No one special event led to the content of this entry, unless you consider Life itself to be a special event. I've also been making an effort to capture more candid shots of Life as it happens (and then embellishing it with a series of filters), rather than spending forever trying to get Ender to smile long enough for the camera to focus and take the picture.
The city remodeled the park near our house. It's not nearly as trashy as before, but now the kids have fight a lot harder in order to get time on all the fun new things they added.
Candid of Ender, who is obviously enjoying himself on the swing. And no, he didn't throw-up or start crying right after this was taken.
Candid of the little man about to brave the slide all by himself. Which is to say, scoot down the slide, since his bare legs prevented him from actually sliding down.
He just did this. Without any provocation or direction. One of a zillion reasons we love our son.
The #1 Hunk checking himself out in the playground mirror.
Candid shot of him climbing the steps.
This shot took as much effort to get as all the other pictures I took at the playground that day. And it's probably going to be framed and hung on our wall.
It looks like a candid action shot of him sliding, but it's actually a candid action shot of him scooting.
King Ender, Benevolent ruler of the Slide!
Ender went to a birthday party for his friends Kayla & Tymeir. He really did enjoy himself, although here he looks like a depressed tourist.
There were lots of fun things to do, but the most popular by far was the fishing pond.
Look Daddy, I caught a fish!
He's sad because his face-paint started to smudge.
The birthday kids got a giant inflatable molecule that the kids could play in. Ender thought it looked fun at first, but very quickly got freaked-out by the experience. Something about "already too small" and "don't want to be microscopic"... it was tough to tell through his toddler talk.
For summer vacation this year we wanted to go somewhere exotic and new, so we decided to go to Jamaica!
Jamaica has lots of jungle and plants. It turns out not all of them are drugs... some of them are flowers like these.
Our favorite part of the trip was going to Ricks! Swimming, tasty food, and cliff jumping!
Poolside seating? Nope... pool seating.
We had the best table in the whole place! Right on the cliff, next to the pool, and mostly away from the riffraff.
Brian jumped off of the cliffs!
Ender was proud of his daddy for being brave enough to jump, and tough enough to survive. And he didn't seem to mind that his dad screamed like a girl on the way down.
Ender obviously loved playing on the beach.
But he didn't much care for swimming in the pool.
Ender must have learned this "Just keep on walking..." gesture from watching us deal with the zillions of local peddlers who wanted to sell us all kinds of junk every 20min or so.
Ender thought that playing by the green wall was way more fun than eating his dinner just about every night.
Searching for his juice cup.
I know it looks like there's a nuke going off just behind us, but it was just the sun setting over the ocean.
Jamaican sunset.
Family photo. And no I didn't boost the color on this one, Jamaica naturally has more chrominance than the United States.
Brian and Ender went to the stake Fathers & Sons camp-out. Brian's first as a father, and Ender's first as a son.
The young man loves his backpack!
Ender decided that he wanted to play baseball.
He knew how to swing the bat, just not how to hold it.
Touchdown! Or homerun, or whatever the crap you score in baseball.
Ender loved the special orange wizard hats one of the dads brought.
One for now, one for later.
The sons from our ward: Thurman, Ender, Nico, AJ
Ender had fun playing with the big boys.
He's smiling because Mr. Potatohead is mooning you.
Fun in the tent the next morning.
We survived the night without being eaten by bears, abducted by aliens, or dragged off into the woods by hill people. The trip was an uncommon success!
We finally got the ultrasound that told us that we're having a baby girl! The stupid ultrasound tech scanned the baby for nearly a full hour before telling us the good news, but it was worth the wait.
This is her little profile, spine, and tummy.
Her tiny baby foot, complete with protruding second toe.
3D Alien picture. The head ultrasound tech took this picture, and she felt compelled to assure us several times that the baby doesn't really look this scary.
Spring has been upon us for quite a while now, so we've been doing stuff outside.
Ender loves playing in the park, especially when there are zillions of bigger kids running around unsupervised and with no self control.
For Easter we went to Battery Park and had an Easter Egg hunt with Ender's Cousins Jorian, Jaylen, and Jai who were visiting the City that week.
We went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, as usual, to see the Magnolias and Cherry Blossoms (not seen here, or there for that matter... the magnolias were almost gone, and the cherry blossoms hadn't bloomed yet).
Ender loved looking in the ponds for fish.
The actual pronunciation was "fissies", but you get the point.
Part of his ninja training is learning how to move through a bamboo forest undetected. As you can see, he still needs some practice.
He also loved playing with the scales in the children's garden. Who knows, maybe this is the start of a career in environmental law.
Ender and Daddy at the park.
Branchbrook Park in Newark has the most cherry blossom trees of any other single place in the country.
We went to the Central Park zoo with Cesar, Heather, and baby Milo.
They didn't actually have any of the animals from the Madagascar movies, but we did see polar bears!
Ender being stalked by a snow leopard! At one point he was 18" from this leopard's face, but daddy was too slow on the trigger to get a picture of that.
Number two! We don't know if it will be a boy or a girl yet, so we're calling our miniature bundle of joy by the androgynous name Jessie until we find out.
We had a gigantic snow storm not too long ago. Ender had just learned from Mommy how to eat snow, and couldn't resist the all you can eat buffet of tasty New Jersey snow on the sidewalks outside of our building.
It took Ender a while to accept that snowflakes were going to keep hittng him in the face no matter how hard he glared at the storm.
Not only did Ender learn how to make snowballs, he learned how to throw snowballs. He ate as many snowballs as he threw, thus diminishing his status as a fearsome winter warrior.
His aim sucks, but what he lacks in accuracy he makes up for in appetite.
It's not the size of your snowball that matters, it's your aim that counts the most. Unfortunately for Ender, daddy not only makes bigger snowballs, but can throw them a lot better.
The remnants of Daddy's snowball piled on Ender's head, and the remnants of Ender's snowball melting in his mouth.
The city remodeled the park near our house. It's not nearly as trashy as before, but now the kids have fight a lot harder in order to get time on all the fun new things they added.
Candid of Ender, who is obviously enjoying himself on the swing. And no, he didn't throw-up or start crying right after this was taken.
Candid of the little man about to brave the slide all by himself. Which is to say, scoot down the slide, since his bare legs prevented him from actually sliding down.
He just did this. Without any provocation or direction. One of a zillion reasons we love our son.
The #1 Hunk checking himself out in the playground mirror.
Candid shot of him climbing the steps.
This shot took as much effort to get as all the other pictures I took at the playground that day. And it's probably going to be framed and hung on our wall.
It looks like a candid action shot of him sliding, but it's actually a candid action shot of him scooting.
King Ender, Benevolent ruler of the Slide!
Ender went to a birthday party for his friends Kayla & Tymeir. He really did enjoy himself, although here he looks like a depressed tourist.
There were lots of fun things to do, but the most popular by far was the fishing pond.
Look Daddy, I caught a fish!
He's sad because his face-paint started to smudge.
The birthday kids got a giant inflatable molecule that the kids could play in. Ender thought it looked fun at first, but very quickly got freaked-out by the experience. Something about "already too small" and "don't want to be microscopic"... it was tough to tell through his toddler talk.
Mr. Muscles looking smug.
Enjoying multiple birthday cakes.
