A Beautiful Sunday!

Finally today God blessed St. Louis with a day of moderation! We had had temperatures in the mid to upper 90s with very high dewpoints (70F+) for 9 straight days. Yesterday the temperature got up to near 100F with the heat index near 111F!! But today was a different day...a great day. Temperatures were in the low 80s, the skies were clear and we had a wonderful day as a fam of four!

We were excited to meet with Dad's high school friend Nick and his wife Bri and a couple of her family this morning just for a few minutes prior to our daily routine. They got to meet Ethan and were entertained by Aidan, of course. Then it was onto our errands, a good nap for Aidan and Daddy got to mow the lawn. Since it was so nice we decided to stay at home and play in the pool on the deck. I'll tell you, Aidan loves water. Just loves it. He'd play in the water until he turned into a raisin or till his lips were purple. Here's a few pictures...

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Doing a big "dump dump" on Daddy's head!



Sharing a quick drink at the pool (Thanks Mommy for not giving me Apple Juice, the Margarita was MUCH better!)

Poor Allie, she never gets any press now that she's the perverbial "third fiddle aka sixth wheel aka double odd dog out". So here she is baking in the sun on the deck. I love my new camera, I can get pictures so clean close up.

Onto Mommy and Ethan, having fun in the shade while Daddy and A play in the pool!

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So we had Ethan in an "nice" outfit to go out and meet our friends from Ohio this morning, but nature had its way with him, but not until after I took these shots. Ethan is definitely still in the "newborn in the headlights" type mode. We've seen him track a little bit and the only smiles come when he's finished feeding or fillin' up the diaper. Looking back at Aidan, it'll only be a few weeks until we really start to see Ethan alive up!

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The little man in his Baby Blue Polo...just looking around and taking it all in.

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Big brother showing him his TWO ice cream trucks and holding on to his waffle blanket.

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So we're starting a little program to help Aidan fall to sleep better. He's been pretty much needing one of us to be in the room with him until he falls asleep (which is totally normal for 2 year olds), but we wanted to introduce an "incentive-based" system that would teach him the importance, through rewards, of going to sleep like a big boy. The first step is that we are going to create a bulletin board that shows the the routine steps of his "approach" for a good night landing. I loved this picture below, which is #5 on the list, "Reading Books".

Finally tonight(!), it was nice enough to break out the double stroller, or as Aidan calls it the "Double Decker" Stroller. Aidan chilled and ate his popcorn snack and Ethan, well, did pretty good. He finally started to get pretty tired by the end.

Sweet dreams everyone! Have a great night.

Tyler, Emmy, Aidan and Ethan