Rutherford Turns Three!

Our little boy is three years old! Here's the video!

Smiling and Being Cute...

MC is such a smiley little girl! She likes to hang out in her activity gym and she's even started batting at some of the toys. I just love watching her. She seems so excited when she connects! The video is kinda long. but I just love looking at her pretty face. Ned and I make cute babies.

Fourth of July

 Fourth of July was super fun! Rutherford, Ned and I made HOMEMADE CARAMEL CORN. I know. Who knew you could do that? I was browsing online a few weeks ago and came across the recipe, which looked surprisingly easy. So we tried it. First we made the popcorn, which R loves to do:

Then you mix a bunch of delicious yummy stuff together - butter, brown sugar, molasses, etc., and pour it over your popcorn. Then just bake for a while and you're done! Oh and we added Spanish peanuts, too, so the finished product tastes just like really fresh Cracker Jack. BOMB! We packaged it up and I made cute labels for the bags and we brought them to my Uncle Jeff's annual Fourth of July shindig.

 

 Cooling off. It's basically impossible to not eat it every time you come into the kitchen.

 MC in her ridiculously adorable Fourth of July romper. Oh - and the headband. She's killing me!

 Always rad stuff to play with at Jeff's house! Madison and R played with water squirters, too. He loved it!

 R's homemade caramel corn was a hit! And he looked super cute in his patriotic Mickey gear.

Rutherford's Third Birthday!

Our little boy is three years old! We're so proud of our incredible man, such a sweet, smart and happy kiddo. Ned and I are so blessed to be his parents :)  Here's some highlights form the day, his party is next Saturday so I'll post some more pics after that!

We tied balloons to his bed so when he woke up the celebration started - he thought that was pretty cool :)

Finding his presents by his chair in the kitchen!

 I found a cool alligator "crown" for him to wear for breakfast :)

 Awesome dinosaur placemat from his Uncle Keith and Aunt Ellen. He can already say "pachycephalosaurus."

 A questionnaire to fill out each year, fun to see the answers change!

 Ned took the morning off and we took R to the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park - lots of planes and rockets to see!

 Afterwards we headed to Babycakes in Hillcrest for lunch - and R got to pick out a cupcake for himself! (Chocolate/vanilla swirl with blue vanilla icing and sprinkles.)

 It was a wonderful day with our dude! Happy Birthday Rutherford!

I'm almost done with his yearly "movie," just waiting to get some pics from his party next week.

Mary-Charlotte Nap Wakeup

Just her being cute.

Mary-Charlotte and Us

Mary-Charlotte is such a sweet little baby girl! We are so blessed to have her as an addition to our family. So far some things have been easier (I am an expert swaddler and I don't freak out about random baby rashes), but scheduling is HARD. We're so strict with R's schedule and it's worked well for us, but a newborn is so chaotic. I am looking forward to getting her on a more structured routine. In the meantime, just trying to roll with it :)

 She constantly has to wear mittens, she is a little face scratcher.Also, this face is FIERCE.

 Rutherford is adapting to having her around. Today is his birthday and I printed out a fun little questionnaire for him. One of the questions was "Who is your best friend?" He thought about it for a second and said: "Mary-Charlotte." I mean, awwwwwws.

 She has just started smiling and cooing a little bit. I love getting to this point with babies, all your hard work starts to pay off when they realize Mama and Papa and big brother are around and loving on them!

I am working hard to get consistent one-on-one time (or Mama/Papa/R) time with Rutherford. Last Friday we were able to take him on a trolley ride (we called it "the red train") all the way down to Seaport Village. They have a pretty good kite store there and we borrowed a kite and took it flying! Afterwards, R picked out a cool shark kite for himself.