Full House

full house.JPG
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

We had a busy week here in Hopedale. The Portland clan showed up Wednesday night and left Sunday Morning. The grandparents stopped by Saturday night and left today. It was great fun, but we are all exhausted. We went apple picking on Thursday, visited the basketball hall of fame on Friday, and toured the Boston Children's Museum Saturday morning. My folks helped with the boys as we tried to recover yesterday. They also arrived with a truck full of my crap that I had abandoned when I left home. Now that we own a place, they no longer have to store my stuff.

Videos

interview
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

I just put up some new videos on flickr. Most are from this weekend, but there is one from this summer (embedded here).

Ready to roll

ready to roll
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

Alex keeps getting bigger day by day. He's always been a strong little bugger, but he doesn't seem to be the explorer that Chris was at this age. This means that he is strong enough to roll over, but just hasn't bothered to do it yet. He came really close this weekend.

hot dog vendor

hot dog vendor
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

Chris seems to be developing a fake smile for the camera. It's too bad, because I like his normal smile much better.

I started posting this while Chris was still asleep upstairs. I heard an awful noise coming from his room and went to fetch him expecting a boy with a cold so bad that he sounded like a duck when he yelled. I found a happy boy with a kazoo.

Look, it's Alex!

alex
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

It's been a while since I've posted anything about the boys. I haven't even uploaded pictures since August. We've reached an important point, I think, and it bears mentioning, even though the month is only 1/3 over. There are more pictures of Alex this month, than of Chris. That hasn't happened before.

Mostly, Alex has looked just like Chris did, so there have been fewer moments where we just had to go get the camera. Recently, though, you can start to see Alex (and not just another Chris) in the pictures. So I've been taking the camera out more. Also, I noticed just how uneven the picture count has been and I started feeling guilty.

The big bed

We've been on the cape all week and Chris has been sleeping in a pack-
n-play all week. He often asks to sleep on the bed instead, but
changes his mind quickly. Today he stuck to his guns and Mandy left
him on the bed. It took about 15 minutes, but he finally nodded off.

Ante the elephant

Ante the elephant
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

Yesterday, Gabi and Sandip came out to visit and brought Chris a little stuffed elephant on wheels. He called it "ante" and dragged it nearly a mile through the parklands.

Today, he was still dragging it behind him when we went to the zoo. He stops every little bit to turn to the elephant and say, "Ante, walk."