Nana and Papa come to visit Photoblog 8.12

So one good thing, wait, one thing that didn't totally suck, about the whole Cancer umbrella was that my parents became this beacon of support for us. Now, that isn't to say that they haven't always been supportive. Because they have...except for that one time I was 15 and was SURE they were trying to ruin my life by not really wanting me to go out with this super cute junior(totally won that argument by the way)...anyway, I digress.
Facing something like we did is hard on the people who want to help. People have a hard time knowing what to do, what do say. I did, and I was living it. We were incredibly lucky to be surrounded by an abundance of people who did and said amazing things. But my parents? They came out and were here, living in the trenches with us. They came for Dan's first week of Chemo and my mom came out for almost 2 1/2 weeks during his last round when I was 8 months pregnant. They came out after Henry was born and Dan was still feeling all of the physical repercussions of just being one month out of chemo and I was so, so tired yet completely unable to sleep. My mom has sat up with me at 2:00am countless times in the last 9 months talking to me, distracting me from my anxiety, keeping me company when I felt alone.
So, the good thing that came out of it, yes, back to the good. They got to spend so much time with Will. I know it is hard on them that they are not here to be part of his day-to-day, but in this last year they were a very strong presence in his life.
So, in June they came out and we wanted to get out of town, to just be away from all the stress and anxiety of this last year. We rented a place at the beach - Mom and Dad took Will a day early for some special time. It was good - we laughed, a lot. Here are some of my favorites, and as always, link here: Photoblog 8.12

Photoshoots and a Party - Photoblog 8.25

So, this set of pictures is not so big. It spans pretty much the last couple weeks of June through the first couple of July. In looking at them, I couldn't figure out why there were so few - we were pretty busy during that period. But my parents had just left after an awesome 2 1/2 week trip (next weeks photos!) and I think I was tired of taking pictures.

When Henry and I are home together during the day, I mostly work while he hangs out in a sling or naps on his chair. This time period was when we first discovered he would sleep in the big yellow chair, so there are a lot of pictures of that. He still wasn't sitting up so there are also a lot of him during our breaks, on the boppy. Poor kid is going to hate the sight of those sherbet colored stripes when he gets older. Here is one of my favorites from our at-home-alone photoshoots:


There was also the 4th of July - a spectacular even hosted by our dear friends Sarah and Dave. They know how to throw a party. It was interesting - there were SO many more children than there were last year this time. Last year there were 3, this year there were 10 with 8 of them being under 15 months. That is a lot of kids - added to the chaos and the fun:


We also took several trips to the zoo. We really have a wonderful zoo here - here is my favorite of the entire month and as always you can view the rest here: Photoblog 8.5

Camera Envy - Photoblog 7.29

So, I meant to write in between these two posts...but clearly that didn't happen. We've been busy over here in our household. Summer evening and weekends fill so quickly with friends and family - I hate to loose track of any of it but can't seem to find the time to write it all down. I find I've been throwing things on the Family Calendar after the fact so that I'll have some kind of record of what all we did this summer.

This week's photoblog has to do with Camera Envy. Kari lent me her wonderful SLR camera for a week and I got to play with it. It takes the prettiest pictures. I had SO many good ones, it was hard to pare down. I didn't get a ton of Will though. It's much easier to force Henry into doing a photo shoot than it is the ever-moving object that is Will. I did however get a couple fantastic pictures where Will told me he would pose for me. Below is one of the best.



Also, Henry is doing things like blowing raspberries, babbling and trying to stay sitting up. I find myself stopping what I am doing and hopping on the floor to play with him many times a day. He is just so interactive now, it's a fun stage. I can't believe how fast it is going this time though! He is going to start solid foods in 2 1/2 weeks - that is crazy talk.

As always, you can see the entire set here: Photoblog 7.29

A day in the life...Photoblog

So, the first Photo Tuesday. This was fun for me! About 2 weeks ago I decided to take one day and photograph it as we went along. We didn't do anything out of the ordinary from our regular Saturday, but it was fun grabbing some of those daily things instead of just the events. It worked pretty well - except we split off in the middle of the day and only have one camera so I missed swimming pictures (Dan and Will go together every Saturday), and after dinner we came home and it was bedtime. The wheels came off a little and there were no extra hands for picture taking. So our day ended at dinner apparently.
Anyway, here are a couple of my favorties and you can click on the link here for the set: Photoblog 7.22

Boys

Two recent examples in which I just have to laugh that this is my life...with all boys:

Here is the scene. We are all in the car, that has a broken muffler that we haven't gotten fixed despite the fact that we sound like an entire motorcycle gang.
Henry is screaming, because that is what he does in the car.
This seems to upset Will, who decides the best way to deal with it is a mantra that goes something like this "Mama Mama Mama MAMA MAMA HENRY IS HURTING MY EARS!!! YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO MY WORDS MAMA!" But keep in mind he is trying to be heard over the screaming. And the muffler.
The radio is playing very softly, but somehow Dan hears a tune and turns it up. Loud. Except we only really have 1 speaker that really works in our 15 year old car. The rest kind of make a staticy noise, so you really have to turn it up to hear the music. "Sweet! Van Halen!" and starts humming, air guitaring/drumming and yelling WOO-HOO every time Will stops for air.
So that makes Will try and yell louder, over his Dad, over the Van Halen, over the static, over the screaming baby and over the muffler.
And I realized that this is just the beginning. I am going to be outnumbered for the rest of my life.

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Last night we had company for dinner. We were planning on the adults eating after the kids went down but they came early to see the boys for a little while. Will has taken to procrastinating bedtime as much as possible recently with the "I have to go to the bathroom" plea. So sure, what are you going to do.

So, Will was in there procrastinating and I had just finished nursing Henry. Dan was waiting for Will to return to bed (as we have long ago stopped going into the bathroom to wait with him). One of our guests gets up and in walking to the kitchen asks what Will is doing.

So I get up to find out and see him, sans clothing, not so much facing the toilet. I go in and ask him what he is doing...

"Peeing mama. Look! It all went down!"

Why yes it did, right down the heating vent that he was peeing into. Oh yes, my child, my sweet little boy was peeing, into the HEATING VENT.

So, I kinda started to maybe get a little upset (thinking really this is an act of I don't know, defiance? maliciousness?) "No Will, NO! Stop that right now that is NOT ok!"

By this time Dan had come into the room and Will looked at both of us, honestly very shocked, his lower lip starting to quiver a little at my outburst and he looked a little...embarrassed.

"um, Daddy" he asked quietly, "Is that only ok at swimming?"

And at that point I realized that I had no idea, nor do I think I want to, as to what goes on when the boys go for their weekly trips to the pool.

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Also, as I was putting together a present for Dan today I realized that I have so, so SO many pictures that I have not done corrections to and posted. I love taking pictures and I love sharing them, but after Dan's diagnosis, it was somehow very emotionally overwhelming. So, I kept taking them, but haven't been able really to go back and look at many of them - especially the couple weeks leading up to and following when we found out. However, I feel like it's time. And I haven't been that good about posting here either. So, in order to take care of both those things at once I am going to institute Photo Tuesdays. Yes I realize that photo Fridays sounds better, but I wanted to do it on Tuesday so oh well. I am going to post a couple of my favorites here and a link to a set of pictures on Flickr every Tuesday. Except I am going to chicken out a little and start with the most recent and work my ways backward. I think I still need a little time before tackling those.