growing up

What M created during today's arts & crafts time:
Her first signature!

landscaping with force

This is the landscaping that came with the house:
Basically, it's a bunch of overgrown holly bushes, two unkempt arborvitae, and various plants that may or may not flower because of being overshadowed by the hollies. Inspiring, no?


Step 1 of the plan to improve these front planting beds:
Use brute force to yank those hollies out!


Once the offending shrubs were out of the beds and piled up in the yard, Madeline decided to demonstrate the concept of camouflage. (We've been talking recently about animals that camouflage themselves). She crawled into a pile of branches and proceeded to cover herself with more branches, all the while screaming, "See, I'm camouflaged! See, Mommy!" This then morphed into a lesson on how being quiet is also a key part of the camouflage strategy.

The lavender coat is a sure giveaway
that a little girl is in there somewhere!

first cookout of the year

Abby & Adrian invited the NC Bartel contingent over for the first family cookout of the year. Beautiful weather, great company, fantastic food -- it was a great night! (We missed you, Chelsea!)

Linus & Madeline playing chase

Sitting down for dinner in the backyard

Abby lit candles as the sun went down --
it was a magical way to end the evening!

adventures in the woods

Almost every time we go over to Grandma & Grandpa L's house, Madeline wants to go on "an adventure" into their woods. Grandpa L has cleared a few trails on their property for the kids to explore and has even built a little log cabin back there for them to play in. I've never been on any of these adventures before but Madeline assured me that today she could show me the way. I put Julia in the Moby wrap, Madeline put on her "adventure hat", and off we went! We followed trails, forded streams, climbed over logs and enjoyed seeing the signs of Spring all around us.

Pausing at the half-way point for a picture

happy valentine's day...

... or Valentime's Day, if you are a certain 3 year old in our family.

When Madeline awoke this morning, there was a special mailbox waiting for her. What a surprise!
Inside the mailbox were special Valentines for her from Mommy and Daddy.

eyelashes

dinner at grandma's

We spent some quality time tonight with Grandma L, Natalie and Peyton. Julia coo'ed and charmed Grandma, and Peyton and Madeline got their fill of running, jumping, dancing and dressing up. Thanks for dinner, Grandma and Natalie!

chatting with Grandma L

This is the result of asking Peyton and Madeline
to smile for the camera.
Silly girls!

oh, the faces

smiling in her sleep

gearing up for a cry

storytime

Right now, Madeline is very much into making up her own stories. She tells stories to us; she tells stories to her stuffed animals and dolls; she even tells stories to Pickles. Sometimes the stories are just retellings of the latest library books we've read. Other times, the tales come straight from her imagination. Today Madeline realized that she has a new captive audience. Julia was a very attentive listener while Madeline regaled her with tales of adventure and heroism and rainbows and unicorns.

julia at two months

We've been passing around a cold virus in our family lately and Julia's been fighting it over the last couple of days. It's been mostly chest congestion (thankfully?) so she still is able to nurse and soothe without too much difficulty. She does however break into coughing fits and her breathing sounds pretty raspy most of the day. Today's development is that she is completely without a voice, not even when she cries. It is completely heartbreaking and also makes it difficult to know when she wakes up or needs something and I'm not in the room with her. Hopefully her voice will be back tomorrow!

I was concerned that her immunizations would be delayed because of her cold, but the pediatrician said we were fine to go ahead with them today. Phew. Dr. Horowitz also reassured us that despite her umbilical hernia looking huge, it actually is a fairly small opening in her abdominal wall and it will most likely heal on it's own without any need for intervention. It may take until she's 2 or 3, but eventually her very big outie belly button will transform itself into an innie.

We're getting a little more sleep these days, I'm happy to report. About 4 days a week, Julia will sleep from midnight/one-ish to five/six-ish. We're getting there!

Julia refused to look at the camera today

Stats from Julia's two month appointment...
length/height = 23 in (50th percentile)
weight = 11lbs 9.5oz (50th percentile)