photo dump--november

I am way behind on all the posts I want to blog so here are some recent and somewhat random pictures from the past month along with some of my thoughts.

Leaves. Lots of leaves. It's funny, the trees were so beautiful this summer when we bought the house.

Lauren is a sassy little lady. It is surprisingly difficult to find fancy clothes in newborn size.

Will is really into helping these days and firmly believes that throwing cheese on to whatever food we are having is his job. He gets really disappointed when I don't pull out a bag of shredded cheese at dinnertime.

On our Utah trip (post forthcoming) Lauren got to meet most of her aunts and uncles. Here she is hanging out with (future) Uncle Andrew. And today just happens to be his birthday. Happy Birthday!

At the end of our trip we got to hang out with the Nielsons, Gessells and Salazars for a few hours. Will was a bit of a grump, luckily Sadie was patient with him.

This picture of a picture is from the photobooth at Emily 's wedding reception. It sure was fun to hang out with my mom and sistas.

Just Will, drumming on his drum, wearing the hat he got from his cousin "Deedee."

little drummer boy

On Thanksgiving morning Will and Anthony got up and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (and graciously let me sleep in!). We thought Will would love the floats, but he loved the marching bands best. He kept saying he wanted more music and would start drumming on his drum whenever bands came on. It must be in his genes.


We have this old formula canister that he uses as a drum and he got it out during the parade so he could drum along. He got really into the drumming. My favorite is when he is all hunched over giving it his all. Occasionally he stops to roll up his shirt sleeves. He was very serious about all of it and wasn't excited about me wanting to take his picture.

warming up

Considering they live in the same house, Will and Lauren lead fairly separate lives. She goes back to sleep around the time he wakes up. He gets into mischief and has unreasonable demands when she wakes up and I'm feeding her. Oh wait, the mischief and unreasonable demands happen when she's asleep too.

They respect each other's space, but are content doing their own thing.

However, the past few days Will has shown a serious increase in interest in his baby sis. When he gets up in the morning he likes to check on Lauren in her pack and play. The other morning while I was drying my hair I look over and see this:

Contact not initiated by mom!

And today their interactions really escalated. Will, an avid lover of the pacifier, helps a sister out when she has trouble keeping hers in. Then he takes it, but gives it back again.

Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful friendship/siblinghood.

Lauren Jean

We've been getting to know Miss Lauren Jean for almost 3 weeks, so I figure it's about time to blog about her.


Lauren is pretty awesome. So far she is proving to be an "easier" baby than her big bro. And by that I mostly mean she is less fussy. (Hopefully I didn't jinx things by writing that.) She's generally content. Most of her demands are reasonable, she likes to eat regularly and hates sitting in a messy diaper for too long. She is patient with her big bro when he is a bit too aggressive with her, and she's patient with her mom when she is a bit too slow to meet her needs.


Now don't let me give you the idea that she a quiet pushover. She has a very powerful set of lungs and she knows how to use them. Once she decides she is ready to eat, she is ready. Especially in the middle of the night.

We really love having this little lady in our family. We knew she had officially "arrived" as member of our little crew when we heard Will include her name in his morning ramblings over the baby monitor.

Public Service Announcement

In order to meet the needs of the people, this post needed to be written:

Apparently I am not a clear written communicator, especially when I rush my writing. Often times my head is moving too fast and my typing hands cannot keep up. My lack of skill has led to some confusion about the name of our daughter. Her name is Lauren Jean John. My previous post has confused many about the pronunciation of her name, and re-reading the post I guess I can see why. You pronounce the first syllable of her name with a long o sound, like in the word "ore".

The previous post has confused others and led them to think we are pronouncing her name differently, with the first syllable using the vowel sound from the word "loose". This could not be farther from the truth, but it is a mistake due to my own poor writing.

Sorry.