Yet another Birthday party...

Tristan's friend Ethan celebrated his birthday today at Jodi's Gym in Mt. Kisco. As you can see, Tristan and William had a blast...

Development Alert: Counting and Clapping

Sorry if these sound like proud parent ramblings...and they are...but this is an easy way to record these accomplishments for posterity...

Clapping: William started spontaneous clapping this morning. Yeah William.

Counting: For the past couple of days (maybe weeks) Tristan has been rambling "1, 2, 3" but never seemed to get to 4. Yesterday, for no apparent reason, he got well past 4..."1,2,3...4,5,6...7..8". Mommy and Dad were very proud...and suprised. But not as surprised as when he was climbing/counting the stairs and got to 11!

Happy Easter

It was a very busy Easter at our house this year...and at the Maguires...and at Grandma's house, too.

"So let me get this straight...I get to put these eggies into those brightly colored dyes?!"


Here, Tristan and William put the eggs out for the Easter Bunny. Overnight the bunny will hide the eggs and will replace the eggs with toys and candy.


William and Tristan are ready for Easter mass.


"And that is why the Lord, Jesus Christ came from the Father and sacrificed himself for your souls!"

(Sometimes, Tristan can get a little excited about the real meaning of Easter)

Tristan finds his first egg after church.


Cousins Dannielle and Bobby brought over baby Abby for a visit:


After waking from his nap, William finally gets to review his Bunny goodies.


At the Maguire's Tristan discovers that sometimes, eggs can have money inside


Later, lots of the family was at Gradma and Pop-pop's house:



Here is an experimental slide show from Google's WebAlbums:

You can see the whole album on Google at http://picasaweb.google.com/tompayne36/Easter2008 or by clicking any of the pictures above to visit the regular Paynecentral photo album(s).

Our Duck Pond

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard came by today to check out the real estate in the area. They spend a good 30 minutes checking out the food supply and the local nesting potential. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to be overly impressed with the property. Perhaps if Tom would clean out the accumulated leaves at the bottom of the pond they would have been more excited. Or maybe if they had been actual coy (coi?) in the pond...

Kiss me, I'm Irish!

With Tristan's red hair, it's hard to deny that he has a bit of the blarney in him, but these shirts from cousin AnnMarie make the statement loud and clear!


(click for more)

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Erin go bragh!

Happy Birthday, Tristan!

Tristan turned 2 years old today! Happy Birthday, little man!



The day started with Tristan finding a number of gifts under the tree; I mean basketball hoop. Mom and Dad figured it would be best for him to learn about gift un-wrapping and excited thank-you's prior to the arrival of his guests later in the day.

Trsitan seemed to get the hang of the happy excitement pretty natuarally:



Many friends and family joined Tristan later to celebrate his birthday. And everyone was impressed when Tristan blew out his candle on his first try:



The highlight of the day was getting tricycle pointers from grandpa ("pop-pop").



All in all...a very COOL birthday! Thanks to everyone who helped make this a great day.

Developmental Alert: Pretending

Yesterday Tristan started pretending. He picked up his Black and Decker tool "box" (which looks a lot like a briefcase) and started towards the door. He looked over his shoulder, waved and said "Going to work on the choo choo. Bye"

Jennifer says that this is a major developmental milestone. I think it is just cute. He has repeated the scenario several times. Sometimes he puts a book in the "briefcase". Like I said...pretty cute.

Happy Saint Patrick's Week

Thanks to an early Easter, the St. Patrick's Day celebration started particularly early in Pearl River, NY.



Officially, this was Tristan's first parade...and he seemed to really get a kick out of it!



And then there was the official passing out at the end:

Baby's first Light Sabre

Dad found an old Star Wars toy and William seems to handle it like a professional.

Speed Racer

Tristan apparently thinks he is Speed Racer...although his Mach5 would be pretty battered up if you look closely at the video.



Rob and Gavin had fun racing, too



Tristan enjoyed playing "House of the Damned" with Rob. (OK, probably not the best choice for a toddler's first video game, but he had fun!)



Later, Gavin had more fun riding on Rob's shoulders.