Daddy's Teeth Book

The other day Drew was at the kitchen table flipping through a book, talking about the pictures as he often does. Turns out he was reading my Oral Surgery textbook which I had left out. While going through the book he stopped on a page and said, "Put the forks in the tummy and get some sauce." I was curious to see what he was looking at. Here it is.



A little disturbing but Petrea and I had a pretty good laugh over it.

Ode to Ollie

Our little Ollie is becoming quite opinionated lately. He likes to point at things he wants and makes it very clear if you don't get it right - he'll take whatever it is and while looking right at you, drop it over the side of his highchair (during meals) or onto the floor. He has been cruising all over the place. He likes to push our little toddler chairs or his walker back and forth across the kitchen. It's super cute. He's pretty much in constant motion as you can see in these photos:

He has this great little elfish grin that makes me think he'll be a trouble maker when he gets a little older.

Ollie loves to feed himself and is really into utensils lately. He wants his own to hold and he tries to dip it into whatever I'm feeding him. Mealtimes are often messy adventures. We're so lucky to have Oliver and Drew!

Snow day!!

We woke up Monday morning to 4-6 inches of snow! This was certainly a surprise as the weather had been quite warm the week before. We were pretty sure that "winter" was over. Drew was so excited. He hasn't had a lot of experience with snow (that he can remember at least). Some of our favourite books lately are about snowmen, so he was just thrilled.

Snow doesn't usually last long here so we "bundled up" and headed outside. I'm a little embarrassed to let our Canadian family and friends to see how unprepared we are in terms winter clothing - we don't have snowpants or boots for the boys (Drew is wearing rubber boots from last summer), or even proper mittens. Luckily it wasn't too cold out and we made due with what we have. It was so fun to see Drew explore the snow - like someone who's only read about the ocean and then they see it and they're like "oh yah, that's what it's like". He just loved it.

The snow was perfect for making a snowman. While Ollie napped, Drew and I...well mostly I... made a snowman. Drew mostly ate snow (Drew is eating snow in at least half of the photos I took). At first I tried to stop him, telling him the same things my mother had told me about eating snow. Then I realized that those things hadn't stopped me as a child, so I gave up and instead taught him about the various colours of snow and which to avoid.

Ollie woke up later and joined us. He also liked the snow. It flew out in front of him as he crawled and he thought it was hilarious. It was fun. Now it is Wednesday and 17 C. No more snow.

Oliver & Drew

Sand fun, sibling envy, etc...

It's definitely summer here! A few weeks ago, on a day Michael had off, we all went to the park. Michael watched Oliver (who was sleeping in his carseat) while I played with Drew in the sand box. Michael preferred not to join us - he has some deep rooted issues with sandboxes (mostly involving cats and their toileting preferences). I however, was the coolest parent in the sandbox. While other parents stood by (probably also thinking about cats), I dug right in and showed Drew and several other children how to dig for the damp sand to make castles.

Sibling envy:

Many of the parenting books/articles I read about bringing a new sibling home mentioned that some envy of the new baby is likely to occur. The attention, toys, etc... The cool things a new baby has. Not the tiny baby bathtub when you're used to a bath in the adult tub with lots of space and water and toys. Drew one night, absolutely insisted that he wanted a bath in Ollie's baby tub. He barely fit. "Really?" I thought, "of all the things to envy, you want to have a bath in Ollie's tub?". He took 2 baths in the baby tub, but is now back to the regular tub.

Oliver is too little for the strollers we have so whenever we go out for a walk he rides in the "baby pocket" (that's what Drew calls my Moby wrap, "pocket" - like a kangaroo pocket/pouch). Here's a plug for Moby wraps for those readers who may be having little ones soon - I think they're awesome. Ollie loves it and Drew did too (it's like being back in the womb). They're the most comfortable type of carrier I've used. Anyway, one day Drew got upset because he wanted to ride in the pocket and I told him he was too big. To placate him, we made a make-shift carrier out of a ring sling I have and put his baby doll inside. It was too cute.

How you know you're doing ok...

Sometimes in life, there are little moments that let you know, "hey, my child actually listens to me and he's going to turn out ok". We were playing in the living room and I was not really watching Drew (I was probably folding laundry). He got up and went into the kitchen; I heard him pushing a chair up to the counter. "Oh great", I thought, "are all the knives and breakable things out of his reach?" I called in my "you better not be getting into trouble voice" - "Drew, what are you doing?". "get a paper towel" he said "Drew messy". He was getting a paper towel because he had spilled a little of his chocolate milk (not much, it was in a sippy cup) on the carpet in the living room and I hadn't noticed. It made me feel happy that he wanted to clean up after himself and reminded me that he learns things I don't directly teach him just by watching me.

And now a few pictures of my sweet little Oliver. He's doing well - smiling lots and making those adorable cooing sounds. I love that just seeing our faces and hearing our voices can make him smile.

Baby Oliver

As most of you probably already know, we had our baby, Oliver William Piepgrass, on April 28th. Our 2 boys have been keeping us busy so sorry for the long wait for photos. I was sure that I would deliver a week or so late like with Drew, but I started having contractions around 11pm on Wednesday night (the 27th - my due date). Around 3 a.m. we went to the hospital. Then at 9:20 a.m., Oliver was born! The birth went a lot smoother than Drew's. No vacuum, 3 pushes and he was out. He was perfect!

This first one is Drew, the second one is Oliver. We thought it'd be fun to compare.

As you can see, he was 8lbs, 7 oz. A whole pound heavier than Drew.

Here he is again. Just an hour or so old.

Here Drew meets Oliver for the first time. He was so gentle with him, it was so fun to see them together. The hospital was pretty lonely after being used to spending all my time with Drew and I was excited for my sweet boy to come visit.

Here are my boys!

What a great smile Drew's got don't you think?

Here's another side by side of our boys. The first is Drew again, then Oliver.

Here we are at home. The first thing Drew wanted to do when we came home was show Oliver the iPad. He's quite the whiz with the iPad. It's almost scary.

I made this cute bear hat for Ollie.

Drew has been very good at "sharing" his toys with Oliver. In the first few days he kept asking if he could share his food/snacks with Ollie as well. We had to explain that Oliver doesn't have any teeth.

Here Drew is again, making sure Ollie has enough toys to play with.

The weather here's been really nice. We pulled out our kiddy pool one afternoon for Drew while my mom and I worked on the garden. He loved it. Drew just loves being outside. It's really hard to get him to come in.

In addition to sharing his toys, Drew also likes to help take car of Oliver. Here he's helping me give Oliver a bath.

Here's our sweet little boy! He's starting to bald the same way Drew did - just on top, but keeping the hair on the sides - like a little old man.

I don't really know what to say about this one, but aren't they cute?

We went to a friends house yesterday and took this photo. Ollie is 4 weeks old now and 11 lbs. He's getting so chubby!

We're so excited to have Oliver in our family. We're so lucky to have 2 beautiful boys and I'm excited to see them grow up together and become little buddies.

A really long catch up blog

Hello everyone! After quite the absence, we've finally gotten around to blogging again. I'm going to try to get the pictures in chronological order, but some of these pictures were taken a while ago.

Let's start with Halloween:

I know a monkey isn't the most original Halloween costume, but he sure looked cute. We went trick-or-treating to a few houses with some of Michael's classmates and also participated in our ward's trunk-or-treat. It was fun to watch Drew as he figured out the trick-or-treating routine. Some people would let him choose his own out of the bowl and he showed a clear preference for suckers. The stickiest treat that takes the longest to eat. I would have preferred him to pick out something chocolate. Oh well, trick-or-treating is for the kids right?...

Drew gets his haircut

Michael and I did give Drew his first ever hair cut and I think it turned out ok. But since then, Drew has been invited to get his haircut with the big boys. Michael, his dad, and Ian all go to the same barber: Jimmy. Never to anyone else. This is because Jimmy always gives great haircuts. We keep Drew occupied with french fries (one of his favourite treats). He's had a few haircuts with Jimmy now and they've all gone really well. Drew doesn't even mind the occasional hair in his fries (although it grosses me out).

Drew's hair is much more curly now than in these pictures (see pictures below of Drew in the brown sweater). He had a hair cut yesterday and I was so sad to see those beautiful curls get cut off, but I know they'll grow back soon. I wonder what baby number 2's hair will be like...

Christmas visit in Florida

We were able to meet Sheila and her family in Florida around Christmas time and had a lots of fun. One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to Sea World. Here is Drew riding the carousel - one of the only rides he could go on. The creatures you could ride were pretty neat looking. I'm not sure who had more fun - Drew or me.

Drew also loved seeing all the different animals at Sea World. He really loves animals and fish and I love watching him get excited about seeing an animal we've talked about or seen pictures of in a book. The absolute coolest thing we saw at Sea World though was the Dolphin show. We went to it twice it was so amazing. This is the 'stage':

Drew was just fascinated. And so were we! there were people getting launched off dolphin's noses, riding them across the water, doing fancy dives off of super high platforms, doing tricks on swings high above the water, and birds flying over the heads of the audience. We bought Drew a plastic dolphin as a souvenir and whenever we play with it he still talks about how dolphins "jump" and "splash".

New Year's day

The weather was beautiful on January 1st so we decided to go the the zoo in Louisville. Drew liked chasing the Canadian geese.

We also saw this really crazy looking monkey. His dreadlocks were almost unreal. They just flowed around him like a robe.

Kristi and Elliot visit

Kristi and Elliot came to visit early in the new year. We visited the Exporium in Lexington and the boys got to 'ride' a horse.

The boys had lots of fun together on their visit and we were glad they could come!

Valentine's Day

Grandma and Grandpa Takahashi sent Drew a dollar in his Valentine's day card so we decided to walk to the Walgreens around the corner and let Drew pick out a treat. He was really excited. It's amazing how young kids learn what the word "treat" means.

He picked out some peanut butter M&M's (I may have helped him in his choice a little... but I knew he would really like them). He handed the M&M's and the dollar to the cashier all by himself.

Drew loves M&M's, but he also loves any kind of chocolate really. Even the dark 70% cocoa stuff that I like. I don't know how he got his hands on a piece that big. After we took the picture (it was just too cute) we gave him a much smaller piece as a treat.

April

In April, my younger sister and brother, Lene and Erik, came to visit. As always when Lene comes to visit, she took some lovely photos. All of the photos below are hers. I'm 36 weeks pregnant I think in this photo.

Drew was not really cooperating with the photo shoot that day, but we did manage to get this photo of him smiling. I think Uncle Erik was doing something silly. What a sweet boy I have!
Lene and I visited a little farm/zoo in Louisville called Henry's ark. It's someone's farm they have set up for visitors. They have a few exotic animals (zebras, peacocks, camels, llamas, those things that look like really big guinea pigs..) and some regular farm type animals (pigs, roosters/chickens, ducks, turkeys, bunnies). Some of the animals were fenced in, but some were just wandering around (like the peacocks, llamas, roosters)

Luckily, we had some carrots in the car to feed the zebras and llamas. They had 2 zebras and one was pregnant.

The llama's were just wandering around the parking lot. Drew loved feeding them carrots. Their teeth made me a little nervous, but they mostly used their lips. Once we fed them a few carrots, they started following us around. It was a little scary. When we left, I had to back out very slowly to avoid hitting the ones that came too close to the car looking for more carrots.

Well that's it for now. We have lot's of other pictures that we'll try to post later. Along with pictures of our new baby when he comes!