One Month Old!

July 27, 2011 jpm333

Anna is one month old already! The time is flying by and it seems like she gets bigger by the day. She is giving us real smiles now, not just the random ones (which are wonderful in their own way) and it never gets old having her look at us and grin. At one month she loves snuggles, nursing, being in the bathtub, and her thumb or fingers (when she randomly manages to get them in her mouth). She is less enthused about getting out of the bathtub, tummy time, and the pacifier (will occasionally suck on it for a few minutes, but often just makes a face as if to say, “What the heck is this thing? It doesn’t even produce milk!”).

Max is as cute as ever. He’s singing all kinds of songs these days, we often get to hear a concert over the monitor when he’s supposed to be napping. Sometimes he gets stuck a few lines in and we hear an endless repeat. He asks us to sing songs for almost any occasion, including many everyday occurrences: “Daddy, sing ‘Change Diaper’ song” “Sing ‘Wash Hands’ Song” etc. So not only are we generating names for anything and everything, we’re composing original tunes as well. All in a day of parenthood! At the end of this post is a video of Max singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or as he says, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars.”

The other day I got a few pictures of brother and sister:

Here’s Max beeping Anna’s nose:

Here are Anna’s one month pictures. Not so sure at first:

Okay Mom, I’ll give you a smile:

Uh, Mom? I’m sliding down here.

Precious sleepy snuggles:

Our friends Angel and Eric recently had their second baby, Penelope. We brought dinner this weekend and visited a bit. Our first kids are only about 6 weeks apart, and these girls are almost exactly a month apart. It’s fun to have little ones so close in age. Here are the big brother and sister playing:

Angel and I parked ourselves in the comfy chairs with the little girls:

I’ll leave you with a couple shots of Anna in this super cute outfit from our friends Laura and Dave:

And Max performing, as promised:

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Visit from Family

July 22, 2011 jpm333

We were lucky to have Max and Anna’s uncle Greg and cousin Elizabeth visit this weekend. Leah and Emma were out of town and were greatly missed! Guys, you just need to plan another trek over here soon, okay? Max loved playing with Cousin Lizzie and the time went by much too fast as always.

Maxwell and Anna are both doing well and amazing us every day. Anna still sleeps away a good chunk of the day, but she is having more awake time than just a week ago. Her nighttime sleep is all over the map, some nights she’ll do a good four hour stretch, others we’re up every two to three hours. I’m definitely tired, but I know she’s just being a perfectly normal newborn and I’ll sleep again someday. It’s funny how your perspective changes, before kids I would have felt terrible if I got 5 or 6 hours of sleep, and now that would be divine!

Max is so much fun these days. He still loves to play and hide and seek (after telling us where he’s going to hide) and another favorite thing to do is cover his eyes (which of course renders him invisible) and then say “Where’d Max go?” We then ask, “Where did Max go?” and proceed to look for him until he suddenly reappears. He’s also very interested in names lately. He has figured out that my “other name” is Keri and Daddy’s “other name” is Jeff, and will often ask the names of animals in a book or people when we’re out and about. This requires lots of quick thinking on our part. Some of the names I’ve generated are more creative than others. “Oh this monkey? His name is, um…Mr. Monkey!”

You want pictures? I’ve got pictures, and plenty of ’em!

First, a few of our precious baby girl:

Oma made this blanket for her:

Uncle Greg approves:

Fun with blocks!

The weather cooperated for a visit to “yellow slide park:”

As many of you know, Greg is a very talented baker. He made his famous cinnamon rolls on Sunday morning and Max got to lick a beater of icing:

Delicious!

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Happy Birthday to Me!

July 12, 2011 jpm333

My birthday was last week, and I could not feel more blessed this year. I have two amazing, beautiful children and a wonderful husband who is even better than the best husband and father I could have dreamed of. My mom joined us for dinner and birthday cupcakes, and it was really fun to celebrate with family. I only wish our far-flung family members could have joined us as well. Thank you to everyone who sent birthday greetings by phone, email, regular mail and Facebook. All are much appreciated and made me feel very loved!

Anna is now three weeks old and doing very well. I’m happy to report that at her two-week checkup on Friday she weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces–almost a pound of gain in the week and a half since our last visit! Her pediatrician said, “You definitely don’t need to wake her up to eat during the night any more!” Since then she still wakes on her own to eat every 3-4 hours at night, but it’s really nice not to set an alarm! She usually eats more frequently during the day, especially in the early evening. It’s always a gamble when I go take a shower before bed to see if she’ll stay content or decide she’s absolutely starving while I’m gone. She still sleeps much of the day but we are seeing more awake time and it’s so fun to see those beautiful blue eyes taking in the world.

Maxwell is doing well also, thank goodness for all the Daddy and Grandma attention he gets, it definitely helps balance out the time I spend with Anna. He is really into imaginative play lately, which we love to see. He likes to pretend to give Chester bear a bath or feed him breakfast, and pretends to go to Haggen often for groceries. Max likes the TV show “Blue’s Clues” which we watch via Netflix sometimes. The other day he was pretending to solve the puzzle like on the show…he walked around the house and would point and say “A clue, a clue!” and then pretend to get his green crayon out of the drawer and draw the clues in his imaginary notebook, just like Steve on the show. He loves to read books and will often mention something from one of the stories we’ve read. It is amazing what he takes in and remembers!

Last week I ventured out with both kids by myself for the first time. We just took a trip to our local Starbucks for Max’s favorite, an egg breakfast sandwich. Anna slept almost the whole time and the outing was a success, and there was a very funny moment when we first arrived. As I was gathering our things to go in, Max asked, “Baby Anna wait in car?” No, she has to come in with us.

Here are a few photos from our week. First, my birthday. As far as Max is concerned, it’s not a birthday without cupcakes, so he and Grandma got some for my birthday. Here we are waiting for the cupcake. If you ask Maxwell to “smile” for a picture, you get a smile along with this cute head tilt:

Helping me blow out the candle:

Max went to a birthday party Saturday and in the favor bag were these sunglasses. He wanted to wear them in the tub:

Anna is still in that convenient “I can sleep anywhere” phase of baby life. Here she is snoozing on the floor while I folded some laundry:

Then a moment of distress, thankfully short-lived:

And back to content:

The other day I had just finished feeding Anna and Max wanted me to read him a book, so we all snuggled together for a story:

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Happy 4th of July!

July 4, 2011 jpm333

Happy 4th of July! We aren’t doing much to celebrate the holiday this year, with a newborn and a two year old, a low-key weekend seemed to be just the thing. We’ve gotten some errands done, spent time at the neighborhood park, and Jeff and Max did some yard work together. Anna is two weeks old today and we are loving every minute with her. She’s still sleeping most of the time, but we’ve had several days where she’s been awake for the better part of an hour or two in the morning, which is wonderful. It’s so much fun to see her beautiful blue eyes and have a conversation with her, even if it is a little one-sided. She’s usually sleeping well at night too, though a couple nights ago we had a night where she didn’t want to sleep for long until about 1am…too late for a tired Mama! Right now I’m still setting an alarm to wake her up every 3 hours at night for feeding, but hopefully we’ll get the go-ahead to just let her wake up on her own when we have another pediatrician visit on Friday…it will depend on how much weight she’s gained since we were there Monday.

Max is doing well and seems to be adjusting to the new person in the house. While he did say “No baby Anna” yesterday, he also asked to hold her, had his Chester bear give her hugs and kisses, and told her about what he was playing. He often asks if she can eat what we’re eating, or if she can say something, so we do lots of explaining about how she can do those things when she’s bigger like him.

The amazing Justine of J. Shelton Photography did Anna’s newborn pictures last Monday. Anna was a champ, slept the whole time other than a couple snack breaks, and let Justine pose her in all manner of cute ways. The sneak peek photos Justine posted are just beautiful. See for yourself right here!

Jeff did daily tummy time with Max when he was a baby, and has continued the tradition with Anna. He explained to Max about teaching Anna to pick her head up, look around, and put it down again. Max likes to demonstrate proper tummy time form for her. Here they are practicing:

My friend Leanne makes the most beautiful baby and kid hats (see them in her Tiny Toppers store here). Anna already has a collection, and I look forward to adding more to it as she grows! Here she is modeling one that Leanne gave her for a welcome-home gift: