Sutton's New Skill!

Sutton rides his bike without training wheels! Woohoo!

He's been able to do it for short distances for awhile if we help him start and stop. But this week, Adam taught him how to start and stop on his own, as well as turn around. Just another milestone in the growing up process!

I was at work while they were practicing, so Adam sent me this video:

And then when I got home, he showed me his new skills and I took a few photos because...that's what I do. :)

The New Routine

School has started, hooray! Everyone is happy about it. Mostly. We're sad that Daddy is gone all day again now, but it gives us some structure to our days which is always a good thing with little kids. Since Sutton is in afternoon preschool, we still have our mornings at home together which makes the transition easier, I think.

This year, I am trying to go it alone with no daycare. Each year since Sutton was born, I have dwindled my daycare down and down to now finally nothing. That first year, Sutton went to a babysitter two full days per week. Last year, Ren hung out with Grandma Janet for a couple of hours two mornings a week.

Our days are pretty similar during the week. Ren gets me up around 6:30, and he and I have some alone time and eat breakfast together. Daddy usually gets up around 7, gets ready, and heads to work. I wake Sutton up around 7:45 and we quickly get dressed and get him some breakfast before heading to the Y to work out. Both boys love the Y. Sutton always has, Ren took some convincing, but now he's excited to play when we get there.

After the Y, we come home and Ren goes down for his morning nap. We are at a transition point with naps, so I have started waking him up after an hour so that he will still take a good afternoon nap. During that hour that he naps, Sutton brushes his teeth, makes his bed, reads a couple of books, and then has play/iPad/free time. I use that time to work - answer emails, edit photos, etc.

When Ren is up, it's lunch time! We eat together and then get Sutton ready for school. We leave the house around 11:50am to pick up one of Sutton's classmates and I drive them to school and drop them off.

Then Ren and I head out for errands, a little park time, or sometimes straight back home. I have really been enjoying this one-on-one time with my little guy. Sometimes I try to sneak in some work while he is still awake. Then this happens:

He's just so helpful. :) Don't mind the messy desk. With taking care of two kids full time while running a business, my housework and cleaning are last priority unfortunately!

I have had a lot of babies born in the last few weeks, so I've been having newborn sessions in the studio after Sutton is at school and having either Grandma Janet or a babysitter come hang out with Ren during that time.

Ren goes down for his afternoon nap around 2pm and sleeps anywhere from an hour to 2.5 hours. If I'm not shooting in the studio, I use this time to get a lot of my editing done in my office. Sutton gets picked up by another mom and taken to Adam's school, which is just 2 blocks away from Sutton's school. Sutton hangs out with Daddy for about 20 minutes until Daddy's school is out, then they come home together. Sutton usually falls asleep on the way home.

When Ren wakes up, we have chill time watching a movie or having a snack or playing outside until Daddy and Sutton get home. If it's a free evening, we make dinner and take a walk or a bike ride, or play outside. A lot of times I have shoots though, so the boys have time with Daddy while I work.

Ren goes to bed at 8 and Sutton around 9 and then I get more work in til 11 or midnight usually. Then off to bed and do it all again the next day.

I wanted to document a normal day for us at this point in our life, and I had a few photos to go along with it. So there you go. We will end with a little video of Ren trying to put Diesel's ThunderShirt on him. :)

Ren {18 Months}

Ren is 18 months old!! Totally can't believe my baby is a year and a half. Not quite sure how that happened.

Do you see how handsome this kid is? Holy cow. I can't get over it. Even with that tiny amount of hair and forehead that's on the large side. This kid couldn't be cuter.

We decided to do a quick shoot in our front yard before lunch today and it went about as you would expect a photo shoot with an 18-month-old boy and his 5-year-old brother to go.

Please also note that the above photo is completely out of focus. I'm telling you, photographing my own kids is not my forte...except then Ren flashes me this amazingness:

Goodness. My heart. And then there's the toothy grin.

Brothers are the best. Seriously. Before I had kids, I always thought that two kids - one boy and one girl - was the perfect family. Boy, was I wrong. Brothers are the way to go.

This is his "I'm done with this let me get down and get that thing out of my face" face.

Then there's this other cute boy named Sutton who always has to have at least a moment of his own in the spotlight.

But that wasn't good enough because he needed me to include his whole body in the picture. Fine.

And then the inevitable "Mommy! Look how cute we are!"

The baby 18-month-old ran off with my lens cap but then returned and tried very earnestly to put it back on. At least he knows where it goes!

I wanted a change of scenery, so over to the wet grass we went. But he wouldn't stand still so I made him sit and his life was over.

Ren is very good at mood changes though, as you can tell:

I tried my best to get a smiling closeup, but these were as good as it got. I love each of these expressions, as I see them all of the time.

I probably shouldn't compare so much, but how can I resist. Sutton on the left at 18 months, and Ren on the right. I think they look SO different, but then if I look just at their noses, they look the same. Or just their eyes look the same.

At 18 months, Ren:

*Sleeps 8pm to 6:30am approximately. He's pretty excited about going to bed. He naps twice a day still. Around 9 or 9:30am til 10:30 or 11. Then around 2-4pm. One day this week, he decided to skip his afternoon nap (on a day I had SO much to do, of course), and then by 6:30pm he was an out of control sobbing mess. That was a long evening.

*He wears size 3 diapers still and 12-18 month clothes. He still seems pretty skinny but he might be getting a little belly.

*He has just recently started refusing some foods. Like scrambled eggs. Weird. Up until this point, he has been such a good eater and he still is for the most part, but he's starting to get a tiny opinion about things.

*He has started mimicking sounds a lot more than he used to. If I ever exclaim "Whoa!" or "Wow!"...I can be sure that I will have a little parrot repeating me. He usually just makes the vowel sounds, so Whoa = O and Wow = Ow. We went to the park this week and I kept asking him to say Park. He would just say the K sound.

*His list of actual words is still short: dada (for everyone in our house), Diesel, uh oh, cracker, tractor, truck, (cracker, tractor, and truck all sound the same so you gotta use context clues), meow (ee-ow ee-ow ee-ow). I definitely feel like he is trying to say a lot more, it's just still completely unintelligible. It sounded like he said "dada work" one day this week when Sutton asked me where Daddy was. But it was probably a fluke.

*He is becoming more aware of things. He watches and tries to figure things out. We talk to him through his video monitor like a walkie talkie. Today I talked to him on it on my way to his bedroom to get him when he woke up from his nap. When I went in his room, he kept pointing to the end of the monitor that's in his room and saying something. I think he was trying to tell me that he just heard me there.

*If he wants to be held, he toddles up to you and hugs your legs and buries his face between your knees.

*He has started kissing and it is freaking adorable. If you ask for a kiss, he will usually give you one (open-mouthed, of course). But with me, and only me, he will randomly come up to me and kiss me out of the blue. I melt. He gets right up in your face and maintains eye contact until he's too close that you can't anymore. We get lots of kisses that have a pacifier in them too. :) Recently if we ask him "Can you say 'I love you'?" he will kiss or hug us. We didn't even teach him that! I think he just already knows what love is.

Today, he emptied Adam's wallet and we got onto him for it. 2 minutes later, he was emptying mine! Like, he went and opened the cabinet where my purse is, got my wallet out, and started taking stuff out. I got mad at him and made him leave and was very stern. He came back over and kissed me and I obviously couldn't help but laugh. Little stinker.

*He is still so entertained by the outdoors. He doesn't need toys or entertainment. He will just wander around and find sticks and rocks and puddles and be so happy.

*The boy LOVES books. He is always bringing us books to read to him. His attention span has gotten better but it still doesn't last throughout a whole book (unless it's a short baby one). We've started taking books along in the car because that is one thing that will keep him happy for a longer time.

*He has started obeying simple commands like "Put that back" and "Throw that away" and "Can I have that?"

*He loves to give us our shoes when it's time to go somewhere. Even if we already have shoes on, he will bring us whatever pair he sees on the ground and insist we take them.

*He walks around with his hands sticking straight out behind him. Like he's trying to go fast or something.

*Stats from our doctor's appointment on August 24:
     -Weighs 23.88 pounds {45.35 percentile}
     -32.25 inches tall {42.8 percentile}

We love you, sweet Ren Adler! Happy 18 months!

Sutton's 1st Day of Pre-K 2015

Today is Sutton's first day of his last year of Pre-K. I could've written a whole post on this but the short version is: since Sutton turned 5 this summer, we could've sent him to Kindergarten but we decided to give him a leg up and keep him in preschool for one more year. So he will have done a total of 3 years of preschool and will go to Kindergarten next year.

All you gotta say is "Say monkey sauce!" to get a smile out of this guy. He wanted to show off his new Spiderman backpack:

He asked if he could do a cool picture:

And then he wanted to do one more that was "kinda the same:"

This is what I get when I asks for a smile these days:

We took this same photo of Sutton and Ren last year...you can see that one by clicking here.

Sutton loves being a big brother. It's the sweetest thing.

And when we got to school, they walked up together (for all of 5 seconds before Ren just wanted me to hold him):

Lately...

Nothing much going on besides transitioning from summer break to our school schedule. Adam started back yesterday and Sutton will start on Wednesday. He's excited! I wanted to post a few photos...these are my I Carry Your Heart images from this summer. They show a little peek into our lives right now.

Sutton loves riding his bike and his 4-wheeler he got for his birthday up and down our street. He has recently learned to ride his bike without training wheels but he is still practicing and needs Daddy by his side when he does it.

Ren is getting more and more fun for Sutton to play with. They love wrestling and Sutton is always giving Ren rides on the 4-wheelers.

Ren is an explorer. He loves to walk around, he loves to wander off on his own. Being outside is his favorite.

He also loves to eat. Everything. And a ton of it.

Sutton relaxes on the couch to watch a movie with a cup of goldfish nearly every day. Usually in his underwear. :) With a bandaid somewhere on his leg. Diesel is never far away when food is involved.

Sutton sleeps with his door partway open and a night light. So I discovered this perfect photo op one night on my way to bed.

Sometimes I'll go in and lay with Sutton for awhile because he's just so sweet when he's sleeping. But he will not wake up for anything. I have plugged his nose, tickled him, shook him...nothing. He is a very sound sleeper.

Our playground in the backyard gets tons of use. Swinging is a favorite past time for both boys. Sutton has just learned to swing himself without needing to be pushed.

It's been really hot here. Lots of 100-degree days. We got a little kiddie pool and the boys have so much fun in it. Ren is obsessed with drinking water - bath water and pool water are the faves. Sutton is obsessed with making silly faces whenever a camera is around.

Some iPad time. Just keeping it real, folks. That face though. Love. And clutching his "phone" (an old phone we found that has two games on it for him to play). Classic Sutton, right here.

I also took a couple videos of Ren this morning. Nothing epic, but stuff I will love to look back on when he's older. :)