Seven-month-old Maddy giggling again and again as her brothers jumped on bubble wrap off camera in yesterday’s video. Can’t get it here yet, but then FB was freezing part of my keyboard, with a particular dislike for a, s, g, and h–the thing worked everywhere else. Go figure.

Today we got to see her giggling for ourselves via Skype while Parker told us all about his legos and Hudson described his favorite book and showed us pictures: tractors. Trucks. These are the important things and we needed to know about them.

(How long has he been talking like that? we asked.

Just in the last two weeks or so.)

He was speaking in long sentences while searching for just the right words with all kinds of big facial contortions for emphasis. Twenty-eight months is a fun age.

So is the scooting backwards when you’re trying to crawl forward stage, giggling and grabbing your daddy’s nose. So is four and a half.

Life is good.