Before baby brother

Before the baby was born I was lucky enough to take 2 weeks off to spend with Ace before his whole little world changed with the new addition. We had a fabulous time at the zoo, the park, just hanging out painting. Here's the artist at work...

Such studious concentration. Apparently the tongue thing is a family trait from Dad. I guess it helps with concentration...
And a final signature...
We had a great time as a little family of 3, getting ready for our soon to be expansion.

Grandma and Grandpa's house

We made a trip to Grandma and Grandpa Dourgarian's house. Cousin Jonathan was there and we had a great time playing together in the playhouse. We ate pretend rock pizza and hot dogs and Grandma came out to play with us. She even got into the house with us-she really gets into it! What a great day!

Sunriver

We tok our now annual trip to Sunriver with our good friends and their fabulous kids. We have such a great time hanging out with them. I even braved the pool with my big 8 month preggo belly! Ace loved the pool time...

But he really loved spending time with the other two boys Michael and Brandon. They are going to be some mischief makers in the next couple of years! Luckily so far the time was mostly spent wrestling with Dads, hitting balls around in the yard, and watching movies.

Can't wait until next year with another little boy to add to the mix!

4th of July

Our neighborhood has an annual 4th of July parade. Ace had a great time decorating his wagon and loved that he got to ride around with his chauffeur pulling him through the parade. Never mind his chauffeur is his 8 month pregnant mom!

letter obsession

Andrew has always been interested in letters and numbers. But they have become more of an obsession recently. He has become a youtube addict-but at least he is only watching videos of counting and the alphabet. He watches all different languages (french, japanese, farsi...). Because of the videos he is now counting to 100! And is making letter out of everything he can find. He has these green Mardi Gras beads Aunt Barbara gave him in Texas that are now used primarily to make letters.
He makes letters out of his carrots, his toy cars, bubbles in the bath, even our shoes on the stairs. It doesn't seem quite normal for a 3 year old, but it certainly could be worse!!

Andrew's surgery

In March Andrew had his tonsils and adenoids out and ear tubes placed. His tonsils were so huge they were causing sleep apnea and fluid in his ears which was affecting his hearing. Although it was all very scary for us parents, he has recovered amazingly well. He was such a sport. Here are the presurgery videos...

Before Versed...a calming medicine given to children orally so they don't get scared about leaving the parents. It was a great pediatric hospital and he was asleep before they did anything painful or too scary)




After Versed...(I call it happy juice, you'll see why)



It was all worth it! Andrew now sleeps totally silent-no snoring, no gulping for air, no apnea. And his hearing is noticeably different. It was a rough 10 days but it was worth it.

Our trip to Houston

Early this year we visited our family again in Houston. They were going through some rough times but were amazing hosts. We loved every minute!

Talitha and Andrew had a great time on the airplane, although the mommies were a bit exhausted.

Ace and T had so much fun together. They played at the park...
they played superstar in fabulous glasses during our visit to Galveston...

they played together at the mall in Talitha's dress up hats...

And watched movies together at Aunt Barbara's house...There were plenty of dance parties. Andrew is all boy and no rhythm, but Talitha's got some moves!



We also went to a birthday party for Dominic. Andrew and Talitha loved this video game. I think we need one at home to tire these two out.