Back to blogging

Sorry this has taken us forever. Contrary to what many of you might be thinking, we really do still exist and we have cute kids that we love and even photograph. We have not been on top of the uploading situation. For some reason it just hasn't been convenient enough for us (which is why we are looking into this new gadget).

Anyway, we love our little girl. We call her Mollie or Mollie June or sometimes her emerging nicknames "Mol" and "Junie." She pretty much sleeps all day, unless it is the 2-4 am period. And she also eats and passes all sorts of gas. And looks cute.

The adoration is pretty much nonstop, sometimes crossing over into roughhousing. But no major emergencies yet. Involving Mollie anyway - this morning Asher fell down the entire flight of stairs. He literally started at the top and rolled three times on his way down. The good news is that they are carpeted; the bad news is that the hardwood floor at the bottom did not make a very nice landing pad for his head. He cried for a while, but for all the hype, falling down the stairs is not as bad of a toddler accident as you would think.

The big brothers always want to hold their baby sis. Bennett is pretty good at keeping her head level and Asher starts out okay but forgets or loses interest. And everyone is into posing for the camera these days. Maybe we should try to get them into a commercial or something...

Also of interest this week was Bennett's fifth birthday. He was really excited about it this year. We could tell he really needed to feel special. Maybe that's inevitable with a newborn around. He beamed like this through the entire singing of happy birthday and almost lit his shirt on fire by trying to blow out the candles on the far side of the cake first. He chose one of our family favorites (thanks to Jen Smith for the recipe), which we call "El uber-chocolat."


Sorry again for being so slow about posting. We are really going to try to be better about it, starting today.

In the meantime...

As a token of our genuine regret that we have been so absent from the internet, we are adding this post to fill in the gaps since we last put anything on here. It won't be the same level of minutiae you might be accustomed to, but it's at least a photographic history of the last year or so.

Kim's brother Chris has emerged as an excellent photographer. And since we make it a practice of systematically exploiting the talents of those close to us (you better be careful), we are always asking him to take pictures of our kids. This is behind a shack in some orchards in Mesa.

We joke about the very distinct personalities of our two kids. The hairstyles say it all. Bennett is our Yale-bound intellectual and Asher is really likable and fun and everyone wants him around.

This is as close as we have come in recent months to a family portrait. We call it a success if everyone ends up in the same frame at the time the photo is taken.

Of course by the time we were finished celebrating our successful family photo, it was outdated. We were thrilled to welcome Mollie June on January 11th. Our first daughter, largest baby (9 pounds) and only family member to be born in Wisconsin, we are all pretty much in love. She is really sweet.

This picture catches the excitement that Bennett feels about the new addition to the family. Stepping into the oldest child role with characteristic grace, he has welcomed little Mollie to the world and taken her under her wing. He smiles a lot. Asher, on the other hand, is not so sure. He loves his sister too, but sometimes gets competitive.

This is the quintessential naked baby in the incubator shot. Odd complexion, bruised face, eyes shut tight. But still beautiful to mom and dad.