Happy New Year

It's been a while since we've posted anything here. So here's some new pics and video.
Everyone's doing well. Judah enjoyed Christmas, especially loved Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and doesn't understand why Rudolph is no longer on TV. Leandro is starting to show more personality, smiling a lot and taking great interest in whatever Jude is doing.
Matt's in DC now, so we've gotten to see him a little more often. And we're all thrilled to be watching the Eagles in the playoffs -- Go Birds.

Click here for more pictures.

Videos:
Jude tickling
Jude reading
Jude and Uncle Matt
Leo hanging out

November in Rahway

Just some new pictures from a fun month. I took a buyout from The Star-Ledger, so I have a month off between jobs. Enjoying the quality time at home with Amy and the boys, and also trying to get some projects done around the house. (Who knew plumbing was so challenging?) I'm starting a new job at the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 1.

More pictures here.
Little Leo video.
Jude and Amy playing in the leaves.

Introducing Leandro

Leandro was born Sept. 26 at 9:26
Weighed 6 lbs 10 oz.
19.5 in long

His arrival was a week late, but everything worked out better than we could hope for. We're home from the hospital, Amy's feeling great, Leo is sleeping and eating like a champ, and Judah just loves his baby brother.

Click here for more new pictures
And click here for a great video of Judah meeting his baby brother for the first time.

Calm before the storm

We've had a very busy summer: planning for baby, buying a new place, moving, considering a job change. But all is going well. No baby news just yet -- we're expecting the little one to arrive any day, just not sure WHICH day. The due date is Sept. 20, and originally we were told that we'd likely deliver early. Now we're getting closer and closer to the due date, and we've been told they likely won't let us go beyond then.

So for now we're just getting settled in the new place, getting things set up for the baby, and spending lots of quality time with Jude. Poor guy has no idea what's in store.

Hope everyone's doing well. Here's a random assortment of new pictures.

Contemplating the unthinkable

There we were, happily enjoying the summer, playing with our increasingly active toddler. And, of course, preparing for the arrival of baby two in September. And then our realtor called ... the condo we'd been waiting three years for was coming on the market. Long story short, we're buying it and trying to fit in a modest rehab and moving in the 6 weeks we have left before the baby arrives!

Very exciting. It's a nice condo in a building four blocks from where we live now. So the neighborhood won't change much. The reason it's all worth it -- we hope -- is that we got a pretty good price and it's slightly bigger than our current place. The real motivator, the feature we'd been patiently waiting for, is a large rooftop deck. The building is an old high school, built in 1909. It was turned into condos in the 80s. But having a rooftop deck is what we've always wanted: safe, light-maintenance, outdoor space in our little urban haven.

Here's some shots we took. And yes, we're replacing the purple carpets.

So that's the schedule: Close by the end of July >> Move by the end of August >> Baby due in early September.

In case you missed them, the latest additions to our shared album.

Gail & Harry Meet Shane

On saturday Gail and Harry were first and second in line at the PNC Bank to meet and get an autograph from Shane Victorino from the Philadelphia Phillies.

Welcome home, Matt

We're all glad to have Matt home, safe and sound after his 7-month deployment. Matt's back in Norfolk now, and he'll stay with this ship for a few months more, doing some shorter cruises from time to time. But no more long ones. No word yet on where he'll end up for his next assignment -- but we're hoping for East Coast.


Here at home we're doing fine. Amy's 7 months pregnant, and doing just fine. She's going to stop working at the end of the month, to concentrate on gestating. Jude's getting to be quite a handful, but still a lot of fun to be with. He's a smart little guy, developing quite a vocabulary and a handful of party tricks.

Here's a series of pictures of Jude growing, we shoot one each month. And we'll keep adding to it each month, so check it out from time to time. It's amazing how much he's changed in such a short time.

And here's a lot of other random shots. In this new format, you can view the pictures whichever way you want, and you can even post your own pictures to the collection if you'd like. Let me know if it doesn't work for you.

I've got some good videos to post, too. I'll try to get those up soon.

Latest from Rahway

I just posted a bunch of new pictures. Click here to see them all.

Things here are going well. Judah is a handful now, he knows how to ask for the basic things he needs (food, sleep, a good vantage point to watch us cooking), and he's not shy about letting us know he needs it. He understands us more and more, and the baby sign language has really helped us to understand him. We're enjoying going for walks now that spring is here. It's fun to watch how he interacts with the world and explores strange new places.

Amy's feeling pretty good, too, with her pregnancy. She's starting to look more unmistakably pregnant, which she prefers to the "possibly just fat" stage. But we still have a while to go and we're trying to enjoy the time with Jude before the baby gets here.

I'll post a couple videos here, too.
Got a postcard from Uncle Matt
Playing train conductor
Jude and Henry, playing with Elmo

Some new pictures ... and some big news

We celebrated Jude's first birthday last month, and he's just changing so quickly now. He's walking all over the place, playing with everything he can get his hands on. He's beginning to use baby sign language (or his own particular dialect of it) and he's using a few words and sounds, too. He's a sweet little guy, we just can't get enough of him.

Some more pictures.
Here's a little video from last week.

In fact, our first year with Jude has gone so well that we're adding another soul to the family! Amy's pregnant again, and the baby (Little Two, as we call it) is due Sept. 19. We're very excited about it -- at least Amy and I are excited about it. Jude has no interest in the topic. The kids will be about 19 months apart, which is just a little closer than we'd planned. But we'll manage. If Little Two is half as fun as Judah has been, we're in for an adventure.

Judah's Birthday

A pretty funny video of Judah eating his birthday cake. I guess we'd never given him anything so sweet as that icing, and he decided the best way to eat it was to dive right in.

Click here for the video.