Old Tucson

Tara's parents came into town and took the kiddos to Old Tucson Studios:

Playing on the Couch

A quiet moment snuggling


An idea pops into the head of the little girl


She strikes


Baby to the rescue, with a swift foot


Everyone has a good laugh

Eating

Here are few classic faces the kids make. When Zade is tired of eating in his high chair he turns to the side, arches his back, and begins to wail. Since he's a pretty good eater, and and a generally happy little guy, that's the sure sign that he's about to supernova. :) Note how he's holding his hand up as if to say, "FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY, LET ME GO!!!"


Here's Aria loving her ice cream:

VALENTINES PARTY

Tara hosted a Valentines party for playgroup, and a bunch of kids came over, swapped valentines cards and decorated mini mailboxes to put them in.




SATURDAY FAMILY ACTIVITY

This captures Zade doing one of the things he currently loves to do: climb stairs. It gets him all fired up. He loves to be on the move.


Here's Aria as we went to get ice cream afterwards.


SUNDAY MORNING

We only have 2 kids, but they manage to wear us out some mornings, and today was one of them. Zade has a cold and Aria didn't get enough sleep last night, so both were pretty whiny. But from these cute pictures, you'd never know it.



This picture helps prove Zade is my son. He's making a classic face that my brother Derek and I often make.


BATH TIME

Here are a couple more shots of Aria playing in the tub. She's so silly. She loves to make a sly little look and then she busts up laughing.




And Zade is getting to where he can sport a nice hawk. :)

Variance

Tara and I have talked about this, and we're convinced becoming a parent takes whatever your normal range of emotions is, and expands it so that you have higher highs and lower lows. In essence, becoming a parent increases the overall variance of human emotion, but the net effect however is to boost the overall average emotion to a higher level, making life more enjoyable.

Since we usually capture the highlights of parenting, we would be remiss to not disclose some of the challenges. Some of these lows entail trying to get Aria to eat meals, keeping Zade's hands out of the way when we're changing nasty diapers (drives me nuts!), as well as general crankiness that ensues when kids get tired.


But despite all that, the upside of seeing Zade now crawling excitely up the stairs or hearing him mumble "Kid-de" when the cats run by, or seeing Aria laugh like crazy as she runs around the house, just makes it all worth it.