Out of the mouths of babes...

Callan says the most inspired things sometimes. Here's a recent conversation we had about the days of the week:
Me: Callan, what is your favorite day of the week?
Callan: This day.

This is part of what Jesus means by coming to him like a little child. Callan is not focused on tomorrow or yesterday, but "this day," for this is the very day he lives in. This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Meanwhile, Thatcher has been striving for verbal communication lately, and he uttered his first word a week and a half ago: "Ball" (More like "Bah" but he was clearly referring to the round object in his hand.) He has since tried to imitate Bottle ("Bah-bah"), Bus ("Buh"), Block, and even Kaleidoscope! He so desperately wants to tell us things and be understood, he's not daunted by the fact that kaleidoscope has 4 syllables and just about every sound in the English language! For the record, "kaleidoscope" also comes out "bah."

Soon Thatcher and Callan will be composing sonnets together...and you will read them first right here, so stay tuned!

The beach and the big city

As promised, here are some pictures from our vacation. We spent 4 days in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, a quaint seaside town where Matt's uncle/aunt have a four-story Victorian "cottage" a couple of blocks from the beach. It's bliss, and we love going there. Matt's parents and other aunt were also there for a little family reunion.

Here's Thatcher with his grandma. Without those cheerios, he'd be consuming sand.

Callan loves the ocean and greets each incoming wave with "Here comes a biggie!"

Now you can see from whom Thatcher inherited his clear blue eyes--Grandpa Hartman...but Thatcher's not so sure.

Thatcher met his (Great) Aunt Barby for the first time, and they seem to be smitten with each other. Callan also enjoyed Aunt B's habit of smelling his hair and saying "your hair smells like the the sunshine." In fact, he still says that about his hair now that we're back.

After our time at the beach, we snuck in some time in Manhattan with our dear friends Jan and Ezer and their baby Simone.

During our outing at Times Square, which completely overwhelmed Callan (what were we thinking?), we redeemed ourselves by taking him (and everyone) on the giant ferris wheel inside the Toys R Us store in Times Square. Of course, Jan cursed us by wishing for the My Little Pony Car--to think we could have gotten Mr. Potato Head or E.T! Oh well, at least it wasn't the Barbie Car!

Other highlights of our trip include a Yankees game for Matt and Ezer, a trip to the Met, subway rides (oh, how we miss good public transportation!), and late night online shopping (for clothes for Simone) with Jan.