Discovering our New Normal

Lately we've been in transition to discovering our new normal.  Transitions are always hard and this one is no exception.  Baby J is fitting in quite nicely here but we have had to change our routines up a bit.  Luckily, he's a really chill baby so he mostly just lays around and stares at things.  He's very curious about his world already.

I've tried to provide L with the activities he's used to.  The other day I mixed shaving cream and food coloring and had a great time watching L paint on his easel with a new medium.

This activity resulted in more shaving cream play, one of L's all time favorites.

Today I cooked a bunch of noodles and added food coloring and oil.  We took them outside and played in the front yard with them for a while.  L had a blast.  He threw them on his hair, squished them in his toes and ended up sitting in the middle of the bin looking around the neighborhood and eating a ton of noodles haha.  He cracked me up.

Afterward we were both covered in oil so I gave L a new hairdo and snapped a quick picture.

Rice Play and Food Coloring

About a week ago I pulled out our colored rice bin for L to play with and he had a ball.  I'm not sure if he's played with the rice since we moved here, I know it has been quite a while for him.  He really got into the scooping, pouring and dumping aspect of this activity haha.

A few days ago I pulled out the food coloring thinking that L would enjoy coloring the sand in his sandbox with it.  He really liked that for about a minute and then he got to work on coloring himself :).

He has had green hands for the past few days haha.  Then he moved on to the pool, where he had already dumped his paint from painting on the easel earlier...we had very colorful water :).

Baby J and L seem to be getting along great.  L wants to hold baby J on his lap several times a day and is always happy to kiss J.  He's a great big brother.

The Cutest Scientist

Yesterday we were home alone all day while my husband studied so I decided to set up a fun little experiment for L.  He has always enjoyed mixing baking soda and vinegar and watching the reaction so I thought we'd do that again.  He had a blast with this activity.  Plenty of scooping and pouring involved too.  :)

He really enjoyed watching the mixture bubble and fizz.

After it would no longer fizz when he scooped baking soda into the jars he had a fun time dumping everything and playing in the slime that was left in the bottom of the jars.  It made a bit of a mess but it was tons of fun!

Baby J was content to nap in the stroller during this activity.  :)

And Then We Were Four

Baby J is fitting right into this family.  Going from a family of 3 to a family of 4 has been a really easy adjustment so far.  J mostly just hangs out and watches his older brother play.  He sleeps a lot too of course.

Today I set up a book for baby J to look at and L took the opportunity to show J all of the choo choo's in the book.  Baby J really seemed to love the attention from his big brother, and it was really an adorable moment.  L is such a blessing and a wonderful big brother.

After L read the book to J, I set up the book so that J could look at it for as long as he liked.  He laid there forever staring at that book!  He was fascinated with it.

I'm so in love with both of my boys!  My heart is so full and I had no idea that I could ever be this happy or feel this much love.  They are both so incredibly wonderful.  :)

On a side note, L is seriously obsessed with Thomas and Friends.  My husband and I are starting to catch on to the obsession; we'd actually like to find Thomas t-shirts for the two of us.  We watch one episode of Thomas and Friends a day, and then the rest of the day is spent listening to our Thomas CD, reading Thomas books, and playing with Thomas and Friends trains.  Oh and L insists on wearing "choo choo" clothes, so his wardrobe has been kind of limited lately.  :P

Photos

So I've bought some photo editing software and taken a few cute pics of baby J.  More should be following. I've had a lot of fun playing around with this.