Uncles and Aunts: Part Three

On Rosemary's birthday, we drove to Connecticut for a celebratory lunch with Uncle Frank, Aunt Ellen, Uncle Bill, and Aunt Patt.

I can never resist these puffed-out-cheek photographs.

Rosemary Is Two

Rosemary celebrated her birthday a week early with the Kellys in California.

We had a great time out there -- more pictures coming next week.

Conversation from yesterday morning:

Me: Rosemary, tomorrow is your birthday. You'll be two years old. 

Rosemary: Two years? 

Silas: It means I'll still be older than you!  

Rosemary talks a lot these days, and we frequently hear her little voice echoing key phrases from whatever we just said.  She has also gone, quite recently, from being ambivalent about books to demanding that certain books be read repeatedly (thank goodness!).

Last year in a birthday portrait we described Rosemary as cheerful, outgoing, and tenacious -- those adjectives still stand.

Rosemary approaches life with a gusto that has gained her some playground notoriety.  She has no fear and sees no reason why she can't climb a tall ladder or scoot down the big-kid slide.

Rosemary is also tougher than ever, as you may recall from this video.

She recently took a hard stumble head-first into the edge of a piece of furniture, which resulted in five stitches (see below).  That did not prevent her, once the bleeding stopped, from running around the pediatric emergency room playing with toys, laughing, and chatting up the other kids.  She has told us many times now that she wants to play at the ER again.

Rosemary is crazy about Silas and imitates his every move.  Although there are scuffles, sharing failures, and shouting matches, Silas is equally crazy about her.  Silas says his biggest problem with kindergarten is that he misses Rosemary so much during the day.

Silas continues to shower Rosemary with nicknames.  "Sosa" is the most common, but there are infinite variations: Rosa, Zosa, Wosa, Wuzza, Soss-ma-lie.  (Meredith and I stick with Rosemary and Rosie.)

It's been another great year.

Uncle and Aunt: Part Two

We were in Annapolis earlier this month for Aden's birthday.

We also had a chance to see Aden's baseball team win an 11-6 victory, in which Aden got two hits and two runs.

More pictures of our trip to see Uncle Blair and Aunt Lisa are here.

I love how Rosemary is always looking at the older kids in these group pictures.

Happy Mother's Day

We have a new mom right outside our window! (And for the full set of hawk pictures, see here.)

Our own Mother's Day was scuttled by kids with strep throat, though Silas and Rosemary still managed to present Meredith with a homemade card and breakfast in bed.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Uncle and Aunt: Part One

Uncle Pete and Aunt Theresa visited New York last weekend.

Theresa is pregnant and due in August, so this is their last trip to New York for a while.  The kids are excited for a new cousin.

Among other things, we took Pete and Theresa to the Empire State Building -- long an object of fascination for Silas.

More pictures of the trip to the Empire State Building are here.

Showing Uncle Pete one of our high-rotation toys:  the marble run.