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We had a great time up in Mystic for Father’s Day. One of Colin’s favorite aspects of the Aquarium was this guy—the beluga whale.

Colin and Hannah had doctor’s appointments today. Hannah had her 4 month well baby and Colin had a follow up on his shoulder. Both had weight and height measurements taken.

Colin is 36 lbs and 3 ft 2 in tall. He is still at the 95% of the growth charts, but at least he is now actually on them as opposed to way above them.

Hannah is 14 lbs 3 oz and almost 24 inches long. She is almost perfectly average. Above average beauty though…

While we were looking at Hannah’s growth charts we decided to check out where Colin was at this same time. Well, at his 2 month appointment he weight 16 lbs!!! By 6 months he was over 20 lbs. Whew, I remember he was big but wow. I like having an average sized baby.

Hannah is currently napping in her brand new crib. It takes up a bit more room than the co sleeper (which is being returned because Joe’s sister is having a baby in the next few weeks) but it can still fit next to my bed for easy nursing at night and goes to 35 pounds.

Water is on at the local parks so once Hannah wakes up we are off to get soaking wet in the sprinklers.

I was going through the pictures to send some to my mom when I came across these previously unseen (or unnoticed) gem. I particularly like the way Colin is caressing his sister so sweetly on the head… LOL

This: I had a thought last night. When Colin was first learning to talk he called all berries boobahdees. Eventually he only associated that term with blueberries and finally he used the term boobahdee fuffin quite frequently. It was definitely the cutest thing he said consistently during the earlier stages of talking. I love it so much that I often use it as an endearment for both him and Hannah. So, I’m curious, would I be a bad mom if I specifically taught Hannah to say this instead of blueberry muffin when she first starts learning? I guess she will come out with something adorable of her own.

That: Matt will kill me, but I had to tell this story. He was sitting in the oversized chair with his feet up and Hannah sort of beneath him asleep on the bouncy. He farted, quite loudly, and startled the crap out of Hannah. So bad I don’t think she would have gotten back to sleep even if I hadn’t taken her to get her diaper changed and get ready for actual bed time. It was REALLY funny, poor girl being awoken by her daddy’s gas.

Finally, some pictures. The kiddos helped me cook lasagna last night. It was tasty even with the veggies I put in. I do recommend adding a layer of butternut squash to your next lasagna.

We took a trip to the Philadelphia metro area this past weekend. The biggest reason we went was for the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ. We also stopped by Philly and saw some of the historic sites. The Liberty Bell line was too long to go inside but you can see it just fine via a couple windows right next to it. We need to go back some other time and do Philadelphia a bit more justice, the aquarium was definitely the high light of the weekend. Colin and Daddy also went swimming at the hotel, but we didn’t bring the camera along for that one.

While at the Aquarium we saw two big hippos, a bunch of penguins and seals and fish and turtles. The best part was the Shark Den. They had a tunnel you walked through where the sharks swam over your head and around you. Very cool and a bit trippy. The glass was such that when the shark was swimming over you it almost felt like he was swimming right towards you. You can actually swim with these sharks if you so desire.

It’s a very interactive aquarium as well. We didn’t do most of the touching exhibits, but we did go to Touch-A-Shark! Colin’s arms were a bit short to actually reach the sharks, he was also a bit scared. He did touch the water the sharks were swimming in. Perhaps next time he will actually touch the sharks, which feel a bit like the rays Matt and I swam with on our cruise.

Happy Easter to everyone. We had fun at the Hoboken Ellsworth’s this year. We met the Easter Bunny, dyed Easter Eggs and went hunting for them after the Easter Bunny hid them.

The Easter bunny visited Colin’s daycare. Hannah got to come along, although she slept through it all. This picture shows the initial reaction of Colin when the Easter Bunny walked in. He wasn’t quite sure what to think. That is Hannah in the black thing sitting on the table.

Colin stayed mostly next to me, except for one venture out to sit next to his favorite teacher Miss Karla.

After several songs Colin finally warmed up and stood up to sing and dance a bit. His buddy Brandon stood up and was dancing around from the moment the bunny walked in, he’s not a shy boy (that’s him in the striped shirt and khakis).

The closest Colin did get was when the bunny handed him a balloon bunny. His favorite part was his snake Easter basket all full of goodies.

Sunday morning Colin hunted around in his diaper for the Easter eggs mommy and daddy had dyed the night before and the Easter bunny hid this morning. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and then going to the park for some serious chalk drawing.

We went to Pennsylvania today. First up: Crayons. Next: Ditches. Colin loved the modeling clay that mommy turned into a shark (that he could subsequently color)… and the Canal Museum was a lot of fun for him—he even got to play with a boat.

The Canal Museum also had a big train section downstairs (the Coal part). I love this photo. You’d think from the look on Colin’s face that he had just smacked Hannah on the head and that’s why his smile is as big as Hannah’s frown is pitiful.

One of the coolest things about the birth of Hannah was introducing her to her proud big brother. The morning after Hannah was born at 6:22pm on January 23rd, I went home to pick up Colin and his grandmother to come and visit Debra and the new baby in the hospital where the initial introductions were made…

Colin was (and is) so good with her. Very gentle. But, as you can see below, his trip to the hospital was—for him—much more about eating mom’s leftover breakfast foods (yay! toast!) (and the food was surprisingly good in the private room we were able to finagle) and playing with mom’s hospital-grade Craftmatic adjustable bed than it was about meeting his brand new sister.

Colin did like to spend little bits of time here and there contemplating his sister, so we put a chair next to her crib so he could spend time looking at his own pace. He also got brave and touched her on the first day, in fact on mom’s blog (err, ahem, “Scrapbook”) she briefly tells about my favorite story about the introduction—how Colin said “tickle, tickle, tickle” when touching her tiny little baby feet. Wish we had a picture (or better yet video!) of that.