New Address!

No, the Sittlers have not moved house and home, but we have moved to a new addy on the WWW (that’d be the internets). Check out www.brightlittlelights.com. Feel free to visit here, too, if you’d like… but you won’t be seeing anything new and you can see all the old stuff and more (!) over yonder.

See you at the new place!

For Grandma: Happy Birthday!!

Squeezing the last drop of summer from the sky

Chatauqua Park, Boulder. Mid October.

Asher’s 5!! How can this be?

I keep teasing Asher that he can’t get any bigger, “but, Mama, I don’t want to be a baby again…” I don’t want Asher to either, but when I look back at those baby pictures…oh, goodness, my heart melts a bit. I’m sure I’ll be saying this every year!

I like how traditions are starting to form…the birthday banner, homemade noodles, celebrations with family and friends, and an annual outing with his buddy Asher who also has a March 31st birthday! Same name, same birthday, same age!!

Speaking of traditions, here’s our annual interview:

5 words to describe Asher:

from Mama: energetic, talkative, friendly, imaginative, and silly

from Papa: bright, curious, active, selectively focused, and irresistible

5 foods you like to eat: mac-n-cheese, cookies, tortellini, cupcakes, and chicken

5 activities you like doing outside: chalk, riding my scooter, riding my bike, playing baseball, and playing football

5 books you enjoy: truck books, animal books, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, The Boxcar Children, and HONEY…HONEY…LION! by Jan Brett

5 favorite animals: Indian rhino, snow jaguar, tropical rainforest Bengal tiger, cheetah, and zebras

5 vehicles you love: mini digger, backhoe, dump truck, concrete mixer, and the pumper

5 places you like going to in Colorado: the mountains(to see Max & Blake), visit friend’s houses, the zoo, Museum of Nature & Science, and visit the fire station

5 countries/places you want to visit someday: Africa(my favorite country), tropical rainforest, ocean/beach, jungle, and Asia(to see Bengal tigers)

5 things you like to do with our family: walks around the park, go to Central Park, play baseball in the field, read books, play with us

Asher, WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

A few 2010 Highlights, so far…

I think a great New Year’s Day tradition is to go on a hike, starting the New Year outside is a great way to clear your mind and feel refreshed to begin a New Year! We went on a short hike outside of Boulder.

Every winter my Mom visits for our annual ski trip. We try different ski resorts and this year we went to Steamboat Springs. I highly recommend Steamboat, it is beautiful, family friendly, and the people are very helpful and nice! Here are some pictures of our trip.

Grandma loves the boys and the boys love Grandma!

This is right outside our house and Asher loved sledding down the little hill, watching Uncle Mark ski down the hill, and Ezra just loved playing in the snow.

A little night time yoga for all!

We got to enjoy a bit of skiing(except the times that I threw up on the mountain). Asher went to ski school for a day and had a lot of fun. His instructor said he had a blast and a great attitude all day. Go Asher!

And then there’s the hot tub…aaagh! Asher’s first time in the tub! He was hooked!

On Ezra’s Second Birthday

Getting ready for play in the snow. Note the spatula in Ezra’s hand. He likes all of the tolls of the kitchen and we recently discovered spatula hockey!

While Asher is typically focused on the particular object of play, Ezra frequently just likes to be involved.

Ezra, Asher’s little shadow.

Ezra likes to be tucked up, in and under anything soft, especially animal friends.

Ezra James Sittler turned two years old yesterday. His birthday was celebrated by family and friends Sunday, and by Asher in particular from sometime shortly after the Christmas presents were opened (Friday) through pretty much the whole of Monday. Little Ezra is loved by a good number of people. I put him in corduroy overalls for his party and he really did take on some of the essence of the well-loved bear of the same name. He is rarely without someone to hold him or follow him around at church, words of adoration are frequently heard from bystanders when we’re out and about, and his big brother can hardly leave him alone, he’s so fun to be with.

Ezra has gone by many nicknames in his two years. One of the first was Mr. Delicious. Puppy and Little Bear came next followed by Widdle (shortened form of Little Bear). Tup-tup is another, somehow expressing the shy little pout he puts on as he shrugs his shoulders on almost any occasion.

Some signs of Ezra’s advancing age include maybe a dozen or more words said with increasing clarity, more big-brother-like-activity, such as throwing and catching balls, and a great sense of humor, though often it seems like he’s laughing at some secret insight he’s got on the life of some mundane object the rest of us take for granted. “Uht,” he exclaims, pointing and giggling in awe at the vacuum cleaner cord disappearing around the corner or at the discovery of a pocket in a new pair of pants.

One of his best words is also one of his favorite foods: oatmeal. It comes out sounding a bit more like Ohp-Mow, but he clearly knows what he’s talking about and he can throw down 2 adult servings in one setting. Consequently, the Betta fish he got for his birthday was named oatmeal, despite the fact that it’s red.

Ezra’s favorite things to do include anything that his big brother does. Besides that, he enjoys watching Papa make tea or coffee, watching the blender or mixer go around when Mama’s baking, and playing with trucks , cars, motorcycles and especially balls. He also enjoys music of all kinds.

Ezra has a natural sweetness that comes out at surprisingly approriate times. He freely gives kisses and hugs and once when cuddled up with Asher and Mama watching the Polar Express, he leaned over to shower Asher with kisses as if to say “It sure is nice to have a brother like you!”

Happy Birthday to our Little Bear and God grant him many more years!

Tuckered

This is always a favorite scene of mine: the boy with so much energy finally gives in to sleep next to his Mama the one he most frequently wears out. Sweeter than sweetness itself.

Some Summer Fun

Summer has been busy around our house and the land that we live in. We’ve had fun times of all kinds, and while we would ideally like to keep it all archived and in order for you, some things just get put off day after day. So here are some of my random favorite photos of the past few months, with some notes.

Colorado is in large part boyland. Not to say the little ladies would have as much fun doing the same thing; but we have boys, so it’s all about boyland. There are two Ashers (!!) in this photo who happen to share the same birthday. Little brothers in tow.

Different day, different river, other friends — more fun! Ezra Loves to get right into the cool water to throw rocks.

Best Hair award to Ezra. Before I started cutting it again, that is. We won’t be showing those photos. Poor little guy was tripping over stuff, I had to do something!

I turned on the fan and we had a glamour shoot, which Asher thought was funny.

Ezra, not so much. Note the foot on the crib railing. Definitely getting closer to being capable of escape.

More proof of fun to come. Stay tuned.

Summer Fun

Summer Morning Fun

As you can see the park was all ours. We arrived just before the sprinklers turned off. It wasn’t quite super hot yet and everything had a fresh dewy-ness. Great time to go to the park!