We Heart Nana

We enjoyed a visit from Nana last week! She is one of our family's most favorite people and we were so excited that she came up from Texas.

Gretchen Ruth meets Ruth Helene:

Everyone can read a book, but not everyone can READ a book - ya know what I mean? Nana most certainly can READ a book.

Look at the pure joy on that face! Nana was so patient to read this book over and over and over . . . I think this picture was taken on read number 24 (not kidding).

She's also a very good story-teller. Who knows what kind of adventure they were on during this story at one of our favorite breakfast spots.

Aubyn and Evelynn came down to enjoy time with Nana as well!

Gretchen was so happy in Auntie Auby's lap

Testing out the jumper for the first time:

Nana added to Rooke's budding train collection with a Percy engine! He still wants to take it everywhere we go.

One last snuggle read before Nana has to leave (with Percy in hand!)

Thank you for coming, Nana. We love you!

Siblings at Three Months

I would be rich if I made money every time someone commented on how much our kids look alike.

Rooke - 3 months

Gretchen - 3 months

About to . . .

. . . roll over!

Speaking of Spring Break . . .

Saturday was our super fun family day of Spring Break, but the kids and I kept ourselves entertained the rest of the week as well!


Rooke enjoyed playing at the Seattle Children's Museum with his new girlfriend from church, Raven.

We spent one morning at Volunteer Park with Ryan.

My two most favorite guys:

Gretchen and I tend to stick close together on park outings!

Showing off his muscles!

I'm not sure how or why this happened, but Ryan and I are both looking forward to being able to cuddle a little easier once Rooke is in his Big Boy Bed (coming soon!)

That ginormous book has been worth all of the 79 pennies I paid for it Good Will. Oh, how my son loves Richard Scary's books. Kinda strange stories if you ask me. But Rooke enjoyed reading "Miss Honey's School Bus" to his sister.

I took the kids to the zoo one gloriously sunny morning. Gretchen slept the whole time, but Rooke and I enjoyed checking out all the animals. We turned the corner to see this peacock just hanging out.

I'm so grateful for the sunny days we are having and precious children to enjoy them with!

Spring Break Saturday

Ryan was on spring break this past week. While it didn't start with as much relaxing as we had hoped for, we could not have ended it with a better day! The weather was absolutely fantastic and we took full advantage. I cashed in on my "giving birth" gift from Ryan and spent the first couple hours of the day getting a massage at a beautiful spa! Then we headed out for a beautiful walk and picnic. We hung out with some friends later that afternoon and finished the evening with an "in house" date night. It was a truly wonderful Spring Break day.

Promises of Spring:

Rooke's favorite activity was throwing rocks and sticks into the stream that ran by the trail

The Payne women enjoying the sun

The Payne men enjoying the picnic food

We took the stroller just in case Rooke wasn't up for walking round-trip, but he did fantastic and only rode for a bit towards the end when we needed to pick up the pace a bit!

Tummy Time at 12 weeks

Rooke's new favorite activity to share with his sister is tummy time. He gets pretty excited when I announce it's tummy time, grabs a couple "wheels" for he and "Gretch" to play with, and plops himself on the blanket to wait for Baby Girl. It's one of my favorite ways that he demonstrates being a big brother.

Today Rooke selected Hiro for Gretchen to play with and he held on to James the Red Engine for his own tummy time entertainment. Thank you, thank you, Aunt Kaydonna, for these new trains. They have been a hit!

There are so many things I love about this video. These are two amazingly precious little people . . .

And just to prove that she really does like tummy time, look what Gretchen learned to do today, marking twelve weeks of life (I finally had my camera ready by the third time she did it):

Waking up

After coming home from the zoo, I removed the blanket that was covering Gretchen's car seat to find her showing off a new way of wearing her hat! Her ears might have been cold, but that left eye sure was toasty! So cozy and cuddly . . .

. . .but it was time to wake up, so off came the straps and blanket . . .

streeeetching . . .

. . . but not quite ready to wake up.

. . . taking the hat off got her moving a little bit . .

and now we're live!

After a wonderful weekend spent with these fantastic people that I get to call Family . . .

. . . KayeK and Big Daddy stuck around for some extra fun! We met some friends at a wonderland of fire truck fun one afternoon. Rooke couldn't even handle looking away from the 572 fire trucks in the play room long enough for a picture!

Talk about a committed grandparent - Rooke didn't want to dress up in the kid-sized firefighter gear, so my dad donned his own in hopes of encouraging Rooke to do the same. Rooke still didn't go for it, but he did enjoy sitting in the truck with Big Daddy and "Freddy the Fire Bear".

I often found myself wandering around the room aimlessly while my parents were here. They were such a huge help with the kids! Like this afternoon . . . Big Daddy read books with Rooke

while KayeK tried to get Gretchen to take a bottle. Gretchen:5 vs. Bottle:0. Sigh.

I had to work extra hard to keep things fun with Rooke after everyone was gone:

Uncle Konnor & Aunt Tana picked up these new wheels for Rooke on a walk to the thrift store. Thank you! They are still providing lots of entertainment.

The first of many snuggle reading sessions with my kids.

And who doesn't love making their own pizza for dinner? He didn't seem to mind that we used pumpkin puree in the sauce and chose tofu as our topping. Cheese covers a multitude of oddities, right?!

Baby Gretchen (or "Gretch" as Rooke likes to call her!) is getting stronger every day. She has great head control and loves to stiffen her legs to standing whenever you give her the chance. I think she looks like her brother quite a bit in this picture. We get comments all the time about how much they look alike.