Memorial Day Adventure

Yesterday was Memorial Day, the first weekday that Dan has had without work since Christmas, except for paternity leave. I've been going crazy with cabin fever due mostly to my own making - Elliott screams his head off any time he is in a car seat so I only try to leave the house when it is necessary. However, with some encouragement from Dan, we all braved a trip to Seattle yesterday! We went to Pike Place Market and walked around (note: VERY crowded on a holiday), Pike's Brew Pub for lunch, wandered around downtown seattle for a while (hoping Nory would sleep in the stroller - she didn't), and finally headed home around dinner time.

It was fun! Except for the lady at Walgreens who came up to me saying that she thought I looked ready to have a baby. I'm hoping she thought that Elliott, all balled up in the sling, looked like a pregnant belly and that she wasn't referring to my still-needs-to-be-lost baby weight.

ABCs

Being around Nory these days is like being around a traveling CD player. She loves to sing! She just "mastered" the ABCs in the last couple of weeks.

Pictures of Elliott and The Dress

We recently looked through the old baby photos of Nory from her first month. I was surprised by two things: how many photos we took, and that Nory was always sleeping in different places.

We don't take a lot of photos of Elliott because he looks like this all the time:

Or sometimes this:

Or else he is eating. But he sure isn't one for being set down to have his picture taken!

Of course, mean parents and photo happy people that we are, Elliott's attitude towards being more than 2 inches away from his mom certainly doesn't stop us from trying. So last weekend we set out to get a picture of both kids. One of whom was SO EXCITED to be allowed to hold her little brother for the first time.

The other kid had a less agreeable attitude.

Needless to say, this soon turned into a photoshoot of Nory and The Dress. Nory got this dress as a birthday present from Aunt Anita. If anyone that we know would like to get married or be crowned prince or princess of a small country, please let us know while this dress still fits.

More here.

Early Artwork

When Nory brought home her first artwork from preschool, I knew something had to be done if we didn't want to end up hoarding it. I liked the idea of taking pictures and then chucking it, and that is what I've done with the recent art sent home from school. I have no expectations that anyone (including Dan and myself) will ever look at it, but if the whim should take you, you can find it here.  I'll be uploading to this album whenever I clear out artwork from the house!

By the way, I really expected today to be awful. Nory came home from school (she still goes 2-3 times per week for my sanity) with the ominous box checked on her daily report card which reads "I did not nap at all." Ut-oh. I was nursing Elliott so Dan was left to fend with the completely irrational, unreasonable, and miserable little creature who looked suspiciously like our first born. After about 20 minutes of her randomly bursting into tears, we set her in front of Dora on the TV with a pacifier - and she was sound asleep in 15 minutes.

However, in the middle of the night (I was still up with Elliott, so I guess it wasn't the middle of our night yet), she woke up vomiting. And crying, "wash the hands! wash the binkie!" Dan cleaned her up, snuggled with her for a while in our bed, and eventually put her back to sleep.

And she is still sleeping. Now. 12:15pm.

So while my afternoon may yet be miserable, I escaped remarkably unscathed this morning!

And I *hope* that this is a delayed reaction to the chickenpox vaccine she got one week ago, and not a stomach bug that I'm going to have to deal with in an infant...

Better Than Sleep

For those of you wondering, "When did you have time to make announcements???" the answer is that some things are better than sleep.  Like an occasional shower.  Or  5 minutes a day spent doing something crafty (which is about the average number of minutes a day that I have to spend on something for myself). The result, 5 weeks later... announcements and thank you cards! And now to get them in the mail... (don't hold your breath).