And now July!

Sebastian and Annika were invited to a birthday party of a friend from daycare. Although it was Sebastian's friends (2 brothers) who had the party, Annika ran around like a crazy kid in the indoor playground. Luckily they stopped momentarily to eat!




Annika continued to demonstrate that there is nothing in the house that she won't touch or try to eat.
From our clothing:


To power tools:


To shoes:



We all went to visit our newest friend - Maggie. She is a cute, sleepy, snuggly baby and she basically only made noise when she was hungry. Sebastian talked about playing with Keiller all day - and then we got there and he just wanted to play with all of Keiller's toys and Keiller wanted to play outside. Luckily they have an awesome back yard so Sebastian eventually turned his attention to the toy lawnmower and slide.

Here is Jimmy showing off just how little Maggie is:


Here is Maggie showing off how she spent out visit:


Keiller did a good job filling the pool and watering the grass around the pool.....


Annika did some yard work too and mowed the lawn:


And Sebastian spent quality time on the slide:


We also went over to Farmor and Grandpa Gary's house while they were on vacation to spend the day with Uncle Mikael and Kim. Sebastian and Annika had a good time with the train set:


And Jimmy bought them a larger kiddie pool for our yard. Water sprays out of the dragon's nose, but it was such a hard spray that Sebastian wanted us to turn it off. The pool was returned to the store after that.


And we had a really big playdate with our friends Bela, Kristina and their 3 kids. Their kids were SO sweet and well behaved. They all played with and watched out for Annika.

Annika tried very hard to take Natalia for a wagon ride:


Here are Natalia, Kalin and Bela Jr, while my kids get themselves in the background - haha:


And here are Kalin and Sebastian in the kids' cute animal towels (thanks to Bela Jr for sharing his with Sebastian!):

June - 2 months later....

So this whole "second kid" thing makes keeping up with the blog, among other things, very difficult. I realized it is now August and I have yet to post any pictures from June - so here goes:

Sebastian and Annika saw a lot of their grandparents in June - we had Father's Day, my birthday, Grandpa Gary's birthday and relatives from Sweden visiting.

At my parents' house Sebastian got to help cook and draw on the chalkboard, while Annika "walked" around with Grandma Wendy:






Sebastian got another cooking lesson from Farmor and he and Annika got to play in the kiddie pool that Farmor and Grandpa Gary set up:





We also went to one of Jimmy's favorite destinations - Ikea! We got there so early (thank you children who wake up at 5:30am.......) that we had breakfast instead of the usual lunch:

May memories

May started out with a Mother's Day/birthday celebration at Farmor and Grandpa Gary's house. It was Uncle Jerry's birthday and Mother's Day for 3 of us.

Here is Uncle Jerry with his cake:


And here is Sebastian having a piece of cake - technically this picture was taken before the picture above but don't tell anyone........

Here is Sebastian with Great Grandma Wanda who made the cake that Sebastian so enjoyed.

Annika wore her special onesie and was excited to get her photo taken:



Jimmy and I did something unusual and had a night out in Princeton with our former Bloomberg coworkers:





The kids also had fun "playing" with Mommy in her bed. I'm lucky to have survived!



Annika can now climb up any object and pull/push herself into a standing position. She also started to walk while holding on to furniture or another person's legs/hands.

Here she is trying to stand up in the bathroom using Sebastian's step stool.




And here she is doing a self portrait photo shoot with Mommy:




We all got to see our friends Brian, Erin and Vaughn for Vaughn's second birthday party down the shore. Nemo (from the movie) came to the party (you can see him in the background) and Sebastian quickly "borrowed" Vaughn's stuffed animal for the afternoon. It was a gorgeous day, we had a pool at the party and the ocean in the background.




On the way back from Vaughn's party we stopped in Belmar to visit the Diglio, Healy, Goodwin families. Lil, Keiller and Sebastian had fun playing together in little pool, and after we got them dried off we all went to the park.


Lil loved the swings:



Sebastian liked the swings too (he insisted on closing his eyes - he's sleeping - in every photo...) and also tried out the slides.



I think Keiller did every activity and he was actually a hard man to pin down for a photo!



Annika found the whole thing exhausting and took a nap.


The next day (yes, this was quite a weekend) we went to Mandi and Bob's annual Memorial Day BBQ.



Sebastian had a little bit of burger but managed to save room for some cookies and an ice pop.

zoo time!

Aunt Jessica came to NJ for a visit and we all went to the Turtleback Zoo. It was a nice day and Sebastian had fun.

Aunt Jessica took him on the train ride while Jimmy and I sat with Annika:


Aunt Jessica also took Sebastian into the petting zoo, where he got to touch the sheep and goats and feed them some treats from his hand:


We saw lots of interesting animals, including this owl:


And Sebastian liked running around and posing for pictures:


He liked climbing on the animal statues around the zoo:

April fun

The kids were really on the go in April.

We had some nice weather so Sebastian got to play outside and attempt to ride his bike (with helmet of course). He doesn't quite understand the pedals, or steering for that matter, but he does like to sit on the bike:

Annika really wants to be mobile but right now that just means rolling around the floor and scooting backwards. She keeps ending up wedged under furniture though so we have to keep an eye on her. Here she is under the table in Sebastian's room:

My cousin Gregory came over for a visit. He is researching the family's genealogy and we got to take a look at his impressive work.

And Annika showed us her musical talent while playing the drums at daycare.

We also had a lot of holidays in April. We went to a Passover seder where the kids were mostly well behaved. Sebastian played with cars on the floor and wanted to wear a "hat" like all of the other men, and Annika sat in her highchair and threw her spoon on the floor for about an hour straight.

We also had 2 Easters. On Saturday we went to Farmor and Grandpa Gary's house. Here is Sebastian opening his egg that the Easter Bunny hid for him:

And playing outside with Uncle Mikael, Kim and Aunt Whitney. The Easter Bunny brought him bubbles so he had to try them out.


Annika hung out with Grandpa Gary inside the house. She loves staring at him and I think she wants to eat his shiny watch too. For the record, she had a matching blue onesie under her blue dress, but she had a diaper emergency so we had to change into a pink onesie. It looked better before, but we have no photos of it......

She did not appreciate the Easter Bunny though. She was completely fine until she saw this pink guy:

The kids had Easter bastets waiting for them when they woke up at home on Easter Sunday:

Then we went to visit Grandma Wendy and Papa Joe, where they also got something from the Easter Bunny. Annike enjoyed playing with the basket more than anything inside of it:


And Sebastian went on an Easter egg hunt with his basket:

He also helped Grandma Wendy decorate the Easter Bunny cake:

As you can see, he had a very good time with the decorations. The cake tasted better than it looked:

Annika changed into her Easter outfit and was very excited to pose for the camera:

She had so much fun that this is how she ended up after her evening bottle at the dinner table: