Then and Now; Similar, but different...

Thanks to the great job H did organizing our digital pictures into chronological folders on the computer, it's easy to go back and look at pictures of the family. Specifically, Riles and Jae. Granted, Jae's oldest photo is seven months old, but you get the idea. Below are some photos of the girls at similar ages. Enjoy!

Riley and Jaelyn at 2 weeks

Riley and Jaelyn at 2 months

                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Riley and Jaelyn at 3 months








Riley and Jaelyn at 4 months

Riley and Jaelyn at 5-1/2 months

Riley and Jaelyn at 7 months

Happy 1/2 Birthday Riles and Jae

So, Gary has convinced me to blog.  I enjoy reading blogs, but I never thought I would be a blogger.  We'll see how this goes.  If you know our family, then you know that 2011 has been an eventful year for our little clan.  Now that Jaelyn has reached her 1/2 birthday, I am thinking back to February when everything was so uncertain and then on to her birthday.  She was so tiny, just 3 1/2 lbs.  Now she is a whopping 12 1/2 lbs and finally on the developmental charts for weight (3rd percentile -  Woo hoo!!).

Jae at 9 days old

6 months old.  You've come along way, baby!

Jae at 6 months.  She loves playing with her feet

It wasn't too long ago that we all dreaded going in the car with her because she absolutely hated the car seat.  Riley called her the scream machine.  Now we can go as we please without much fuss from Jae, which is a huge improvement.  Jaelyn is now rolling everywhere and is trying to sit by herself.  She giggles and laughs, especially when big sister, Riley is around.  We are also experimenting with "solid" foods.  So far this week, she has tried rice cereal and avocado.  Rice cereal went over much better than avocado, but we will keep working on it.  Jae's big news is that she can sleep though the night, when she feels like it.  This is also big news for me as I was beginning to think that I would sleeping in 2-3 hour blocks for the foreseeable future.  This also coincided with my return to part-time work.  My new work schedule allows me to be home with Riley in the afternoons to help her with homework and Jaelyn doesn't have to spend all of her waking hours in daycare.

Not so sure about this food thing...

Hmm rice cereal is...

Yummy!

Riley the Daisy Scout

Riley is enjoying her role as big sister and first grader.  She loves her teacher, Miss Hicks.  Riles is reading much better and enjoys math and social science.  One day she came home after learning about people in history and excitedly told me that she learned about Frankenstein and that he discovered electricity and created bifocals.  I laughed and said I think you mean Ben Franklin.  Yup, that guy.  Riles is doing Daisy Scouts again this year and is also taking tennis lessons.  She seems to enjoy it even though she has my hand/eye coordination.  Next, I will try to teach Riley to blog!  Enjoy!
-H

The girls take turns "loving" each other

"No Labor" Labor Day in Sanibel

Sanibel Island holds a pretty special place in our hearts. Ten years ago, that's where "H" and I got engaged. (Technically speaking, we got engaged on Captiva Island, but that's another story). So when we ended up with three unused tickets on Airtran from a trip that we cancelled back in February, we decided that we would spend the long weekend down on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
On the Friday before Labor Day, we scooped Riley up from school, packed her and Jae and all our stuff into the car and took the 90 minute, traffic laden trip to the airport. We then hopped on board the short flight down to Ft. Myers, (Jaelyn did very well on the flight, btw), climbed into a minivan, and made the trek to over to Sanibel where we had rented a two bedroom condo at "Sanibel Arms West" just steps away from the beach. Exhausted? Absolutely. From the time we left our house to the time we set foot into the condo, we traveled close to 7 hours! No worries though. We had nothing to do but kick back and relax...

The view from our "lanai". The Gulf of Mexico is right behind that building and those palm trees.

Riley's first trip to a beach on Sanibel was bright and early on Saturday morning and she quickly and excitedly discovered what Sanibel beaches are known for - Seashells! There wasn't much else that she was concerned about while we were there. The weekend turned into her constantly asking "Can we go to the beach?" Over the course of the weekend, there would be a total of 7 separate trips to various beaches on the island so that Riles could collect shells.

Riles collecting shells....

.... with her shell, shell collector.

Getting into the action to a lesser extent was Jaelyn. The water of San Carlos Bay was much calmer than the Gulf and allowed "H" to let Jaelyn experience the Ocean for the first time.

H and JJ enjoying the water.

Though JJ did enjoy her time in the water, more often than not, she was doing this...

Before leaving for home we did get to go over towards Captiva where the waves were a whole lot rougher. This might have been the only time all weekend that Riley lost interest in looking for shells.

Incoming wave...

Impact...

Immersion...

Recovery and repeat!

That evening, after cleaning sand and shells out of every possible place on Riles, we headed back out for dinner and to see the sunset on the Gulf...

Sunset over the gulf

Riley's reaction when we told her that we'd come back to Sanibel next year.

All in all, it was a great vacation: Wonderful weather, great food, fantastic company. Can't wait to do it again next year!

Really?

A blog? Really?

For whatever reason, I thought these things were not for me. Or for us. Now, don't get me wrong - we've got a number of friends that have blogs and I can't really say that I've stayed current with them, but when I do read them I always think "Good to know what they're up to!" Never really had the thought that I should author one as I always felt like "Who the heck wants to read about the stuff that we're doing?" Well, actually, I do. Maybe not now. Maybe 5 years from now when I'm trying to remember what it was like not sleeping. I know my mom wants to read about what we're doing. So does H's mom. Probably H's sisters too. With Riles now able to read, maybe she will want to read it too.  Anyway, having a blog seems to make a semblance of sense. Now I didn't hit my head and make this discovery all of a sudden. We'll blame it on Katie, a co-worker of mine who forced me to look at pictures and read about her family enjoying their vacation that was posted on ..... her blog.

So we'll see how this goes. Now I have another reason to be awake after midnight...