Fun with a Box

The one fun thing about having two boys is that we can compare their pictures at the same ages. The first picture is of Tiernan at 3 months, and once again, I can't figure out why it's rotating it sideways. Grrr!

I think they look very similar-except for the hair (or lack thereof in Tiernan's case!!)

Today we got a new carseat for Tiernan and he was so excited about his new big boy booster seat. But I think he was even more excited about the box it came in. He kept open and closing the box lid and saying Ah-boo!

The Pond is Gone!

Last week we (and I use this term loosely) finally took out our huge pond in our front yard. It was a maintenance nightmare: during the spring it was full of bark from the wind, in the summer it was full of algae from the sun, during the fall it was full of leaves, and over the winter it had footprints on it from the neighbor kids walking across the frozen ice (DANGER!) Basically we (again using the term loosely) were constantly having to clean junk out of it-thankfully no children. On top of that, our fish froze to death this winter-my dad was completely traumatized as he was in love with our two foot long albino catfish named Carl. I thought Carl was creepy with his giant fish mouth. Ever since we've had Tiernan we've been saying that we need to take the pond out for his safety, and now that he's become a little escape artist, it's all the motivation we needed to take the pond out for good!

The process: (1) Shovel out all the existing bark (2) Haul in two dump trucks full of dirt (3) Rent an excavator to (a) move all the rocks to the side of our house (b) dig out dead or unwanted shrubbery (c) push dirt around (it's called GRADING, Tara!) (d) dig out and re-plant wanted scrubbery

It has been so wet and rainy lately that Ethan had to empty the water in the pond three different times. Even still, the excavator got stuck in the mud and thankfully Tyler was here to help Ethan get out!

We are obviously not done yet, but here is the new and improved pond-free front yard:

Tiernan couldn't stand it when the excavator was delivered on Friday afternoon. He stood on a chair looking out the front window of our house and shouted WOW!! over and over.

Here is the emptied pond. It is about 12 feet long and four feet deep.

In the background is the huge pile of dirt.

Grading the mud

The finished product! I am so thankful for my husband!

Do you notice how the barberry bushes (the purple ones) have been moved? We're still waiting to see if they survive.

Lots and lots of pictures!

We had some professional pictures done last month of our growing family. We had to cut it short because some delinquent mother knocked her son over when he was crawling up the stairs and he fell and bit his tongue and lip. In any case, here are some of my favorites:

Cameron's 2 month appt.

I am so annoyed that for some reason Blogger keeps rotating my horizontal pictures. Can someone who is technologically savvy please help me?? I've tried deleting them, and re-uploading them individually but it still does this. Ack!

In any case my little baby is not such a tiny newborn anymore. We went to Cameron's 2 month Dr. appt. today and he weighs 13 lbs. 12 oz. (90%) and he is 23 1/4 inches long (60%.) Tiernan only weighed 10 lbs. at his 2 month appt. so I'm wondering if he'll be even bigger than Tiernan! He was not so happy about receiving his shots-he's been SO cranky all afternoon-normally he is a very content, laid-back little guy so I'm sure he's not been feeling well. He's recently started cooing and smiling alot AND an added perk is that he's starting sleeping a little bit longer at night. I feel like a whole new woman! Here are some recent pictures:

My Sweet Boys

I'm sorry, I just can't resist posting pictures of my sweet boys. They are so cute...but I'm a little biased. Tiernan LOVES his baby brother-I'm so excited for when they can start playing together.

So annoying that these are sideways-can't figure out why. In the picture above, Tiernan is kissing Cameron (I'm sure he'll be so mortified later!)

Tiernan vs. Cameron

Here are the boys at 6 weeks-do you think they look alike??

Tiernan

Cameron

Easter

Springtime is an emotional time of year for me. The past few years have been completely life-changing in many ways, and for some reason everything has happened during this season (the births of our sons, tornado, miscarriages, etc.) I was home alone (well, the boys were asleep, and Ethan was gone) the night before Easter, and the movie The Ten Commandments came on. I had a complete meltdown because last year at this time we were sitting in the hospital watching this movie, waiting to find out if our baby was okay (which he/she wasn't.) I was upset because I feel like I'll always associate Easter (and that movie) with the loss of our baby. Our other baby we lost on March 20th, so those couple weeks can be hard. My only hope is that I will never take for granted the children that I have here on earth and will recognize the many blessings in them.

In other more positive news, we went to Tiernan's two year Dr. appt. and he now weighs 30 lbs. (75%) and is 36 1/2 in. long (92%.) We celebrated Easter this past weekend by first going to the town Easter Egg Hunt (what an adventure!) and on Sunday went out to the farm.

Tiernan LOVES going out to the farm. We looked at all the equipment-all he could say was "WOW, WOW, WOW!" He even got to sit in the new tractor.

Egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's house. He wasn't too excited about it-just picked up a few eggs and then wanted to look at the loader and the sheep.


On the Saturday before Easter, we went the Town of Windsor Easter Egg Hunt. It took literally one minute to complete, so we spent another few minutes on the playground, but it was way too crowded!

He didn't quite understand what the fuss was all about. I was a little concerned we were going to get run over (by the parents, that is!)

He finally got it figured out-just in time for all the eggs to be gone!