The Ascendence of Baby Alise

Remember that last blog post where I said if it doesn't bring me joy, I'm not keeping it? Well, that's from this book that has taken America (and the rest of the world!) by storm: "The Magical Art of Tidying Up." It basically says that you don't need most of what you have and you should only keep things that bring you joy. I've slowly been working my way through the house with this philosophy and my closet is the more happy for it.

Baby Alise and Grandma and Grandpa Faiola recently visited and we had a great time playing piano, and spending time together. Baby Lily reallllllly likes Baby Alise.
 They of course showed their amazing musical tastes by sitting in rapt attention as Grandpa Faiola played them many a ragtime tune on the piano.

Our little hot rodder loves Jamisen's motorcycle - and as he is moving onto other things, he's generally happy to let her borrow it.

Behold the cousin love. Alise is clearly curious about Lily's eyes or maybe she is trying to sing "Head, Shoulder's, Knees and Toes" and just forgot all the lyrics except the one where you point to the eyes. She is so bright that anything is possible.

The cousins loved bath time and Lily played very nicely with Alise.

Grandpa Faiola brought water guns for the kiddos. Jamisen especially loved them and squirted Lily many (many!) times. He showed restraint with baby Alise. It's reassuring to see he's not a total savage.

Lily shows no such restraint unfortunately.

Jamisen loves to try to push the kids up the lawn. He really isn't strong enough to do it without help when there's two of them in the car but just Lily? He totally can push her up the lawn and strains and strains on that last little bit. He's showing real perseverance when he does this and we only hope this trait continues through college chemistry and physics courses.

Erik and Cheriss brought the kids hula hoops and they brought serious levity to the adults (we really did a terrible job with them) and also to the kids for quite some time. It was a really lovely gift that the kids enjoyed a lot.