Another party weekend!

September 29th was Max's official graduation party! We were thrilled to celebrate his accomplishment, and always love getting together with the family. I'm just going to include this hodgepodge of pictures...they are pretty self explanatory :)

Danielle is trying to do everything that the babies do...this doesn't last for very long, but it's fun to watch!

This is O thinking that she's playing football with the boys. To her that means skipping around them messing up all the plays :). They were super sweet about letting her have the ball every once in a while, and never got mad at her antics. What great cousins!

This is what happens when I give up the camera for a few minutes :)

 On the 30th (yes we do busy weekends in this family...) we headed out to Silverton to celebrate Julie and Dale Bystrom's anniversary. It was really fun to chat and eat with the Wellman side of the family.

O got to hang out with Ruby, who is two years older. Ruby was adorable, bossing Olivia around the entire time, which is great for this girl who is always in charge.

Cousin Norah getting her first drink :) OK is was water, but I love that you can see the brewery label on the glass.

Great Grandpa getting her nose :)

Hallie bragging about her 'skills' at getting babies to sleep. I'll admit that she has two things I will never have to help with that :).

Still September...

The last week in September was the first week that I was really feeling up to getting out. Recovery from Carter was pretty hard, but I was anxious to have a family outing just to play. We headed to the park, and had a great time. 

This isn't a great picture...of anybody...but that afternoon we had packed a great picnic and we were so excited to have a great time. Unfortunately the bees felt otherwise, so we packed it back up and headed to the car. We still had fun...just a little squished and crazy.

Olivia has always liked lemons (she takes a lick, makes a crazy sour face, then goes in for more about twenty times). This particular afternoon she sucked on this lemon for about an hour, while she helped clean up dinner, water the plants, and play before bed. I finally had to take it away at bedtime; she wasn't thrilled.

This next picture is very important to me. Like I've said before, Carter was quite a fussy little guy for quite some time. Now I realize that it was only about two months, but BOY do those days drag on. One day I was really tired of carrying him around everywhere, and had tried the two slings we have to no avail. I headed out to the consignment store and bought this sling that had Carter in a cocoon position. It totally worked for about a week, and it was glorious. I haven't tried him in it for a while...maybe I should :).

 Here is O doing her first chore! I'm all child labor in the home, and think that kids learning responsibility is very important. She unloads the silverware every time we run the dishwasher, and it has given us an opportunity to talk about all the work that goes into keeping the house running. We may have spoons jumbled with forks, but I love when she asks for a chair because she sees the silverware sitting on the counter waiting for her.

Here's a few shots of the awesome faces of Carter. He's quite the little character :)

A cute little impromptu picture during a walk...these women help me every day!

And we had Andy home for the weekend! What a treat for Olivia, who loves to play and jump and run around with her aunt and uncle. Here he is serving as a water fountain.

Another huge plus to Andy being home is that he inevitably will be making a cheesecake. My stomach and muffin top attest to the fact that they are impossible to stop eating...so delicious! Here is Olivia enjoying the first taste the night before Max's big party.

Game Day Party

On September 22 we (as in Mary and Gary :)) hosted a Game Day party for the OSU at UCLA game. Most of the Casqueiros came over, and we had a blast.

Carter spent the majority of the time hanging out on the ottoman watching everybody, when he wasn't being passed around from person to person of course ;).

I love this picture because it shows how identical these two are...can you tell who's son Max is?

I don't really remember why, but at one point in the afternoon Gene declared that he wanted a seat on the couch. Instead of joining the two people on the four person couch, he decided to squeeze between Jim and Kathy on the short couch...

I love Carter's face here...he's just taking everything in while Olivia is slightly possessive over who has 'her' baby.

And she pulled out the angry eyes...we see this more and more as she gets older...and it still makes me laugh every time :)

Talking on her hamburger bun phone...she went through a phase of using everything as a phone...here she is having a full on conversation with her bun :).

The next day we FINALLY got to go meet Logan! (He was about a week old, but it seemed like forever). It was funny to see the difference in these boys, especially head size. They are about five weeks apart, and Logan has already caught up to Carter in most ways, but this makes my newborn look like a giant :).

Carter was just wavin to the camera here :). I feel like it's the first picture that he kind of looks like an infant not a newborn. He is really starting to have a lot of expression and to move his arms and legs with more control.