Rockin' Out

After second nap I sometimes like to pick out a few jams

any requests from the crowd?

Nathan says

Welcome to my play mat

it's tons of fun

Hey! I'm talkin' to you

lets get together and love one another

Six Months

Crawling soon to follow

Cloth Diapers help make a wide sitting platform

Chicken? What Chicken?

The beloved 'command station'

Kissy Face 2.0

Group Exercise

Manual Contemplation

The Evolution of 'tummy-time'

Frequently begins spirited and determined

But can tire you out

And then incite fits of rage!

But ultimately yield happiness and health

Cereal, the maiden voyage

Here's some scenes from Nathan's first trial of rice cereal. He apparently has been watching us closely because he turned his head and opened his mouth wide at first sight of the approaching spoon! So the initial transition to food was effortless... kind of like he'd be able and ready for weeks but was just waiting for us to offer.

Snow & Chocolate

We tried cross country skiing for the first time this winter and even managed to do it with Nathan in tow. We participated in an annual cross country ski tour of several shops and hotels in North Conway, NH where each stop offered a different chocolate treat. Our friends Heidi and Keith and their daughter Olivia (see baby below with brownie a la mode) were veterans of the affair and organized the trip. Mt Washington, the tallest peak in the northeastern U.S. can be seen posing with Dawn (white peak in top left).

In Motion

Nathan is officially mobile! He can now crawl, but only for an inch or two and backwards! He's also rolling over and eating cereal twice a day. Sleep has thankfully become more regular and he's falling asleep more independently.

Good times

Lunch, drinks, and snow with Dawn's mom in the Old Port

Fun with camera settings

Our friends Lonnie and Jen visited for a long weekend, did some skiing, and helped us explore the color-swap feature on our pocket camera.

Winter

Maine was blessed with record breaking amounts of snow this year. We found that with the aid of 6 yards of intentionally wrapped fabric, we could strap Nathan to our chest, zip the coat around him and play outdoors nearly the same as last year. Hear are some pics from a hike near our house.

Beach house for a weekend

Scenes from our weekend on the beach. A fried of ours is renting this house for a few months and offered it to us for a weekend. We jumped at the opportunity and had a marvelous time. We were in Hancock Maine, which is near Acadia National Park and our friends, Davin and Sarah. It snowed most of the day Saturday but it was windless and the flakes were fluffy and slow falling. We went for a walk near the house and enjoyed the house and cozy vantage point on the islands, ocean, and snow. 5 islands were visible from the house and were the only thing between our window and open ocean. Nathan found that he could scoot a bit along the floor if he layed on his bellow and pushed against mom's aptly positioned foot. Saturday night we went to a BBQ at a friends house that lived in walking distance from were we were staying. They are in process of building their own house (a husband and wife team and began with milling their own lumber!) We had seen the house a few months ago and were excited to get to see the progress and hear the stories and perspectives that come with the adventure of building your own house. Sunday we went for a longer than expected hike on one of Acadia's carriage roads (covered in 6in of new snow) around witch hole pond and had a delightful time. We had the whole place to ourselves, save two very nice people who helped us orient ourselves on our less then helpful map and realize that our chosen path was 5.5 miles instead of 3!