hunter?

Last week I was at a work conference and this past weekend I went out deer hunting, so in the past two weeks Jana has been a trooper taking care of Drew and Kate on her own a lot. It's a lot of work to take care of the kids on your own! It's good to be home again with my family and to be parenting with Jana.

Both Drew and Kate have been battling colds for the past week, so they've been a little slower and more cuddly than usual. We don't like that they're sick, but we love the cuddling! Kate has been eating away, despite her cold, and she is getting big! All of the sudden she's going through clothes as she outgrows all her outfits. It's fun to watch her progress so rapidly. Kate has officially gotten a second tooth in and now she's got two teeth! I'll see if I can get a picture of her teeth, but it's not easy to get her to show off her mouth.

Kate is on the move! She's pulling herself all over the place and getting very close to official crawling. Drew is very good about not touching things he's not supposed to touch, so we've been looking over the house again with an eye toward toddler safety.

Kate graduated this week to the big bathtub. Jana captured this picture of Kate in the baby tub for the last time. It's a big help for us that now Kate and Drew take their bath at the same time. I'll have to get a picture of the two of them in the tub because it's very cute!

After their bath, Kate and Drew like to sit and relax on the couch before bed. It's fun for us to see them begin to interact more. Drew continues to be a great big brother and bring her toys and coax smiles from her.

Some of you read earlier that I went hunting and thought, "What? Mark is a hunter?" Well, you are correct to question it because it was a totally new experience for me. I'd never been out hunting before this weekend, but I had a great time at deer camp with my brother, my dad, and a family friend, Jim. I didn't see any bucks and didn't fire a shot, but I was armed and ready to take one down! Both mornings when we started out the temperature was in the single digits. Brrrrrrrr!

Kate continues to love standing up and she also likes moving her feet. Rather than standing in one place, she enjoys being "walked" around. Jana holds onto her hands and Kate moves her feet to walk around the living room.

Today Drew and Kate were interacting after lunch and I shot some video of them. It is such a joy to watch the two of them together! At the end of the video Drew starts going in to LICK Kate's head. I'm not sure where he got that idea. While it made Kate giggle like crazy, we felt the need to remind him that it's generally not a good idea to lick people.