Baby Swing

In an effort to limit the baby gear clutter, we recently abandoned our gigantic indoor baby swing. Fortunately, we've managed to come up with a suitable alternative. Turns out if you use enough blankets and wedge a newborn in just right, the classic Little Tikes outdoor swing works just fine! A few swings in this bad boy and Jack's out like a light.

Froggie Jammies

Red Door (And Other Great Stuff)

I finally got my red door. Now I'm just wondering why I didn't have it painted three years ago! With the new siding and repainted shutters, it looks like we have a a completely new house. The best part is that I was in PA while all the work was being done, so I came home to a totally renovated house this weekend and I love it.
While we were in PA Anna had fun "helping" dad-dad wash the cars. My dad let Anna use almost a whole bottle of Windex which I'm pretty sure served as both an all-purpose cleaner (good for driveways and cars) and some sort of gardening liquid.

As for Jack, he's gotten a lot better over the past couple weeks. He just gets cuter and cuter... and bigger and bigger. Today I had to buy size 9 month sleepers for my enormous 10 week old boy! He's finally starting to smile and make a lot of happy little noises. I think he's decided he likes this world afterall. One thing he definitely likes is the bathtub. He tosses his arms and legs over the sides of the little hammock and does some serious relaxing:

Valentine's Day (A Little Late!)

I guess I'm still a little behind on the blogging. Better late than never. So typically, we're not huge fans of Valentine's Day (seriously, a scheduled day of love?), but this year we found oursleves rather conveniently happy and full-of-love-ish on February 14th and ran with it. Anna and I even made heart-shaped Rice Krispy treats which dissappeared in record time. As usual, the photos tell the story (plus, I'm still suffering from post-partum mush brain), so I'll stop the commentary here... except to say that I love Jack's face in photo #2 and I also love how Anna's holds her "coffee cup" when we have coffee (i.e. chocolate milk) together:

Finally Up and Blogging Again

My apologies to everyone who has been waiting for me to update the blog with more Baby Jack material. The last time I blogged (a full month ago now) was just about the time when my dear little boy magically transformed from a sweet, sleepy newborn, to an unhappy, spit-uppy, sleep-shunning semi-nightmare.

At 5 weeks old, Jack is still having a hard time adjusting to the world, but the situation has improved in as much as I have accepted that I just may not get a good night's sleep (or a day off from laundry) for a few months.

I give Anna a lot of credit for taking all of this into stride. Being somewhat housebound and largely ignored (until that blessed hour when daddy gets home!) can't be easy, but she's plugging right along. She's doing a great job helping out with Jack -- still referring to him as "my sweet boy" -- and has instantly become a pro at entertaining herself for hours on end. Yeah for imagination!

Jack & Anna

Anna was pretty hyper the first couple days of baby Jack's life, so I'm happy that now she's all calmed down and seems to sincerely love her baby brother and having the official title of Big Sister. (All the big sister presents don't hurt either!).

Welcome Baby Jack!

He was a stubborn bugger, but baby Jack is finally here. John Henry arrived on Monday, January 4th at 12:50 p.m., weighing in at 8 lb 10 oz. He's still pretty much a sleepy blob at this point, but is definitely louder and a bit more demanding than his big sister was at 4 days old. Good thing he's extremely cute!