Burying the Lead

It's been weeks and weeks since my last post.


Here's the quick recap.


Ending September (look the kids are still in shorts), Owen attended his first birthday party for a friend. His buddy Alex, who he's known since he went to day care at Kim's house, and who is now his classmate at Scribbles, turned five at the end of the month. They had a big party at the Children's Discovery Museum with face painting, games, and lots of running around.



Owen also made me this pizza (below), which was notable (at least for me) for the whole fish on the top.


... and the orange slice.

Below: Alex (center) and the other guests.

The next weekend we went back to Tanner's Orchard. It was easily 20 degrees cooler, but we had a wonderful time nonetheless.

Owen is becoming much more fearless when it comes to all physical play, including, doing his best beagle impression and climbing to the top of everything he could.

While Derring Do is his new middle name, he did take time to tend to his little sister. I love the hand holding picture below.

But Maya was nonetheless in a clingy mood that day, deciding she wouldn't go on the Cider Barrel ride with him like the last time.

Instead, she chose to mostly hang out with her mom and Auntie Pam.

Which was, as you'd imagine, a wonderful time ...

The big fun began for us this past Saturday when Daniel and Erica arrived with Baby Esme for a weekend visit.

After a brief hello and aclimation to the house, we got out for a walk.

Wanting her to feel like she was part of the family, we took Esme to the most important sightseeing stop in Normal -- the fire station.

There we ran into Firefighter Luke, a wonderful guy who always goes the extra mile with kids (good news as Luke's wife, 9 months pregnant, was also at the station that day).

Owen got the tour of a lifetime, capped by an impressive personal tour down to the basket on the ladder truck.

Even from the back, the view was pretty amazing!

While Owen's dreams were realized at the fire station, Maya's came true back at home.

She LOVED that little baby. Wherever Esme went, Maya followed. She brought her toys, constantly looked after her, and inserted herself onto the same lap where Esme was sitting.

See what I'm saying?

It was hard for little Maya to see Esme go on Monday morning. And questions of "Baby?" followed for most of the next couple days.

They're going to be good friends!