Jane and Peter

 Jane is 18 months now and shaping up to be a pretty great big sister.  She loves to kneel down next to Peter and give him kisses.  It melts my heart when she uses her baby voice to speak gibberish to him.  She often lays out a blanket or a sleeper and then holds out her hands for me to give her Peter.  She usually has to settle for one of her dolls or stuffed animals which she wraps up and rocks back and forth. She's a sweetheart.

Peter at 2 months:

 I feel like everything I know about Peter is a comparison to Jane.  He hardly ever blows out.  With Jane I almost always had a couple outfits soaking in oxyclean at any given time.  He goes to bed MUCH easier than Jane did, but we're still struggling for some consistency at this point.  His longest stretch at night has been 8 hours (which was AWESOME).  He did that twice. Usually we get a six or seven hour stretch followed by a couple of two or three hour stretches.  I have no complaints.  He's just starting to get really smiley, especially with Chris.   It's a lot of fun.
We had double doctors appointments for these two today and shots for both of them.  Jane was tougher than ever and VERY pleased with her lollipop.  Peter handled it like a baby.  They are both napping hard right now.
Peter weighed in at 11lbs 6 oz and 22 inches long.  Jane is holding steady at 20 lbs and she's 31 inches long.  They're both pretty small for their age.

A visit from Grandma

Theresa came out to visit for the weekend, and although we didn't do too much, we took a lot of pictures of the kiddos.  Here are a whole bunch of pictures from our weekend.

Jane LOVED having grandma's undivided attention.  She pulled her around everywhere.  Also, I've been kind of obsessed with this red sweater jacket we got from Dave and Caitlin.  I make her wear it all the time and she doesn't object... mostly because she knows it means we're going outside, but also probably because she has good taste.

Jane has been in full exploring mode these days.  We go out for a little walk almost every day now the weather is getting nicer and she almost always comes back with a few rocks in hand.  Then when Chris comes home, she grabs her boots and jacket and leads him to the door so he can take her outside too.  I guess it's been a long winter for her.

 

 It turns out, Peter is ticklish.  Jane never gave us much of a reaction and is only selectively ticklish now, so it's a fun change.

 

These ones kind of crack me up.  First of all, Peter's high waisted grandpa pants are funny in and of themselves, but Jane's trying to console her little brother (who is going to be her same size in no time) is just as endearing.  She's a really good big sister.

 Look how tan he is!  He has a pretty great skin tone, especially when I hold him.

Jane at 17 months

Jane is just a joy these days.  She is acting more and more like a little kid and it constantly takes us by surprise how much she understands.  She eats pretty well with a spoon now, folds her arms for prayers (sometimes), loves to twirl and shoot you with her finger (not usually at the same time).  She makes a pretty good gun sound effect.  She finally mastered the "all done" sign and patiently taps me on the shoulder and makes the sign to let me know she's finished.  It's a wonderful improvement to her old method of throwing the rest of her food on the floor.  She's picked up a lot more actions to the songs we sing and the other day we caught her singing gibberish to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider.  Fun stuff.

 

Since Peter's birth, Jane has been a lot more interested in babies.  She still mostly prefers her stuffed animals over her dolls, but now she brings them to me so I can help her wrap them up in blankets or put diapers on them.  Then she takes them and lays them in the car seat or baby swing or cradle.  It's pretty sweet.

She's pretty interested in Peter still (a little too interested sometimes).  She managed to grab hold of Peter's blanket while he was sleeping on the couch and pull him off onto the floor.  It was pretty scary, but Peter was fine.  The couch incident aside, she's actually pretty sweet with him, gently stroking his head, kissing him goodnight and fist bumping him all day long.  

 

 

Peter's Blessing

Peter was blessed on February 2nd.  My dad, brother Scott, brother-in-law Paul, and Bishop David Nelson surrounded him as Chris gave the blessing.  Chris said he was calmly looking around the whole time.  Chris gave a beautiful blessing  while I tried to control Jane and my emotions at the same time.  I feel so blessed to have him in our family.  He just fits right in already.

 

 

Trying to get a good family picture just got a whole lot trickier.

My handsome men!

We were so grateful to have so many family members come.  Thank you everyone.  And thank you to the Katzoffs and Paxsons for attending as well.  We love you!