Wheeeee! Love at first slide

We took advantage of the awesome warm weather today and sloshed over to the playground. The second it came into sight, Jacob started bouncing excitedly in his seat and tried to stand up out of his tricycle. He had his eyes on the slide and didn't give up until Eric reluctantly used his sleeve to absorb most of the rain that had fallen on it an hour earlier. Jacob happily dried the rest of it with his fleecy butt, going up and down over and over again, until we grew tired and sloshed home again.

He remembered the slide from our visit to the playground a couple of weeks ago when we had those two 40ish degree days. It was love at first slide, and now he's hooked. These pics are from that first visit (there'd be a lot of slushy snow on the ground if they were from today).

Snowman snow!

Finally, some snowman-building snow!! This is Hannah's first ever snowman with the requisite three parts (the bottom third was more noticeable before Eric shoveled the walk).

Usually our snowmen end up resembling Jabba the Hutt like this little blob guy we made a couple weeks ago.

We do not get the award for tallest snowman in the 'hood though--that goes to someone on Elm Street near The Wine Source who built a snowman that is taller than the street signs (and may in fact have a street sign as its skeleton). It's pretty awe inspiring.

While we're on the subject of snow, have two more snow day pics courtesy of Eric. And yes, that is Jacob, our little boy, rockin' those sweet pink pajamas. He has two pair of "boy" pajamas and about eight that were his sister's, and since I can't be bothered with dressing him most days, he has spent a great deal of this winter snuggly warm and pretty in pink pajamas.  "How did pink get ghettoized as a girls' color," anyway??!Jacob is going to lead the movement to take it back as a gender neutral color, him and the little boy around the corner who wears his sister's hand-me-down violet snow pants. Love these Hampden kids!

Baby brother baby doll

Hannah has turned her print-splosion fashion flair to her brother.  Every day she begs to dress him, but most days I refuse to take him out of his pajamas--what's the point?? Today she dressed him in fleece camo pants, a striped shirt, and a sweater vest.

And yes, he's standing up by himself. He can do that for a few seconds at a time now.

Belated birthday snuggles with grammy

We started a ritual last year for my mom's birthday where instead of buying her a present, we offer up ourselves for slave labor. Ha! Just kidding. But seriously, there is a crazy amount of stuff she needs done around her house, and we don't have as much time to help as we would like, so we figure planning to help once a year is better than not helping at all. This year we accomplished very little...I fell asleep and Eric "installed" a TV antenna by propping it up on her bathroom window...In his defense, that's the only place it got a signal. I felt a little guilty about our lack of productivity, but mom assured me that she was more than happy with her present and spent the whole next day watching This Old House and Antiques Roadshow and other "really neat" shows on MPT, a station not available on Netflix or Hulu. It's nothing I would have written home about, but hey, whatever floats your boat!

When Jacob started getting tired and fussy, grammy rocked him and sang, and when grammy sang, Hannah crawled up on the arm of the chair and got in on the snuggle.

Catching up on Jacob

Little-big baby boy will be 10 months old tomorrow!! He stands on his own for a few seconds at a time, climbs the kitchen ladder, insists on getting down from high-up places face first superman style (in spite of my suggestions that he go feet first), and eats far more than his sister. He is still incredibly happy and smiley, but he's also developing a temper and displaying it by throwing himself into a back bend and straightening his arms so that it's impossible to hold him. It's pretty funny. My favorite thing he does is this funny semi-swim type thing in the bathtub. He lays on his belly and scootches back and forth and pumps up and down and laughs hysterically. It's so funny looking that no matter how often he does it, we laugh with him.

His growth has started to slow down a bit. At his 9-month checkup a couple weeks ago he weighed 21 pounds 11 ounces which brings him down to the 77th percentile for weight. He's still in the 98th percentile for length at 30 1/2 inches, which means that, like his sister, he's becoming a bean pole--tall and thin.

I can't find any pictures of Eric from when he was 10 months, but here's one of me. He's got his momma's gapped teeth.

In lieu of an Eric baby pic, here's one of the boys trekking around on this balmy 40-degree day. It's crazy how all it takes is a few weeks of of 12-degree temperatures to make you love and appreciate 40 is beautiful.