Gil and the diecast airplane

When you brother is asleep and you are not you crawl into the playroom and dig out his favorite diecast plane. Quite proud of yourself and aware that there is no one to snatch it back from you, you zoom it around through the air with the most adorable sounds. You taste it, you carry it and eventually you forget about it. You are every bit the second child and I love you so.

"I'm gonna fill his love tank!"

New York Trip

With Jeremy on his research block we had the flexibility to take a long weekend trip to NYC to visit the newest addition to our family, Finnick Maxwell! We all had so much fun. Here are the highlights.

Gillen was able to spend time with BOTH of his godparents!

Owen was thrilled to "swim" with his floaties on.

Spicy Indian food was bravely consumed by all.

Finn did lots of napping in lots of adorable (photo-worthy) positions.

I introduced Jeremy to the best pizza in the history of the universe to which he replied after eating, "Holy crap! I thought this would be like --- kinda good. This is the best pizza I've ever had."

YUP.

Downside? Owen threw an overtired tantrum one night and was thrashing around so bad in the travel crib that he gave himself a black eye-- that none of us noticed until morning.  First black eye? Check. 

(You can view all of the photos from our trip here)

Fourth of July

This was our first year venturing out to fireworks as a family on July 4th. Owen's best friend William finally moved back to Pittsburgh and since they moved out to the 'burbs we decided to enjoy a crowd-free fireworks show. 

 

These boys were so happy to be reunited. We never really told Owen that William moved away for the year since they made frequent enough trips back to play. But he knew he didn't get to play with his buddy as much as he wanted to and they were so happy to play together all day on the 4th! 

 Since it was "America's birthday party" Owen insisted we have cupcakes. So I had to run out to Target at the last minute and buy a box of Funfetti. First time ever making funfetti and it was a huge hit!

 This blurry photo is the only one of us together on our 5th wedding anniversary. Needless to say we are just happy to be together enjoying our family. I cannot say that the past five years have flown by, but I can say that they have taught me more about unconditional love and respect than I ever thought possible. I'm so proud of the life we've created together.

 (of note: Owen is obsessed with the american flag and went crazy over these shorts when he saw them in Kohls. Since he still wears 18-24 month shorts (skinny boy!) and they only had 2T they are constantly falling off of him. He could care less as long as he has his "United States Flag" shorts on!)

{you can hear Owen singing "Happy Birthday" to America, here.}

Weeknight at the POOL!

 {the cheering section}

Gillen Azar 10 months: HE TALKS!

And so it begins...

Roomate. OUR Roomate.

 Gil finally got the courage to climb out of the cosleeper (thankfully I was there). He was in it long past when Owen was and we knew our time was limited. With Gil still waking 3-4 times per night to nurse, we couldn't bring ourselves to put him in with Owen. Having one kid awake is one thing, but having two kids awake was simply unacceptable in my book. Obviously a third bedroom would have come in handy, but since we need to make do with what we have and he's been a pretty chill roommate for the past nine months, we figured we'd move him into bigger digs.

So miraculously, Jeremy squeezed (and I mean squeezed) the crib in next to my side of the bed. It touches the bed and the wall. Not an inch to spare.

He is thrilled.

 This is what I wake up to, usually in the middle of the night slapping me in the head because he wants to nurse.

We officially have a permanent-for-now roomate. It's a good thing he's adorable.