rose bush

When Tank was born my mother excitedly gave me a yellow rose bush. With the haze that comes along with having a newborn, I didn't realize what a nice and thoughtful gift this was. However, I am loving its' little cheery blooms both inside and out this year. Not to mention, the reminder they are that summertime is fast approaching. Yay!

outside

Tank loves everything about being outside. The best was when I found him eating a giant worm. I noticed something dangling from his mouth and as I went to grab it, I realized it was a worm! I pulled it out like a piece of spaghetti. Yuck.

Anytime our front or back door opens, Tank is magically there at our feet clamoring to get out. He only complains about few things in life, being hungry and having an outside door shut. So, here he is enjoying both delights; eating sand while outside.

staring contest

We have a big Costco size container of licorice that we're all enjoying around here. However, it was hard to enjoy it with a little one giving you an intense guilt producing stare. He doesn't cry, smile or beg, if you are eating something he wants, he simply stares directly at you. As you can see, his tactic works.

tasty fun

my little bug

I can't take credit for this photo. A photographer friend, who is more along the lines of an artist, took it. I love it how it captures Bug's joyful spirit.

family

Little Bug drew her first people this week! I love those long legs and tufts of hair some of them have. She said it was a family, with a daddy, who went to work, and a mama who stayed home with the little girl and baby. And do you see how the mama is 'holding' the baby?

the world outside

Tank will often go to our back glass doors and just stare out them. I think he is planning an escape.

a very merry unbirthday

Grandma Kristin mailed Little Bug an Ariel candle for fun the other week. Little Bug immediately insisted that we make a birthday cake. We then had to light the candle and sing happy birthday, except we sang the ABC's because it wasn't a real birthday. Oh, we love our Bug.

And so I will never forget, here is another Bug story.

The other day while eating lunch, Little Bug was looking at her alphabet place-mat and noticed that she was almost through learning her letters.  We do a little preschool each morning and work on a letter a week. Currently, we are on letter X. Here is the conversation that followed:

Little Bug: "Oh! I am almost done learning all my letters. Then, I will be done with school forever!"
(She does enjoy her preschool, so I don't know why she was excited to think it was ending.)

Me: "Well...you are going to be in school for a long time. There are lots and lots of things to learn."

Little Bug: "Yeah you're right, I still just don't know about hot air balloons."

I love when we get a glimpse into this little girls brain.

pit stop

Little Bug is so good to keep her brother replenished.

Tank

The other day, as Tank was pulling himself up into standing position on the couch, Andrew commented how we have not taken a picture of Tank in a while.  We have lots of Little Bug through her early stages, but not so many of Tank. This is probably common for second children, but it still made me a bit sad. I often have pleasant, nostalgic moments looking at pictures of Little Bug. So, before it is too late, here is our Tank at 9 months old.

Some stuff about our little guy:

• He seems to be a pretty gentle soul. That is unless he is hungry. He was loving baby food, but I made the mistake of giving him some real tasty big people food about two months ago and he has not gone back since. Thanks goodness his two bottom teeth popped out about the same time to aid his mastication.  
• He first really crawled at about 8 months.  He spied the vacuum with its long glorious cord in the living room and had to get there.
• His love of food is just as strong as his love of cords and anything electrical. Bug just discovered electrical outlets a few months ago. We had a brief conversation about them and she hasn't cared about them since. On the other hand, Tank crawled past one, stopped for a double take, and admired this interesting contraption for a while all before attempting to insert his fingers. Since then he searched out and discovered most walls around here have these amazing finger holders. (Sadly he recently found that all outlets are now Tank-proof)
• His latest feat is pulling himself up to stand and subsequently hitting his head on the way down. However, it took him quite awhile to learn how to sit back down. Thank heavens, because we had a couple weeks where he would pull himself up into standing position at night and cry until we laid him back down. We started practicing sitting down in the daytime. 
• Andrew thinks he says "ma ma" but I am more convinced it is "num num" (our word for food).
• And our favorite thing is no one can make our Tank smile as big or laugh as hard as big sister can. We had no idea how much joy it would be watching our kids become little friends.

And so I can look back and have a nostalgic moment, here is Tank crawling.