Good Day for the Park

If you ask Russell, any day is a good day for the park :)

Today we had some fun with Becca and Samantha. In addition to being a good friend, Becca is a skilled photographer, so it was nice to "talk shop" with her...and to photograph her sweet little model.

Russell cared nothing for Sam, but he did like her flower:

Becca said something exciting! (apparently :))



Towards the end, he was in no mood for photos with Mommy, but this one turned out okay:

Check out my new blog for a couple photos of sleeping Sam. Becca and I are thinking about going into business together (she already takes professional photos) - you can find some of her photos here!

Read Carefully

I was so pumped about getting out of the house today. Russell has been sick since Friday (he's better now), and we have been holed up in the house for that long. We were both starting to get stir-crazy.

So I checked my email and saw that there was a strawberry picking and picnic lunch scheduled for our Sunday school class. (FOGgers, you can probably guess where this is going.) It was about a 35-minute drive from our house, but it worked with Russell's nap schedule, and like I said, I was stir-crazy.

Well, we got ALL the way to the house where the picnic was. Russell hates riding in the car, so I was relieved to get there (and sad to see those little tear-stained cheeks.) I went around to the backyard - no one there. So I rang the doorbell. I was so confused when a grandfather-type answered the door; I thought I had the wrong house.

Nope. Right house - wrong day. (Grandfather-type = my friend's father, watching her toddler while she worked.)

So we packed up and headed back...screaming and crying All. The. Way.

I feel like a bad mommy today :(

When we got home, we had our own little backyard picnic with Russell's favorite foods - fruit and yogurt - and his favorite activities - car-watching and pulling grass out of the ground.

I hope that made up for it a little.

sweet baby feet:

crawling (!) to the grass:

Lesson learned: read your email carefully!

Does this count as crawling?

Finally!

Russell is now actually moving forward - consistently!

He's not moving fast or going all over the place yet, but he will take a few moves (crawls? steps?) to get somewhere close by.

(And of course, it's impossible to get this on video, because he stops to laugh at the camera every time.)

I'm counting it :)

Family Fun

What better way to celebrate Mother's Day than with both of Russell's grandmothers? (And grandfathers, too.) It was lovely to have my parents, Jason's parents, and Jon and Kelly over on Saturday.

Even though poor baby is sick - has a very bad cold and is just grouchy - we were able to get a few smiles out of him.

A few shots of Russell with PawPaw, Kacki and Daddy:







My parents in our backyard:



I'm so glad to be this boy's mommy!



Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there - it may be a cliche, but motherhood is "the hardest job you'll ever love."

Photo Shoot Day :)

I took Russell outside and sat him in a field - he was happy as a clam! And so was I, because I got some fun pictures :)

I did have to promise Jason that I'll do an NC State photo shoot at some point...

This really shows how intense he can be - and also his love of grass :)



Sweet boy

Words

Russell has always been very vocal (to put it politely). Lately, though, he has started to channel some of his screaming/babbling into trying to make words! It has been really fun to hear different things he tries to say.

Examples include:

~"Hey, bud." (This was the cutest thing ever - Jason said "Hey, bud" to Russell, and Russell said it back.)
~"Done." (I guess I say this a lot, like "all done" with food, or "we're all done vacuuming.")
~"Dad." (Instead of Dada, Russell calls Jason "dad," which usually comes out more like "dat.")

Also, Russell has figured out how to sit up from a lying down position, and how to lay down from a sitting position. It is very strange to go in to get him from sleeping to find him sitting up in his crib!

Beautiful Day

Today was beautiful, and a great day to enjoy some family time at the park. We're so glad that it's been nice outside lately, as Russell loves the outdoors in any form or fashion.

He didn't even mind me taking 100 (literally) pictures of him :)

Is this not the sweetest face you've ever seen?





Posing on a park bench:



Oh, and he loves swinging now. He hated it the first couple times, but has really taken to it now, as you can see:





We are thankful to have this nice park pretty close to us!