0 and 2.

Goose egg on forehead. Road rash next to her eye. Cuts on nose and lip. Two black eyes this morning. Saturday evening and Sunday evening. Neither on my watch.

Today I cooked my first ever whole pumpkin. It went into soup for dinner, and muffins for tomorrow.

Josie had her first sick day from school.

As overheard on the way back from the park. Celia hit her hand on a stone wall. “Oww Josie I hurt my hand. We have to play doctor when we get home.”

And I caught Ewan on camera with his new trick.

One of our nights on the cape I try to do a photoshoot with us on the beach in fairly coordinating outfits in yummy sunset light. This year was not our year. Many nights it was obviously foggy, other nights we were too tired to get dinner done early enough and get out there all dressed. But it came together one night in the second week and we ate, the sun was up and we headed to the west-facing beach, a rarity around here being the east coast and all.

We drove over and on the way the clouds came rolling in. So heavy that the sun was so hazy that it looked like the moon. We arrived and there was almost no sun, just a thick layer of gray. Oh well, I start to set up and hope it will clear a little. Celia has fallen asleep, yikes it’s only 6:30. I let her sleep more while I set up, maybe with a little sleep she’ll wake up happy. Ewan eventually is taken out of his car seat after waking up too and he’s had a major poopsplosion. Up the shirt, in the car seat, and of course all over the matching outfit he is supposed to wear. The only other outfit we have is bright green and white stripes, not exactly the colors I was looking for. But it’s windy and not warm, so a mostly naked baby would be a crying screaming baby. We wake up Celia and the hazy sun has now completely disappeared and there is no light at all, just a huge sky of gray. We try to take a few photos but Celia is non-cooperative to say the least having been woken up and the light stinks anyway.

Never did manage to get one of just the five of us that night. I just gave up. Celia got away with not wearing shoes a lot of this trip too. Then we went down onto the beach and played with kites and dug in the sand. And the sun didn’t really ever come out from the clouds again in the evening for us, but I got a few pictures locally another night, just not on the beach I’ll put up later.

For Ewan’s two month birthday me and the girls decided to make this zucchini cake. Not usually two words you see together but it turned out very yummy. Although I ignored her idea for the frosting and made traditional cream cheese frosting instead. It’s very thick but moist and the coconut gives it such a nice crunch. I left out the nuts, because I was too lazy/short on time to chop them up. No pictures, we ate it mostly already.

Ewan has turned into a smiley happy baby by the end of this month. He’s got great head control and wants to look around at his world and see what’s going on. The girls make great entertainment for him sitting in his seat so I can do chores or take care of my own basic needs. Some of his favorite time now is getting his diaper changed on the changing table. He can see us really well and spends a lot of time talking and smiling and laughing at whoever is doing the changing. It’s definitely some of his best one-on-one time in this busy household!

He loves to be carried in the wrap facing out to see the world until he’s tired, but if I face him in he’ll just sleep the entire time up to three hours. Very handy when I want to get something done and enforce a nap. These days his sleeping pattern is still all over the place but with Josie’s school getting out at just past 2 every day, we walk to pick her up and he falls asleep while being carried regularly. Otherwise we catch them as we go and he’s generally only awake for 3 hours at a time. At night he’s awake 3 times a night, or more. I’ve been mostly good about going to bed really early myself so that is helping.

He likes to play with his mat and bat at the toys and talk to them. He also loves to stand up on my lap and practice his strength. Just this week he learned to pick up his head completely while on his belly and look around. He’s also started to notice the cats and follow them. He also likes to look at our wall of art in the dining room.

He is willing to be put down frequently, but does love to be held and won’t sleep long without me holding him or sleeping next to him. Thankfully we do try to do a lot of walking and I carry him for those naps.

He went to the doc a few days before his official 2 month birthday and came in at 24 inches long and 11 lbs even. He’s gaining weight like crazy, seems like overnight he outgrows more clothes. He’s wearing 6 month clothes now and the stuff from the girls that has been washed and shrunk many times fits very well, the newer stuff has a tiny bit of room to grow. We’ll be on to the 9 month clothes in no time.

He likes a bath, until it’s time to get out and be wet and cold. He loves to nurse and won’t ever stop of his own accord, I always have to stop him. No wonder he grows so well! He loves his sisters and they’ve managed not to maim him yet despite some vigorous loving and touching.

Everyone has an opinion on who he looks like. And they all say different things, which is pretty funny. Here’s one of his new tricks, making funny faces and sticking out his tongue at us.

My impression? he looks more like Josie did as a baby than Celia. But of course they’ve all got the same parents, so it’s similar.

Ewan at about six weeks

When I asked Josie what she wanted to do this summer on vacation she said she wanted to get dunkin donuts and go to the beach really early. This came about because last year we did just that because the girls were getting up soooo early in the morning so I thought it might as well take advantage and go get some of that nice morning light. Plus coffee. Apparently she thinks of it now as tradition as that was what she repeatedly asked me to do. So one morning I got us up and out and we went. Problem was we barely had any clear skies. I literally took about 5 minutes of pictures with some sun and then the whole place was covered in clouds again. Which doesn’t make for such pretty beach shots (yay lightroom). Thankfully they decided to cooperate for those five minutes. They loved jumping off the ledge and making sand castle ‘cakes’. But without any shovel or buckets (I had my hands full enough with food and three kids) the morning was short lived and we came back to bring the rest of the household back to it’s normal loud level.

For the photography geeks. These were taken with my 35mm DX lens because I didn’t want to have to step back far from Ewan while the girls held him. But now on my full frame camera it produces a vignette (the black around the edges and corners) which I’m actually finding to be kinda cool and a neat vintage effect. Or perhaps I’m just too captivated with the instagram look like everyone else. Maybe Santa will bring me a 50mm that’s for full frame.

when will we go back to vacation? She really liked it apparently. Not hard to imagine why! One of our favorite things to do is have a picnic on the beach for dinner or just have an early dinner and play on the beach after dinner. Most nights there was wind, although not for a few of them oddly enough. Unfortunately on our last night Celia was flying my dad’s kite and let it go and it went into the power lines. This time we got a backup system so that won’t happen again!

Down on the cape we had some more shots with Ewan included on our windy morning on the beach. Josie took some time to make another picture this year for the lifeguards on the beach. She did one last year too. She’s always a fan of talking to life guards and the teenage girls are usually quite fond of little girl admirers! Ewan just wanted out of the wind.

Super cute feet on my 2 year old! The  toes look so perfect they look painted!

Celia tried  to convince us multiple times that she didn’t need sun block because she had the sand to cover her and then she’d proceed to bury her legs in the sand. Which made the sunblock application… oh so much fun. We got the hang of it by the end of the two weeks at least!

We had visited the local beach to do some art work in the morning. It was super-super windy, Ewan was not pleased. It was hard to even keep the blanket and the papers from flying away while they tried to do a little painting. At least my shoes provided some entertainment. When Celia realized we hadn’t brought a bucket and shovel she was DONE and thought it was time to go home. At least everyone but me and my mom got a little break from the kids.