that David and I have names that are not just Mommy and Daddy and she takes great delight is using our real names randomly just to shock us. The other day in a store we had lost David, so I said “let’s find Daddy” and she takes off, shrieking “DAVID! WHERE ARE YOU? DAVID!” This morning she was sitting in her room and trying to get my attention as I wandered past. She was saying “Mommy, mommy!” but when that didn’t work she switched to “CLAIRE! CLAIRE!” and of course, that made me stop!

I put two new albums up in the gallery, including one with our recent visit to Kip’s Castle for a Harvest Festival. Brynn had great fun decorating a pumpkin and watching a puppet show. Lots of new Evan pictures, although he still looks exactly the same as he has done for months and he still has the exact same expression in all photos.

A couple weeks ago Brynn and I attended Elizabeth and Azeem’s wedding in Oxford. Claire and Evan were unable to make it as we think Evan is still too young to fly on airplanes, and once we got him there he would certainly be a handful.
So Brynn and I ventured out alone, but with the help of many willing grandparents including: Grandma Carol, Grandma Joan, Granpa Don, Grandpa Andy, and 4 uncles and aunts: Uncle Ben, Uncle Mike, Auntie Liz, and the new Uncle Azeem. There was a Mehndi party where Brynn boogied the night away, and Elizabeth got her hands tatooed. The mosque trip Brynn and I skipped as it was a solemn affair that little 2 years olds are not welcome at. Then the ceremony itself was really beautiful. It was short and sweet, and Brynn only made one scene during it. There were readings that were not nearly as cheesy as I thought they were going to be, and some really good vows that Elizabeth and Azeem made to each other. The reception was in a barn and very nice with good food including a lamb Biriyani. There were also a couple late night parties that were only the younger family and friends that were a lot of fun.

The next day after the wedding, with the help of some babysitting grandparents, I ventured out to London for the first time. Being around the world a bit myself I was a little disappointed at how little culture shock I experienced in London. Despite the vastly different architecture it reminded me a whole lot of New York City.

We headed out to Ohio this weekend for the Villa Mir farm’s annual “Farm & Fun Party”. This is a big event that features lots of bluegrass musicians, a huge bonfire and even a fireworks show. We went last year and there were torrential rains all day so the whole farm was one big mud-patch and it was quite interesting trying to navigate that in the dark with a one-year old. This year the forecast looked much better so we decided to give it another shot. Although, of course, with two kids this time, it would be quite interesting in it’s own way.

The drive out is fairly arduous depending on traffic. Actual driving time is around eight hours but the one road there (Interstate 80) has two lanes and lots of construction zones where it’s down to a single lane. If you get stuck in a slow merge it can easily add on an hour or two to the travel time. We left around 3pm on Friday night and had to stop twice. There was a lot of traffic and the kids were pretty cranky so it was pretty sucky in general. We finally got in around midnight.

Brynn was so excited to see Grandma, Grandpa & Uncle Mike. She also saw Carol’s niece Helen and nephew Jack who are a few years older and refer to her as “Baby Brynn”. She got to go blueberry picking but it was mainly a case of blueberry eating on Brynn’s part.

Hundreds of people come to the party and they have a huge area that people camp for the night in tents. Everyone brings a dish and there is big potluck with tons of food. There are several groups of musicians set up at any given time having a little jam session with a rotating cast. There’s also a stage for a more formal concert in the late evening hours. Brynn sat with Grandma Carol watching the music until 11pm. She was so exhausted but still managed to keep herself awake. When I finally put her to bed she was so tired she crawled into bed in her jacket and boots and passed out. I managed to change her into PJs and then the fireworks started. She actually had a view out the window from her bed so she lay there and managed to keep her eyes half open to see the show.

With both kids asleep, my time at the party was over but David managed to stay up to see the big bonfire. It’s a truly amazing pile of firewood that they light around midnight. I heard that the heat was so intense you had to stand half a field away.

The next day Brynn got to spend some time in the pool they have there. We also visited Farm Park which is a farm with lots of animals. We saw a pig that had just given birth to a litter of piglets that morning. There was also an enormous, disgusting pig that was asleep and snoring really loudly. He smelt so bad too. Brynn was horrified and intrigued. She’s still talking about it now. It was apparently the highlight of the trip. We also saw sheep, llamas, alpacas, ponies, chickens & cows. There was a pony for the kids to ride but Brynn freaked out when we put her on his back. She was completely exhausted after missing her nap so it was to be expected.

On Monday we headed home and I drove the whole way, which was a big deal for me because I think the furthest I’ve ever driven before is up to Connecticut. This was 450 miles! I’ve also never driven that fast before. We made good time until the rain started coming down and the accidents began (we passed at least two). Then, of course, we hit heavy traffic in the last 20 miles that took almost an hour to get through. Despite that, we made it home in less than eight hours and the kids were really good the whole time. Evan is pretty reliable about sleeping as long as the speed of the car stays above 55mph. It’s amazing how quickly he wakes up whenever we slowed below that. (It’s like he’s the bomb on the bus in that movie Speed. Don’t slow down or the baby will scream!!)

So all in all, a fun weekend and Evan has now left the state of New Jersey for the first time. We can add Ohio and Pennsylvania to his resume.

My mother-in-law Denise just returned to Australia this week after visiting us for a couple of weeks. I will put pictures of the visit up on our gallery. While she was here we cooked lots of good meals, and Denise had some rather unique craft projects she was up to.
Denise’s first project was to finish up Brynn’s most singular stuffed animal- a red bearded, long-tailed, purple Dragon. It has lots of character, and now that I think of it deserves a name. Any suggestions?
Next Denise revamped the rocking chair in Brynn’s room. It badly needed an update as we’re pretty sure the cushions were circa 1930s, and the fabric needed to be replaced along with the foam inside. She chose a lavender fabric that complements the color of the walls in Brynn’s room. So it now matches the room perfectly and is a lot more comfortable!
We had a couple barbeques while Denise was here, one of which was out in Annandale, NJ. Denise’s step sister’s relatives live out there in the hicks of NJ. The host was a terrific bbq chef and we had lots of different meats like brisquet, slow cooked pork, and bbq chicken.
I also cooked prime rib for the first time. I had a mustard crust rub that really added a rich flavor. We made sandwiches the next day that were also mighty tasty.
Now Denise has gone back home, and Bron is out here with us…

Evan Connor Valentine has arrived!
He’s a boy, 8 lbs even, 20 inches long, and born at 12:30 PM today!
Mommy, son, (and dad) are doing well.

For anyone who doesn’t know already, Claire is Pregnant!!! She’s due a month from now. It’s going to be a boy, and even if we had a name picked I wouldn’t tell you www. I know you can’t keep a secret. I’ve been perusing the photos of pregnant Claire to prove it to you all, but posting an unauthorized photo of Claire may result in a fate worse than death. So maybe later….

Tonight I made Jambalaya for dinner. I got the recipe from the Gourmet cookbook. It was pretty tasty, and I recommend it, but if you like it hot add more than a quarter teaspoon of cayenne.
The photos from our Australia trip are finally up for perusal, as usual hosted on my linux box at home…

Got a lot of change? Go to Commerce Bank, and use their free change sorter. I had so much one time I walked out with $218.96 in cold hard cash!