Happy Times

One thing that always makes me smile is when I can capture our happy times in photos.

Sweet Shannon


John showing off his computer. This thing is pretty cool, I hooked it up to my laptop and customized it for John. The computer says things like "Hi John" and even sings a song to help John spell his name. It also sings some of John's favorite songs like the ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Row Row Row Your Boat. John loves this thing!








On a different day we had some fun outside on his four wheeler and "motorcycle". John likes wearing his sunglasses upside down and I think it's too cute to correct!




Quick cameo of Mommy and Shannon, I love having her snuggle in the Mobi wrap!


On another day I thought it would be fun to buy John some beans to play with. I had seen him enjoy pouring things from one container to another and thought this would work perfectly. It really did work great until John realized it was more fun to pour the beans all over the floor . . . and then we took a deep breath, cleaned everything up and put the beans away.








Another day, another sweet moment. I was sitting on the couch, probably checking my email, looked up and saw big brother John showing baby sister Shannon how her bouncy chair works. I really love watching them together. John is still a bit shy about playing with Shannon, but when he wants to he is super sweet and loves on her so nicely.




One fun afternoon, I thought it would be fun to try out some paint pens I bought in hopes of a fun craft. It worked out much better than I anticipated!










Remember what I told you about the beans and how they wound up all over the floor. Yeah, well, I forgot that John had a tendency to do things like that and left him alone in the room with a bin full of necklace beads. Then we played a fun game of clean-up. Deep breaths people, deep breaths get me through the day!


Another great thing we love doing is visiting friends. These two have been hanging out since before they were even born!




And then Shannon went and grew up too fast. When we first came home with Shannon she was still on the same schedule as when I was pregnant with her. Every night for the first week or so she was wide awake from 9pm to 2am, it was somewhat amazing that she kept the same schedule. Since then we've been working on getting her on some type of schedule and finally we realized she was ready to sleep in her crib in her own room. It worked out great and she's been sleeping well but not quite through the night yet. We're getting there though! She usually drinks a 4oz bottle at about 8 or 9, sleeps until 3am when she starts looking for her binki, up again around 4am looking for the binki or maybe a bottle and then some days we make it to 5am for her first bottle of the day. Sometimes she falls back asleep until 9 and other days she is up wanting to be held, rocked and loved on. I'm, of course, happy to do all of the above!




Then this Mama got all artsy fartsy feeling and did a photoshoot or two of her own for her baby girl.








Another outfit, another day, new leggings, lots of photos












So that's our life in photos recently. Here's a few other things I don't want to forget.

John waking up in the morning, coming in to get his "phone" (an old iPod set-up with fun kids games), going to the living room to turn on the TV and wait for Mommy to get up and ready.

Shannon's lip quiver when she's just kinda crying a little. It's simply adorable.

John picking up on all the things Jeff and I say like "that's not very nice!" when he's upset about something or "oh . . . I know" when he remembers something.

Shannon's sweet smiles and how she sometimes has to really work those face muscles to get the smile out. Every now and then the smile is followed quickly by a little frown, almost as if to say that smiling was hard work!

John asking for me to tell him secrets. That's when I whisper gibberish into his ear and always end it with lots and lots of tickles.

Shannon starting to reach out to grab toys. She keeps her hands in fists and kinda punches the air until she bats a toy.

On one of our many trips to the zoo we went to "our" feed the fish spot and it was like a scene from Lion King . . . zebras to the right, birds and ducks to the left, fish in the water jumping for food and monkeys swinging from the trees just feet in front of us. John, my little engineer, was not interested in any of it, he was instead intrigued with the fish food machine and how it worked. He would move the handle and watch as the quarter dissappeared and the food was released. He's always been like this and its cool to see that somethings never change!


Watching John and Shannon together. She looks for him when she hears his voice and he kisses her feet, her cheeks, or her hands. He talks to her in his sweet, high voice and says things like "ooohh baby Shannon, your eyes are open, baby Shannon, baby Shannon, love you baby Shannon."

We've had lots of happy times and look forward to many more as we count down the last days of school when Jeff will be home every day!