Welcome Back, Tyler!

On July 27, my "little" brother Tyler returned from Manaus, Brazil (that's in the Amazon) where he served a two-year mission for my church. Lucky for us, he had a five-hour layover in Dallas, so we got to spend the morning with him!

We hit some crazy traffic, so we were a little late getting to the airport. He also got through customs VERY fast--he was already outside when we found him!

First we took him out for a big, American breakfast. No pictures but we took him here, and had some yummy Nutella french toast! We still had a few hours to kill, so we went to the Sea Life Aquarium in Grapevine. It had just opened, and in the 100-degree weather it was a popular spot! We had to wait in line for a while, but we had fun catching up and taking pictures:

Tyler jumped right back into "uncle" mode, and the girls just loved him for it!

They had a cool tank with a glass floor that you could walk on:

Seeing how we measure up to the sharks (this is sooo not accurate, I may be short but I am taller than five feet at least!):

Playing peek-a-boo with the tanks:


Before taking Tyler back to the airport, we had to compare tans. My Texas tan is almost as dark as his Brazil tan, though in the bright sunshine neither of them look as dark as they really are:

We loved having Tyler back with us, even if it was just a sneak peek on his way back to Mom and Dad's house!

Grandmacita Was Here, Too

Grandmacita came by to see Andrew, too, and we were lax again in taking pictures. But we got this one:

While she was here, we watched movies, went bowling, went out to lunch, and read a lot of books. (Again with the indoor activities.) It was fun!

Sleeping Babies

Who doesn't love a sleeping baby? I haven't taken nearly enough pictures of the great positions this boy gets in, but here are a few:

Grandma Was Here

My mom (aka "Grandma") came for three glorious weeks. And we barely took any pictures! But we did a lot of this:

Reading and snuggling babies. We also watched a lot of movies, played games with the girls, and tried out new kinds of homemade ice cream. (Hey, what else can you do when it's over 100 degrees every day and you've got a newborn?) We loved every second of it! Come back whenever you can, Grandma!

Newborn Portraits

Andrew is a typical third child, I suppose, in that I've been lazy about getting out the camera. But he does have something that neither of the girls have: newborn portraits. My talented friend Whitney took these:






And my very favorite:

Paternity Leave

Dave was home for three glorious weeks (he still has one week left, saved for when we go on vacation). We did a lot of this:

If you look closely you'll see Dave's swimsuit. They swam, played, read, watched movies, and snuggled, all the while I was busy snuggling and feeding Andrew. It was great!

Day 4

No, we didn't take pictures everyday. Here's a random picture from Sunday, July 10th. The girls were dressed to go to church, but of course they had to say bye to baby brother first.

Andrew, Day 3

As nice as it was to go home and not sleep in our own beds, we were still pretty tired by Saturday, July 9th, Andrew's 3rd day of life. We spent the day at home in pajamas, taking pictures of Andrew in his crib:


The girls took turns holding Andrew:


And, like we did when Madeline was born, we had a birthday party for Andrew, with cupcakes for all but the birthday boy, and presents for the big sisters: