This child is one of the happiest babies Ive seen. Except of course when he wants you to pick him up and you dont.

Anyways, he got his 7th tooth the weekend of Drew’s birthday party. He has discovered the joys of closing doors and we have often heard him screaming in terror because he closed the door and couldnt get out of the room. He is cruising on the  sofa and coffee table pretty well but still not letting go and trying to stand on his own. And just like Drew, he loves the pull cords to the ceiling fans.

Ev-e-lator (elevator)

Es-e-cator (escalator)

Here are some new pictures of the boys

Just a cute picture of Drew.

Fun with markers. Good thing they are washable!

Mr. Cuteness

If you look closely you will see that he has these shorts on inside out and put both of his legs on one side of the shorts. He had a hard time walking and kept falling down. Am I a bad mom for laughing?

He loves straws!

Dont you just love his smile?

I love that he can hold his own bottle!

Playing in the basket

He is mad in this picture because he cant get out of the basket.

Hi! On Sunday I took a short train trip to Bayeux, a town in northwestern France close to the Channel. The beaches nearby are where D-Day took place in World War II. I took an tour of the beaches, museums and cemetary. It was very powerfully emotional, even though I don’t have relatives or know anyone who participated in D-Day. Part of it, I think, was hearing first hand how much it meant to the French.

Monday and Tuesday I’ve been working, and don’t have any new pictures. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I’m taking a day trip to London, so I will post a bunch of pictures from that (but probably not until Thursday).

Anyhow, here are some pictures from the trip:

This first picture I took from the train on the way, a couple of stops before Bayeux. It’s a a Basilica; more here: http://therese-de-lisieux.cef.fr/ang/basiliqueang.htm

This is a picture of one of the streets in Bayeux. I walked down it to find a cafe to eat lunch.

Walked past this just before I got to the cafe.

This is a picture of the top of Point du Hoc, where the Rangers landed on D-Day. In the middle of the pictures is the remains of a German bunker and machine gun emplacement. The big round depressions are bomb craters. Around the beach is the only place where the bomb craters still remain; the French made it a point to fill in any others they found after the war. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointe_du_Hoc.

This is from Point du Hoc looking Eastward towards Omaha Beach (right around the corner).

Here is the memorial and reflecting pool at the cemetery as well as one picture of the grave markers.

I have more pictures I may upload later, I didn’t want to overload the blog. You can read more about D-Day and the cemetery at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Normandy and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_American_Cemetery_and_Memorial.

Hi!

Here are the pictures from Saturday (see part 3). Today I went to Normandy and took a tour of the D-Day sites and museums. It was totally mind-blowing. However, to avoid picture overload (mostly on my part), and since I am working tomorrow (and therefore probably won’t take any new pictures) I’ll post those pictures and more stuff about my trip tomorrow.

Here’s a street in Paris where I was shopping and ate lunch:

Then back to the Metro (subway) to go to the Louvre. The Metro is nice and gets you practically anywhere, but you have to walk your feet off to get down there, get back up and transfer between lines (loooong tunnels and lots of stairs).

Then I was at the Louvre. Here’s the ceiling in (I think the Italian wing?):

…and then the Venus de Milo (wonder what pose the arms were in?)

And, of course, the Mona Lisa (it was behind thick glass, sorry about the reflections):

While inside I took a picture out of the window. It’s the Seine…notice Notre Dame sticking out from behind the other buildings, in the middle:

You could spend days in the Louve…I spent 2 hours. I have more pictures that I’ve published here, but picked a small set for the blog. Here are some Egyptian Hieroglyphics that are over 4000 years old (also behind glass):

And here’s (part of) the Louve from the outside:

Next I went down to the Place de la Concorde, the beginning of the Champs-Elysees. In the middle of the Place is a (real, transplanted) Egyptian Obelisk. I think I read that it’s the oldest known object in the city. (That’s the moon in the upper-right.)

Then I went down the Champs-Elysees (think Central Park and Michigan Avenue in one) to the Arc de Triomphe

…you can go to the very top (on the roof) but have to climb almost 300 stairs to get there. After walking all day, I passed. Maybe next time.

Finally, the Eiffel Tower. Here are two pictures; one is from the (North, I think) on the other side of the Seine. The other is from the other side (South?) but with the strobe lights on (they are on every hour for about 10 minutes at night).

I went to the very top. Verrry cold and windy at the top (it was 10:00 pm) but worth it. Here’s two pictures. The first is of the Arc de Triomphe (upper right corner, where all the streets lead). The second is back to the place where I took the first picture of the tower above…I was standing pretty much in the middle of the picture.

Finally, a teaser for tomorrow…a picture from the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. It’s an unknown soldier.

Peter here again. It’s waaay late on Saturday night as I write this, so I’m only posting one picture from today…hopefully I’ll get some more tomorrow.

Today was a day off from work, so I took the opportunity to be a tourist I went (among other places) to the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, and (of course) the Eiffel Tower. My feet really hurt.

Tomorrow I’m taking a train out to the beaches of Normandy. I’m taking a tour of the D-Day beaches, the US cemetary and the museum in the area. Then I’ll come back and post lots of pictures.

Just to prove I was actually there…

From Drew and Ryan!

Peter here again. It’s Thursday evening in France and I’m exhausted, but not very jet lagged…yet…I guess we’ll see!

I didn’t do much today since I didn’t really get unpacked in the hotel until around 2:30. But I did go get a Metro (subway) pass for the week and rode it over to the “Ile de la cite” which is where Paris was more or less founded originally, and it’s where Notre Dame is. It’s an island (ile) in the middle of the Seine, so I got to see part of the Seine (narrower than most of it) as well.

Notre Dame is very impressive and awe-inspiring. I took some pictures outside and in, but really they don’t capture the feeling you get being inside. (I posted a quick movie of the inside in Amber’s photobucket.)

So far, Paris is pretty nice, with nice people. Everyone seems to be tolerating my English so far. Frankly the language thing is more intimidating than I thought. I’m not always sure what people or signs are saying and I feel silly trying to speak French, even when I’m 99% sure I know exactly what to say – like I’m sure I’m going to butcher the pronunciation and embarrass myself, so I end up speaking English instead. Except for “merci” and “pardon.” Hopefully I’ll get used to it. I know I’ll feel better travelling with Loic, Thierry and Michel…

Going to work tomorrow, so I may not get many pictures, except maybe from the train on the way to Caen, which is closer to the east coast, about 2 hours away.

(The pigeons in Paris are OBVIOUSLY well-fed. I haven’t seen any single one that weighed less than 5 pounds so far! This is in Place de John Paul II – the guy in the middle was putting bird seed in his hand and the birds were landing on it and eating. I missed the picture, but a pigeon landed on the head of the woman next to him. She didn’t scream or bat it off or anything and thought it was kind of cool, but also didn’t really want it to stay long…)

Hi everyone, this is Peter, writing from my hotel room in Paris! Just got here an hour or so ago, but I thought I’d post some pictures from the trip here. I’ll get more “tourist-y” pictures over the next few days, I’m sure.

Didn’t really get any good pictures of Irleand, England or France from the air – it was cloudy almost from the minute we crossed over land again. In fact, I could not see the ground until we actually touched down.

Here are the pictures I had done of Drew and Ryan today

Today is the 3rd anniversary of Colin’s angel day. Today was surprisingly easy for me- I did have a meltdown last week when a friend of mine mentioned that her sister was pregnant with twins. It still stings when I hear of things like that as Im sure it always will.

Colin- my sweet angel. We miss you every single day and wish that you were here with us. But we know that you are watching over us from heaven. We love you so much!

Drew had a blast at his birthday party! He ran around and jumped and played until he was exhausted! He had a lot of fun playing with all of his friends too! Here are some pictures from the party.

I managed to catch Drew for a few seconds before he was running around again!

Going up the big slide

Sliding down! So much fun!

He LOVED climbing this “rock wall”. When he got to the top he would slide down the slide and then climb back up!

Foam pit!

Ryan having a good time with Bebe!

Eating Pizza!

Ryan trying to drink from a juice box for the first time.

Pretending to eat pizza like a big boy!

Yummy Thomas Cake!

Drew acted shy while we were all singing happy birthday to him and he didnt want to blow out the candles but we finally convinced him to and he blew them out- with mommy’s help, of course.

No explanation needed.

Cake aftermath.

Unwrapping presents.

Ryan sums up what we all felt after the party- we were pooped!

Thank you to everybody who came to the party- Drew had a great time and he loves all of his presents!

I know Im posting this a day after their birthday but I havent gone to sleep yet so its still the 7th in my warped mind. I can’t believe its been 3 years since Drew and Colin blessed my life. It’s been a hard road but Im so grateful for what God has given to us. I still look at Drew every day and am absolutely amazed at what a miracle he is. I look back at his NICU pictures and just cannot believe that he was so tiny and how hard he fought for his life.

I miss Colin every single day but I feel like I’ve been doing well accepting what happened to him. I’m just grateful that I was able to spend a little bit of time with him before he passed. It’s just hard to believe what his short time on earth did to touch my heart.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweet boys! I love you both so much!

If you dont know what Adobe is- WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???? Just kidding! Adobe is the premier graphics company and DSP is going to be holding a laptop crap AT ADOBE HEADQUARTERS! This is HUGE especially to digital scrappers! Im so excited that I will be able to meet up with my friends and fellow digi-scrappers but to be at Adobe headquarters is icing on the cake!

Here are some new pictures of the boys. Sorry I have been slack with posting new pictures. I have them- I just havent gotten around to posting them.

Ryan’s first taste of doritos.

Drew after eating Doritos. Like father, like son. I guess Peter would say he is not messy, just enthusiastic!

Here are some pictures of Drew after the Mardi Gras party we had for mom’s club. He made this mask and he loved wearing it!

Ryan playing with Mardi Gras beads.

Ryan standing.

Drew and his silly faces:

Ryan’s 6th tooth poked through the day I left for Vegas (Thursday, Jan 31st) and #7 is visible as well. Now that he has all of these teeth he doesnt look babyish anymore. I cant believe he is growing up so fast! You can see some of his teeth in this picture.