January 30th

Hi Everyone.

Mike requested that I update the blog, so here is our news for this week. The most important thing first: the bathroom is functional! There is a light, a mirror, the water runs and drains, the toilet flushes with no leaks. Yay!

We still need to put in the molding and do some paint touch ups. Mike He. and Mike Ha. spent a good three hours on Saturday trying to figure out the crown molding with limited success. By limited I mean that it is not all up and the pieces that are up aren't lined up at all. We are not sure how we are going to get it successfully installed, but at least we can use the bathroom. I am now starting to doubt the red, but I am going to let it stay for a while and think about it.

In social news, my book club is resuming, which will be fun. There were three babies present on Wednesday and we were missing one, plus a new one will be here in March. The babies to adults ratio is very high, but in spite of that they behaved themselves well. Sylvie was the most troublesome by far! Anyway, we came up with a good list of things to read and I am looking forward to getting started.

In church news, we were going to go this week and finally take Sylvie, but Saturday night while Mike was gaming it up (nerding it up?) at a LAN party, I realized Jens was running a fever of 102. We decided church was off and instead spent most of the day in our pajamas. We got dressed in time for our friend Laura to come eat dinner with us and play a round of Crazy 8s and Yahtzee. We were going to play Scattergories, but SOMEhow, all of our lists went missing. It is almost as though someone got into the game closet and went through all of the boxes looking for pieces of paper to remove . . .

In Jens news, he is feeling better and has been the usual roller coaster.

(That is baby powder on his face--he was experimenting) As Mike says, sometimes he can be SO cute. Other times, not so much. Monday while I was making dinner he came and sat on the floor with one of my novels, studying the words. Finally he said with glee, "Mom, it says tuh-heh-eh!" He was so pleased with himself. Maybe we need to make flashcards with some of the basic sight words. Tuesday he dressed himself in long sleeves and shorts (it was 40 degrees out) with no socks and spent an hour running around outside. I kept asking if he wanted warmer clothes, but he was definitely not interested in that. He is out there now, looking for "animals in the jungle" by digging in the dirt with a little purple shovel.

Happily, his sticker chart continues to be a success. He is still motivated just by getting stickers and our mornings are running much better. Here he is all ready for school:

That picture reminds me. We have temporary furniture in our front room! We are storing it for a friend and it is so lovely to have a place to sit out there.

In Sylvie news, she is fat, sturdy, strong, and sassy. She continues to be generally cheerful and to endear herself to me by sleeping many hours at night.

This morning she didn't wake me until 6:30! Yay Sylvie! She is also practicing her smiles and her noises.

Today I imitated her for a while, making whatever sounds she made back to her. She found it very enjoyable and even amusing. She is also getting to be a fast eater--a Thomas family trait that she has apparently inherited. I clocked her at 15 minutes this morning, minus 2 minutes for a diaper change. Maybe she will find a niche in the competitive eating circuit. She has also started grabbing my hair, especially when it is in a ponytail. She seems to find it comforting to hold on to a big handful. Here she is, good naturedly putting up with Daddy:

I can't think of any other news of importance. I do have to ask this: If Sylvie is sleeping so well at night, why am I still so dang tired? I am ready for bed right now. Also, I am getting a cold and currently can't breathe out of my right nostril. It seems like I have been sick an unnatural amount this year. Why is that?

Brotherly Love

So Jens is always saying that he loves his sister. I am wondering what his definition of love is. Yesterday Sylvie started crying in her bed. Jens ran up to check on her and things got quiet. After a minute I thought it was just too suspicious, so Mike went running to check on them. He found Jens in Sylvie's bed. Jens had pulled her blanket over her head and was jumping up and down on her bed with his big three-year old feet landing one on each side of her. Ahh!

We now have a "No climbing into Sylvie's bed" rule.

January 22

Hi Everyone

Highlights of the week:

Beautiful weather. Sunny, warm, lovely. It all ended yesterday with gloom and clouds and rain all night and all day today. Here is Casey trying to soak up the rays even though Jens's toys are preventing maximum exposure. She is very good at finding patches of sunlight in the house even though she can't see. Sylvie is trying out and learning to like her exer-saucer. Today she spent five minutes standing happily in it by herself. Please notice the adorable ballet slipper footies on her outfit. (Thanks, Grammy)She can last even longer if Jens is there to entertain/scare her. I think she must be a thrill seeker if she chose to come to our house.This look is directed at Jens. It seems that she is looking at him as if to say "Are you serious kid? Are you really that excited about baby toys?" Because Jens truly loves the exer-saucer more than Sylvie does and will, in fact, play with it even when she isn't sitting in it.

Sylvie is also starting to vocalize and smile when she sees my face. This has been increasing in the last two days, and boy is it rewarding. Nothing like an "Ah-goo" and a smile to brighten my day.

Jens got to share Sylvie at school yesterday. I carried her in in her pumpkin seat when I went to pick him up and all the kids were very interested in looking at her. Little kids have no sense of boundaries or personal space, so as they crowded around us at the door I thought it might be best if they all sat in a circle with her in the middle while Jens told them about her. I hope she doesn't get sick out of this encounter.

Jens has been doing lots of reading. He regularly "reads" the cereal boxes (he especially knows "Post" and "Box Tops"). Today he read "Ranch" (pronounced "Narch" in Jens's reading) during lunch. He has also been interested in writing. It used to be that he would scribble and then look for letters. Now he intentionally tries to make letters and has gotten very good at J and e.

Last night Sylvie had her final meal of the day at 8 pm and didn't wake me for another meal until 5am. Yay Sylvie! She normally does a 5 or 6 hour stretch each night, but every once in a while she gives me a real treat. It is amazing what 7 hours of sleep in a row does for me.

A few steps of progress have been made in the bathroom. It is still totally nonfunctional, but any improvement is good and needs to be commented on. There is now a box for the light fixture and the pipes for the sink have been cut and fitted. They are not actually together, but they might be soon. Also, I painted our master bath. It is a scroungy looking room, but the paint certainly improves it. I am especially happy to have all the poorly painted spots on the ceiling covered in fresh white. I love paint.

I already wrote about the inauguration, but let me just say one more time how excited I am and how much I love America. I am looking forward to this presidency and expecting some wonderful things, but I am trying to be realistic. It seems that President Obama is the type to actually DO, seeing as how he is already doing things.

Last thing, we were happy to actually see friends this week. JP and Natalie came for dinner last night and, added bonus, they brought the main dish. I love to cook, but it is always nice to be cooked for, too. And for FHE we went to the Harrison's and played Settlers, something we have not done in ages. It was fun to be social.

I guess I am finally rejoining the world, albeit a little reluctantly at times. Sylvie is 7 weeks old, after all, so I think the time has come.

Jens's Turn

Today I took some of Jens.

Sylvie Photo Shoot

We got a new camera lens today. Jens is "cleaning his room" (aka: playing instead of picking anything up) and rather than bug him to do it, we decided to take advantage of the time and enjoy the quiet. While he was busy, we played with the lens on our willing subject, Sylvie. She is pretty cute and chubby. Also, she sticks her tongue out a lot.





Note: several of these pictures were taken without looking through the viewfinder, which is why they are sort of crooked. But they were still fun, so I put them up anyway. We are not really that bad at pointing our camera in the right direction.

Happy Inauguration Day

I am having a totally non-productive day because I am sitting around watching the Inauguration coverage. What an inspiring day it has been so far! It is so amazing to see the enthusiasm and excitement in DC. Even the reporters seem a little giddy. It would have been neat to be there, but it also looks very cold, so I am glad I can just watch it on tv. I heard them say that it REACHED 30 degrees today in DC. Now I am extra glad that I was watching on my couch.

January 15th

Hi Everyone.

Another week has gone by. We are settling back in to things, although life seems more hectic even though I am still not going anywhere or doing much.

Jens is happy to be back at school. This week they are working on the letter "D", so for sharing Jens took in a dinosaur book and dinosaur stickers for everyone. He liked sharing that. Yesterday when I picked him up, his teacher, Ms. Anna, commented that he had been such a great helper all day, helping clean up and being really nice to the other kids. She said she could tell he was being a big brother. I told her that at home that is not how his big brother-ness manifests itself, but maybe someday it will. His sticker chart has been working really well so far--I keep waiting for him to realize that he is just putting stickers in a box, but it really seems to motivate him. Hurray!

He has been doing a lot of painting this week. He wants to paint whenever he has a few spare moments, so we are getting lots of master pieces around here. He got new watercolors in his stocking and somehow new paints are more fun. I am happy to have him doing art projects that don't involve cutting, though. For a while he was a confetti factory. Paint is much easier to clean up.

Sylvie is still trying to get better. She seems much brighter and has been smiling more (here are our attempts at capturing the ever elusive baby smile--she actually smiled full force at Mike today for the first time. Yay!)and has even started vocalizing a little (and not in a crying way) but her nose is still stuffy and she still has a little cough. She is looking more and more alert and interested in things and really likes pushing into standing with her legs. This week I had two lovely 8 hour nights, but the past two nights she has been up at 3 to eat. Maybe she is growing. Doesn't she look longer? And bigger in general? And doesn't Mike look scary?

Sunday we enjoyed beautiful weather and celebrated by going to the park. We enjoyed trying out Bocce Ball, Mike's Christmas present, which is a great game for kids and grown ups. Jens really liked it and felt very big playing. Here is Sylvie playing Bocce: Here are Jens and Mike playing Bocce.

Mike has been in training all week at work, which I know he loves. He has been getting home late every night, which I don't love. I don't know why two children is so much more exhausting, especially when one is small and doesn't do much, but it is so. I am waiting to feel my old energy come back, but it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully soon!

Cameras are so Fun

Natalie got a new camera for graduation/Christmas and brought it over last week. Mike has been wanting a new lens for ours, and she apparently has one sort of like what he wants, so being the good friend that she is, she let us play around with it. It is nice because you can take pictures inside without the flash. Some favorites of our handsome and active son dancing (to Bling Blang, of course): Jens has been very interested in reading lately and really likes working on sounding out words. He is getting pretty good, although some of his attempts come out of left field sometimes.
And here he is, just being cute. And here is our darling Sylvie. I love these because they really show off her hair. There is just something about those little hands and feet. Hanging out with Dad.

January 9th

Well, I've posted lots of pictures and little things, but I haven't done a real weekly e-mail in a while. Mostly that is because there hasn't been anything too exciting to report. It has been a quiet week here. We are starting to resume normal life after a very surreal December full of guests and celebrations and a new baby. It is all a little foggy as I was very tired throughout the month, as I still am, but I am beginning to feel a little more functional.

Of course, the most exciting thing this week was the BCS Championship Game last night. Go Gators! We had been looking forward to the game for a month and it didn't disappoint. There was a little piece about the upcoming game on Morning Edition and Jens heard them mention the Gators and got very excited. Then when I turned on the pre-game show, he said "I need to wear my Gator shirt!" And he ran upstairs to change. He didn't actually watch much of the game, preferring to instead make it difficult for us to watch, but today he insisted on wearing his Gator shirt again so he could wear it to school. He's got the gator spirit already.

This week Jens headed back to school. He kept saying he didn't want to go, but once he was there he was excited to be back. Ms. Dina said that he sped through the book he was working on, the results of all of his practicing with Mike, I am sure. Jens has developed a great interest in letters and writing and reading in the past few weeks. We have some letter flash cards with words, and he loves sounding out the words. Also this week, Jens has started doing a star chart to help him do some of the basic things--getting dressed, brushing teeth, picking up toys, having good table manners, etc. He has been very excited about it and we are trying to be very consistent about filling it out each day. We are starting week two today, and hopefully it will continue to work. Jens got stars every single day for picking up his toys, putting his clothes in his hamper, and getting ready each morning. Sadly, he only got stars twice for being happy and cooperative and not having any tantrums.

Monday Mike had jury duty, which meant he spent the day down town sitting in a room reading a book. He didn't get selected, so he managed to get home by 5 or so, which made me happy. He is back to work now and is doing lots of training for the next month or so. Fun for him.

Sylvie continues to be sick. She has a terrible cough and runny nose. In spite of that, she is still eating and sleeping well, although working on smiling seems to be put on hold until she feels better. We were getting some good ones, too. Maybe next week she will start feeling more cheerful.

This week I am doing not much. I did manage to vacuum and do a little touch up painting that was driving me nuts. I also cleaned up the front yard a little today. It was looking pretty disgraceful.

Also today Jens and I went on a mammoth bike ride. Actually, I walked and he rode. We went on the bike path to the park. Jens did a great job riding up and down the hills and Sylvie did a great job of sleeping in the stroller. Now I am very tired--I am not used to so much physical exertion. A picture of our riders:Isn't his longer hair cute?Isn't she adorable?

Sylvie says:

I am sick, so I like my swing at last because it lets me sleep sitting up. I have a cough and a stuffy nose. Last night I alarmed Mom with a bloody nose. It was gross. I hope I get better soon so I can practice important stuff like smiling and eating.

How big?

Now that she is one month old, she decided to start wearing 3 month sized clothes. She is already trying to grow up too fast! She does look really cute, though, and this expands our wardrobe options greatly. Expect a fashion show from now on . . .

Who does she look like?

It is a game everyone likes to play. I believe Alissa commented that she looked like Abbie, and so did Grammy, but Mike is sure she looks like Jens. So I did a little scrounging around and found four pictures, one each of Abbie, Jill, Jens, and Sylvie so you can compare and decide for yourself. I will go on the record as saying that although she looked a lot like Jens at birth (but prettier and not so swollen and misshapen) she has since gained her own look, which is fortunate because by this time Jens was going through a hair loss/unfortunate looking stage. I found pictures from the hospital, so all the babies are just a day or two old.

After looking at these, I think they all look different enough to be easily identified, but just for the fun of it, I am not going to label any of them. Let me know what you think about looks!