April was wondering where all the collages were today. I should gather more photos (and am still working on my blurb book of Jane's first year) but here is a Jane in the first four quarters of her life collage. She was very cute with the box of crayons today. She chewed a hole through the bottom of the box, chewed on some crayons, and had lots of fun handing me crayons over and over again. Handing me things is a favorite game these days. She also loves to throw and somewhat catch a ball.

She is a sweet, funny girl. She shows a lot of personality and a great sense of humor.

She is beginning to like the idea of becoming bipedal. She took her first step the other day for Brian while I was taking out the trash. Her first step was in the 1830 part of the home we are staying in so I think she shows a great interest in history.

This was back in Feb. (on DanaLee's floor) but I love that baby profile.

Her birthday also marks an entire year where I have not slept for more than 3-4 hours in a row. Great. Amazingly even 40 weeks pregnant I would sleep through the night without the need to get up like most prego women. For the nearly perfect baby that Jane is, she is a horrible sleeper. Sleep training does not work when you are nearly constantly traveling and when you have a big brother like Colin who knows right when to wake her up. Oh well, we will still happily keep them both and just continue a life of total sleep deprivation.

Happy Birthday Baby Jane!! We drove around rural New Jersey looking for a cute bakery but did not have much luck today. We stopped at a place but their baked goods were almost gone. Brian and I shared the last lemon bar and Jane worked on a chocolate biscotti.

She was a little hesitant because she has been a little under the weather today, but warmed up to the chocolate.

Colin had fallen asleep in the car and slept through the entire outing. Brian and I both need haircuts.

Happy one year! We are so happy to have Jane in our family. She is a joy and a good little soul, even if she hates to sleep. We hope for many, many birthdays together.

We arrived to the Princeton, NJ area last Friday and things are very, very lovely. We are actually staying with some generous patrons in a darling town just over the NJ border in PA. We are in the part of the home that was built in 1830 and are right on the river. We wandered around the Princeton campus yesterday and it is beautiful.

I just mentioned I should make a collage of friends we have seen recently. . . it is lovely to see people as we travel. SO many lovely friends, so little time.

We have been fortunate to see a lot of old friends recently (I should do a collage about everyone we have seen). Bethany and her beautiful daughters were in town and we were able to see them the day before we left town. Her girls are very, very beautiful children.

The new baby turned 6 months the day this was taken. She is a lot of pure baby goodness.

There is something about waiting in line at the Haunted Mansion that makes Colin extra cute in photos.
Above is from this week, below from October.

Colin chose a cupcake treat instead of cotton candy, a detail soon forgotten when he again saw the cotton candy.

We drove to California last Sunday to get a few days in at Disneyland. It was crazy since we travel so much (but maybe that is part of the problem. We had a chance to be in our own bed for an entire month and since we are not used to that we had to leave). It was fun to travel just for Disney fun. We stayed with the Zollingers and got to see Susan on our way home in Las Vegas. We are so happy they both would have us!

The above photo is of Colin waiting to talk to Mickey. Brian was in line but Colin had to go up at sit to watch him better.

He was so excited, but then a little overwhelmed.

Colin got a new pirate sword and can't stop singing "yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me''. He and Brian are making a pirate flag as I write this, and he has spent a lot of time in his pirate costume from last Halloween.

We kind of love Disneyland.

Some of our dear friends from college were in town for a family wedding and we were so happy to have some time to catch up. Colin and our friend's daughter are cute little friends. We are trying to make them get married some day. So far they like the idea and had a pretend wedding when they were visiting, but the 3 year old "bride" was frustrated that Colin lost interest in the wedding dance. They had a darling tea party (with water and sugar cookies). Then some jumping fun.

New baby twins! The babies are so sweet and happy. We only wish they lived closer!

Did we mention we loved Hawaii?

We are off to Disneyland tomorrow, with very special thanks to the Zollingers. Then off to Princeton, NJ the week after that for the Princeton Festival where Brian is in Britten's A Mid Summer Nights Dream.

Baguettes are Brian's new bread obsession (nice alliteration). Still using his own harvested wild yeast pets.

My brother Steve got married the end of April. His new bride is lovely and we are happy to have a further extended family.

Colin wanted to wear the tie he found in Nana's dress up box.

All our siblings came into town for the wedding (from Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago and Connecticut). It is always great to see everyone!

Congratulations Steve and Stacey!

I just barely downloaded some of the last Hawaii photos. (It's harder to blog at home, there are all these other things to do.) Above is one of our last beach days. Colin was using sticks to have Captain Hook/Peter Pan fights and to be a fire dancers from the PCC.

Can't remember the name but the Bradshaws took us on a hike to see this view. It was beautiful. We saw some whales too.

We got Colin this little outfit in Honolulu's Chinatown on our way to the airport. As a way to keep Hawaii alive, he literally wore it 24 hours a day from Monday night-Thursday the week we came home. It was very cute, and surprisingly did not get that dirty. It has just come through the laundry so we will see if it is still as popular.