Kyle at one month. A big boy at about twelve and a half pounds. Probably about 23 inches long.

Here’s a comparison of Sean and Kyle at one month:

And a Kyle video:

(Due to technical difficulties, you’ll have to click here to see the video)

We spent Easter in New Jersey with Mima and Papa (Ben’s parents). Dying eggs with cousins Ainsley and Garrett was an adventure into controlled chaos.

Easter itself was a lovely day. After Easter brunch at Princeton, Sean played in the fountain.

Playing with Garrett

And we took a trip to the nearby farm stand where there is a little play yard full of kid-sized tractors…

… and a big wooden one to climb on.

Back at Mima and Papa’s house, Sean and Ainsley played together a bit.

And Sean tried on Mima’s hat.

And then it was time for the annual Easter egg hunt. This was Sean’s first one, as we’ve never lived close enough to come for Easter before. The concept is a little perplexing, but he enjoyed running around the yard with everyone.

Daddy helps Sean find an egg.

Ainsley looks for eggs.

Sean found a yellow one.

Looking.

Eh, who needs a basket anyway?

This video shows the search for the last remaining egg. (Hint: it’s in the wood pile…)

The extended cousins after all the eggs were found: Ainsley, Abby, Garrett, Caleb, Sean

And some post-hunt Easter gifts, including a new book!

Hanging out with Daddy

 The whole family (Sean requested that we take a family picture!)

Sean learning to be a fencing referee

Sean enjoying his new swing

I was running a seed germination experiment out of a closet and Sean was intrigued by what I was doing. One day he composed a song about “Mommy’s Experiment”…

 The family again (another Sean request)

Sean really enjoyed his running bike (i.e. bike with no pedals).

But he definitely had off-road tendencies…

 As we were packing to move, we stumbled upon Sean’s old baby bathtub. Eager to try it out again, Sean hopped on in. Um, I think it’s a bit small for you now, Sean…

Hanging around…

 During our move to Virginia, Sean and I went to visit Grandma and Grandpa, leaving Ben with the task of moving all our stuff. Here Sean is helping to sweep the driveway.

Sean finds a pine cone

 After Grandma attached a rope to her garden cart, Sean had a blast riding on it and pulling it around.

 He also experimented with pliers. (Don’t worry, there’s a outlet cover on that outlet.)

 And with trying on adult shoes.

 And, of course, he got Uncle Dan to read to him.

 And he got to read books with Grandma, too!

Okay, trying to do all of 2012 here now. I just figured out how to automatically import my pictures to the correct size. Having to do them all one at a time was taking forever, so hopefully this change will make posting less onerous. Maybe I’ll even catch up to the present before the end of the year…

These pictures are all from January 2012, mostly right around Sean’s birthday. Here he is with the classic bear and lobster:

Birthday balloons. Note that Sean was happily playing with them before I got out the camera. Once the camera was out, he was much more interested in the camera than the balloons. I only got him to play with the balloons by telling him that we could then watch the video of him playing with the balloons on the camera. This is the result:

And Sean’s first attempts at blowing out birthday candles:

A fire hat and… a firetruck!

The hammer and ball toy from Grandma was a big hit. (Literally.)

Sean lining up his magnetic animals. Around this time he was really into lining things up. All things.

Here he lined up his cars — and himself!

Sean got a swing for his birthday, which he loved. But it was taken down in March when we moved, and never got put up again… There are swings at the playground 500 feet away, so it’s not a big deal.

A playground trip (to Turtle Playground) on his birthday (in a T-shirt). You can do that in January in Texas!

And time at home with Daddy:

These photos and videos are from our trip to New Jersey around the New Year.

Opening presents – Mima, Sean, and Sean’s Mommy

Singing with Mima:

Mima took Sean and Margaret on a wagon ride to see a massive Christmas light display. It was an amazing twenty-minute ride and Sean was transfixed the whole time.

Before all the lights, we spent some time in the playground. It was Sean’s first encounter with a tire swing. (He gets distracted at the end by the beginning of the outdoor music.)

There were also lots of opportunities for spending time with family. Sean and (great) aunt Annie:

Sean and cousin Ainsley

Sean and cousin Garrett

Garrett, aunt Lisa, Sean, Ainsley, and uncle Josh

Sean’s introduction to Wii — well, any video games whatsoever, really — at the cousins’ house:

And Sean giving Wii a try:

Sorry for the onslaught of photos and videos. But it’s really pretty silly being so far behind; I’m trying to catch up a bit. All these pictures are from Maine when we were there for Christmas.

Sean explores the snow for the first time. (He wasn’t really walking yet last year and hadn’t seen snow since.)

First he explored the snow on the driveway. Notice him following the paths between tire marks.

The snow the first day was great sticky building snow. I built Sean an “igloo” just like in his books. He wasn’t really all that interested, but I had a good time!

The snow a couple days later was fine and slippery, perfect for sledding. Ben got the idea to construct a sled and so he attached a rope to a piece of cardboard and we were off. I was the first to pull Sean on his sled, and once I had done so, he wouldn’t let anyone else pull him!

Sean spent a good amount of time playing with his trains; he especially liked making them go over “bumps” like this one:

Making a tunnel:

And… well, I don’t know what he’s doing here, but he seems to be having fun.

And for the first time, Sean got to partake in the annual Making of the Christmas Cookies. Here Sean and Grandma enjoy looking at all the different shaped cookie cutters:

The cutting of cookies went much better than the decorating of them. Once Sean figured out that the cookies and frosting were edible, he wanted nothing to do with the whole “decorating” concept. Here he’s just starting out:

And Sean got to spend lots of good time with Uncle Dan. Here they read one of Uncle Dan’s favorite childhood books.

More Uncle Dan:

And, Uncle Dan gets a workout:

I wanted to get photos of Sean with lots of his relatives to put together a picture book. Since we don’t get to see family very often, it’s nice to have a visual reference to talk to Sean. Here’s Sean and Uncle Pete:

Sean and Aunt Kirsten. (And I have a lovely “Sean and Uncle Jon,” but it’s not postable, so you’ll have to take my word for it.)

Sean and Grandpa:

Sean and Grandma:

“Oh man! Do I have to pose for yet another picture? I’m done.”

And Mommy asked, “please, Sean, will you pose for just one more picture — of Sean and Mommy and Daddy?” And Sean answered with a resounding “no!”

As we head into the final stretch of our time here in Texas, Sean’s mouth has headed into the final stretch of baby teeth. Yup, we’ve got the last two baby teeth coming in now — the two upper second-year molars. Other than putting an odd assortment of things into his mouth (once again), he seems pretty resilient to the discomfort.

Here we’ve got the bottom second-year molars in orange; they’re both mostly in now. And the emerging top second-year molars in purple. We’re almost done!

Sean picked up on the Mahna Mahna song pretty quickly after seeing it a couple times. He likes to say “mahna mahna” at random times to get me and Ben to sing “doo-do-do-doo.” We can do the whole thing together. And I’ve tried getting it on video. But, um, yeah…

Sean *loves* to sing. Recently he’s been singing entire songs, fairly accurately word-wise and tune-wise. However, he only sings when *he* wants to. Which means I pretty much always miss getting any of his songs on video. Here’s me back in December trying to coax “I’m a Little Teapot” out of him, which he also does the gestures for. It’s adorable, but you’re going to have to take my word for it, since I still haven’t gotten it on video…

I’m in catch-up mode. Here are some photos from December that never got posted…

For a while now, Sean has been carefully placing things in lines — sometimes long lines. He started with his wheeled toys:

Sean and Mommy on Sean’s 23rd month birthday. (We figured that since people stop counting “months” at 2 years of age, we’d document the last month birthday.)

Sean and Daddy

Big shoes for little feet