Photo

We popped by Louise + Gary's this morning, it was great to see their boys all stoked for their Christmas toys!  Lou took this pic in two seconds, and it makes me realize
a. all my photos look the same
b. I don't look at things like a photographer
and
c. We need a nice camera

What a stunning pic.  We're going to get Lou to do a photo shoot soon, I can't wait.

Thanks Lou.

Merry Christmas

Photo dump for Christmas!

Look at my teeth - 4 on top, 2 on bottom

Bless you, child.  A pre-Christmas dinner at Maddie's

 Don't you love his jersey?  Thanks Tanners.

 Don't let dad see...

Missed the pics of Riles and Madds in the bath together, will post when I get them from Coll.  This kid loves his bath time.  Love the chubb!

 Playtime with River, Simon's friend James' son.

 Rag's first experience in a jolly jumper.

 Christmas eve - taking out the stump.  This was an all-day affair.

 Mom knit me this scarf.

 Happy Christmas to you!!!

Gutted

Si was going through Matt's computer last night and I saw these pics and was absolutely devastated.  I'm still shaky this morning.

How could this happen?

Strong

Sleep is for the weak
- Riley

Squeals!

I'm working in my home office downstairs and left the door open by accident.
All I can hear are squeals of delight and constant giggling. 
Walked upstairs and Simon is folding laundry (well, there's laudry all over the room, so I assume that's what he's doing).  Each item is a different trick and Rags thinks this is the best game ever.

What an awesome dad.

7am and already....

Decorated the living room floor.  Started with pulling myself up to the pet food shelf, and pulling down the cat food bag.

 My new crawling style - I really want to stand!

Then started my new favorite hobby - emptying things.

I definitely like cat food better.

Mom put me in a crawling timeout

And just to show off - check out me babbling!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeLXd8AuGts

Dad decorated the (huge huge) douglas fir in the backyard... climbing gear and all!

Da - da!

So our lovely boy has been super slow to talk.  Generally just an aaahhh or blowing bubbles.

All of a sudden today, the floodgates opened.  We have ourselves a chatterbox.

da-da-da-da-da-da-da-ga-da-da-da!

Mom is now desperately trying to get him to say "mmmm"

Swimming

Today Simon, Colleen, Monica and the lovely babies Rags, Mads and Renns went swimming!
This was one of the days I wished I weren't working.
Renna is crazy, Riles is just splash splash splash, bam bam bam,  and Mads is just one huge wide smile, I have the most wonderful thoughts of them in the pool.

In 2 weeks we leave for the Turks and Caicos for a week to stay with my parents.  I am so excited to have rags in warm ocean water and eating sand.  He is going to love it.  Plus meeting his uncle Tiny... awesome.

We've been naughty about photos.  Here are some from a few weekends ago, will try for more this weekend.

Riley supervising the poop pickup.

 LOVES the swings!

 Walking at Sasamat with Rach, our french friend staying with us.  Riles adores her!

 Such a happy kid

Dad camouflaged him.  Where's Riley?

Poor kid.

 Tiger wanted to see what all the excitement was about

 You looking at me?

 Dad got in on the hat action. 

 Riley Reindeer. 

 His toy-of-the-day?  Cat door.  Hand in, hand out.  Fascination is re-sparked every time tiger uses it.

One month

It's been just over a month since Matt died.
While our lives look like normal patterns are coming back, moments of horror still come over us when we remember what has happened.  Maybe ten times today while I was in an all day intense 2011 strategy meeting at work. Standing at the whiteboard.  More when there's a minute's quiet.
I can't imagine what its like for Jenny or the Graces.

Mostly tonight I'm really, really sad for Riley. 
He doesn't even get the chance to show Matt how exciting and wonderful life is.  If anyone could, it would be rags, he's so obviously discovering it and thriving in it, every day.
My brothers aren't uncles yet.  They just aren't at a place in their lives when they care about Riley at all.  Maybe (hopefully?) Tye will - he will meet Riley soon.

Matt, we miss you.

Underwear

Life is very different with a mover.
I made the mistake of putting down in our bed yesterday then using the monitor to go outside and cleanup the garden (yay sun!).  I barracaded him using our usual pillow fort approach.

No longer.

I kept checking on him every ~10 mins and confirming the monitor was working.  It was.  However, he woke up quietly, obviously thrilled to have the bed to himself to explore unhindered.  He shuffled the pillows aside and climbed into a drawer on my dresser right beside the bed (I was born in a barn and never close cupboards or drawers).  He then enjoyed his new favorite activity - throwing things out of a drawer - and I arrived to find him happily sitting in my third up drawer with underwear scattered about the room.  All this without a peep on the monitor.

Oops.

Tiger attack

A distraction...

5 teeth now in three weeks.  Yesterday he started sticking out his lower jaw all the time -v. cute.  Little boxer man!  He's trying to figure out what to do with these crazy things in his mouth.  Bite mom ... check.

Had to lower the crib today. 

Pics of nana and rog over today

 I look like an angel
(haha fooled you)

 so grown up!

Action sequence
Tiges: Finally, a moment's peace.
Riles: So proud I just pulled myself up.  Hmm... what's this box doing here?

If I pull down the flaps... hey!  there's another box!  And my favorite toy, lil Tiger!!

 Damn.  The bugger found me.

Gotcha!

Finally, proving Riles mobility to mom and dad.
Poor Tiger.  Good thing she was distracted attacking the camera string.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4Rn2yK_WJI

Friday finally tomorrow.