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:
