I never publicly posted my best nine photos on Instagram, so here they are.

It appears that I held a baby a lot in 2017!

Our little guy is going to complement sissy’s costume of Rapunzel as Pascal, her friend the chameleon. 

First day of snow in Ohio. 

We took fall family photos tonight, even though it was 80 degrees outside.

Here’s one I snapped with my phone. I think the “real” ones are going to be 👍🏻 

It’s fun to call home during a trip and I can see everyone!

Learning to play putt putt golf with nerf balls is much harder than expected. 

I’ve been working with our little chunky man to learn how to sit. 

Today, he sat long enough to snap a photo!

Little man is ready for the beach. Only a couple more weeks. 

❤️ that smile

This shirt is so true about my dad. 

Got to hang out with some of my buddies from high school and their families (and just happened to be 15 years after graduating high school). 

Growing up we all lived within a mile of each other (in the country this is close 🙂). 

Here we are with all our kids. 

Sister was nice enough to hold the umbrella to keep them both dry, which conveniently made it impossible to push 😜

We went to the children’s museum in Indianapolis and had fun. 

Mr. K hasn’t quite got the hang of selfies. We need to work on his on-demand smiles. 

Today we celebrated our ten year anniversary. 

Usually we would have liked to celebrate with a trip to somewhere with a beach, but with little man only being 4 months old, figured we’d postpone a trip until next year. 

So our every-five-year-picture-in-a-picture was a boring shot in our backyard. 

 

And as a tradition, I didn’t buy any gifts or a card (as cards are an expensive waste of someone else’s words) but wrote a poem in Melody’s book of cards. 

Happy 10 Year Anniversary!

Did you know that we’ve been married for 521 weeks / 315 million seconds?

Time for a poem to celebrate 🙂

Ten years ago it was a day

straight from heaven

We got to celebrate with our

friends in 2007

Nine years ago we 

adjusted to married life,

we lived on a college campus

as husband and wife

Eight years ago we 

bought something new

a new car for us

that definitely wasn’t blue

Seven years ago we

moved to the city

that place in Galena

sure was pretty

Six years ago we

moved out ‘west’

so far I can say

I like this house best

Five years ago we

took a trip to paradise

the hiking and the beaches

certainly were nice

Four years ago we

went to Spain and more

lugged suitcases around

and wished to stay on the first floor 

Three years ago we

got ready for baby one

before kids, remember

how much we could get done?

Two years ago we 

had fun with our first baby

oh that time was a delight,

but she was such a crybaby

One year ago we

were in Spain on a fun trip

we explored a lot on planes,

trains, busses but not a ship

Now it’s time to 

celebrate year number ten

I can believe how much

has happened since then

Junk stores, blogs, and 

speaking gigs oh my

I’m excited to see the other

things that will make the years pass by

Thank you for being 

on this journey with me

maybe on our 20th

we can spend it in Hawaii

We’ve been saying for awhile that we need to form relationships with people who live near us and this weekend we got an opportunity to do that. 

On Saturday morning, my wife hosted a group of moms who came over, with their kids and let the kids roam free in our backyard. 

Then, in the evening, we hosted a block party for our whole street. I’m ashamed to say, we met some of neighbors for the very first time, even though we’ve lived here for nearly seven years. 

Of the 21 houses on our cul-de-sac, we had seven families stop in throughout the evening. It was a lot of fun and we will have to do it again. 

We are going to be intentional about getting to know more of our neighborhood and spend at least part of a weekend each month hosting neighbors at our house.   

This boy is a few days shy of 4 months and he’s been actively rolling over the last few days!

Soon we will be baby protecting everything again. 

Just got home from Nashville and too tired to write a post about our weekend trip. 

Here’s a shot of me and the little guy at brunch. 

(He wasn’t this smiley the whole 5+ hours home, but we only had to make one stop!)

Someone rode her decorated tricycle in the parade in our neighborhood and had a blast!

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Here’s my kiddos with my sister. 

Today on our way to Grandma’s house, we made a quick stop in Whole Foods for some yummy snacks and a potty break. 

Since it was raining out, I asked her to get in the car and take her rain coat off so I could buckle her while in the car and not get soaked. 

And then, this happened:

This little guy had a rough day from some vaccines yesterday, but he’s definitely getting more stable in the sitting department (he’s heavily leaning on sissy’s couch here).

On my first day back to work today, our baby sitter shows up with a 100+ degree fever. 

Not wanting to risk our kids to get sick, I sent her home and we found a friend to come and play Barbies for a few hours with our daughter, while I tried to work with our 3 month old son. 

I was able to be about 80% focused while he slept (since I kept glancing at the video monitor) and about 50% focused while he was awake. 

Luckily I had gotten up at 4am to start working, so I was able to get five hours of “catch up and see what’s happened since I left on paternity leave”

Still fun to hang out with this smiley boy:

Today is my last day of my 12-week paternity Automattic generously gives new parents. 

These last few weeks have been awesome but I’m thrilled to be going back for several reasons. 

Adult conversations 

On Monday’s, Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I have been watching the kids from 6:45a until about 5:00p. Typically during this time, it was me and the kids. Conversations revolved around Barbies and her play kitchen. 

I Miss WordPress

On average over the last three I’ve spent about 60 minutes on the computer. I had to find nuggets of time to record my weekly podcast. 

Goals and Projects

I’ve had to postpone my goals and project and few things were checked off my to do list (mainly because of the lack of computer time). I found that instead of doing household projects at the end of the day, I’d try to catch up on my email or other small computer tasks. 

By going back to work, my goal is to finish everything computer related before dinner time, then work on home projects after the kids are asleep. 

Sure I’m going to miss all the fun mornings walking to the park, playing Candyland at lunch and all the other joys of being a stay at home dad. 

Thankfully, I get to work from home and our kids will be here with our nanny, so I can be active in their lives each day. 

It’s a joy to be a dad and send time with these kiddos:

When dad’s in charge of the wardrobe for the day, we all wear WordPress (or WooCommerce). 

I’m pretty sure these two are related. 

Spending a long weekend at Grandma’s. 

Today we had fun in the pool, in the water table and riding a train with dad at a local benefit auction. 

So thankful for these friends that we do life with despite the distance. #friendsthatarefamily

 

A tornado was spotted near our house tonight and it’s the first time we’ve had to bring kids to the basement to seek safety.

Thankfully, we only got heavy rain in our neighborhood.

Here’s a few shots from little man’s two month photoshoot by dad. He certainly loves to smile.

Little man started rolling to his side today. 

#8weeks

I got to spend Mother’s Day with my amazing wife

And my mom 

Thanks to both of them for being great part of our kiddos lives. 

And baby K, please learn to look at the camera for family pictures 😂

My folks are in town and they both took the time to nap with baby K. 

I didn’t get a nap, but I got a few chores done around the house 🎉

It was a bit chilly early today, but we ventured out and took both kids to the zoo. 

They both enjoyed it, even though the little one slept 90% of the trip. 

Here are a few pictures from the day. 

In all the shots, impossible to read all the words on both shirts. 

Baby K got to go to work with mom today, so dressing nice was necessary. 

Clearly it wore him out 🙂

Sorry for the delay in posting this.. it’s been a whirlwind! Can’t believe he is 5.5 weeks old now. A little bit about his birth story… About 1.5 weeks before he was born, we had little bit of a scare with our “birth plan.” I learned on a Friday afternoon that he was transverse which […]

via Our Prince is here! — DustinAndMelody.com

Finally was able to catch a smile on camera 🙂