Sneak Peek

Our sweet friend Annie offered to take some pictures of Piper for us (and somehow I talked her into taking pics of all of us!). She did a great job and I love them all! Here is just a sneak peek of a few...including one of my favorites that I can definitely use to blackmail Piper later in life, if necessary :)

Big & Bigger

I can't believe it, but Piper is already 8 weeks old, and Justus is almost 2 & 1/2...seriously, where does the time go?? They are both getting SO BIG! At her last check up about a week ago, Piper already weighed 11 lbs, 14 oz and was 23.5" long! (I mean, this girl weighed 5 lbs, 15 oz when she was born) She is getting chubby and we LOVE it :)As for Justus, I have no idea how idea how tall he is or how much he weighs, but he seems older, smarter, bigger every day. He talks non-stop. He doesn't walk anywhere - he is ALWAYS running. He is so fun to watch and listen to. I am sure our lives would be pretty boring without him!
Piper is still easy. Loves to eat. Loves sleep. Always smiling... :)
Best friends already. I'm sure they will never fight. Ha ha.
Does anyone else notice the orange hair?? Grammie? Nancy? Talk to me.
We found Justus in bed like this the other night. I have no clue how he works himself into these positions but he always finds a way to make sleep more interesting!
Love these little cuties :)

GiGi has a girl!

Much to her surprise, Trav's mom, "GiGi", now has a little girl in her life!! She came to meet Piper a few weeks ago. And, as always, she came with suitcases full of goodies for all of us! Here's her first meeting with Piper... Justus was having fun diving into the piles of clothes GiGi brought for him. (Oh, and the entire suitcase behind them is filled with cute, girly clothes for Piper - thanks, Aunt Leah!)
Getting some grandson cuddles :)
Gearing up to leave the house (a rare occurrence these days!). Having GiGi here gave us a good excuse to get dressed (well, most days) and go out!
Having lunch at one of our favorite spots in Edinburgh, The Elephant House.
We went to the National Museum of Scotland (in Edinburgh), and Justus was having fun in their kids area dressing up as a Roman soldier (or whatever he was supposed to be!).
GiGi even got to experience "Panda Club" with Justus. She was a good sport and participated in pretty much everything, earning herself a hand stamp from the instructor, Miss Jackie :)
It was so much fun to have her here and our time went by way too fast. Can't wait to come home this summer!

The North Sea

Okay well I know it's been ridiculously long since I posted anything here but I have a good excuse!! I promise to put up pictures of Piper soon, but I had to share these cute ones of Justus. Trav took him to the beach (his most requested location) a few weeks ago. Justus does not seem to care one bit that it is literally freezing outside (well, maybe 40 degrees) and that the water in the North Sea is ice cold all year round, not to mention in the middle of winter! He loves to splash and play in the water and, of course, to throw big rocks into the big water. Here he is loving life...More to come... :)

Big Brother!

As I'm sure you have heard by now, Justus's little sister, Piper Eden, was born two weeks early on December 23, 2010 @ 2:12am!! Weighing in at a whopping 5lbs, 15oz and measuring 19in long, she is a little peanut (or 'our little nut' as we have already started calling her!). So Justus is now officially a big brother and so far he is handling it like a little champ :)Here he is at the hospital meeting her for the first time on December 24. He got on the bed and wanted to hold her right away.
Leaning in for a smooch... he held her for a few minutes and that was about all his two-year-old attention span could handle!! I think he got bored after he realized she doesn't do much except lay there and he was more interested in pushing the buttons on my bed!
But back at home he kept sneaking in some brother/sister cuddles :)
He loves to nuzzle up to her which is super cute (and it makes his head seem HUGE next to her tiny little noggin!!).
We snuck her in his bed last night when he was sleeping...then we showed him this picture this morning! He didn't seem to mind that he unknowingly shared his bed with his little sis.
He was excited this morning that she had her eyes open (a rare occurrence since she sleeps about 98% of the time!). Not that I'm complaining... :)
More belly snuggles. Too cute! Can't wait to watch them grow up together!!

Looks Like Christmas

Well it definitely feels like Christmas here. We have our tree up and decorated. We make apple cider like every other day! And there is still plenty of snow. I still can't believe that Christmas is less than three weeks away...crazy. Justus helped us decorate the tree this year. When I asked him what we should decorate it with he said "stars and moons" so we made some of our own decorations and he put those on too!Playing with the decorations, just like dad :)
A big hug for mom (prompted by dad, but who cares??). Gotta love it!
Justus and I made cinnamon sugar cookies (the cookie cutters he chose were bats and stars!) and, of course, hot apple cider.Just when I thought some of the snow was starting to melt, it started snowing again last night and today. Our backyard is seriously a winter wonderland!

More Snow!

Well it just keeps snowing over here and doesn't show any signs of stopping any time soon! It is beautiful and Justus loves it, but we are kind of trapped! Our car doesn't drive well in snowy conditions and the roads near our house are getting worse and worse. But...like I said, Jutsus loves it so we might as well enjoy it while we can :) I love seeing him all bundled up (please notice my ghetto attempt at a mini-snowman in the background...I obviously have no idea what I'm doing since most of my winters were spent in Phoenix thinking that 60 degrees is freezing!).
Some of our neighbors were sledding (or "sledging" as they call it here) down the little hill in front of our house and they let Justus try it. Here he is - first time on a sled!
We got in a long snowball fight with our neighbor, Peter, and his friend (and by "we" I mainly mean Travis!). Here's Justus ready to pelt Peter!
Warming up inside with gloves and more hot apple 'spider' :)
The front of our house (kudos to Trav on the nice shoveling job!).
Our street - Dura View.
Trav's friend Kevin took this picture of the Swilcan Bridge at the Old Course, and I loved it and wanted to share. Like I said, it is beautiful, but let's just hope it doesn't get any worse!