Construction

This boy is obsessed with pretty much anything with wheels, but particularly construction vehicles.

 When Wesley was a few days old, we checked out a DVD from the library that showed how roads are built, and Talmage LOVED it. I told Sam he ought to watch it with Talmage one Friday night when he got home a little early, so he curled up with the boys while I made these. (Side note: Talmage went through a week or two where he was always finding goofy hats and wearing them...hence the hat in the picture below.)

You can imagine his excitement when one morning some tractors came and started tearing up the road in front of our house to put in a new one! This happened on one of the days Sam worked from home so he could help with Talmage after Wesley was born, so he and Talmage watched the tractors work for a very long time. Talmage was entranced for the few days they worked on the road.

We lead such an exciting life through the eyes of a 2-year old. :)

Talmage's 2nd Birthday

Talmage's birthday was on October 11th and my mom was flying in on the 24th, so we thought it would be fun to wait until she was with us to celebrate his birthday. He is SO into tractors right now, so I decided to put together this simple tractor cake. It's certainly nothing fancy, but with a 4 day old baby, that was as good as it was going to get. At least it tasted good!

And Talmage was thrilled with it. I think the cake tractors have been his very favorite birthday gift.

He was more interested in playing with the tractors than actually eating the cake...

I was filming Talmage opening his presents, my mom was holding Wesley, and Sam was helping Talmage/playing with his presents with him. Between the three of us, I'm afraid this is the only picture I got of him opening his gifts. He was very excited about them, though!

And here's the birthday boy with most of his presents! Some came seperately and didn't make it into the picture, but he loves them all! Thanks to our generous friends and family members who thought of him.


After some training, he has learned to say, "Two" when we ask how old he is...it took a while to drop the "Al'ost Twooo" habit. :)

Brothers

The last 3 1/2 weeks have definitely been an adjustment for Talmage, but overall I think he's done pretty well. He has plenty of moments when he beats up on Wesley for seemingly no reason, but when my patience is wearing thin I reflect on the sweet moments we have experienced with the two of them.

Wesley was just 5 days old here. I lay him on a blanket, and Talmage rushed over to lay beside him and show him the wonders of tractors.

He also started using Wesley as a road to drive his tractors on...

And then he insisted on touching his forehead to his. I didn't realize it would turn into head-banging about 5 seconds after this picture was taken.

This was Halloween, so Wesley was 9 days old, sitting contentedly on the couch...

and along came his adoring (and adored) big brother.

The binky is where we probably run into the most trouble. Wesley is overly tolerant to all of Talmage's attention. Even when the attention gets a bit rough and Wesley ends up with a scratch or something, he seldom even makes a peep about it. But he doesn't like it when Talmage tries to shove his binky into his mouth. I love Talmage's open mouth.

Here he is reading him a book--actually, showing him the pages with trucks on them. That boy is obsessed with anything with wheels!

Wesley was sleeping and started stirring and fussing a little bit. Talmage instantly ran over, stuck his hand through the bars of his cradle, and began stroking his cheek to soothe him. It actually worked, and Wesley fell asleep again! It was a very tender sight.

This was a particularly rough day. Talmage seemed to be beating up on Wesley every time I turned around and both boys were having a hard time. I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed when Talmage came up to Wesley and started giving him loving attention.

First came kisses (he's always giving him kisses!).

And then Talmage went and got the Nursery manual...

...opened it up, and started showing Wesley pictures of Jesus and saying in the most adorable little baby voice, "See? Jesus came! See? He's happy. See? See? Jesus came!" It was so sweet and a huge comfort to their stressed mom.

Talmage always has to be involved in what Wesley is doing.

We have a little mirror hanging on the backseat of the car so I can look in the rearview mirror and see if Wesley is okay. About 9 times out of 10 when we're in the car this is what I see:

Talmage insists on holding Wesley's hand wherever we drive. Thankfully he has learned pretty well to not turn his hand-holding into an iron-grip squeeze like he used to do.

I'm starting a tradition where I do a video interview of our kids on each of their birthdays, asking them about current favorites and other relevant things. I did Talmage's a bit late, so Wesley was already a week or two old, and when I asked him who his best friend was he replied, "Wesley." :) He still answers that way when I ask him.

Talmage has also had to learn that he can't give Wesley big-people food. I have caught him several times trying to feed Wesley. Once he walked oh-so-carefully across the kitchen with a spoonful of yogurt to share with him, so delighted that he was sharing. I have had to explain numerous times that Wesley can only have "baby-milk." It is sweet to see him trying to share with him regardless.

One thing I've found helps immensely is to make sure I spend some time each day doing something 100% focused on Talmage. Even if it is just reading stories while Wesley sits in his bouncy seat so I can cuddle up with Talmage or playing with play-dough while Wesley naps, I think it helps Talmage feel validated and loved so he doesn't get jealous. We still have plenty of stressful moments, but the good days outnumber the bad, thankfully. I am so anxious to see the relationship between these two develop as they grow. I hope Talmage can always reply "Wesley" when I ask who his best friend is!

First Bath

I had to document Wesley's first real bath at just one week old! He lost his cord really fast. I apologize for the poor lighting in all the pictures, but I was doing things one-handed and didn't bother to change the settings.

We love this little man and his cute little grumpy face! I have about 7,000 pictures waiting to be posted, but I am having trouble putting Wesley down--this cuddly newborn stage disappears WAY too fast and I am relishing it. :)

Changing Expressions

Both of our boys have had incredibly expressive faces. I love watching the changing faces of newborns as they strive to gain control over their muscles. Here are a few pictures I snapped over the course of a minute or two. He was just 5 days old and has already changed so much!

Happy Halloween!

I'm afraid we were really lame with Halloween. Since Wesley was only 6 days old, we didn't go to the ward Trunk-or-Treat, and we figured since Talmage didn't have preconceived notions about trick-or-treating we could get out of that too. Our road doesn't have sidewalks, either, so we didn't even get any trick-or-treaters!

However, someone gave us this costume a while back and we thought we would at least let Talmage wear it in the spirit of Halloween. Oh, and we ate pumpkin bread with dinner...

He was so excited the "coshume" had gloves. He is obsessed with gloves right now!

Cute dinosaur. Bad lighting. Sorry.

He was so excited about wearing his costume and insisted on wearing it through Family Home Evening.

Whether we're lame or not, he sure had fun!

For Mom

This post is for my mom. She wanted a picture of the boys together to put on her grandkid display board, so we took a few for her. We loved having "Grammy" here last week! She spoiled us all. We love you!

This may be my favorite...those facial expressions are priceless!

Wesley wasn't fussing during this little photo shoot, despite the looks on his face. We joke about his little grumpy face. :)