Bumbo Boy

We've got a new toy around here--the Bumbo baby seat. It's pretty cool! Andrew was skeptical at first.

So we tried it with a passy and he was satisfied.

But then we tried it with a blanket and he said, "par-ty time!"

The List

Thank you all for your wonderful reading recommendations back in December. I've been reading away! I thought y'all might enjoy having the list for your own reading pleasure.

Something Borrowed, Emily Giffin
Something Blue, Emily Giffin
Baby Proof, Emily Giffin
Love The One You’re With, Emily Giffin
Lottery, Patricia Wood
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
Moscow Rules, Daniel Silva
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The House at Riverton, Kate Morton
Christmas Mysteries (A Christmas Guest and A Christmas Secret), Anne Perry
Dashing Through the Snow, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark
The Shoe Box, Francine Rivers
Christmas in My Heart, Joe L. Wheeler
Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer
Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
The Shak
Nineteen Minutes
My Sister's Keeper
Redeeming Love
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Peace Like A River

And I'll add two fun, very easy reads that I got on the bargain rack at Barnes & Noble:
Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler

Happy reading!

Go, Ben!

Our nephew, Ben, invited us to come see him receive his Catholic religious medal for Cub Scouts at Mass this past Saturday. We were very proud of his hard work!

We then got to enjoy pizza night at Ben's house, too! Thanks for inviting us, Ben!

Our other nephew, Matt, held Andrew after dinner and was so very sweet to him. He brought out a Richard Scarry book and pointed out different parts of the illustrations, saying "Looky here, Andrew--it's an airplane. Looky here, Andrew--it's a piggie." Then he brought out a Lego Star Wars toy and showed Andrew how it worked. What a great cousin!

Andrew also had a great time hanging out with his Uncle Josh and Cousin Katie!

Just Loungin'

It was a bathrobe kind of day.

Have you ever seen anyone wear a bathrobe with such glee?This little boy really cracks me up!

Under Construction

Working on a new look and a few updates! Bear with me!

Baby Andrew's Sip 'n See

Shannon, Vanessa, and Anika, three sweet friends from law school, hosted a Sip 'n See last Sunday for some of our girlfriends to meet Andrew. It was so much fun!

With my lovely hostesses, who served five delicious varieties of tea and all kinds of scones, tea sandwiches, and other goodies!

They also gave me this adorable diaper cake with Burt's Bees travel baby toiletries and all kinds of fun, fuzzy things!

Andrew made the rounds and seemed to enjoy every minute of it.

Pretty little Amelia got all dressed up for Andrew's party!
And then she tried to pickpocket his passy! ;) Luckily for Andrew, his Daddy had returned from taking some of the husbands and boyfriends to ESPN Zone for the duration of the party, so the little guy had a defender!
It was some great girl time--good food, good beverage, good friends!

Andrew and I had such a good time! Many thanks to Anika, Vanessa, and Shannon!

*thank you to Anna and Vanessa for several of the photos in this post and the last*

Valentine's-ing

On Valentine's night, 5 couples of our friends from law school, plus two babies, went out for a fabulous dinner at Chef Geoff's. Considering our group, we tried to find a restaurant that would be delicious and fun, but not too "romantical," as Paula Deen says. I think we succeeded. Either we got no ugly glares or we were too busy having a good time to notice!

Elissa and Chad, with Amelia snoozing in the back:

BJ and Amanda:

Vanessa and Erik:

Anna and Chris:
and my valentine and me:

Andrew got passed around a bit and had a great time! (And "only" made five diapers, all of which were changed by his sweet Daddy.)

The restaurant had a Valentine's dinner special of an appetizer, entree, dessert, and a glass of prosecco. I had an arugula, pomengranate seed and goat cheese salad to start, the shrimp and very gouda grits (which were indeed very good-a) as my entree, and a root beer float for dessert. It made for a big meal, but, boy, was it all so yummy!

Sweet Amelia and her mama! My boys!

Any night is good when I get to enjoy the company of the very first two friends I made at law school!

A Few More...

A few more favorites of our little guy at two months.

And my most favoritest!

We Take the Monkey to the Zoo

We had so much fun last weekend, when a bunch of our law school friends came into town, that I'm going to have to break it down into installments. First up: our trip to the zoo with friends Elissa and Chad and their 6-month old baby girl, Amelia!

Excuse me, sir, what's that you have under your jacket?


Why, it's a baby! Who's still a bit small for his carrier!Let me tell you, Jacob just loved these action shots. ;)

Once we had the babies packed away on the boys, we were off to the zoo! (Isn't it amazing the difference four months makes at the infant stage???)



What fun it was to hang out with another new baby family! Nobody minded stops for diapers and feedings and passies, and as many pictures were taken of the babies as of the animals.

Andrew had a bit of a dinner theatre experience at the panda bear's den.

Then we moved on to the elephant house, where all the big, fun animals are.While we were there, Andrew woke up to meet Amelia.

And said, "Hey, good-lookin'!"Owing to the cold and our dinner plans for that night, it was a somewhat more abbreviated trip than I imagine we'll make in the future, but it sure was fun!

Andrew at Two Months

Man, oh, man have we had some computer problems around here! Jacob gave me a new laptop as an early birthday present and (coincidentally?) the wireless internet went out around the same time. Between learning Windows Vista (I'm a little bit slow when it comes to computers) and battling the 'net, I thought I may never post again! But I'm glad to be reconnected in time to wish Andrew a happy two month birthday!

Look at that round tummy! We went for his two-month checkup yesterday and he weighed in at 11 lbs, 3 ozs. That's my boy!

And he's stretched out to 22 3/4 inches! His head circumference was just fine too, but I'm afraid I don't really keep up with that measurement.I think he gained some muscle this month, as well. Check out the biceps on this kid!!!

Andrew got FOUR shots and an oral vaccine. Thankfully, Mama had told me to request that the nurse bring some Tylenol with that cocktail, so I think that helped. Andrew was quite the trooper, but, by evening, Jacob could tell by just looking at him that the poor little guy had had a very rough day. He got lots of extra Mommy cuddles all day long!

Our sweet child is smiling all the time these days. He smiles at me when I turn on the light in the morning and he smiles at his Daddy when he gets home at night. Those are probably the most fun smiles because we know for sure he's smiling at us. He also smiles at shadows and light fixtures and blank spots on the wall, just so our heads don't get too big. He still loves that passy, but he's found a suitable substitute in his hand--any or all of it. So now when I put him down for a nap, I hear slurping and smacking sounds for about the first 15 minutes, as he goes to town on his fingers or back of his hand. As gross as those sounds would be at a table, they sure are cute coming from the crib! He's also started making sounds of a different sort--the beginnings of coos and squeals. He has an excited little gasp that he gives every once in a while that, unfortunately, does seem to launch him into a round of hiccups. Andrew nurses six or seven times a day, and we follow the Babywise 3-hour cycle of eat, play, sleep. At seven weeks, he started pretty much sleeping through the night. About one night out of three he'll ask for a feeding around 5:30 or 6:30 am. Otherwise, he sleeps (with occasional interruptions for diapers or reinsertion of the passy) from after his 10 pm feeding until his 8 am feeding, although the last hour or two of that is often spent in our bed. We're still getting a lot of diapers out of him (around 12 a day), but the pediatrician said those should begin to decrease soon. Andrew remains a very content baby, without much fussiness at all. He is a true delight!