Matthew gets a haircut

It's no secret that the Hanzeli boys are a bit challenged when it comes to filling their bald baby heads with hair. Matthew started earlier than Daniel, but his hair is so light that it appears to be much less than it is. However, the day finally came...yesterday Matthew had his first haircut. Auntie Karen volunteered, and without looking back, Matthew made the transition to looking more like a big boy.

 A few days ago, Matthew was sporting a curly pig tail.

 "Before" picture #1.

 "Before" picture #2.

 Auntie Karen goes to town while Matthew plays a shape game on the iPad.

 

 After. [Please excuse the terribly dirty state of the chair...Aaron is an incredibly messy eater]

How grown up he looks!

Sweet Moments

Yesterday started as another stormy day. Matthew has a love-hate relationship with storms. He is fascinated by the thunder and wants to hear it "boom," but in the next breath will tell you that he's "so scared!" At one point I was busy doing something and Matthew was in need of some thunder therapy. Auntie Karen was a good replacement.

Because of the stormy weather, yesterday was the perfect day to try out this idea I had seen on pinterest. I think anyone who has kids has this "pinned" to one of their boards there, and with all of our fort-making I knew one day we would try it. Here was our take on the light tunnel.

 It turned out pretty cool, though it took at least 45 minutes to put together, and as I was just over halfway done I noticed I had this huge blister on my thumb from sticking all those lights through the holes in the cardboard. The boys really liked it, though, and we ate our lunch in there. Well, Daniel ate his. Matthew was a bit distracted and when I offered to eat with him, he ended up ditching me in there and I ate by myself. I should've taken a nap in there. It was cozy.

 

I don't know why Daniel was upset in this photo. Probably because I wouldn't stop taking pictures of him.

Matthew was enthralled. Of course this didn't get to stay up for long after it was done because of his nap. I saved the board, though, so we can bring it out again without all the prep time.

Splash Park

Yesterday we met up at a splash park with cousins Jacob and Karoly to play in the water. It turns out we picked a perfect day to do it--the cooler weather we'd been having let up and we had a beautiful sunny afternoon there to play. It took the boys quite a bit of time to warm up to the idea of getting sprayed randomly from all directions, but when it was time to leave we had to use cookies to bribe the boys into getting back into the car. We will definitely be going back!

 After crying for 20 minutes on the way to the park, Aaron fell asleep minutes before parking the car. 

 Matthew was more interested in the playground at first.

 Daniel tries out the climbing wall.

 Matthew and Jacob try to collect water from under the big ball.

 Karoly, looking awfully cute. 

 Climbing the sea serpent.

 The shirt has come off...we're ready for some serious play.

 Finally getting into the water.

 Matthew climbs a whale.

 Not so afraid of getting wet anymore.

What a fun day!

PS. This post only took 45 minutes to write, being interrupted about 35 times. I think I will go back to writing late at night after everyone is sleeping.

One week down

It's now been one week of us "on our own," and honestly it hasn't been too bad. We've had lots of help and lots of fun things happening, so the time has passed pretty quickly and mostly painlessly. Grandma came to visit yesterday and the boys had fun showing her everything they've been up to lately. It was a nice low-key day.

 Aaron and Matthew help Adam rock to sleep.

 Grandma and Daniel read the comics.

 Matthew likes to paint...or make "tea" with the rinse water.

 Adam gets tired out from all the fun.

 We move to the back yard to try out some new bubble tools. Daniel finds that this pipe works best.

 Matthew tries to decide which bubble wand to use.

 Aaron watches the bubbles float by.

 Still using that pipe. We may have to have a chat with this guy...

All tuckered out, Matthew takes a break in Adam's swing with Saggy.

Baby Adam comes to visit

Yesterday was a big day....Auntie Karen and baby Adam came to visit! Adam took his first plane ride from the East Coast and will be staying with us till next Friday. It will be a fun time for us to have another adult in the house, and fun for Auntie Karen to have a little break, too! We have lots of fun things planned for while they're here--hopefully we'll remember to take pictures often!

 Daniel and our friend Emily did a great job welcoming Karen home. (Daniel drew the robot. He is big on robots.)

 Late night snack. No trip to Seattle is complete without late night Dick's burgers.

 Meet Adam!

 At seven weeks, he is already a charmer...

 and a bit suspicious of Auntie Michele.

 What a sweetheart. 

And, another sweetheart sent flowers yesterday. Awww...

8 months

Yesterday was Aaron's eighth month birthday. He has grown so much in the past month! He has almost completely let go of the army crawl in favor of standard hands-and-knees crawling (which I appreciate since a couple other boys in the house still have lots to learn about keeping dirt outside...), and has been spending most of his days pulling himself up to standing and starting to scoot around furniture. He is still our pickiest eater, and loves to make me feel needed by crying anytime he catches a glimpse of me when I'm not holding him. He is very loved by his brothers, although Matthew prefers when Aaron keeps his hands off of him or his things ("no baby touch chair! no baby touch truck!"). Daniel likes to help Aaron stand, and is excited to let everyone know when Aaron learns something new.

Here's Aaron's eight month in pictures:

 Aaron's favorite hangout: the bottom shelf of a side table.

 Practicing his standing skills...

and his sleeping skills.

 Back on his shelf. He climbs up on one end, crawls to the other end, eases himself down as gently as he can, then does the whole thing over again.

 Aaron celebrated his eighth month birthday with his first try at a mum-mum cracker.

 He appeared to both love and hate it at the same time.

 In the end, love won out. Hooray for finding something he likes to eat!

Always watching his brothers.

This month brought his first two teeth! 

He is determined to get what he wants.

Showing some love to his lovey, Rocky.

We can't believe how much he's grown!