Clayton and Sophia at Sauder Village

Better late than never. The irony is that we posted pictures of our trip a long time ago. Admittedly, videos weren’t posted. (Until now.)

Casa Lennon visited Michele’s paternal family in rural northwest Ohio earlier this year. We wanted to introduce Alexander to the clan and fly while it was still free for both the kids. Not only did Michele’s cousin Cindy and family host us (thank you!), Cindy even drove all the way to Detroit to pick us up. (About 2 hours.) That is a small indicator of how gracious everyone was.

Some trip highlights:

• Meeting New Family – We met the newest cousin, Clayton, on this trip. Clayton begat from Shawn begat from Cindy begat… . He is absolutely adorable and will likely be the quite increasing handful. Sophia, Clayton, and Alexander had a great time playing together.
• Getting Together with Known Family – Aside from our hosts, we also spent time with Lois and Fran Baldwin, sister and brother-in-law to Michele’s paternal grandfather. We also got got together with Lois’ sister Elinor.
• Sauder Village – We spent one day visiting Sauder Village. Think of it as “Colonial Williamsburg – Midwest version.” It had a working farm, a train ride, a bunch of artisans, and convention center. The kids really enjoyed themselves. Sophia even churned some butter.
• Genealogy – Dave has started getting into tracking/recording our joint family histories. Aunt Lois is one of the Hane family historians. She has a wealth of information on the family. Dave purchased a scanner while in Ohio. Used the scanner to scan a a lot of records, pictures, and documents. So much so, that 4 months later Dave has barely made a dent in the information.

Pictures from Ohio Trip

Direct Link to Photo Album

View Photos as a Slideshow

Videos from Ohio Trip

Alexander being entertained by his great grand Aunt Lois. (Michele’s paternal grandfather’s sister.) Direct Link to YouTube Video

Alexander being entertained by his great grand Uncle Fran. Direct Link to YouTube Video

Casa Lennon relaxing with Michele’s Cousin Cindy and Dean. Direct Link to YouTube Video

The cropped "SFW" version of a super-adorable pic

Late as always. We got Alexander’s first professional portraits in early June. (He was almost 4 months by then.) Michele and Dave have both been “meaning” to get around to posting them. At least getting physical prints distributed to the grandparents has already taken place. (Thanks to Michele.)

This photo shoot produced what may be one of Dave’s favorite photos of all. The cropped, clean, family-friendly version of the photo is posted here inline.

View the Album

Direct Link to the Album

View the Album as a slideshow

Pix from the outing

Link to the Album of picutres

View the pictures as a slideshow

Some Videos from outing

Direct Link to the ladies enjoying some cooling water

Direct Link to Alexander fascinated by plant

Abuela appreciating her birthday collage

Casa Lennon’s abuela, sometimes know called Juana Antónia Lennon Gutierrez Magro Ibañez Alonso Palacios Barona Ruano García, delighted everyone by turning 70 years young. Much of the family converged on Las Tapas in Old Town Alexandria in what unexpectedly turned out to be a surprise party. More a function of the Lennon clan’s well communicated inability to communicate well.

That said, it was really fun. People came from Florida, North Carolina, New York, and even Maryland to take part. The primary “gift” abuela always wants is the time spent with her family – namely the grandkids. That is what she wants more than anything else. That said, Michael coordinated a gathering of lifetime photos and stories to put together for abuela. I highly recommend viewing the awesome collage that was the product of that effort.

ASIDE: We had the good fortune of being at the Spanish restaurant while Spain was beating Paraguay in the World Cup. (In case you hadn’t heard, SPAIN WON!!!! VIVA ESPANA!!! )

One last thing, we’d like to thank our niece Chloe for snapping so many candid photos.

Pictures from the Celebration

Here is the photo album gallery.

Here you can view it as a slideshow.

As background, you need to know that “Ellie” is Sophia’s most treasured posession. Ellie is a Carter’s pink, elephant plush toy. (Get it, “Ellie”?) Once we realized how much she loved this toy, we started hunting for a duplicate. We called multiple Targets in multiple states. (Really.) No dice. We wanted insurance should something happen to Ellie. Our solution was Paco (the Pachyderm). You can see a pic of them side by side. Alas, what we got was a daughter who now needed two elephants to go to sleep.

Sophia giving Alexander an unprompted hug

Well, last week Mommy Michele texted Daddy Dave cuz we thought we might have found a suitable stand in.

And (finally) on to the point of this post.

We came downstairs and Sophia spotted the 3rd elephant and yelled “other Ellie!” She lit up and was delighted. She grabbed and hugged her. Alexander was already awake at this time but a wee bit fussy. Sophia-being the sweetheart she is-walked over to him and started trying to appease him by playing with him. When that didn’t settle him down, she leaned down and gave him a big old hug. (Proud, beautiful moment for a parent to have your 2 year old hug her 5 month old brother without prompting.)

But then things got even cuter.

Sophia's "pink choo-choo"

As I calmed Alexander down (read, found pacifier), Sophia went off and entertained herself. When I turned my attention to her, I saw she’d definitely found a way to keep herself busy.Without any intervention or input from me, Sophia had set up a “pink choo-choo”. Her words, not mine. She had arranged to kitchen chairs back-to-back, put the Ellie and other Ellie in one chair, and sat in the second chair. Her “pink choo-choo” was complete with the requisite “choo-choo” sounds. Of course, the highlight was when she asked if I wanted to ride the pink choo-choo. Of course, nothing is beneath me.

Once the rest of the house was awake, Mommy realized she needed to go upstairs for something. Sophia very much wanted to stay with Mommy. As we all began heading upstairs, Sophia turned around, looked at me and said, “Daddy, go downstairs.” I guess I had outlived my usefulness.

Small Album of pix from this AM

Click to view the photo album

Click to view as a slideshow

As may very well become our custom, we hosted an open house for Sophia’s birthday. The event serves the dual purposes of getting to see many of our friends that we haven’t seen in a while and celebrating Sophia’s birthday. Aside from the fact that the sun decided to be an active participant in this year’s festivities, we all had a really good time. Most importantly, Sophia had an absolute blast. We also were able to get several of our friends together that we have been trying to introduce to one another.

Of course, this format may not work as well for Alexander’s birthday, since he is in mid-winter. Oh well, I am sure his celebration will be great, too.

Note to all other parents of young children: We got a lot of feedback that the “format” worked very well. We opened our doors in the early afternoon and invited folks to drop by whenever they wanted for as long as they wanted. This definitely helped with toddler/infant nap schedules. Some stayed for 30 minutes as they squeezed us in between competing weekend events. (Thank you!) Some stayed for hours. It was great to be able to see people for any period of time.

We are so blessed with so many wonderful friends who would take time of their hectic lives to help us celebrate. We are genuinely grateful.

We are especially grateful that Dave’s parents (a.k.a. abuela and grandpa) made the trip down from DC. Especially since two days prior they had just arrived back in the country from a month in Spain. WOW! We love you.

Photos from Sophia’s 2nd Birthday

Here are the pictures from Sophia’s second birthday.

Videos of Sophia’s 2nd Birthday

Terrible recording of us singing happy birthday to Sophia. Direct Link to YouTube video

Sophia having fun, as usual, with the Mackes. Direct Link to YouTube Video
(Forgive Daddy’s awful singing)

Alexander enjoying the exersaucer

Title kinda sums it all up pretty nicely. Earlier today, Alexander rolled over for the first time.  (Looking back on it, looks like Sophia did it at around the same time.) Amazingly, I had the camera handy today, so I was able to capture it. Decided to add a second video to make this post a little more substantive.

Hope that everyone is well.

Alexander’s first roll

Direct link to YouTube video

Alexander enjoying his exersaucer

Direct link to YouTube video

Alexander getting some dropoff kisses

This week had one of those big “life” days. Monday (5/24) was Alexander’s first day of day care. Alexander did very well. Sophia didn’t do as well on Monday. She laid down in the hallway outside of her classroom and cried – a very sad, pathetic cry. Ever since she has been going part time, Sophia has had no interest in going to day care. I guess playing with Mommy is just too much fun. Fitting, since she did not have a good first day oh so long ago.

But about Alexander… He had a very good first day. Slept well. Ate well. etc. Everything you could hope for. And he doesn’t yet have an ear infection. The day, as all you other parents know, was harder on Mom and Dad. Spending all your time with him and then breaking that is hard to do. We’re hoping that since he’s starting at 15 weeks rather than ~8 months (like Sophia), that he (and we) will have an easier transition.

One redeeming thing is that we are very happy with Primrose, our day care provider. We are also very grateful to the day care management for their flexibility during this transition. It made a world of difference.

Collection of Photos from first day

You can view the collection of photos from the first day by going to the gallery.

Hope you folks like the setup and pix. Leave some comments if you have any ideas or feedback.

Alexander giving Mommy a big smile

Alexander was crying while Michele got the diaper bag ready. Sophia grabbed his blanket and put it on him. Since he was lying on the play mat with a dangling musical lion, Sophia pulled the musical lion for him. (That was one of Sophia’s favorite toys as an infant.) Then she gave him the pacifier.

Way to go, Sophia! Sounds like you are ready to babysit at 23 months.

Alexander poolside on his surfboard mat

The day our community pool opens should be a holiday in our house. We look forward to it for months, literally. This year the big day was May 8, a little bit earlier than the year before. Sweet! Makes us feel that our ever-increasing home owner’s dues may be moderately justified. Ironically, we failed to make Opening Day this year. Nevertheless, we finally made it and were accompanied by 3/4ths of Team Gresham.

Sophia had a blast in the water. It was a little surprising only because the water was a little chilly early in the season. (I know that “chilly” is relative, but when compared to her typical bathwater, it was chilly.) We’ve since made two trips and Sophia has actually had no interest getting in the water. It might be a water temp thing, but we doubt it. She’s really just wanted to run all around the pool, stopping at each ladder to makes us just nervous enough. Michele finally got her to go back in after many attempts. Within 5 minutes, Michele and Sophia were having a great time, as usual. Mommy Michele always seems to know exactly what to do.

Alexander actually didn’t make it into the water on his first visit. He was napping some, and Daddy rewarded him with some tummy time. That’s love. We did dip his 3 month old feet in the water. He was not amused. As an aside, Alexander loves getting baths. It took Sophia a while to actually come around to liking them. Alexander pretty much loved them as soon as we were able to submerge him. Makes the experience better for everyone.

Quick aside – After we bathe Sophia at night, she climbs out and starts saying, “Ale’ander’s turn.” It’s so cute (to us.) The way I wrote it is my attempt to capture her phonetic pronunciation. Basically, his name without the “kz” sound of the “x” in Alexander.

More Pool Pix

Here are more random pictures from the first day at the pool.