grateful for a smile, some animals, and family

Thought you would all like to see Nathan, caught in the act - of SMILING!


We took a trip to the zoo on Saturday, and we couldn't have been given a better day. It was absolutely beautiful outside, and as you can see Silas and Grandma had a great time. Nathan - well, for the first visual experience of the zoo, his eyes we shut for most of it.




OK - so the birds aren't as fun as the giraffes, but hey - you can't win 'em all.

Our Healthy Baby Boy!!!

Hard to believe it, but we had Nathan's 1 month dr's appt today. It feels like just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital, so for it to be a month is amazing! Anyways, he's still a good sized baby. He weighed 10 lb 13.5 oz which is the 78%. His height is 22 inches and that is in the 68%. His head is the 45%.

Other than that, we are having some problems in the evenings with him being a bit colicky. He has some issues w/ gas, so we're going to start using some drops to help that. The other evening, we were up with him from 8 pm to 1:30 am with him just crying. Thankfully every night is not like that, but it is becoming a lot more frequent, so we're going to try the drops and hope that this helps.

Silas still really loves his brother, but there are times he gets jealous. I guess that is expected, but I know in a year or so they will be best buddies!

Well, Grandma Aichele comes and visits this week, so we're excited to spend time with her. We'll hopefully post pictures of that visit. Have a great weekend.

Last weekend, we were able to take advantage of the Colorado sun and visit a pumpkin "farm". OK - in Colorado it's a field with imported pumpkins, but it's close. Anyway, as you can see, Silas is still a clown, and Nathan - well, he slept through it all.

Our 5th Wedding Anniversary (belated)

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this past Saturday. We had a very nice day and evening together. I had told Kurt Friday that I would love to stay in my pj's all day long....well, I pretty much did! We had a long evening with both children getting up a lot, so Kurt got up with Silas while I stayed in bed a little bit longer than normal. Kurt took Silas to the store to get flowers and some special "muffins" for all of us to share. The rest of the day entailed watching football (yeah, Iowa finally won!) and relaxing.

Kurt got a babysitter for Silas so that we could go out to eat that evening. (Thank you Damon, we greatly appreciate it!). So, we went to a very nice restaurant and took Nathan (who slept the whole time!) We had a very nice time talking about the past 5 years, where we have been, what we have done, special moments, positives/negatives, you name it. It was a short evening though, as we knew we couldn't be out too long, for Damon's sake and for mommy's sake, so back home within a couple of hours. Date nights have become a challenge, but definitely worth it.

Anyways, I thought I'd post some pictures from our wedding day and a few pictures from our honeymoon to the Wine country in CA. Sometimes it feels just like yesterday!

a little perspective

This puts things in a little more visual perspective...here's the actuals of the boys

and by percentage... as you can see - a little different, huh?

Week 2 is almost done

It's hard to imagine that it's already been two weeks. I am so thankful that I have been able to be home for most of it. Here's a few more candids from the past week or so...

Here's the little guy catching some rays to help the jaundice...you'd think with the warm sun he'd be asleep. No - just content.

Here's Silas caught in the act playing with Nathan's little dog...


His eyes say it all...

He's got his daddy's hair... and I feel so bad for him!


Silas is definitely enjoying being a big brother. He actually got REALLY upset when some friends of ours held Nathan on Sunday...






It wouldn't be a day without a toddler tantrum, right? But who would've thought it would be over the fact that we had to turn the vacuum off?


But when he's this cute, how could you hold it against him?

Silas's 1st Haircut

We have been contemplating getting Silas's hair cut for awhile, but just haven't done it. Well, after becoming very tired of trying to get P,B, and J, yogurt and other food out of his hair after every meal, we decided getting his haircut would make our lives easier. Or at least we hope! We were going to try doing it ourselves, but decided to try a kid friendly experience the first time around so he wouldn't be so frightened. He was fine as long as Kurt held him and then he had fun playing afterwards. Now he looks so handsome and so big!