Brayden turned 2

Since we like to keep things interesting in the Acierno house, we decided to follow Owen's birth with Brayden's second birthday - hehe. He got a sweet new "bicycle," which is actually a tricycle, but Brayden absolutely loves the word "bicycle." He also got some sweet new cars, clothes, a soccer ball, and a Mr. Potato Head. Of course, he was most interested in the balloons at first:



Brooke and I saw and episode of Cake Boss where he made a checkerboard cake. Brooke really liked the idea and gave it a try herself. I'd say that she was very successful:



Brayden is fortunate to have so many talented cake decorators in the family. His Nona baked him a truck cake for his birthday BBQ:



In the end, I think that Brayden really enjoyed his birthday:



If you'd like to see more pictures from Brayden's birthday, check out my web album.

Breakfast of champions

We had a wonderful treat this morning. Sloan and his girlfriend Kristen came over to cook a delicious breakfast. This visit was a nice gift to us and a chance for them to see Owen. We had a fresh egg scramble wrapped in a crepe and a desert crepe. There's a chance that I ate my egg scramble a little faster than normal so I could get to the desert crepe sooner - just a chance though ;-)

Out 'n about

He's only a week old, but Owen is already pretty well traveled. Yesterday, we grabbed some sandwiches and took the boys to hang out at the Boulder Creek.


Likewise, we now have a tradition of taking our newborns above timberline :-). Today, we packed up the boys and went to Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove all the way to the Alpine Village, which is about 12,000' above sea level. Here's a picture from 2007 when we took Brayden here:


...and here we are today:

Welcome!...and sneaky Snickers

As you may know, our beautiful son, Owen, arrived in this world late last week. He's absolutely precious. In a curious way, Brooke and I feel that our family is more "complete" now. Armed with a "complete" family, I think it's a great time to start a family blog. I'm super excited to talk about the journeys, challenges, and joys that we're going to face, and I hope that you enjoy the updates to our blog.

As some of you are aware, I created a blog for Brayden called Ten Toes which was used to tell his stories from his point of view. Since Brayden AND Owen will have great new stories to share, I don't plan on writing for that blog any more. Not to worry, all of his future adventures will appear here.

To get things started, I'd like to tell a story about our little dog Snickers. I've heard stories of dogs being very sensitive to emotions and change, but I've never seen it - until now. Just before Owen was born, Snickers kept very, very, close to Brooke. Wherever Brooke walked, there was Snickers. As time went on, we often found her sleeping in Owen's (future) room. Days before Owen's birth, she completely shocked us when she tore through the metal fencing in her kennel. If you know Snickers, you know that this is really weird behavior for her. I promptly replaced the fencing with chicken wire. When Snickers broke through the replacement fencing, Brooke calmly said:

"Well, that wire is only strong enough to hold a chicken."
"Ha, ha, ha. Very funny," I replied.

It's as if Snickers was trying to tell us, "something big is going on, and I need to be there when it happens!"

On the day we were in the hospital for the birth, Snickers and Callie stayed with Brooke's folks. I was a little worried about her tearing up their house as well. She was definitely "on edge" at their house. However, once Owen arrived, Snickers noticeably chilled out. The anticipation had finally been lifted off her shoulders, and although it's been a pain to repair the damage, I'm grateful for her concern.

Now that we're back home, she still likes to hang out in Owen's room and still sneaks out of the kennel through a third hole that she created prior to the birth (I haven't fixed it yet ;-). Nonetheless, she seems back to her mellow self.